Christian-muslim inter-text now : from anathemata to theme / Kenneth Cragg.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

In an internet society {u2018}text{u2019} can mean some trivial thing. Not so its long link with {u2018}textile{u2019} as something significant woven into words that might even be {u2018}holy writ{u2019}. Meant this way here, {u2018}Inter-text{u2019} has to do with how{u2014}not whether{u2014}we think of God. The Qur{u2019}an has a laden phrase about {u2018}esteeming Allah a true esteem{u2019}. What {u2018}measure{u2019}, what criteria? Christian and Muslim are in clear kinship about the answer, but{u2014}inside it{u2014}present a sharp contrast. Together they see the human situation as a trust with the earth as God{u2019}s viceroys so that nothing is merely secular, since all is meant for hallowing. Things are only {u2018}under us{u2019} as we are {u2018}under God{u2019}. This central truth grows ever more urgent now and, with it, the issue that divides. Is this vocation to be {u2018}on God{u2019}s behalf {u2019} an education into law, served by a political control that makes us amenable? Or, in all realism, must it not be a redemption into love, because we are willful and perverse? Otherwise, why that ringing {u2018}Perhaps{u2019} in the Qur{u2019}an? This{u2014}between us{u2014}only belongs inside the common stake of the God who has {u2018}let us be{u2019}. It is a theme that demands to bypass the sundry anathemas we have had for each other so long. {u2018}To understand God we must first spell man.{u2019} When we do so, we discover many other {u2018}texts{u2019} between us about, for example, the task of scholarship with Scriptures, the temper of religious authority, the inter-liability of the sexes and the humility that learns sincerity.