A major element in today’s jihadist movement is the Islamic doctrine of the End Times, according to Dr. Timothy R. Furnish in a lecture at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. From an account of the lecture:
To establish a world ruled by Islamic law, Jesus and the Mahdi will battle against the deceiver al-Dajjal and then convert everyone to Islam to usher-in the end times. Wait … what? Jesus?
From Roger Drinnon, ISIS, other radical Islamists driven by Muslim eschatology | LCMS News & Information:
To establish a world ruled by Islamic law, Jesus and the Mahdi will battle against the deceiver al-Dajjal and then convert everyone to Islam to usher-in the end times. Wait … what? Jesus?
Muslim extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) seek to bring about this eschatological scenario through terrorist attacks, violent militant operations, well-funded propaganda and aggressive proselytizing efforts, according to one expert on the religion’s eschatology.
Islamist eschatology was the topic of Dr. Timothy R. Furnish’s Oct. 23 lecture at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, titled “Fighting for the End of the (Christian) World.” The lecture was arranged by the Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology (EIIT), the seminary’s specialized program of theological education for pastoral leadership within immigrant-based LCMS congregations.
Furnish holds a Ph.D. in Islamic History from Ohio State University as well as a Master of Arts in Religion from Concordia Seminary. He is a veteran of the U.S. Army and consultant to the U.S. military and intelligence community.
“Islam claims to be the corrective to the ‘corrupted’ religions of Judaism and Christianity,” said Furnish. “In the Islamic view, [divine] revelations were given in three major groupings: to the Jews, about 1200 B.C.; to the Christians in the first century A.D.; and then 600 years later, the final revelation to [Islam’s founder] Muhammad.”
Furnish described Islam as a religion based on the theology of works, whereby one is deemed righteous by Allah, the Muslim god, through one’s actions and adherence to Islamic law. He said most Muslims believe as a precursor to the end times, Jesus – who the Muslims believe to be only a mortal prophet, not the Son of God – and the al-Mahdi, meaning “divinely guided one,” will come to establish a worldwide Muslim caliphate where people are either converted to Islam or killed. Both Sunni and Shiite Muslims believe in the Mahdi, even though he is not mentioned in the Quran – the Muslim holy book. Furnish said belief in the Mahdi comes from Islam’s authoritative “hadiths.”
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HT: Paul McCain
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