There is an Evangelical civil war going on in the realm of apologetics. On one side is James White who fewer and fewer apologists seem to want to affiliate with. The other side is the David Wood, Vocab Malone, Jon Mcrae and Sam Shamoun camp. This split happened a couple of years ago when James White did an interfaith event with Muslim theologian Yasir Qadhi. While I thought that this interfaith event was a mistake, I do believe that White’s opponents were too harsh on him.
Things have only intensified since David Wood and the other three have started making the series Islamicize Me. Islamicize Me is an obvious parody of Supersize Me; the only difference is that instead of eating fast food for a month, they’re following Muhammad’s commands with a specific emphasis on the strange Hadith that Muslims ignore or more likely don’t know about. James White is arguing that these acts are not Christian and are inconsistent with 1 Peter 3:15.
As with everything, I like to take a Catholic approach. Catholicism has dealt with Islam since the time of Muhammad. Islam came into existence after the Bible was written so there are no direct arguments against Islam in the Sacred Scriptures. I say direct because obviously the Scriptures oppose the teachings of Islam.
However, as a Christian who denies Sola Scriptura, I have other options to deal with. The life of the Church has given us great examples of how to deal with Muslims.
In the 8th century, St. John of Damascus wrote an early polemic against Islam. As a monk he had an amazing knowledge of Islam. In fact, I would say that he had a better knowledge of Islam than the Quran does of the Trinity. In the following centuries we have others like Al-Kindi and Theodore Abu Qurrah who argued against Islam.
The Catholic apologetics tradition against Islam continued into the second millennium and it included such people as St. Francis of Assisi, Peter the Venerable, and Pope St. Pius V. I should also add that the Ecumenical Council of Florence expressed great hope for the conversion of many Muslims.
I choose to walk in this tradition. Consistency is important to me and the whole point of this blog is to show Catholic critiques of false religion. None of the Saints of the Church who argued against Islam employed techniques such as this. They also didn’t engage in interfaith dialogue like White did, although sadly many Church prelates today like to engage in it.
To the great Catholic Saints who argued against Islam, it wasn’t Muhammad’s teaching on Mutah or blessings in the food that made Muhammad a false Prophet and Islam a false religion. Muhammad was a false Prophet because he taught against the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. While some of his teachings may seem strange to us, they’re irrelevant. This is my critique of Islam and I intend to stand by it.
I will not focus on individual trees when the entire forest is the danger. My motto on this website is Truth Without Compromise and I intend to show that Muhammad opposed the one Truth who can save humanity. Let the Evangelical civil war continue.
Yours is a valuable and wise post. I wish that we could rely on the Catholic Church to take the same approach.
Hi Christopher,
Thank you so much. I’m just trying to do my part in helping the Church.
If I could tell my readers anything, it is to take a Catholic approach to everything.
God Bless,
Allan
1.”I will not focus on individual trees when the entire forest is the danger.”- you should, because individual trees were of great importance to Muhammad. There is a hadith, in which a tree comes closer to him while he was relieving himself in order to hide him from the sight of his companions.
2. “Let the Evangelical civil war continue.”- on the contrary, we should pray it for it to end as soon as possible. It is doing harm to Christianity, because Muslims don’t really care which form of Christianity is the one, approved by God. For them all Christians are equally wrong. Seeing how people, considered to be legitimate representatives of Christianity, cannot stop quarrelling over shabby issues is only increasing Muslims’ conviction that Christians are on the wrong track. A different matter is that “Evangelical” Christianity is prone to divisions and “civil wars”, since the final authority there is mere men’s opinion of what the Bible really teaches.
May God help us all.
Well, at least Evangelicals are fighting this battle. I’m ashamed that my church doesn’t do what it once did against Islam. I don’t know of any modern Orthodox apologetics against Islam. I suppose that we both realize that and are working to change that.
You are correct. God help us all.
“I don’t know of any modern Orthodox apologetics against Islam.”- sadly, they are sporadic. One good example was the Russian priest Daniel Sysoev, murdered by an Islamic extremist in 2009. If I recall correctly, you do Russian, so here are some of his sermons and lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwotJOioNhY
Hi,
Probably the most religious Orthodox person I know told me about this man and what he did. She then said that he wasn’t supposed to be doing what he did. Sigh…
God Bless,
Allan
Hi OrangeHunter,
Yesterday, you wrote:
==Muslims don’t really care which form of Christianity is the one, approved by God. For them all Christians are equally wrong. Seeing how people, considered to be legitimate representatives of Christianity, cannot stop quarrelling over shabby issues is only increasing Muslims’ conviction that Christians are on the wrong track.==
I concur with your assessment. The implications of our Lord’s prayer to the Father in John 17 for unity sure seems to have fallen on deaf ears for most Christian folk of our age.
But with that said, Muslims have a tendency to ignore the disunity that has always existed within their own paradigm. I touch on this issue in the following thread:
73 Sects of Islam
Grace and peace,
David
After listening to the trio’s response to the objections of James White and others, I have to concur with the Islamicize Me method.
Anyone who listens to James White’s debates know that he is far, FAR harsher and uncompromising when it comes to fellow Bible believers – say, Catholics as in The Great Debates series – than he is with Muslims.
I also find it a bit of “Okay for me, but not for thee” subjectivity – James White is fond of pointing out how the ‘author of the Quran’ did not seem to know what the Doctrine of the Trinity is, what the Old and New Testament contain, etc… IOW alluding to the fact that the Quran is not authored by the true divine God.
This is obviously blasphemous and very insulting to Muslims, likely much more so than questioning the wisdom of drinking a Flies & Camel Urine mocktail.
David Wood ought to leave the parodies to someone who really has the knack for mischief and fun such as Steve Crowder. Mr Wood has much more to offer than this immature stuff.
James White appears to me to have the moral high ground in this matter, and makes his arguments against Islam with good will towards Muslims. (In sharp contrast to his severity against other Christians, in particular Catholics – as Scott has pointed out. His lack of charity – indeed hostility – is quite glaring, strange and rather exasperating.)
Have to agree that the series as a whole is somewhat tame and run of the mill, albeit with some bright spots – personally the Fly & Camel Urine concoction drunk as an aside and the visual gags in the ‘breastfeeding and adult male’ skit made me laugh.
I’ve listened to the whole 2 & 1/2 hour podcast by the three guys, as well as read several summaries and responses to the Islamicize Me / James White ‘dialogue’.
IMHO part of the disagreement might stem from White’s apparent conviction/strategy – that True Islam is peaceful and kind, so we should keep pushing that line until violent jihadis are marginalized and die out. Hence his much-criticized session where he let Yasir Qadhi get away with whitewashing Islam’s teachings.
This is in direct contrast with the majority of polemicists against Islam (Wood, Spencer, Shamoun, etc) who see the plain meaning of the Islamic texts as sponsoring violence and subjugation of nonMuslims. Hence Wood’s rejoinder, ‘Even if Muslims who watch these videos become atheists instead of Christians, at least they won’t commit jihad!’
I suspect that arguments about Biblical mandate aside, this colours a lot of the disagreements between the two sides (probably subconciously) – do we treat Islam as a respectable belief system to be wooed into modernity, or an existential threat full of ridiculousness?
The Wood-White argument is getting worse. How I wish they would stop!
Wood and Co. are definitely in the wrong and show great immaturity. David Wood has fallen greatly in my estimation and risks ruining his reputation. Dr White is more in the right in spite of his errors in dealing with Muslims (and his devotion to Calvinism).
What is all of this apologetics stuff? Is it just a game of dominance? What about the Truth and the message of Jesus Christ? Is this all just about showing off and subduing others by the force of argument?
Hi Christopher,
I agree. The Wood-White feud is getting way out of hand. I wish they would have just ignored White and moved on with their series. However, I don’t have much sympathy for White because of how extremely anti-Catholic he’s been. Wood on the other hand is not anti-Catholic.
So yeah, as I said, I would not have used Wood’s methods. Method’s aside they should have just ignored White. I wonder what the last episode will include.
God Bless,
Allan