I hope that everyone is having a great 2018. Recently I’ve been reading many medieval Christian polemics against Islam. When reading medieval Christian literature, we can’t ignore what St. Thomas Aquinas says. Sadly, I must admit the Angelic Doctor dropped the ball on this one; at least according to what he wrote in the Summa Contra Gentiles. This won’t be popular amongst my Traditional Catholic friends but I believe that I have a good argument on this one.
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.
For some reason I’ve had more than one discussion recently involving DNA sequencing and genealogy. You’re probably familiar with the whole thing where you spit in a capsule, send it to these companies and they tell you where your ancestors were from, supposedly. There are a lot of people on Youtube who make videos opening their results and they’re shocked because they didn’t know that they were Greek, Russian, Armenian, Jewish, etc.
What I found on my old bookshelf back home
I used to be a huge Dennis Prager fan. I subscribed to his podcast, owned his first five books and listened to any talk of his on YouTube that I could find. When I became a Traditional Catholic, I looked to only Scripture and Tradition for my guidance and my trust in Prager started to wane. However, I still regarded him as a “voice of reason” even though he wasn’t as influential toward my worldview as he once was.
My icon of St. Nicholas of Myra that I purchased in an Orthodox Monastery in Serbia
Has anyone asked the following question: why didn’t the so called Reformation happen in the East? Why didn’t it happen in Russia, Serbia, Romania, Greece, Armenia and other Eastern Countries that call themselves Christian. This is something that I’ve thought about for a long time and I believe that I’ve found the answer.
Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror who lived during the days when Islam was very powerful
I have often criticized fellow Christians and conservatives in my country and other Western countries for blaming societal problems on Islam and Muslims. I have often expressed anger at this because it is in my opinion an abdication of responsibility. Muslims aren’t the reason that Western countries have homosexual “marriage”, sky high abortion rates, sky high divorce rates, euthanasia, feminism, or Darwinism taught in our schools.
Donald Trump has recently announced that America will now recognize Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel. Also, he has initiated a process where the embassy will be moved to Jerusalem. This obviously has huge ramifications for the Arab Israeli conflict. I won’t comment on that here, but I do want to talk about the history of Zionism.
I remember in 2005 when homosexual “marriage” was voted on in the house. I remember where I was sitting when a majority of the Members of Parliament spat in God’s face and profaned the holy institution and marriage. However, when it was over I said to myself: At least it’s over now. We don’t have to deal with this garbage again. We can move on.
Michael Coren is the first person to block me on Twitter. I’ve been a harsh critic of his. About four years ago, he endorsed homosexual “marriage” and started attending an Anglican Church since they take a more liberal approach to sodomy. Of course, the Anglicans of old would consider this to be full blown apostasy but rationality seems to go out the window for enemies of Jesus Christ.
On November 9, Dr. Michael Brown responded to a post of mine on his podcast. Here is the link:
His response starts at 16:30 and lasts a little under 10 minutes.
Dr. Michael Brown is a very intelligent man. His Biblical scholarship is first rate. I also admire him for exposing Rabbi Tovia Singer as a liar and a charlatan. I’ve probably read a dozen of Dr. Brown’s books. I’ve learned so much from reading what he has written on the Bible. Church history on the other hand is not an area that he excels in. He responded to my October 31 post where I said that the Catholic Church and Martin Luther bear zero responsibility for the holocaust. Keep in mind, I’m only defending the Catholic Church and one Protestant. No one else. Dr. Brown didn’t seem to get that as he was quoting 20th Century Protestant scholars who said Jesus was an Aryan and Nazi Biblical scholars. Obviously I don’t endorse that kind of stupidity, nor do I say they didn’t have a hand in the holocaust.