https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcBW2r8-abk
No country in the world uses battleships anymore. You’re probably wondering why? They’re expensive, slow and are sitting ducks for navy planes. In the Russo-Japanese War(In which one of my ancestors fought in and was awarded the Cross of St. George) and World War I battleships were the way to go but now they’ve received an honorable burial. In many ways, dawah is like a battleship. It has extreme weaknesses.
I’ve been researching a lot of dawah material online. It seems that in Britain, dawah is everywhere. Britain seems to be the battleground for apologetics. It’s a shame that they aren’t Catholic anymore.
In researching their dawah material, I’ve found that they focus their efforts in two main areas. The first target is the Trinity which is no surprise. The second target is the Bible. The Bible is flawed in many ways so we have to turn to the perfect and immaculate Quran which is completely preserved, without error, and contains scientific data such as embryology. All of these claims about the Quran are false but we won’t need to address them.
These are the two prime areas of focus for the one giving dawah. I’ve noticed in my own experience in dealing with dawah folk that they don’t know a lot. They’ve only been told what questions to ask and what to present. They’re not apologists.
In three old posts that I wrote a few months ago, I wrote about the prime error in the Quran which is how it thinks the Christian Trinity contains Allah, Jesus, and Mary. The three verses to know regarding this are Surah 5 verses 73, 75, and 116.
Once they bring up the Trinity, just say that it’s an esoteric topic and that is why the Quran gets it completely wrong in Surah 5. When this happens the context of the conversation will completely change. They’ll go from attacking the Trinity to defending the Quran.
They only have two responses at this point and they’re both easily answered.
Objection #1 – Most Christians throughout history have worshiped Mary such as the Catholics, Orthodox, and the Monophysites. They even call her the mother of God.
At this point, don’t go for the red herring. They’ll say that we worship Mary, we say that we venerate her. We can argue until tomorrow. Just simply point out that Mary isn’t part of the Trinity according to any of the Creeds of these churches. Catholics don’t claim that Mary is part of the three that make up God.
Objection #2 – This is talking about some fringe sect of Christians that don’t exist anymore and we know little or nothing about them.
This is false because according to verse 116, at the end of the world, Jesus is going to go out of his way to say that he didn’t say that. On the day of Judgement, is Jesus going to answer a claim he didn’t make regarding some fringe sect that we don’t even know about or the tradition of the Catholic Church and other churches that according to Islam have sent billions of people to hell because of shirk?
Most will make the first objection but I’ve seen the second one before. Either way, they’re both easy to deal with.
What the Muslims think is their ace in the hole is actually their Achilles heel. Once this card is thrown out, the Muslims have their supposedly perfect holy book in the cross hairs and beginning to look more and more like a human document. This is the counter attack needed. It disarms them of their two main arguments. Tawheed over Trinitarianism and the Quran over the Bible.
I believe that if enough people use this tactic, dawah will become completely ineffective. They’ll at least have to change tactics and get away from the Trinity and the supposedly perfect Quran. It’s definitely a good avenue to go down since their internal dawah manuals focus on this area. We need to be familiar with Surah 5 if we live around a Muslim community. Knowing this we can confront them head on, smash their dawah, and sink their battleship.
Allan,
You make an excellent and useful observation regarding Objection No.2 – in fact you make it quite funny.
Thank you for that. The way that Muslims could wriggle out of criticism of the Koranic (Mohammed’s) view of the Trinity was a little exasperating. It takes someone with your knowledge and expertise to point out what ought to be glaringly obvious.
Thanks,
Christopher
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for the response. Even though my city has a high percentage of Muslims(5-8%) they’re completely Westernized and there isn’t much Dawah. There is a bit, though nothing compared to what you guys have in England. This tactic has never failed me however, I devised it for people who aren’t as good in defending the Trinity. Most people at the Dawah booths don’t know Christianity, the Trinity or the Bible well, they just know the areas to put pressure on such as the Trinity and the Bible.
This tactic completely turns the tables without much effort at all. That’s why its brilliant. I think that every Christian should be taught this. We should all read Surah 5 since it’s such a self inflicted wound on Islam. It’s feels odd to say this but they handed us the weapon to defeat Dawah on a silver platter.
God Bless,
Allan
Da’wah is a battleship? I do not find that analogy apt at all. I think about the Yamato, a magnificent ship that was always feared and potentially threatening. One reason why I became interested in Christian theology was a discussion I had with a sister who clearly did not know anything about the rudimentary aspects of the religion. I feel a more apt analogy would be a MLB pitcher who throws 87 mph fastballs right down the middle of plate and lacks a good secondary pitch. (Even Bartolo Colon who has excellent command is getting teed-off; he has a HR/9 of 2, last time I checked.) I felt that whatever arguments the sister was giving would get crushed.
This may be a racist thing to say, but it does reflect my experience. Westernized Muslims seem to be the best apologists (or at least those Muslims who have bothered to read the Bible and know about Christianity outside of what some simplistic Muslim pamphlet says about it). I don’t know whether Ijaz Ahmad or Adnan Rashid is “Westernized”, but regardless, he has enough exposure to Christianity to address it that most non-Westernized Muslims lack.
A part of me wants to hang it with Calvinists to discuss verses about God’s sovereignty and imputed righteousness. And to say a few jibes at Rome.
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I have thought about how should I present anti-trinitarian polemics in a potential debate. I am not worried about the quality of my arguments, but I am concerned that my line of attack would not even be appealing to other Muslims, or that it would be too complex for them to understand. (I remember there was like around ten comments on a thread that was related to Nestorian Christology while about two hundred on the Trinity). There are two lines of attack: I. argue that the Bible does not support the Homoousian trinity; II. Criticize the parts of the Bible that offer a higher Christology.
I would prefer to focus on part I although Muslims would prefer part II since assailing the Bible, to them, seems to affirm the Quran. I cannot give a Socianism interpretation of the Prologue of John and the Carmen Christi (Philippians 2:6-11). I would be arguing that the Bible itself promotes the fairly high Christology of Arianism. I would be content, and I do not consider it to be a concession, to argue that the Bible certainly does not say anything that Christ shares the same “being” or “substance” with the Father. I am satisfied with attacking the dogma of the Trinity, not necessary the New Testament itself.
Simply, I don’t think Muslims would appreciate a sister arguing for Arianism and the pre-existence of Christ, even though it is within the context of Biblical interpretation.
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I don’t think Surah 5 is that problematic. It just says that people revere Jesus and Mary to such a high degree that it is considered shirk. Catholics do commit shirk in their veneration to Mary. I sometimes visit a Catholic church, and as a Muslim, I would never even countenance the permissiability of knelling in front of a statue of Mary to pray; Catholics may not consider THAT worship, but it is still something Muslims regard as abhorrent to Allah, SWT. A problematic aspect that James White points out with that is that the Catholicism evolves, and that modern day Mariology may be more higher than what was extent in Muhammad’s, SAWS, period.
Hume in The Natural History of Religion criticizes this aspect of Catholicism. He does not leave Islam entirely untouched there though. He says Ramadan is pointless since wretches deprive themselves of water on hot days in the Middle East. He also makes fun of Islam and Catholicism at the same time in a joke. What could be better than eating the flesh of God and being to drink as much wine as you want?
Jesus, salam, is not responsible for this folly of Christianity.
Hi Latias,
I hope that you’re well. I was either going to show this Yamato clip or the audio clip of “Sink the Bismarck” though my Russo-German ancestors would probably prefer this since they were obliterated by the Japanese navy in 1905. A bit of satisfaction for them I suppose. I suppose a baseball analogy would have been equally valid although I used that in a recent post as you know. You said:
“This may be a racist thing to say, but it does reflect my experience. Westernized Muslims seem to be the best apologists (or at least those Muslims who have bothered to read the Bible and know about Christianity outside of what some simplistic Muslim pamphlet says about it). I don’t know whether Ijaz Ahmad or Adnan Rashid is “Westernized”, but regardless, he has enough exposure to Christianity to address it that most non-Westernized Muslims lack.”
I agree. I’ve talked with knowledgeable Muslims from Muslim countries. They have complete misconceptions of what Christianity teaches and wouldn’t do well in a debate since they misrepresent the faith. Muslims who have lived in the West for a long time would be less prone. I’d also be careful about the words “Westernized Muslims”. To me this sounds that they don’t believe in religious truth, don’t have a problem with things like alcohol, homosexuality or other things like that, but at the same time retain a kind of vague Islamic spirituality. I think the term “Western Muslim” would be better. Also, an interesting thing to note, is that most Catholic apologists(and usually the best ones) are ex-Evangelicals. This includes Gerry Matatics, Scott Hahn, Robert Sungenis, Steve Ray, Dave Anders, Dave Armstrong and many others. Most of the Catholic Answers apologists are converts as well such as Tim Staples and Jimmy Akin. Also the Catholic apologists from England from the Oxford movement are absolutely brilliant. All of them are former Protestants.
Let me say one thing about Jesus being the same substance as the Father. If you look at the verse you brought up in Philippians verses 10 and 11, we see that this comes directly from Isaiah 45:23 which refers to Yahweh. This is a strong argument for homoousios Christology. Look at these verses in Philippians then read the entire chapter of Isaiah 45 with a focus on verse 23. It’s pretty impressive.
“Simply, I don’t think Muslims would appreciate a sister arguing for Arianism and the pre-existence of Christ, even though it is within the context of Biblical interpretation.”
Lol, no they probably wouldn’t.
Regarding what you said about Surah 5, it is true that Islam condemns the regarding of Christ as God and the veneration of Mary as shirk. You guys would regard this veneration of Mary as de-facto deification. I fully acknowledge this. The problem that you guys have is with Surah 5 saying that Mary is part of the three that make up God for the Christians.
Some Quran translators even use the word Trinity in Chapter 5 verse 73. In verse 75 Allah goes out of his way to refute the diefication of Jesus and Mary. Verse 116 seals the deal about who the three are. Who are the three(Trinity) in verse 73? They’re identified in verse 75 and 116 as Jesus and Mary. If the Quran just accused the Christians of deifying Mary, that wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is that it’s critiquing Christians for saying that Allah is one of three, with three being a reference to the Trinity. The other two are identified in verses 75 and 116 as Jesus and Mary.
Regarding the development of Mariology, James White actually thinks that Mary being worshipped/venerated by Christians at that time is the reason the Quran got it wrong. I would recommend that you read some of the writings of St. Maximus the Confessor, St. John Damascene and St. Germanus of Constantinople to see a very advanced Mariology. They all come from around the time of Muhammad.
“Jesus, salam, is not responsible for this folly of Christianity.”
I would like to hear how you would respond to Matthew 16:18-19. I think these verses make Jesus responsible for Christian doctrine or as you put it “this folly of Christianity”.
I should also point out that this Surah 5 tactic is for fellow Christians who may not be as capable in defending the Trinity against someone giving dawah. Many dawah folk are well trained and could overwhelm many Christians in this area. It’s a way for these Christians to re-direct the conversation and completely turn the tide of the dialogue without doing much at all. Someone like me who is capable of defending the Trinity doesn’t necessarily need to use this tactic.
God Bless,
Allan
Trying to let the Koran off the hook by saying that the ayah in surah 5 refer to an exaggerated reverence for Mary doesn’t work, as Allan has reiterated in his reply to you.
But he ought have had to do repeat all this because his original statements on the matter were quite clear. This is another aspect of the Muslim approach to religious discussion, it is somewhat related to the nit-picking that Allan mentioned in an earlier article: namely obfuscation.
Christians venerate Mary the mother of Jesus, they do not put her on a level with God nor do they consider that she is a god as the Koran asserts. Some Christians may show particular devotion to Our Lady but none worship her as Divine.
Think on this too: Muslims greatly revere Mohammed, they even mention him in the same breath as Allah in the Shahada. Why isn’t that shirk? Non-believers can even get themselves killed by Muslims for drawing a picture of Mohammed.
I am sure that no Muslim would consider that their devotion to Mohammed puts him on a level with Allah, so how then would a Muslim consider that the particular devotion of some Christians appears to put her on a level with God?
No, it is quite clear that the author of the Koran misunderstands the beliefs of Christians and shows his ignorance. The Koran is clearly not the work of an all-seeing, all-powerful God but the work of an imposter. We must make this Truth known.
Ending dawah=ending Islam, so dawamongers surely will not “go gentle into the good night”. Islam is not Judaism, it cannot encapsulate itself in a social/theological shell. It needs to grow, to expand, to dominate, to engulf. Otherwise it will die out.
“Objection #2 – This is talking about some fringe sect of Christians that don’t exist anymore and we know little or nothing about them.”- it is very tempting to ask Muslims why the supposedly eternal and uncreated heavenly tablets of Allah mention a group of disbelievers that got extinct relatively quickly and wasn’t very influential anyway. It seems to be an inexplicable waste of divine space and time, at least to me, especially if we take into account all the vital information that the Quran fails to mention.
Hi Orangehunter,
I’ve found that they normally go with Objection 1. It’s only apologists who have thought this out and firmly acknowledge that the Quran isn’t speaking about the Christian Trinity in Surah 5. In dawah they’ll mostly go with 1.
You’re correct on Objection 2. While it solves on problem, it creates another much bigger problem.
Regarding the Quran, I’m re-reading it now. It seems that one cannot understand the Quran without a firm Biblical foundation, yet it contradicts it. Intentionally? I don’t know. But I’m betting most Muslims who live and grow up in Muslim countries cannot put certain prophets in order. It’s entirely dependent on the Biblical narrative.
God Bless,
Allan
You really believe in that anti-Islamic rhetoric. Muslims really aren’t that fervent in spreading the deen.
Most Muslim I know really don’t care about Da’wah. They are behind on that compared to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Muslims that I know would be content with the something similar to the “cart witnessing” of the J-dubs, where they man some booth that has some pamphlets. They simply convert some of the people who manage to walking into a masjid or MSA meeting. Not much proselytization, if any, there.
This would simply fail because most people would not become interested in a religion based on pamphlets people offer. I think this is one reason why among J-dubs, the number of service hours per new convert in increasing. People who tend to focus on STEM and have no knowledge in history, philosophy, or religion would be very ineffective on an intellectual level.
The Bible fails to mention many other things too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRXerMTgClE (see 59:40-1:02:45)
I would rather use Romans 9, instead of the questions posed to Job to demonstrate the sovereignty of God.
1.”You really believe in that anti-Islamic rhetoric.”- which rhetoric are you referring to? Is it this: “Who is better in speech than ONE WHO CALLS TO ALLAH, does righteous deeds and says indeed I am among the Muslims?”(Sura 41:3).Or maybe this: “Let there arise among you a group INVITING TO ALL THAT IS GOOD, ENJOINING RIGHTEOUSNESS AND FORBIDDING EVIL. THOSE ARE THE SUCCESSFUL ONES.”(Sura 3:104) Nah, I’m sure it’s more like this: “Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good preaching.”(Sura 16:125)
2. “Most Muslim I know really don’t care about Da’wah”- that’s good to hear, but the (relatively) few who do care are not to be neglected, because there are some incredibly ignorant people out there who actually do get persuaded by dawah propaganda. Besides, dawah is not necessarily spread of Islam through preaching and calling, but also running sites like call-to-monotheism.com and callingchristians.com. They are fairly popular among Islamic apologists, so their content should not be ignored by Christians when dealing with Muslim polemics.
3. “The Bible fails to mention many other things too.”- unlike the Quran, the Bible doesn’t repeat over and over again that it’s “fully detailed” and “explained in details”. Yes, the Bible does not mention the eye color of St. John and the height of St. Paul. But these things are not the point of the Bible, nor are the gravity and formation of the stars and galaxies. The Bible is theologically complete, telling us everything we need to know about the way of being right with God and getting saved. The Quran for some reason skips the Messiah’s status and mission, fails to tell us how many persons is Allah, refers to events and people that have no any importance whatsoever (like the prophet Moses chasing a magic stone that ran off with the prophet’s clothes on it or the small Jewish community in Yemen that allegedly believed Ezra is the son of Allah).
4. “I would rather use Romans 9, instead of the questions posed to Job to demonstrate the sovereignty of God.”- I think that St. Paul is pretty much echoing the Book of Job in Romans 9. In any case the message is quite similar: human beings are not allowed to question God’s decisions and sovereignty over one’s faith.
I feel that I have to give this a stab.
I was listening to a priest’s talk on Friday when he gave his lectures for perseverance for doing a holy hour. He specifically mentioned the prophesy of Jesus, pbuh, in Mark 14 that his disciples and Peter would betray him.
One could interpret that prophesy and the one that Jesus alludes to in Zechariah are predicting that the church scatter, in addition to his imminent betrayal. I wonder if the JWs, Mormons or Iglesia ni Cristo, but more importantly historical Protestants, have used such a verse to argue for the “Great Apostasy”. It is most likely tenuous, but the Great Apostasy is what I thought immediately thought of when the Father cited it.
Certainly, one can say it is through the charisms (1 Corinthians 12) of the Holy Spirit that the gospel was preached throughout the Roman Empire to both the Jews and Gentiles (Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:19), and that this was according to the eternal will of God (See Galatians 1:15). Now, one critical question concerns the nature of the ekklesia (or church) that the power of the Holy Spirit had established. There were nascent Christian communities established by Paul, and often needed some correction (which is why Paul wrote to the Corinthians and Galatians), while other communities were praised such as some of the seven churches in Asia Minor. There is definitely a sense of unity within the early Christian creed of salvation through the grace of Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). (I don’t know the verse, if any, that Paul said that Christians are united in one baptism.) A verse that you have applied polemically describes a possible condition for the apostasy of the church. I had actually looked up how the pronoun in the English translation was used; it is actually ” katērgēthēte”, a verb that is the aorist indicative passive tense whose subject refers to the second person plural. I am referring to Galatians 5:4, and interestingly Calvin’s commentary on that verse did not even bother to explain how it could be reconciled with the perseverance of the saints (as the saints are comprised of individuals) because Calvin interpreted you to refer to the Church. (I don’t recall James White saying that in his debate against Trent Horn, perhaps because Trent Horn brought it up during cross-examination and James White did not have time to look it up.) “You who have been severed from Christ” refers to the Church of Galatia who are following the teachings of the “superapostles” who emphasize works such as circumcision as contributing to one’s salvation. A Calvinist can use that verse to argue that the Church has fallen away because it teachings on the sacraments are similar to what the Judiazers of Galatia had been teaching.
Note: looking at the Greek for “falling away” in Galatians 5:4 and Mark 14:27, a different verb is used. For the latter, it is “skandalisthēsesthe” versus “exepesate”. “skandalizó” means to put a snare (in the way), hence to cause to stumble, to give offense.
This is the translation of Calvin’s commentary on Galatians 5:3. I have included it because it refer to Rome negatively and indicts the Papacy for committing a similar theological error:
Note to self, read Calvin’s commentary on Romans 6:1-6.
Now, I’ll refer to Matthew 16:18-19. Certainly God could preserve his Kingdom however he sees fit. I’ll simply recall a different halaqa from the same imam. He said that there was some Masjid in Spain that included the inscription that Allah, SWT, would preserve his religion. The Masjid, as a magnificent building, was preserved the conquerors who did not want to demolish such a magnificent work of architecture. In a similar way, God (whether it is the particular deity of the JW Jehovah or the Islamic Allah) could preserve the key tenets of their religion, even if the infidels and apostates have used their authority to corrupt religious dogma so that it does not represent what is in God’s word.
(That halaqa occurred about seven months ago, so I may not be recalling it correctly.)
Hey, God sent another prophet or institution, whether it is Charles Taze Russell or the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society or Joseph Smith or Felix Manalo, to preach the unadulterated truth to the world. While Jesus died in due time (kairos idios, 1 Timothy 2:6) or when the the fullness of time (pleroma tou chronou; Galatians 4:4) had come, similarly there would be others to preach, with alacrity, the good news of the Kingdom of God.
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I don’t think a Muslim would particularly care for that, because it relies on “corrupted” scripture (i.e. those that come from the “false prophet” of Paul* or Gospel verses that do not match up with the Quran says since it speaks of people being baptized in the name of the Son). It is something that I have originally thought of.
Muslims could say that Matthew 16:18-19 were corrupted, and just end it there. I haven’t heard of a response with more ingenuity than that.
* I call the Apostle Paul a “false prophet” in the character and tone of a more typical Muslim who tends to despise him. I do not regard Paul as a true prophet, but I would never call him that in front of Christians and Muslims. Unlike most Muslims, I see some utility from his epistles because a reasonable exegesis of his work supports monergism and predestination, which a Muslim can find some value in. I respect the man.
Looking at the Greek interlinear and the King James Version, it says.
“And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” – KJV
The Greek has the prepositional adverb phrase “en te nykti” (on the night) while the NIV and NASB omits the mention of “night”. So one has to say that the verse applies twice in order to use it as a scriptural support for the Great Apostasy. Even so, it seems that the grammar of the adverbial phrase does not specifically hinder the prophesy to that night, but rather that it would be fulfilled on that night. The prophesy may also apply again at another time.
http://biblehub.com/interlinear/mark/14-27.htm
Hi Latias,
Thanks for the response. I suppose a question that I have to ask, is do you think that the Great Apostasy can reasonably be gathered from scripture? You obviously think that it’s somewhat difficult seeing your second comment.
I believe that Galatians 5:4 is talks about individuals if you read the verse closely. It’s not talking about entire churches. You’re correct, I think Galatians 5:4 is the silver bullet against POTS.
“Now, I’ll refer to Matthew 16:18-19. Certainly God could preserve his Kingdom however he sees fit.”
By filling it up with false doctrine like Jesus dying and resurrecting and shirk? I don’t buy that.
“I’ll simply recall a different halaqa from the same imam. He said that there was some Masjid in Spain that included the inscription that Allah, SWT, would preserve his religion. The Masjid, as a magnificent building, was preserved the conquerors who did not want to demolish such a magnificent work of architecture. In a similar way, God (whether it is the particular deity of the JW Jehovah or the Islamic Allah) could preserve the key tenets of their religion, even if the infidels and apostates have used their authority to corrupt religious dogma so that it does not represent what is in God’s word.”
A building is not a religion. A building is a building. I’m guessing that this mosque is no longer being used as one. It’s probably a museum like most former mosques in Spain. Hence, Islam is no longer being preached in that building.
So God can preserve the faith even when the Church teaches false doctrine including shirk? I think that your interpretation empties this promise of any meaning. Since the time of Christ, the Catholic Church has always been there whether it’s 300, 500, 1000, or 2018. Mormonism, JW’s, Ahmadiyya or Muslims cannot say this. Their theological deviations came when their so called prophets or teachers came on the scene to restore the religion that has completely disappeared from history(without a trace I might add). What I’m trying to say is that there is no need for the Great Apostasy if you’re Catholic. You need it if you believe in modern religions like Mormonism, JW, Ahmadiyya or Islam.
Another verse that I never brought up is the Paraclete sayings. I know that you probably think this refers to Muhammad but John 14:26 clearly says it’s the Holy Spirit. John 16:13 says that He will guide them into all truth. That’s hard to square with the Great Apostasy on which Mormonism, Islam and (let’s face it) Protestantism rely upon.
I’m curious, why do you still go to Catholic churches? You’re no longer Catholic and you seem to embrace a lot of Calvinist polemics against it, even though you’re not a Calvinist. Btw, I’m going to make a prediction right now that you’ll convert to Calvinism. Of course, I’d like to see you back in the Catholic Church but I honestly don’t see you going there, at least not anytime soon.
God Bless,
Allan
Allan,
as salaamu alaykum,
I do not think that the Great Apostasy could be argued from scripture. I was wondering how it could be argued. I haven’t heard anyone quote Mark 14:27-28 to support it. A Muslim could simply say that Matthew 16 is not inspired, and that would just conclude a discussion, but a Christian may need scriptural support, particular if they are following someone who claims to be a final prophet (as I have enumerated Manalo, Smith, and Russell) they would need a scriptural rationale instead of merely asserting it. Calvin and Luther never really claimed to be prophets. James White remarked that the Holy Spirit was with the church from the apostolic period to the council of Nicaea, so he does not find evidence of an apostasy.
I would not use that argument seriously anymore since good arguments from the Christian scriptures should not be easily brushed aside from other verses. Jesus said that he would be with the disciples from the “now to the end of the age”, the verse after Matthew 28:19 to the book. I seriously forgot about that verse while writing the above, and it handily deals with what I have written. Of course, “disciples” could easily mean “the church”. I am not the type of the person who would tendentiously argue that “age” means the “apostolic age”.
I don’t think the Paraclete refers to Muhammad. A liberal Biblical scholar can point out that John has been influenced the other Gospels (though they would say that they are theological different and if you get the author of Mark and John in a bar, they would accuse each other of heresy). The Gospels can be reasonable be interpreted of speaking of the Holy Spirit as an entity or a person (as opposed to a power). After all, blasphemy could be forgiven against the Father and the Son, but not against the Spirit. I think the best explanation is that Mark thinks the Holy Spirit is an entity. Saying that God’s power (as the holy spirit) is malevolent is a blasphemy against God! And he could certainly forgive that as the text says! John’s gospel most likely refers to the Holy Spirit.
After all, why take that Gospel as inspired? Why take John 14 seriously? Muslims do not take Jesus’ command in John 6 seriously, since there is nothing resembling the eucharist in Islam, even as a symbolic or metaphorical commemoration.
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I sometimes attend Mass to listen to homilies and the scripture readings. I often to do not know any people at the parishes that I visit, so I am effectively shunned there. I suppose that I could approach some young adults after Mass and try to start a conversion. Many just want to go home, and not really talk about theology and philosophy on a high level.
I would call myself a bad Muslim. I make about 60% salat, don’t wear hijab (which I see as advantageous when going to a Church), and (of course) listen to music, some of it having profanity* (as many Muslims think music is haram). I listen to something that many Muslims would consider makroo, even more than profane secular music, because that would imitating the non-Muslims. I like to listen to a “Mighty Fortress is Our God” especially the lyrics of “our striving would be losing”. I honestly do not any other Muslim would like it.
Yes, I don’t eat pork, drink alcohol, or gamble.
For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBsK50TqvU0 (Eminem here with James Shields)
I am still a Muslim for three reasons:
1. I don’t believe in original sin.
2. I believe in the unity of God, not trinity
3. I do not think the atonement is necessary.
I do feel that I am competent enough to defend basic Reformed theology on a scriptural basis. I am enamored with monergism and predestination. However, such soteriology has to be interpreted in a way that is compatible with Islam. After all, no Muslim can believe in Pauline/Reformation doctrine of imputed righteousness through faith. Given that I interpret salvation as something that is only granted through Allah’s mercy to make it similar to monergism, in an attempt to make Islam sound dissimilar to Catholicism (with its notion of indulgences), I would tend to downplay the notion of good deeds as negating a sin. I would have the tendency downplay the good deeds while emphasizing forgiveness. I would emphasize the futility of our ability to please God and human weakness.
Allan, when I decided in my endeavor to read Christian scriptures, I honestly did not expect that I would actually respect the Apostle Paul more. I have decided to engage those scriptures in depth because I had personally an experience when I realized that most Muslims (speaking strictly about most of my peers) cannot adequately address Christianity. I find it pathetic when some Muslims accuse Paul advocating intentionally lying based on atrocious interpretations of 1 Corinthians 9 and Philippians 1.
I honestly listened to more James White, than any other Muslim in the last months. I have him quite intellectually engaging and theological appealing, and not offensive.
I am disappointed that I do not have many opportunities to use my knowledge of the Christian scriptures and philosophy to engage in polemics or an interfaith dialogue. I often feel useless.
Hi Latias,
You say a lot of interesting things here. I find you to be very honest and sincere with your scriptural findings. It sounds like you’re going through a period of searching. I know that it can be difficult. I went through soul searching back in 2007 and I was asking a lot of questions.
Your search is good. I would recommend that you keep praying and keep asking questions. I find it encouraging that you still attend churches. Unfortunately most churches have weak communities and that’s probably why everyone wants to leave after Mass. It took me a long time to find a good community in my city.
One thing that really caught my eye is that when you gave your three reasons for still being Muslim, it wasn’t pro-Islamic reasons but anti-Christian reasons. You weren’t enthralled by Muhammad or the Quran, but turned off by certain Christian doctrines. I think that’s something to think about.
“Allan, when I decided in my endeavor to read Christian scriptures, I honestly did not expect that I would actually respect the Apostle Paul more.”
I actually know what you mean. I’ve never had an anti-Pauline bias like you would have had from Islam but I do remember in my first stages of reading the Bible, asking myself, why is this Paul character here with his letters? Aren’t the Gospels enough? Reading the writings of St. Paul really will really hit you like a sledgehammer if you read with an open heart. Paul makes me feel so unworthy to be a Christian. A man who came from such a position of prestige would give it all up to join the lowly movement he was persecuting. He’s the proof that there is hope for everyone on this Earth.
I will pray for you Latias, and you’re always welcome to email me at alruhl25@gmail.com.
God Bless,
Allan