Do All Religions Share a Common God?

I work for a faith based charitable organisation which takes residential care of orphans and destitute children. The unique thing about my organisation is that, the “Faith” in its title is not just a word. It is the philosophy on which it is founded and continues to exist. No requests for funds or other forms of aid are ever made to any person or organisation. Instead, when there is a need for anything, it is asked for from God in prayer. After that, all people have to do is wait for God to answer the prayers. It is as simple as that and more than 300 hundred children have graduated from there having been fed, clothed, and educated through sheer faith. This is in addition to the about 140 children still resident there.

A story is told of the home many years ago. There was no single morsel of food and supper time was fast approaching. The founder, who was then the house parent, instructed that the table to be laid as usual. He got the children to sit at their places in front of their empty plates. He then asked all to close their eyes and he prayed. He asked God to bless the food they were about to receive. A few minutes after they had said Amen, a vehicle hooted outside their door.

On going to check who was coming to visit at that time of the night, they found some Hindu adherents who had come to bring food. Nobody could believe it. The food was actually cooked and had been brought in hot and ready to eat. The children were served and ate to their fill. It was the first time I ever heard, first hand, of faith becoming manifested in an actual practical miracle besides those we read about.

In the time I have worked there, I have also experienced faith at work. At one time there was no money for the weekly grocery shopping and we didn’t know what to do next after we had prayed about it. On the afternoon of the day we thought we were going to have to take goods on credit, we got some visitors. There were local businessmen from the town and they had come to bring us groceries. They could as well have seen our shopping list. They brought the exact items that were required for the week. These people were not even Christians, they were Muslims.

My observation from the above is that when a Christian prays, his God can send a Hindu or a Muslim to deliver the answer. I also believe that when a Muslim or Hindu prays, his God can send a Christian to do his bidding. My question then is this; if the God I talk to can talk to a person of a different religion, doesn’t it then mean that we are under the same God?

Terrorism in recent years has shed negative light on the religion of Islam in Kenya. We have come to believe that Islam is a religion of violence and evil. My limited Layman’s knowledge is however enough to tell me that on many occasions in history, Christianity, Hinduism, and many other religions have been associated with intolerance and violence.

I believe there is no religion that can claim to be endowed with all knowledge and understanding of all the issues of life. I believe that all who want to acquire knowledge on anything will find it readily available. You may be wondering why the Layman is sounding all philosophical. You may be interested to know where I got the view from.

Many years ago, I worked as a taxi driver and I met diverse people in the form of passengers. On one occasion, I drove a middle aged man who was adorned in the form of African attire that is common on Nigerian movies. In those days, I was very zealous for Christ and took every opportunity to win converts. The man was quite friendly and talkative. Naturally, the discussion took a biblical turn and I was on fire. The man turned out to be more knowledgeable in the bible than me. Our discussion went back and forth between the Old and New Testaments more times than I care to remember. We were fast approaching the point in evangelism where one pops the question, “Would you like to get saved?”

I was so awestruck by the man’s profound knowledge of the word that the question I asked instead was, “Why aren’t you saved?” He looked at me straight in the eye and replied coolly, “Am a Muslim” If there is such a word as icebreaker, there should be ‘ice-former’ because that effectively froze my tongue and I didn’t know what to say next. What would you have said in my place?

P.S. I have seen Christian public crusades but have never seen those from any other religion. I wonder how it would be if Muslims and Hindus conducted crusades and evangelism campaigns.