Some years ago I helped launch a church planting effort among Muslim immigrants in Sicily. Preaching at a couple of really great churches resulted in lot of “holy kiss” greetings afterward. Those saints! The two-cheek kisses were sweet and kind, though an occasional five o’clock shadow resulted in kisses rougher than the homemade wine served at the pot lucks!
I haven’t tried to start that custom at my church, although the wine at pot lucks would be a big hit! But it does make me consider what we keep and don’t keep from the New Testament.
I’m no expert, but I think kissing is a common greeting among Sicilians even outside of church. It certainly is in France. On the other hand, my Apostolic Christian friends in the Midwest who presently practice this in church, might get punched if they tried it when bumping into a friend at the post office!
Do Muslims wrestle with this? Not the kissing, but the broader idea: Of all the things we read in the Bible and the Quran, what was for then and what is still for now?
According to Sheikh Ahmad Saad (Who may speak for 25% of Muslims or only 25 Muslims. It’s hard to tell!), “When we discuss or try to explore the occasion of the revelation of a certain verse, we are endeavoring to discover the human context in which this exact verse was revealed.”
The Sheikh further reminds his readers, “since the Quran is a universal book and the final word of Allah, its perfection requires it to cover all times and places.”
Perhaps when you define your book as God’s words spoken by an angel to be recorded by the final prophet, you pretty much eliminate the possibility of, “Not sure that’s for us to do anymore.”
Maybe our wrestling with the instructions of Paul’s epistles is more like Muslims wrangling over the meaning and application of various Hadiths. I do know I’m thankful for the Holy Spirit, the grace of Jesus and definitely Sicilian kisses!
Rest in Peace President Carter
“On the basis of both values and interests, the natural relationship between Islam and the United States is one of friendship. I affirm that friendship, both as a reality and as a goal […] [and] am determined to strengthen, not weaken, the longstanding and valued bonds of friendship and cooperation between the United States and many Muslim nations.” – President Jimmy Carter (February 7th, 1980)