In this day and age, the crusades have been used as baton to beat the Christian over the head and shame them in their faith. This is true for both liberals and Muslims. We could draw up a list of pros and cons about the crusades and come up with many under each column. I should just point out that Thomas Madden, Jonathan Riley Smith, and Edward Peters are the ones to read on the crusades.
In 2014 I was on a trip to Europe. I only spent two days in Serbia, but I really loved it there. I’m definitely going to go back. I was particularly attracted to the anti-Western mentality that they had there. One thing that I noticed was the religiosity. Serbia is a deeply religious country. They are part of the Eastern Orthodox communion and the Orthodox faith forms an integral part of their society. It’s pretty impressive. I wish all Catholic countries were this observant.
After watching the debate between Shabir Ally and David Wood, I started thinking about what kind of debates I’d like to see Muslims engage in. The more debates that I thought of, the more I noticed something interesting. In these ideal debates, not one of them was with an apologist defending Christianity. The more I though about it, every Muslim debate that I’ve seen was with an apologist defending the Christian viewpoint. Here are the three debates that I’d like to see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYL5TZ9jJqg
On March 3, 2018, David Wood and Shabir Ally debated on the topic Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? For those who don’t know, Shabir Ally takes a very unorthodox position on this issue. It’s a very modern position not found in the classical Islamic period. While most Muslims would say that someone else was made to look like Jesus, Shabir Ally has another theory. Jesus was placed on the cross, left to die, taken down, received no medical attention, then is assumed into heaven from the tomb. Apologists such as Yusuf Ismail, Sami Zaatari, and Zakir Hussain have all debated this topic and do not accept this theory. Instead they go with a more traditional substitution theory.
Bart Ehrman has another book out entitled: The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. It’s essentially Bart Ehrman’s latest attack on the Christian faith. It’s a history of the early Church. More accurately, it’s a liberal history of the early Church.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYFkez771nw&t=725s
In my critique of Islamic apologetics, I normally point out that the Islamic critique of Christianity is indeed a critique of Christianity but not an Islamic one. This often includes quoting secular scholars with anti-supernatutal presuppositions for their worldview. Muslim apologists seem to ignore the fact that these same scholars would laugh at the Islamic view of the Quran, Jesus, and Muhammad.
Eusebius of Caesarea
Over the Christmas break, I was up north in my hometown visiting family. I was talking with my mom about history and the important tools of historiography. We weren’t talking about Church history, but the history of WWII. The discussion focused around how bad history from WWII was. At this point my mom remembered an episode from a history class that she took in University. The professor had told her class the following: “Since the year 1800, there has been no history, only journalism.”
One of the new books added to the list
When I first started this website back in 2015, I wanted to make a Recommended Reading section. When I originally made it, I only put a few books on the list and they were very basic. I’ve learnt a lot more about apologetics dealing with the online community since then. I now have a better idea about what is important and where focus needs to be put. I hope that my readers find this helpful. Here are my recent additions to the list:
Earlier this year, the Turkish Islamic scholar Mustafa Akyol came out with the book The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims. The book is interesting, I’ll say that much. I had meant to read it earlier but other things got in the way. I picked it up yesterday and finished it today and am now going to share some of my thoughts on the book.
St. John of Damascus
Church history is my speciality. I’ve been studying it in depth for eight years. One of the greatest rules of doing history is enemy attestation. We don’t have the surviving writings of many heretical groups but we have Catholic polemics against them and can therefore determine many of their beliefs.