Modern Day Prophets: Islam versus Christianity

In today’s world of chaos and war, many people are turning to religion. People look to organized religion not only for solace but on the contrary, they also look to attribute cause for the world’s woes. The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11^th has many people looking to the religion of Islam for a culprit, as the men who flew the planes were Israeli suicide missionaries. These men thought themselves to be on a mission from God (Allah). This implies that they were acting on the words of a prophet, or thought themselves prophets. In response to this, I decided to research the major religions in today’s world that rely on modern day prophets for guidance. By doing so, I am attempting to prove the religion of Islam innocent by comparing it to many other religions that have similar structure but no terrorist intentions.

The first question we come to when studying religions based on the teachings of modern prophets is this: can modern prophets exist? Christianity, one of the three major religions followed today, says yes. “…The Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some of them they will persecute…’ ” (Holy Bible) This quote from Christianity’s great rule book also predicts that when prophets do come to the Earth, people will not accept them as such. This is fairly accurate in Christians’ reactions to religions that have their basis in Christianity but have diverged from the church into their own sects.

One of the largest and strongest divergent sects of Christianity is known commonly as Mormonism. Mormons believe that there have been prophets in the past, so why should there not be prophets now, and in the future? Their two ancient texts, the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon, are not enough to know how to live correctly in the eyes of God, they say. [1] The Bible even tells them, “Surely the Lord does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets.”[2] Their prophets fill those empty spaces. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as the Mormon Church is formally known, was founded by prophet Joseph Smith. Smith was their first prophet, and he clarified the system of revelation for the Mormon Church. There is only one person, ordained by God, who can make revelations for the church at a time. This person is the President, who holds and exercises the keys of the priesthood. His prophecies are passed through the church hierarchy to the bishop (there is a bishop for each church in separate geographic regions) and then to those in the congregation.

Devout Christians believe that Mormonism is a cult, not a division of the church, because of their reliance on modern day prophets. They defend their case using the New Testament: “…In these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things…” (Hebrews 1:2) saying that Jesus is the one prophet of modern times, not the many appointed prophets of the LDS. It is true that many religions that base their foundations in the revelations of modern day prophets are considered cults by Christians which adhere to strict interpretations of the Bible.

Seventh Day Adventists are also not recognized by the greater Christian Church, though they follow the teachings of the Holy Bible, because they adhere too closely to the written word. These followers of Ellen G. White take everything in the Bible that is not a blatant metaphor literally. This woman, who calls herself “the Special Messenger” is recognized as the initiator of this sect, and transcribed over 55,000 pages of manuscript between the years of 1863 and 1866. The Adventists are Christian, but profess to keep the true Sabbath, Saturday, holy, by making it a day of spiritual rest. They do not buy, sell, or do anything save commune with God on that day of every week. They also adhere to other notions from the Bible strictly in their way of life. They speak out against what they consider to be the wide-spread false belief in the theory of evolution. One of their interests is health, and the SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) church runs many hospitals and clinics around the world. Their followers do not believe in the use of prescription drugs or in eating red meat; most are vegetarians.[3] One of their most famous members is Dr. John Kellogg, founder of Kellogg cereals.

What sets the Adventist church apart from the Church of Latter Day Saints is their conceptualization of prophecy. While the Mormons believe that prophecy is an entity separate from the ancient scripture teachings, the SDA church believes that all prophesies must be tested by the standard of the Bible. However, in practice, the teachings of Ellen White are treated much like the word of the Bible and if people do not follow them, they are frowned upon in the eyes of the SDA church.[4] Ellen White teaches, along with the Bible, that the members of the SDA church are awaiting the second coming of Christ.

The Unification Church, sometimes referred to as the “Moonies,” believes differently about the second coming of Christ. Another division of Christianity that has formed its own church due to different ideologies, the Moonies follow the teachings of the Reverend Sung Myung Moon. The founder and also the prophet of the Unification Church, the Rev. Moon, was visited by Jesus and told to continue on his mission. Rev. Moon interpreted this to mean that he was the second coming of God, in the wake of Jesus’s failure as a prophet. He was given new insights into the teachings of the Bible, upon which the religion is based. The Rev. then took these teachings and developed his church.

The big difference between Unificationists and typical Christians is the basis on the male/female dichotomy that is found within the Unification Church. Rev. Moon teaches that the Holy Trinity of the Christian church is wrong (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) and instead that God contains within Himself both male and female aspects which are in total harmony.[5] This dualism of male and female may have roots in the Unificationist’s belief in the fall of Eve as a result of sexual perversion. She is said to have had sexual relations first with the serpent, and then with Adam, which condemned the world to eternal sin. Rev. Moon bases much of his actions within the Church on the holy matrimony; he claims that he and his wife are the Second Messiah, despite the fact that only he had visions. The Moonies are famous for their mass weddings, where hundreds of couple dress the same and are married at the same time by the Reverend Moon.

The church of Christian Science believes that the founder and discoverer of Christian Science, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, is the prophet, or the chosen one. As most Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and therefore exemplified the fatherhood of God, Mrs. Eddy and her followers believed that she embodied the motherhood of God. She represented the spiritual idea of a woman in the apocalypse. This theory is backed by verses in the book of revelation: “…And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”[6] Her spin on prophecy, which is understood by all followers of Christian Science, is that the prophecy and prophet cannot be separated in our conceptualization.

“Mrs. Eddy considered herself to be the "God-appointed" and "God-anointed" messenger to this age, the woman chosen by God to discover the Science of Christian healing and to interpret it to mankind; she is so closely related to Christian Science that a true sense of her is essential to the understanding of Christian Science; in other words, the revelator cannot be separated from the revelation.”[7]

Christian Science seems to be much more closely based upon the writings of their prophet than do many other Christian sects with modern day prophets.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses take a totally different perspective on modern prophesy. There are not one or two prophets who have developed the religion and lead the people. Instead, all of the members of the sect are the prophets in Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses. The group itself acts as a prophet, to channel God’s word by preaching the good news.[8] The members are thought to be commissioned by Jehovah, the only name that they use for God. They make parallels between the prophet Ezekial and their group of witnesses. They are known for their belief that taking blood through transfusions is against their religion, which is a result of their literal translation of the Bible into life. Also, like the Seventh Day Adventists, keep a mostly vegetarian, organic lifestyle.

The Urantia followers also take the perspective of a group of people channeling word of a higher being. However, as opposed to Jehovah’s witnesses that prophesize through their works in the world, the group which began the Urantia movement simply channeled the first complete revelation since Christ’s coming about the history of the world.[9] Urantia, or another name for earth, was the title given to this complete history which was written by the “contact commission,’ headed by Dr. William Sadler, one of the men who prophesied within the Urantia book. Those who read and follow the book seem to be those who were skeptical of Christianity because of the ‘holes’ in the Bible.

Finally, we come to Islam, which I began this study with. The basis of this religion is that Allah, the Islamic name for God, created man to worship him, and to lead a noble life. One of the basics of this faith is that man cannot live a noble life on his own; he needs prophets to guide him along the way. The Qu’ran, Islam’s main text, says that there are possibly some 240,000 prophets in the world, one in each nation. These prophets are said to be known by their support from the community and the miracles that they perform. These prophets all came before Muhammad, however, for he founded the nation of Islam; the people ignored these prior prophets. This theory of prophecy allows Islamic followers to believe in the existence of Christ, however, not as the son of God, but as one of many prophets. Christianity, on the other hand, does not look positively upon the religion of Islam. The existence of so many prophets condemns Islam in the eyes of the Christian faith. However, Islamic scholars go on to say that there are no modern day prophets. Muhammad, the great prophet who is deified by Islamic followers, was prophesied to be and was the last prophet of Islam.[10] They further back up their case by discouraging terrorism; ‘peace be upon them’ is an oft-used phrase of the Islamic people.

Islam is by nature a peaceful religion; that some people are performing terrorist acts in the name of the religion does not condemn the religion itself to the implications of the acts of those people.[11] Therefore, the Islamic terrorists that bombed the trade center may have thought themselves on a religious mission, or to be prophets from Allah, however they were not following Islam as a by-the-book religion. Unlike many sects of Christianity which take the Bible word for word, Islam realizes the limitations of their rulebook the Qu’ran and does not live by the word as law.

Works Cited

Holy Bible. Book of Amos, Chapter 3: verse 7; Book of Revelation, Chapter 12: verse 17.

http://www.three-peaks.net/reveal.html “Revelation” This website of the Church of Latter Day Saints (also known as LDS) explains the Ninth Article of their faith, which explicates the use of prophets on their ministry.

http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/main_stat28.html A website about the beliefs of the Seventh Day Adventists.

http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/index.html The official site of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, section entitled “About Adventists: Fundamental Beliefs.”

http://www.religioustolerance.org/unificat.html A religious site which summarizes the beliefs and movements of many different faiths from an unbiased perspective: the Unification Church section.

https://webmail.stanford.edu/silkymail_pop/imp/login.php3 A sampling of statements regarding Mrs. Eddy’s place in Bible prophecy, which have been published by the Christian Science Publishing Society.

http://205.180.85.40/w/pc.cgi?mid=14891&sid=7271 A website about Jehovah’s Witnesses and the use of the word “prophet.”

http://www.urantiafoundation.org/about.html A website about the Urantia Book and the subsequent Urantia Foundation.

http://www.geocities.com/muhammadsite.html A site explicating the role of Muhammad within history and the religion of Islam.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200211290320.html An interview with an Islamis scholar, Sidi Ali, concerning the terrorist attacks in the Middle East.

[1] http://www.three-peaks.net/reveal.html “Revelation” This website of the Church of Latter Day Saints (also known as LDS) explains the Ninth Article of their faith, which explicates the use of prophets on their ministry.

[2] Holy Bible. Book of Amos, Chapter 3: verse 7.

[4] http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/index.html The official site of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, section entitled “About Adventists: Fundamental Beliefs.”

[5] http://www.religioustolerance.org/unificat.html A religious site which summarizes the beliefs and movements of many different faiths from an unbiased perspective: the Unification Church section.

[6] Holy Bible. Book of Revelation, Chapter 12: verse 17.

[7] https://webmail.stanford.edu/silkymail_pop/imp/login.php3 A sampling of statements regarding Mrs. Eddy’s place in Bible prophecy, which have been published by the Christian Science Publishing Society.

[8] http://205.180.85.40/w/pc.cgi?mid=14891&sid=7271 Jehovah’s Witnesses and the use of the word “prophet.”

[9] http://www.urantiafoundation.org/about.html A website about the Urantia Book and the subsequent Urantia Foundation.

[10] http://www.geocities.com/muhammadsite.html A site explicating the role of Muhammad within history and the religion of Islam.

[11] http://allafrica.com/stories/200211290320.html An interview with an Islamis scholar, Sidi Ali, concerning the terrorist attacks in the Middle East.