A few years ago, while living in Edmonton, I met with the president of our denomination's bible college to express my concern over their decision to have a Muslim leader come and speak during their weekly chapel service. He graciously took the time to explain the motivation behind this decision and after some discussion, we ended up agreeing to disagree. Little did I realize that just a few years later I'd be reading about the direction of other bible colleges not just to have Muslim leaders come and speak but to actually provide them with training. Here are the two news stories, one from California, the other from here in Ontario...

Theology School Melds Studies of Different Faiths

"The venerable Claremont School of Theology has taught Methodist ministers and theologians for more than a century, but in the fall they'll try an unorthodox approach: cross-training the nation's future Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leaders in classrooms scattered around Southern California as they work toward their respective degrees."

SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100609/ap_on_re/us_rel_religion_today

Emmanuel College Begins to Train Muslim Clergy

"The Christian Church has always existed in a context filled with a wide diversity of religious expressions. So declares the vision statement explaining why Emmanuel College has begun training leaders for the Muslim faith. Emmanuel, whose main role has been to train clergy for the United Church of Canada, is one of the schools that make up the Toronto School of Theology at the University of Toronto. At the end of March, it began offering its first two Islamic courses: Islamic Spirituality in a Health Care Setting and The Qur'an in the Canadian Context."

SOURCE: http://www.christianweek.org/stories.php?id=926

So what's the big deal? After all, don't all religions lead to the same God? What makes Christianity so exclusive? Here's how Philip Ryken answers this in his book "Is Jesus the Only Way?"...

Authentic, biblical Christianity has always been an exclusive religion. This became apparent during the Roman Empire. When the Emperor Alexander Severus heard about Christianity, he placed an image of Christ beside the other gods in his private chapel, just to be safe. The Romans were happy to welcome Jesus into their pantheon. What the Romans couldn’t understand was why Christians refused to reciprocate. If the emperor was willing to worship Christ, why weren’t Christians willing to worship the emperor? Yet the early Christians insisted that in order to worship Christ at all, they had to worship Christ alone. They were even willing to stand up for this conviction by playing “Christians and lions” at the Colosseum.