That's the very thing Desmond Tutu is addressing.
Some people like to make God 'their own' and try to fit him into their own religious box.
God is beyond any of our religious understanding. Our religious concepts merely try to fathom him.
God is God is GOD.
Bigger and greater and more awesome than we can possibly comprehend! :statisfie
I think Desmond Tutu is challenging those people to try to make out that God is a Christian/Muslim/Hindu etc (or a God who belongs to Christianity/Islam/Hinduism etc) ... with the political aim of turning everybody else into an enemy.
God is not my God or your God or anybody else's God.
We do not own him and the best we can do is hope and pray that He considers us to belong to Him.
I appreciate what you are trying to say here.
You are right to an extent and Desmond Tutu is correct is some of what he says but not everything.
There are certain things that we as Muslims have to take a stance on.
As far as Muslims are concerned there is only one God who is The Creator, The Provider, The Sustainer of All of The Creation (as well as having many other perfect names and attributes)
However different groups of people each have their own understanding of him.
Some people use their type understanding to cause oppression against others.
As Muslims our duty is not to turn people to enemies or use religion to create enemies.
Our duty is to convey the message of Islam as The Final Prophet Muhammad did. We only say what Muhammad (peace be upon him) said and what Allaah has said in the Qur'aan, The Final Source of Divine Guidance To Mankind.
The Message of The Qur'aan is for all mankind, not just Muslims and Muhammad (peace be upon him) was sent as a Messenger to all of mankind, not just Muslims.
But the message of Islam does not say that any and everything goes as some people would like to think.
We believe that the original message of Monotheism was corrupted over time by Satan and his followers amongst the Jinn and Mankind. It is these corrupt beliefs that has caused a lot of animosity and oppression amongst mankind over time.
We dislike the "Kufr" or the disbelief or false beliefs that people have in them towards the message of Islam however we do not dislike any person in and of themselves regardless of their faith of background.
The message of Islam was sent to clarify the lies and mis-information that certain groups of people invented and injected into the original pure message of Monotheism or Tawheed that all the Prophets were sent with.
Islam was sent to re-affirm the original message of Monotheism that The first Prophet, Prophet Adam was following and taught.
There is no compulsion in Islam. The acceptance of Islam is only accepted by Allaah if a person does it out of their own free will with a conscious understanding of it's requirements.
Those involved in the spreading of the Message of Islam simply present the message to their people and then hope that Allaah guides them.
hew
mg:
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