WORSHIPPING OF A SOVEREIGN GOD: CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

The major purposes of this study are to find out the common grounds of Muslims and Christians on the conceptual nature of God, establish if there are differences between Christianity and Islam with respect to ethics and morality, find out the general perceptions of Muslims and Christians concerning approaches to worshipping God and draw a logical conclusion on the question of whether Christians and Muslims are worshiping the same God. Hence, the study adopted a descriptive research design in which structured questionnaire based on the specific objectives of the study was used to elicit responses from chosen respondents.  The population of the study comprised all Christians and Muslims (comprising of congregation members, Priests, Pastors, Imam, Clerics and other religion leaders) in 10 churches and 10 mosques across three L.G.A of Lagos State (Yaba, Mushin and Lagos Mainland). Using three (3) different denomination/congregations/groups from both faiths, stratified random sampling technique was used to choose 450 samples for the study. Using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) Statistics, the reliability coefficient (r) of the questionnaire was found to be 0.91 which signal the fact that the instrument was reliable and good for the study.  Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze all the research questions such that any questionnaire item with mean of 2.50 and above was regarded as agreed while any questionnaire item with mean less than 2.50 was regarded as disagreed. The findings showed that Christianity and Islam have important meeting points in their understanding of God but certain areas of misconceptions like Trinity, divinity of Jesus, Jesus as son of God and Crucifixion of Jesus still exist. Among the recommendations proffered is that since God is immeasurable, no religious group should claim to be better in knowing God better than the other.  Hence, the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship same God is totally needless.