So it’s Holy Week for Christians, and Passover time for the Jews. The Muslims don’t have much going on right now; their lunar-oriented New Year holiday was in March, and they don’t seem to have another holy day scheduled until May. Nonetheless, I’ve been celebrating the week by pondering what you might get if you mixed equal parts of Christianity and Islamic doctrine together. (Admittedly, if you didn’t filter out the political aspects, what you’d get is a deadly explosion).

Islam sticks by a radical monotheism, and criticizes Christianity for its emphasis on the God-identity of Jesus. Well, personally, I’m ready to cede that point to the Muslims. After some fairly extensive study of the historical roots of Christianity, I have come to conclude that the concept of a Triune God is a hangover from Greco-Roman antiquity.

Next, Islam sees Muhammad as the ultimate prophet; he is not the son of God, but his voice speaks the truest of words on the subject of Allah. OK, I’m gonna give some and take some on that one. I’m ready to agree that over the course of history, a few rare individuals have somehow spoken to the nature of the Divine and the Ultimate better than the billions of other folk who have inhabited the planet. And Muhammad was no doubt one of those rare people. But I’m not going along with the theory that Muhammad should be listened to in an exclusive fashion. Personally, I think that the Islamic view of Muhammad, i.e. as an extraordinary human prophet, can be applied with good effect to Jesus. So, if we get out the theological kryptonite and take away Jesus’ Trinitarian powers, then who’s the better man: Jesus or Muhammad? Which of the two speak the more powerful truths about the Lord?

Well, I myself am partial to Jesus, but not without conceding some points to Muhammad. According to the picture presented in the Bible, Jesus was a complete ascetic. He wasn’t married, didn’t have any kids, and didn’t even have a sex life. That basically sets him apart from 99.9% of the human race. It could be that Jesus did in fact have some romantic and sexual experience during the unwritten phases of his life, but even so, he didn’t make his mark on history as a family man. By contrast, Muhammad did have a wife — more than one, actually — and kids. He could arguably relate better to the everyday life experience of most people. Elevating a family man to the rank of ultimate prophet of God seems to say that family life isn’t so bad, and can in fact be the bedrock of sacredness. Catholic Christianity, by contrast, is still struggling with the idea that family life and sexuality, although capable of being sacred with the Church’s help, still comes in second to celibacy and self-denial, when spiritual attainment is the issue.

(Let me make it clear that I’m not naively suggesting that Islam is less hung up than Christianity with regard to sex. But the problem of Islam and sex is more a function of desert-induced scarcity and cruelty, than a problem relating to foundational religious concepts.)

What I can’t get comfortable about with Muhammad is the fact that he was a warrior during varying phases of his prophetic life. Yes, I can accept that he was a righteous warrior. But in the end, it was still war that he was waging. And war, however righteous, is still hell. Jesus, by contrast, was the man who told his disciples to put away their swords when the Big Boys finally came to dispose of him. Jesus’ final offering to his Father in Heaven was the gift of peace, even at the price of his life. To everyone who says that radical peace like that is a futile, impractical gesture, one would have to ask: did Jesus not change the world for the better?

So, could Islam move away from the role that war and conquest played in Muhammad’s life, a role that unfortunately has been used over the course of human history by some Muslim factions to justify bloodletting in the name of religious intolerance? (Not that Christianity has been innocent of that either). And can Christianity somehow move away from its deification of Jesus, and then from its over-glorification of denying the body’s needs and pleasures? (Not that Islam has been any more healthy than Christianity in this regard). And finally, can both sides move away from the notion that because their chief prophets are male means that women are spiritually inferior? Both sides have a long way to go on that issue.

Unfortunately, the Koran too often envisions a return to the world of the Old Testament, with its tribal warfare and blood feuds. On the other hand, the Holy Book of Islam correctly protests the New Testament’s deviation from strict monotheism and its over-reliance upon apocalypse and asceticism. Muhammad rightly presumed that the human race needs to find its holiness within the routines of daily life, and not on a mountaintop awaiting the end of the world.

What I’m saying here, perhaps naively given this planet’s political realities, is this: wouldn’t it be wonderful if the followers of Jesus and the followers of Muhammad could interact in a bold yet positive way leading to a higher synthesis of who or what God or Allah is, and how we humans can best relate to the Ultimate? And while we’re at it, shouldn’t the discussion be opened to others beside the men from Nazareth and Mecca? The Buddha certainly has powerful things to offer, and lets not forget about Moses, a family man himself. (And yes, female voices would have to be added too). This discussion would require some incredible levels of maturity, open-mindedness, and security about who we are and where our next meals (and our oil) are coming from.

Well, it probably ain’t gonna happen in my lifetime. But I can dream, can’t I?