Nineteenth-century Christians already framed Islam as a preparation for Christian truth

Evidence

It is the seeming closeness of these ‘Abrahamic’ religions and their joint history that draw attention to the real or imagined differences from the majority religion and its new form: secular society. ‘The “Abrahamic” religions’ is the newest PC phrase: the ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ was the catchword for common aspects shared between Judaism and Christianity after the Holocaust made this an acceptable notion, whereas ‘the Abrahamic religions’ is the new buzzword including Islam in the Judeo-Christian fold that has become current only after 9/11. Both phrases attempt to defuse the clearly Christian aspects of modern Western secular society by expanding it, but, of course, only re-emphasise it. Here Jonathan Sacks’ notion of difference is helpful: in creating categories that elide difference and stress superficial similarities, one believes that one is bridging ‘differences’. Actually, one is submerging them. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 888 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the first place, I have not attempted to trace its origins, and have omitted any comprehensive discussion of nineteenth-century trends. The beginnings of a new approach came earlier than we sometimes think. For example, C. Forster in 1829 was writing, “To be unjust to the fair claims of any other system is, in fact, to be guilty of gross injustice to the unrivalled merits of the Gospel.’ He realised that ‘the Christian has no reasonable grounds of doubt or fear to withhold him from doing the fullest justice to the phenomena of Mahometanism’. He saw a ‘twofold instrumentality, acting co-ordinately’; where Christianity operates directly to make the Lord known, Islam ‘shapes the course of things indirectly’ to the same end. It is a preparation for the full truth, ordained in the twofold promise to Abraham: ‘by the convergement, in the fulness of time, of Ishmael to Isaac, of Mahometanism to Christianity, the whole world shall one day be poured into the fold of the true shepherd, our only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2470 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Expanding the Judeo-Christian label to include Islam re-emphasises rather than defuses its Christian bias — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in…, 888; Modern Christian reconciliation with Islam began in 1829 — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2470; Nineteenth-century travelers credited Islam with civilizing enslaved Africans beyond Christianity’s reach

Related

• Nineteenth-century Christians could construe Islam as a divinely ordained preparation for Christianity. (similarity 0.90)
• Modern Christian reconciliation with Islam began in 1829 (similarity 0.89)
• Expanding the Judeo-Christian label to include Islam re-emphasises rather than defuses its Christian bias (similarity 0.85)
• Nineteenth-century travelers credited Islam with civilizing enslaved Africans beyond Christianity’s reach (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christians constructed Islam and Judaism as mutual templates (similarity 0.80)
• Christians could only conceive Islam as derivative of Christian truth (similarity 0.80)
• Islam’s military success forced Christians to reinterpret church history as corruption (similarity 0.79)
• Christian depictions of Islam in both conventions derive from Christian perceptions of Judaism (similarity 0.79)
• By 1250 the unity-of-God doctrine was common Christian knowledge about Islam (similarity 0.79)
• Christians processed Islam by slotting it into pre-existing heresy and Antichrist frameworks. (similarity 0.79)
• Accurate knowledge of Islam did not soften early Christian hostility toward it (similarity 0.78)
• The Semitic idea’s Christian foundation sowed its own eventual split into Jew and Arab (similarity 0.78)
• Medieval Christians understood Islam through preexisting biblical categories rather than direct encounter (similarity 0.78)
• The Judeo-Christian category is a mid-twentieth-century construct that erases Islam from the West (similarity 0.78)
• Early Christian writings about Islam existed before any real contact with Muslims. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Expanding the Judeo-Christian label to include Islam re-emphasises rather than defuses its Christian bias #expands (0.75) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 888
• Modern Christian reconciliation with Islam began in 1829 #responds-to (0.70) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2470