Students learn more about the similarities of different religions

Marshall's Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Muslim Association of Huntington sponsored an event on Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions Thursday afternoon in the Memorial Student Center.

The Common Ground Among the Abrahamic Faiths:  The Judeo-Christian and Islamic Tradition focused on the religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam and how similar they are to one another. 

"If one were to believe the subtle suggestions of our morning newspapers and our evening news shows and the more blatant pronouncements of some well known ministers of the extreme Christian right, one would have to conclude that we are standing at the dawn of a massive clash of religious cavitations," said speaker Jerald Dirks.

Dirks received college degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School and University of Denver.  He received degrees in clinical child psychology and earned a certificate in Islamic studies from Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud University.

Dirks received his license to preach from the United States Methodist Church and was ordained into the Christian ministry in 1977.

Campus Christian Center Reverend Dana Sutton said in an earlier interview that Dirks converted to Islam in 1993.

"Can three so closely interrelated religions that share so much common ground be inevitably destined to endless confrontation," Dirks said

Dirks said perhaps the problem is the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam fail to realize the differences that divide them cover a relatively small terrain compared to the tremendous common ground that they share.

"Each of them has a core that is essentially similar to the core of the other two," he said.

Dirks discussed eight different topics of all three faiths and read passages from each faith's guides, showing similarities among the three.  These included The Ten Commandments, The Golden rule and social duty.

When someone compares the prophets that are in both the Bible and the Qur'an, they find that the two sources parallel each other but occasionally disagree about some specific details, he said.

"This is the case with such stories as Adam's creation and fall, Noah and the flood, Abraham's trial by being asked to sacrifice his son, the infant Moses being cast out on the water, Jonah being swallowed by a big fish, the miraculous birth of John the Baptist and so forth," Dirks said.

"There are places where the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions differ, for example, while both traditions maintain that God created the universe in six units of time, the Qur'an offers no parallel to the biblical account of God resting from his work on the seventh day," he said.

Dirks said while all three traditions say that Adam fell from grace from eating of the forbidden fruit of the garden, Islam and Judaism, unlike Christianity, do not interpret this fall as creating a state of original sin in which all of humanity inherits Adam's initial sin.

Approximately 60 people attended the event.

Kate McCloy can be contacted at mccloy@marshall.edu.