Christians and other religions

Over the course of world history, we have seen the christian church get away from is tolerance of other faiths, especially here in America. Since the attacks on 9/11/2001, there has been an incredible increase in islamaphobia in the U.S., based on the fact that people in America don't understand Islam, and believe that the Qur'an and other Islamic texts are texts all about hating Christians and only supporting the beliefs of "Allah" and other "Islamic" notions.

This is absolutely false, and many people don't even recognize that "Allah" is just the Arabic term for God. So much so, that Arabic speaking Christians refer to God as Allah as well.  The Qur'an has many places in it that talk about how Muslims are supposed to treat Christians and Jews as co-believers, and worshippers of the same God. While yes, there are extremist groups that chose to ignore these sections of the Qur'an and interpret the Qur'an to say that Christians and Jews are the enemy and must be waged war against. This is NOT the teachings of the Qur'an and these extremists that believe this are by far the smaller minority.

The problem does not lie solely with Muslims however. the Bible teaches that Christians must love everyone, not just other Christians. Refusing to love someone else because they may be a different religion is not spreading the love of Christ, and is going directly against the teachings of the Bible. Maybe before we look at other religions and judge them for what they say, we should take a greater look at ourselves and understand where we fall short as well.

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