Seminary Teaches And Trains Students To Become Muslim Imams In US

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Muslims who want to become an imam in the U.S. can now train at an institution founded in the 18th century by members of the Congregationalist denomination to prepare pastors and other Christian ministers for service.

Hartford Seminary is launching a new "Graduate Certificate in Imam Education" program this spring, with help from the seminary's Duncan Black MacDonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, the Fairfax Institute and the Fairfax Institute's parent, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, or the IITT

The Hudson Institute's Hillel Fradkin says he's concerned about the move, because the IIIT is a front group of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned most of the leading terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and Hamas.

Christopher Holton of the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington agreed the IIIT represents a radical version of Islam.

"IIIT is a Wahhabi organization. The Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam is among the most intolerant, hateful and aggressive religious cults in the entire world. The Hartford Seminary has been snowed due to their apparent ignorance, and this is a disservice to America, as well as peaceful and tolerant people of all faiths," he said.

He called the move "an unfortunate continuation of a disturbing pattern of misguided American Christian leaders choosing to do interfaith outreach with jihadist Muslim Brotherhood organizations."

He said it isn't the first time a Christian leader has taken such a step.

"First we saw the Rev. Rick Warren speaking at ISNA's (Islamic Society of North America) convention last summer, and now we have this episode. Choosing the IIIT for interfaith outreach is a betrayal of Christian principles." Holton said.

Hartford Seminary was founded in 1833 when a group of Congregational ministers opened a school that later assimilated several other institutions and became a founding member of the American Association of Theological Schools.

It features the Hartford School of Missions, which train missionaries.

The seminary opened its doors to the first Muslim on its core faculty in the 1990s, shortly after a decision had been made to pursue "Christian-Muslim relations."

Now it is advertising on its website the new program as a way to prepare men to be spiritual leaders in an Islamic community or mosque. School spokesman David Barrett said the goal is to help leaders understand their faith.

"Education for imams, as well as education for any religious leaders, is important to help them understand their faith better and to ground them in the context of religion in America," Barrett said.

"Obviously, at a seminary we teach education and religion. We believe that if you are educated you will be better able to be a religious leader in whatever faith you are in," Barrett said.

He said the IIIT came to the seminary with the suggestion for the outreach.

"We thought that made sense. And yes, they are a partner with Hartford Seminary, because they bring their own expertise with them," Barrett said.

Holton warned, however, that the program ultimately has national security implications.

"In choosing jihadist entities for interfaith outreach, people like Rev. Warren and institutions like Hartford Seminary enable our adversaries and grant them undeserved legitimacy," he said.

"This can only further the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood to insert Shariah law into the United States – a theo-politico-legal doctrine diametrically opposed to American ideals of liberty."

Fradkin said the most militant of the Muslim Brotherhood's front groups is the Muslim Student Association, the MSA.

The MSA, he pointed out, was "the original expression of the Muslim Brotherhood in this country."

"Muslim students set it up as a student organization, but the founders were all Muslim Brotherhood," Fradkin said.

The MSA is established on many campuses, and in the absence of any other Muslim student group, they have the affiliation of all of the school's Muslim students, Fradkin said.
"One of the most egregious is the chapter and the University of California-Irvine. They've been particularly active and radical," he noted.

"The Muslim Brotherhood's stated goal is to turn every location where it exists into an Islamic state, including the United States," he said.

The Brotherhood's aims are documented in reports from the NEFA Foundation, established to fight against terror through research, analysis and dissemination of information.

The NEFA Foundation quotes from a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document entered as evidence in the trial of the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted in 2008 of funding Hamas and other terrorist groups. In the document, the Brotherhood was clear on its plan for the U.S.

"The Ikhwan (the Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions," the report said.

Fradkin noted the director of Hartford Seminary's Muslim chaplain training program is listed as Ingrid Mattson, who also is president of ISNA.

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Let's get it stright.

The first and foremost problem is that Hartford is NOT a Christian seminary. It has committed treason against the King of Kings and that started long ago. The biggest problem isn't political, but spiritual.

Secondly,Tricky Ricky Warren is NOT the first "Christian" to take such steps. The first was his mentor, Robert Schuller back in the 90's, when he spoke in a Mosque and proclaimed they and "Christians" worship the same god. Then Bill Hybels invited an Imam to teach Islam to his congregation at Willow Creek.

Fuller Theological Cemetary also has promoted a "Christian"-Muslim relationship program (you paid $1 million dollars via a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice), which cautioned "Christians" to NOT prostylize the Muslims, some years back. "The project will build on work led by Fuller professor Glen Stassen and other Christian scholars to develop a peacemaking theory that features practical ways to reduce conflict in the United States and abroad." "They also said that pledges against proselytizing one another's communities would apply only to the two-year peacemaking project and would not prevent either side from sharing their respective faiths during that time in what Fuller scholar J. Dudley Woodberry called gracious evangelism."

I personally know a professor of Old Testament at a seminary who also thinks that "Allah is a perfectly legitimate name for God--lingquistically speaking." He also claims, along with his wife, that the Muslims HAVE GOD ON SOME LEVEL, but that their view of God is only partially correct. Both of these notions are diametrically opposed to Scripture, where God declares His name "I AM" (YAHWEH), and

1Jo 2:23 "No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also."

Eph. 2:12b"....having no hope and without God in the world."

Joh 8:42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me....47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."

This teaching of Islam as a valid religion, as if having some Truth in it, as if they have God on some level is heresy, but its INSIDE THE RANKS OF EVANGELICAL CHURCHES AND SEMINARIES.

Back in the article,Barrett said that they are teaching people of other faiths to help them better understand their faith, seems to get his cue from the Theresa of Calcutta playbook, where she claimed to not prostelytize others, but help Hinds be better Hindus; Catholics to be better Catholics; Buddists to be better Buddists. The Roman Catholic Church also states:

RCC catechism # 841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."

"The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions [Hinduism, Buddism]… The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth..." ~ Nostra Aetate # 2&3 given in Oct. 1965 by “Pope” Paul 6th

Until Christians are willing to deny the lie that truth is in everything, unless they are willing to avoid ALL FORMS of evil, unless they understand and obey the fact that Scripture says "no lie is of the Truth" and to be separate from these false religions (see 1Cor. 6), they will commit treason against the King of kings and Lord of lords for a fake unity that lifts its hands against the Sovereign King. Loyalty to Christ at ALL costs, and that means reject half-truths, mixing the old with the new (see Mark 2:22), and submit to the Lordship of the Lord.