KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Pope
SOMETIMES QUESTIONS ARE best answered with questions...
Questions with obvious answers are sometimes answered with the rhetorical question, "Is the Pope Catholic?" Maybe it's time we give that answer a second thought.
The headlines read, "Pope Hailed for Praying Toward Mecca Like Muslims." Pope Benedict XVI visited an Islamic Mosque in Turkey this week, and when an Islamic cleric turned to pray toward Mecca, the Pope, in what has been called a "conciliatory gesture," turned toward Mecca and assumed the attitude of Muslim prayer.
When I first read of these happenings, my mind immediately went to Daniel ( Daniel 6). When told that he could only pray to King Darius, Daniel didn't change his custom of facing Jerusalem and praying to God three times a day. He might have chosen to close his window so no one would see him. He might have prayed silently so that one might think he was praying to the king when in reality he was praying to the God of Heaven. But not Daniel! Daniel was a man of principle. He didn't want to leave the impression that he could have been praying to a false God rather than the God of Heaven! He would rather be eaten alive by lions than to leave the impression he wasn't praying to his God.
Were the Pope only so courageous! Turning toward Mecca to pray, in a Muslim mosque and then refusing to tell what he prayed about, is at best a cowardly and confusing compromise, and at worst idolatry!
Friends, the God of Islam (Allah) is not the God of the Bible (Jehovah), the religion of Islam is not the religion of Jesus Christ, and there can never be true unity between Islam and true Christianity.
Is the Pope Catholic? Well, give me some time before I answer that one. (Steve Higginbotham)
KneEmail: "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days" (Dan. 6:10).