Allah: A Christian Response.

Swanson, Mark N.

Allah: A Christian Response.

By Miroslav Volf. New York: HarperOne, 2011.

Pp. 326. $25.99; paperback $15.99.

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Anyone who works in the field of Christian-Muslim relations knows that the question "Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?" is asked with great regularity. In this wise book, the fruit of a lifetime's experience but especially of encounters, dialogue, and reflection occasioned by the document "A Common Word Between Us and You" (2007) and its responses, Miroslav Volf tackles the question head-on. After seeking insight from the encounters with Islam of Nicholas of Cusa and Martin Luther, Volf argues, in precise, step-by-step fashion, that Christian and Islamic descriptions of God and God's commands, while by no means identical, are sufficiently similar to allow the affirmation that Christians and Muslims (at least, those who represent their traditions well) do worship the same God. (As Volf points out, the somewhat parallel case of divergent Christian and Jewish descriptions of God is instructive here.) Furthermore, this result has important consequences for Christians and Muslims: it can allow for respectful, mutual witness to their faith, as well as joint witness to the true source of human flourishing; it can encourage resistance to idolatries associated with national and religious identity; it can provide the possibility of life together in politically plural societies; and it can lead to a common struggle against extremist violence. The real differences between Christian and Islamic God-discourse are not "deal-breakers" but rather invitations to deeper reflection-beautifully exemplified in Volf's chapters (8-9) on God's mercy and "eternal and unconditional love."

This is an ambitious book that aims to reflect on a wide range of difficult issues in an inviting and accessible way. Naturally, the discussion of some topics could be expanded. Volf's presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity (chap. 7) tends toward the formal and abstract, while the complex political issues tackled in chapter 12 ("Two Faiths, Common God, Single Government") could use a book of their own. Readers of the IBMR may be surprised by the suggestion that serious attempts to address the "same God" question are mostly a post-9/11 phenomenon, at least in the West (p. 111). And I missed any acknowledgment of the history of reflection on such issues in connection with the missionary encounter of Christians with Muslims--think of the work of Kenneth Cragg and others--or in the writings of Arabic-speaking Christians who, already in the early Islamic centuries, knew God as Allah and had to defend their Trinitarian faith in an Islamic context.

But these are minor complaints about a book from which I learned on every page. With it, Volf has not only provided a meticulous theological analysis; he has given us a vision of a peaceful future in a world that Christians share with Muslims. Furthermore, he makes a very timely appeal to his Western Christian readers to be consistent disciples of Jesus, avoiding the temptation to make religion into an identity marker and heeding the command to love one's neighbor--including in our theological analyses.

Mark N. Swanson, the Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Relations at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, is the author of The Coptic Papcy in Islamic Egypt, 641-1517 (American Univ. in Cairo Press, 2010).