Excerpt from, "Jesus, a prophet of Islam". (Muhammad 'Ata ur-Rahim)
PREFACE
Eminent scholars of Christian history admit that the present-day Christianity is a "mask" on the face of Jesus, and goes on to add that a mask worn for a long time acquires a life of it's own and it has to be accepted as such. The Muslim believes in the Jesus of history and refuses to accept the "mask". This, in a nutshell, has been the point of difference between Islam and the church for the last 1400 years. Even before the advent of Islam, the Arians, the Paulicians (not the Paulinists of Saul (Paul) of Tarsus) and the Goths, to mention only a few, accepted Jesus but rejected the "mask". The 'Holy' Roman Emperors forced Christians to think alike.
To achieve this impossible goal, millions of Christians were killed. Sebastian Casteillio, a French preacher and theologian; and one of the first Reformed Christian proponents of religious toleration, freedom of conscience and thought, said, "To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man". Conviction cannot be forced with a dagger.
.....contd
