Virgil Walker, Sola Veritas, Jan 8, 2026
This past Sunday, I was listening to Jon Benzinger, my pastor at Redeemer Bible Church, preach on truth as part of a new sermon series on what we believe. He began where Scripture always does, by defining truth not as a feeling or a social agreement, but as something objective, revealed, and binding. God’s Word is true. And ultimately, Jesus Christ is truth personified.
As I listened, a question kept coming to mind.
Why are so many Christians hesitant to say that Christianity is true—and that competing religious claims are false?
That question stayed with me long after the sermon ended. I made a note to myself that an article addressing false religions directly, beginning with the truth claims of Christianity itself, might be helpful for believers who feel that tension but lack the language to resolve it.
So on Thursdays, I plan to do just that. I’ll take up several of the world’s major false religions, starting with the exclusive truth claims of Christianity, and then examine why those competing systems fail when measured against the gospel.
This week, I want to begin with Islam.
This is not an article aimed at demeaning Muslims. Christians are commanded to love their neighbors, including their Muslim neighbors. But love does not require confusion, and kindness does not demand silence. The most loving thing we can do is speak truth clearly.
My hope is that this piece helps Christians stand more confidently on the truth of the gospel and speak it faithfully to others, without fear and without compromise.
The Comforting Illusion of “Common Ground”
At first glance, Islam can feel familiar.
It speaks insistently about one God. It traces its story back to Abraham. It refers to Jesus with reverence. It takes moral obligation seriously. That shared vocabulary tempts many Christians to assume proximity, to say, “We’re closer than we think,” or even, “We worship the same God.”
The language feels generous. It sounds like bridge-building. It signals goodwill.
But Scripture does not evaluate truth by familiarity. Often, familiarity is precisely how contradiction gains a foothold.
Why “Same God” Language Fails Biblically
When Christians claim that Islam and Christianity worship the same God, they usually mean something limited. Islam is not polytheistic. It speaks of a Creator. It uses the grammar of monotheism.
But Scripture does not define God by intent, vocabulary, or sincerity.
Scripture defines God by self-revelation.
The God of the Bible is not discovered through human reasoning or preserved by religious effort. He reveals Himself. He speaks. He acts. And He has done so decisively in His Son. The incarnation, the cross, and the resurrection are not peripheral doctrines. They are the center of who God has shown Himself to be.
Islam explicitly rejects that revelation.
The Qur’an does not merely omit divine sonship. It condemns it. Surah 5:72 states, “They have certainly disbelieved who say, ‘Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary.’” Surah 112:3 removes any remaining ambiguity: “He neither begets nor is born.”
These are not misunderstandings. They are repudiations.
Scripture is equally clear about what follows from such denial:
“Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father.” (1 John 2:23, ESV)
That statement leaves no room for parallel paths to the same God. To reject the Son is not to approach God from another direction. It is to worship someone else.
Jesus presses the matter further:
“Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” (John 5:23, ESV)
Biblically speaking, worship that refuses God’s revelation in Christ is not incomplete worship. It is misdirected worship. Sincerity cannot compensate for the rejection of truth.
Christianity Does Not Compete With Islam—It Contradicts It
Islam does not challenge Christianity at the margins. It denies Christianity at the center.
The disagreement is not cosmetic. It reaches down to the deepest questions of reality: who God is, who Jesus is, how sinners are made right, and what authority governs belief.
A god who denies the Son is not the God who has spoken in Scripture.
A Different Jesus Cannot Save
Islam speaks respectfully of Jesus, but respect alone does not make a claim true.
The Jesus of Islam is not God. And the central event of the Christian faith is explicitly denied.
Surah 4:157 states, “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him—but it was made to appear so to them.”
Islam does not reinterpret the cross. It removes it.
And because there is no crucifixion, there can be no resurrection. The very act by which God reconciles sinners to Himself is erased.
Christianity stands or falls on the cross.
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17, ESV)
A Jesus without a cross may inspire reflection. He cannot save.
A System Without a Gospel
Because Islam denies the cross, it cannot offer a gospel.
There is no substitute standing in the sinner’s place. Righteousness is never received as a gift but pursued through effort. Rest for the conscience remains elusive because salvation is always conditional and never complete. Obedience carries the weight, and Allah’s will remains ultimately unknowable.
Christianity proclaims something altogether different:
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, ESV)
Islam seeks to shape conduct from the outside. Christianity gives new life from the inside.
The Question of Authority
Islam stands or falls on the authority of Muhammad.
Scripture gives a clear test for revelation:
“Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8, ESV)
Muhammad claimed angelic revelation that overturned the gospel, denied the Son, and replaced grace with law. Biblical faith does not progress by contradiction. It builds on what God has already made known.
That conclusion is not personal hostility. It is theological honesty.
Why Christian Confusion Is Not Harmless
If Islam denies the Son, rejects the cross, offers no atonement, and proclaims another gospel, the real question is not why Christians sometimes struggle to say Islam is false.
The real question is why we hesitate to say it plainly.
That hesitation does not foster love. It leaves believers unprepared. It dulls evangelistic urgency. It weakens the church’s confidence in the truth she has been entrusted to proclaim.
Confusion always produces consequences downstream.
https://virgilwalker.substack.com/p/why-islam-is-falseand-why-christian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=4950964&post_id=183640924&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1nfgq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I’d say that the failure of Christians to uphold Truth is the widespread false idea of moral equivalence.
Moral equivalence tells us that there are no universal truths to be upheld and that everyone is free to define their own truths. That basically means that everyone is a law unto themselves and are not subject to any other truths or truth-governed laws.
Christians are a “moral and religious people” endowed with God-given rights, but always governed by His righteous God-given laws which only come from His absolute Truth. There are no other righteous truths from anyone anywhere.
Islam departs from that. It cannot be righteous since it has a barbaric and wretched moral code which gives rise to its onerous laws which govern it. That alone shows that Islam serves a foreign and “strange” god who is in opposition to God’s First Commandment: not to have “strange” gods before Him.
The Islamics themselves show their enmity toward the One True God by their continual battles against God’s faithful. And no, they don’t accept anyone’s moral equivalence; they only heed their foreign god’s directives.
they only heed their foreign god’s directives.
That’s right. And as their god is an idol in the minds of imams and scholars directives change according to desire. Then there’s the violent, human and woman hating demon in back of the idol.
About those scholars, I’ve been sorely disappointed in them for a long time for choosing to follow Leftist elitists rather than serving and upholding the American Way of life. They were lured away by the European politics of Left vs. Right, which doesn’t apply to the American Way of Truth and Justice under God.
The topics of moral equivalence and Sharia laws could be discussed at greater length of course.
For example, moral equivalence becomes moral degeneracy. Sharia laws are not much different.
Moral equivalence can also mean moral ambivalence brought on by moral ambiguity brought on my a lack of moral standards. That’s where multi-culturalism and DEI gain a foothold, where there are no lasting moral standards to begin with. That then begets a conflict with those who do have firmly established moral standards, principles, and the self-discipline to abide by them.