A Place to Pray at Rutgers

[Jerome]

Church Offers Auditorium as Prayer Space for the Muslim Community

The Second Reformed Church, located at 100 College Ave., will now offer a place for practicing Muslims to go for their Friday worship, Pastor Doug Shepler said.

“The decision was a natural outcome from the church,” he said. “The reformed church has had a strong relationship with the Muslim community for a very long time.”

The Muslim community will be allowed to use the space provided to pray every week on Friday for Salat al Juma, the Friday prayer.

Kahn said he hopes this is the beginning of a much-needed change on campus, and wants to see the Muslim community sustained after he graduates in 2014. With such a diverse community such as the student body at the University, he said this is a step in the right direction.

There were previous attempts made to allow the Muslim community to find a place to pray in the past, but they lacked the human connection, he said. Once the human connection was made, he found all the religions have the same basic vision whether it is Christianity, Islam or Judaism.

Maha Zayed, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, said she thinks the idea is a step in the right direction as well. She feels this will be a great unifying experience for both the church and the Muslim community.

“We have been working for a place to be able to pray, and for [the pastor] to open his doors and let us in every Friday, it really promotes co-existence,” she said.

 

[Salty]

Will the church be asked ( now or later) to remove any symbols of Christianity?

 

[Walter]

Will the church be asked ( now or later) to remove any symbols of Christianity?

They may have already done so. Certainly wouldn't be the first 'christian' church to discard symbols of the faith in order to appear 'inclusive'. This church removed it's cross and even took 'Christ' out of their church name:

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2010/06/spring_lakes_christ_community.html

“Our community has been a really open-minded community for some years now,” he said. “We’ve had a number of Muslim people, Jewish people, Buddhists, atheists. ... We’re catching up (to) ourselves.”


The pastor said that 'the cross has become a negative symbol to a lot of people.' I heard an UCC clergy person refer to the cross as 'divine child abuse'.

Earlier this week, John Dominic Crossan, a radical theologian famous for his denials of biblical truth and the historic Christian faith, spoke at an Episcopal church in Northern Virginia with the approval of Episcopal Bishop Johnston. Crossnan is a well known speaker from 'The Jesus Seminar' fame and who denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus and says that Jesus’ body was eaten by dogs, and he is permitted to speak unchallenged by clergy in his diocese?

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17)