There was a recent debate between Adnan Rashid and James White on who resembles Jesus more, Christians or Muslims. It’s a bit of an odd topic and to be honest I didn’t like the debate. It was two ships passing in the night, and I don’t really blame them since it was such a vague but esoteric topic.
About a week ago, I was asked to respond to some Muslim apologist wannabe on Twitter. He made the exact same argument that Rashid did. Basically, this argument is out there and is being used among the higher levels of Islamic apologetics; it’s not the Deedat type that are doing this. Here’s exactly what the Tweet said:
Just like Jesus Christ son of Mary PBUT prophecised the coming of Prophet Muhammad PBUH in the gosepl attributed to John, he also prophecised that *Paul* will break/annul/set aside (depending on translation) the commandments & teachings in the gospel according to Matthew, 5:19.
Adnan Rashid essentially put forward the same argument in the above video at about 19:30. Jesus followed the law, Muslims follow the law, but Paul didn’t, therefore the Christians are at fault.
Of course Muslims will interpret Matthew 5:19 in a different way than we Christians do but if we take their interpretation, we see that they’ve refuted Muhammad and Islam. Why are the Muslims condemned? Because they don’t keep the law that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 5:19. They keep a different law, which has a couple overlapping practices but at the end of the day, it’s a different law.
I asked the man on Twitter if he celebrated the passover feast. He responded by saying he only keeps the Muslim holidays. I told him then that by his own interpretation, he has shown that Muhammad is in the same camp with Paul since he changed the law of Christ. At this point, he tried to change topics and get into Protestant vs. Catholic Biblical canon issues. He then tried to change the topic to something else. Why did he do this? Because he knew that he was trapped.
James White had the perfect opportunity to refute Rashid and expose him. Rashid had thrown a curve ball with no break and it floated right over the middle of the plate. James White just let it go by. A questioner vaguely touched on this topic in the Q&A, but he worded it poorly and the sound was very bad so it was almost impossible to hear the question.
So this is how to respond to this. Their own interpretation traps them and their prophet. It’s quite the answer and this objection is only getting more popular.
Now, here’s a brief review of the debate. As I mentioned above, they were two ships passing in the night. I did like James White’s closing statement. At one point Adnan Rashid said that until the fourth century, most Christians were unitarians. I think we can safely conclude that Rashid is not an expert when it comes to church history. He did make a kind gesture by giving White an Umayyad coin as a gift. Very kind of Rashid to do that.
Either way, Muslims don’t have an edge on the law argument when appealing to Matthew 5. Just ask them one thing: do you celebrate the passover? It only gets easier after that.
I listened to the opening statements and most of Dr White’s response. Rashid has grown as a public speaker and he gave Dr White a lesson in clear and straightforward to an audience that are probably not experts or scholars.
Dr White became a little sidetracked and said things that were probably too clever.
I may listen more when I have some time. I like your point about the Passover.
It is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticise, but too often apologists say too much, too quickly. I see it time and time again in online debates and in lectures. In a debate it is important to both get and keep an audience. Unfortunately a lot of these people simply love to talk.
I should have written “in BEING clear and straightforward to an audience”.
Oh how I wish there were an edit function.
“It is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticise, but too often apologists say too much, too quickly.”
And to be fair, the debate was way too short. I don’t know but Adnan Rashid’s debates are always 90 minutes for some reason. Way too short IMO.
I listened to a James White podcast the other night and he explained that he was originally due to debate with someone else. That person withdrew so he called on Adnan Rashid and asked him to stand in some 9 days prior to the event. Maybe that’s a factor.
Maybe. White did bring that up in the debate as well, though he didn’t say who it was.
–James White had the perfect opportunity to refute Rashid and expose him. Rashid had thrown a curve ball with no break and it floated right over the middle of the plate. James White just let it go by.–
Which segues right into Adnan’s praise of James White (and himself) as humans full of love, in contrast to other ‘extremists’ who are full of ‘Islamophobia’. There is a reason Muslims keep praising James White and upholding him as the standard all Christian debators and apologists should emulate – they much prefer his kid gloves to the no-holds-barred truthtelling of people like Jay Smith, Sam Shamoun or David Wood.
For contrast, turn on any of ‘The Great Debate’ series with Catholics, or any of James White’s debates against unorthodox groups – there are no kid gloves, he slips on the spiked knuckles for those ones.
— Just ask them one thing: do you celebrate the passover? —
I was waiting for someone to counter Adnan’s claim “Jesus didn’t eat swine!” with “And He didn’t eat camel either, see the problem?”
So not just the Passover, but dozens of differences far outstripping the similarities, from the mundane to the crucial – entirely missing concept of blood atonement, no strict monogamy, no restrictions against eating camel and in many cases shellfish, no Sabbath-style ban on work…
Hi Scott,
“For contrast, turn on any of ‘The Great Debate’ series with Catholics, or any of James White’s debates against unorthodox groups – there are no kid gloves, he slips on the spiked knuckles for those ones.”
Yes, he was completely cuthroat in those debates. He showed no kindness or mercy. In fact, I’m thinking of doing a video reel on youtube contrasting his debates with Muslims and others.
“I was waiting for someone to counter Adnan’s claim “Jesus didn’t eat swine!” with “And He didn’t eat camel either, see the problem?””
I actually think White had a good response to that in his closing statement. His closing statement was the best part of the debate IMO.
“So not just the Passover, but dozens of differences far outstripping the similarities, from the mundane to the crucial – entirely missing concept of blood atonement, no strict monogamy, no restrictions against eating camel and in many cases shellfish, no Sabbath-style ban on work…”
True, remember I said to start with the passover and it only gets easier from there? Start with the passover but certainly don’t end with it.
God bless,
Allan
Allan and Scott,
I am glad you both commented on the matter of Dr White’s approach to Muslims compared with Catholics.
So often he is downright hostile and comptemptuous of us.
Quite a while ago I wrote to him expressing fulsome appreciation of his work, and also mentioned to Dr White that perhaps things had become a little too cosy in his chat with Muslims (this was before the “dialogues”). It was in response to a debate he had with Adnan Rashid funnily enough – I was supportive of him and wondered how he could bear all these mutual expressions of friendship and yet put up with his points being blatantly ignored and point remaining unaddressed (etc.). I didn’t get a reply.
Since then things have got cosier still, and Dr White less effective in his dealings with Muslims. Little wonder that Muslims appear to like him so much. Dr White has the knowledge and he has the skill. He can be devastating in debate but so often he let’s them off. Given that he is so friendly towards people who go out of their way to deny Christ it is a mystery to me that he is so hostile and lacking in charity or love towards Catholics.
Christopher
I know how to get White to start hammering Muslims – he just needs to be convinced that Islam is a wayward Unitarian heresy of Christianity based on a cult of personality surrounding its founder.