Is your God my God?

The Rev. Ted Haggard, senior pastor for New Life Church, was on CNN yesterday, talking about Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who got into hot water with the country's Islamic government for converting to Christianity. During the interview, Haggard said something pretty interesting: That Muslims and Christians don't worship the same God.

It was in response to a question from broadcaster Kyra Phillips during a joint on-air interview with Haggard and Yahya Hendi, a Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University:

Phillips: ... "Reverend, we are talking about the same God and the same belief in truth here?"

Haggard: "Well, no. We Christians don't believe that. Most evangelicals, Christians, believe that there is a difference in spiritual entities and people do worship different spiritual entities."

Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, was asked to clarify his comments later in the interview, when Hendi said that Muslims, like Christians, worship "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Haggard responded by saying "No, I don't agree with that. And I think the personality -- or the evidences of the spiritual entities are showing themselves right now in Arabic countries."

Haggard's not the first to say this sort of thing. Some Christians, particularly conservative Christians, are extremely wary of Islam, and Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, made headlines a few years ago when he called Islam "a very evil and a very wicked religion." To say Islam and Christianity are faithful variants worshipping the same god makes some Christians very uncomfortable. Haggard didn't call Islam "wicked" or "evil," but he was definitely drawing a firm line between it and Christianity, which is telling in itself.