Cardinal Newman
The famous Anglican convert to Catholicism, John Henry Newman once said: To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. What I’ve always wondered is why he said this as an anti-Protestant and not a pro-Catholic statement. I even heard an Eastern Orthodox apologist use this quote which I suppose one can because Orthodoxy isn’t Protestantism and some Protestants who study church history actually do convert to the Orthodox Church.
The Trinity occupied a large part of the recent debate between James White and Adnan Rashid. At about the four minute mark of the above video, Rashid is talking about the Trinity. He mentions that it took 400 years to clearly define the doctrine. He’s correct, it did. He then says that this is a huge problem. It’s actually not a problem at all. I’m going to give Adnan Rashid a lesson in Church history on how doctrines are defined using other examples.
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.
A Turk becoming a Catholic. One must admit that this isn’t that common. In From Islam to Christ, Derya Little chronicles her journey to her belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. What a fascinating tale filled with Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and atheists.
St. Paul The Apostle
Most Muslim apologists will take the Ehrman approach to the writings of the New Testament. Because of the influence of Ehrman and others, Muslims will say that St. Paul only wrote half of what is attributed to him. Now, Muslims won’t take the content of these seven letters to heart. St. Paul is an arch-heretic to them as he destroyed the Islamic religion of Jesus Christ and the apostles.
When I first started to get into Islamic apologetics, Bart Ehrman was the big name. Muslims weren’t going to pick up the Bible to read. Why read the supposedly corrupted Bible when you can just as easily read the scholar who shows that it is corrupt. That is of course, Bart Ehrman.
The Talmud
It’s a bit annoying that Jews and Muslims don’t debate each other on religion. Christians debate Muslims. Christians debate Jews. Jews don’t debate Muslims. The most that I’ve seen is Zakir Hussain dialoguing with some Jew at Speakers Corner on whether or not Muhammad is the prophet in Deuteronomy 18. Apart from this, the only debate between Jews and Muslims that seems to happen revolves around the legitimacy of the state of Israel; a debate that I have absolutely no interest in.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem
I have often spoken about Muhammad’s Trinity blunder in Surah 5. In this surah in verses 73, 75, and 116 we see that Muhammad thought that the Trinity was Allah, Jesus and Mary instead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I was sent a conversion story about a young Englishman named Jacob Williams. He converted to Islam and he shares the reason why in First Things Magazine. He’s also quite fond of Western culture. There used to be a guy on Twitter named the Muslim Traditionalist. I don’t think he’s been active for a while but he was an interesting fellow. He’s a fan a Joseph de Maistre. Jacob Williams might very well be as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSPiqPmsJzo&t=1s
The English language is not the only Western language in which Islamic dawah is being conducted. There is of course the French language. Millions of Muslims live in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. In North Africa in countries like Morocco and Algeria, French is widely spoken. Being a Canadian who grew up speaking French, I can also help the French speaking regions fend off dawah efforts.