Faculty member of the University of Religions: No religion is as steeped in “polytheism” as Christianity!
It is not an art for those who control religious tribunes in the Islamic Republic of Iran to sit in one-sided television sessions or seminars to express Qur’anic views on Christianity and to endorse the views of like-minded people without giving the opportunity to a Christian theologian or priest to express his views.
Jalil Parvin, a member of the scientific committee of the University of “Islamic Religions”, in a meeting entitled “Quranic Critique views of Jesus, deity and the Trinity” which was held on December 28 (on the occasion of the birth of Christ) claimed: ” No religion is as contaminated with polytheism as Christianity” and “polytheism is the only sin that cannot be forgiven without repentance.”
In another part of his speech, this member of the University of Islamic Religion called the belief of Christians who consider Jesus the Son of God a “deviant view” and an “exaggeration” and said: Christians may have been misled into believing that God is the Father of Jesus because Jesus was created without a Father. But the Qur’an says that the parable of Jesus is like the story of Adam. “God did not create Adam from his parents, but God created Adam from dust.”
He went on to call the Christian beliefs in the Bible “blasphemous”, and said that we do not accept them, and advised that Christians should either abandon Christianity or respond to infidelity!
Attacks on Christianity by members of Islamic centers and associations or by clerics and government authorities are not new. When Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, one of the Shiite clerics in his Quran study classes, insults Christians and calls them “unclean”, one can never expect more from their subordinates whose identities and livelihoods are based on insulting Christians, and on being anti-Christian.
Meanwhile, high-ranking government officials in an effort to self-promote and show civility in international arenas, congratulate Christians on the birth of Jesus Christ and claim to respect him and his followers, but in practice in seminaries and religious institutions which their main purpose is to Propagate Islam based on the intellectual and ideological upbringing of preachers and citizens, destroy Christianity and the position of Jesus Christ without any hesitation. They do not even allow a Christian theologian or priest to attend one of these programs and meetings to explain and express his views from a Christian point of view.
If these people truly believe in their arguments against Christianity, it is better to give Christian scholars a chance to defend their faith and to respond to the criticisms and challenges they raise about Islam and Shiism.
The officials of the Islamic Republic and the government authorities and their subordinates are so narrow-minded that they do not even tolerate the criticism of Islamic intellectuals. The latest example was the dismissal of Molavi Gargij, the Friday prayer leader of “Azadshahr” in Golestan province, for “blasphemy”!