Zwemer Center

What God is Doing in the House of Islam with David Garrison

Synopsis:

When the news depicts only tragedy, it begs the question, “is this all there is?”  David Garrison shares his findings from his book, “A Wind in the House of Islam” and reminds us that God is always moving.

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Here starts the auto-generated transcription of What God is Doing in the House of Islam:

 

 

I talked to a shake in the horn of Africa who I said tell me your story because he had he came to breakfast with me. It was a day after Christmas back in 2011. He had, 9 guys, I think it was with him, and he had led about 7 of them to Christ and those 7 were imams and shakes. So I asked him, I said, tell me, how did you come to faith? And he said, well, someone, this in this case, it was an African evangelist gave him a new testament in Arabic.

 

Now Arabic is not the language of that culture, so it’s a little bit strange. But because he was a sheik and he had been studying the Quran since he was 2 years old, he understood Arabic. Furthermore, it created a bit of a conflict because he says, you know, I knew Arabic was God’s language. This could not be corrupted. So he started from this basis of here’s an Arabic, New Testament.

 

He begins reading it that night. He put it under his pillow, went to sleep, and he had a dream. In his dream, he said, I saw, there was this minaret. At the top, it had a big loudspeaker on it, and someone was working on the loudspeaker. It was broken, but the the minaret started shaking.

 

And I looked down at the bottom to see why was it shaking? And someone at the bottom of the minaret had an axe and they were chopping down the minaret. And I looked at the person and I looked closely his face and it was me. Once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist. Islamic extremists.

 

These and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the Truth About Muslims podcast. The official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor.

 

Alright. Welcome to the Truth About Muslims podcast. We’re super excited because today we have a very special guest. Trevor, you wanna introduce him? I I I just wanna point out that Howard said super excited.

 

I am also super excited. We have David Garrison in the studio today. And David Garrison, wrote a book, a while back called Church Planning Movements. And Howard and I read that when we were Youth With A Mission missionaries and thought, man, this guy sounds awesome. And now, he’s in the studio.

 

Right. That that was like the most official church planning book that we’ve ever seen and we’re like, this is what real missionaries do. That’s right. And so, Garrison, you have a a new book out, A Wind in the House of Islam, How God is Drawing Muslims Around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ. And I I say this with no exaggeration.

 

This is only one of 2 books that I have read cover to cover in one sitting. This book is an excellent account of what God is doing in the world, how he is drawing Muslims to himself. And so, David, welcome to the studio. Let’s start with just how did you even get the idea to write or take on such a huge task of documenting what God is doing in the Muslim world? Well, you know when I was assigned as a missionary back in 1992 to Libyan Arabs, my wife and I went to North Africa, began studying Arabic, moved around from Egypt to Tunisia and various other places.

 

And I think during that time, Trevor, we learned, hundreds of ways not to win Muslims to Christ. I also know those ways, my friend. It was it was striking. I think the only movement we’d ever heard of, and by that I mean at least a 1000 baptisms, was was actually taking place in neighboring Algeria. But other than that, you could look across the Muslim world and they were just the last of the giants.

 

There just wasn’t much going on. Now fast forward a decade later, I’m living in India with my my family and we have Muslim background believers who are evangelists, they’re church planters. We’re seeing multiple networks of Muslim movements to Christ. So move flash forward a few years later by 2009, I’m approached by some Christians who say, you know, we’re hearing more and more reports. Are you hearing this too?

 

I said yes. They said look we’ve got a little foundation that we would like to fund you to go and investigate these movements. Find out what’s going on. I told him I said you know that’s been on my my bucket list for a while. I think I’m getting too close to kicking that bucket.

 

I’m not sure I can actually do it. But but I was game to try and so we set out a project that would take the International Mission Board. Southern Baptist supported this as well for me to take the next 3 years to travel wherever I needed to go to to investigate these movements and, to ask the fundamental question, what did God use to bring you to faith in Christ? Well, even before that, in the beginning of the book, you talk about for the first 1300 years of history with Christian Muslim interaction, there is virtually no movements of Muslims to Christ. There are actually and I I’m glad you put this in the book because I felt like it was it was honest.

 

There were a lot of absorption of Christian communities by Muslims and there were virtually no Muslims moving to Jesus, no movements. Yeah. This is something I had to look into because my background is in church history. I’ve got a degree from the University of Chicago and I knew that as sure as I published this and said, oh look what an amazing thing is happening right now. Some historian would step up and say, of course that also happened in the 15th century, 13th century, twice in the 11th century, and of course everyone knows about the movements that took place in the 10th century.

 

So I had to go back and check and see when have there been movements of Muslims to Christ. So I’ll go all the way back to the year 6 22 really when Mohammed declared his religion, and in 632 when he died. And I wanted to see any time in history and any expression of Christianity, when we had at least a 1,000 baptisms. And you know the first 350 years, we finally see one movement that takes place up on the Syria Turkey border. We go 2 centuries later, we see 2 maybe movements.

 

One is taking place in the Levant during the occupied period of the the crusades. Another one takes place, a very cryptic one takes place down in Libya where 64100 Libyans are baptized. And then there’s this half a millennium of silence. No movements whatsoever until 18/70. And we see the first modern movement of Muslims to Christ.

 

It happens in Indonesia. And, over the next few decades, some 10 to 20 1,000 Indonesian Muslims are baptized to become followers of Jesus. And that begins something. A decade later there’s a movement in Ethiopia. Then you go into the 20th century.

 

The first half of the twentyth century there’s not a movement to be found anywhere in the world. Now meanwhile, let me back up and just say there are tens of millions of Christians who have been assimilated into the Muslim world during the same time frame. We can’t even find, you know, a single movement of a 1000 Muslims who went the other way, who became followers of Christ. Until 1960 5, a trigger takes place in Indonesia. It’s called the year of living dangerously.

 

When in an effort to stamp out communism in the country after an aborted communist coup. Muslims turn against their neighbors and they killed some 500,000 some say as many as a 1000000 Indonesian citizens wiped out in a door to door campaign that horrifies many people in Indonesia and leads to the largest turning of Muslims to Christ in history to that date. In the years 1967 to 1971, we have 2,800,000 Indonesians are baptized into churches. The vast majority of those, probably 2,000,000 of those are actually Muslims who come to Christ. By the end of the century across the Muslim world in Algeria and Bangladesh and Central Asia, we now have 11 movements of Muslims to Christ at the end of 20th century.

 

And that brings us if you will right up to the present. Well let’s ask about that first movement. So so just to recap we have 1300 years of virtually nothing. Yes. And then you said there’s a trigger where there’s that first significant movement there in Indonesia.

 

One of the things you talked about was the the violence that took place leading up to that was actually Muslim violence against fellow Muslim. Well, that’s one of the striking things about this. You know, we we often see the Muslim on Muslim violence and we’re horrified by it. We draw from it, we wanna just say, you know, what an evil religion or whatever. The fact is the people who are hurt the most by Muslim on Muslim violence is is Muslims.

 

And many of them who say, you know, I became a Muslim. I was born in a Muslim family. I never thought about having to kill someone for my faith. I didn’t consider that to be God’s will, it just can’t be. And so when they see this outbreak of violence their response is to say, you know, this is not the religion for me.

 

This cannot be God’s ideal. So what we saw happen in Indonesia with that massive turning back in 19 the the violence is in 1965. The the turning was 1967 to 71. We see that same pattern repeated in a place like Bangladesh. Where they were up until 1971 they were East Pakistan and West Pakistan is what we know of as Pakistan today.

 

They declared their independence. Bangladesh declared its independence in 1971. Horrible civil war broke out. Hundreds of thousands of Bengalis were killed. Many of them raped, others just execution style.

 

And it’s on the heels of that violence that we start seeing reports of 1000 of Bengalis coming to faith in Jesus Christ. So it sounds like the the the thing that’s happening over and over and over again is when Muslims are becoming violent, the there’s Muslims that come to the Lord. Yes and no. That’s a good question, Howard. Yes.

 

In the sense that that’s what we’re seeing today. And so you could jump over for example to Iran. 1979, the Ayatollah comes to power. Tremendous violence and then a big movement. The same thing in Algeria, the 19 nineties.

 

A civil war leaves a 100000 Algerians dead, and then there’s a big movement. The problem with that theory though is this, there’s been violence in the Muslim history for nearly 14 centuries? Why have there not been movements before now? Okay. So if you go back for example to the the 13th century and the 14th century, a time of Tamerlane.

 

Tamerlane killed 5% of the earth’s population. Why were there no movements then? Okay. There’s this is one of those points in the book where I actually wrote in the margins, no way. Because Tamerlane kills 17,000,000 people.

 

It’s unfathomable to us today to think of 17,000,000 people being slaughtered. With no weapons of mass destruction. Right. And and Muslims, Christians, Hindus, he’s just murdering everybody he comes across. And then I read in the book this story about this anthropologist.

 

Could you share that story with us? Because that really just I had goosebumps and I thought I’ve gotta verify this thing and I’m sure you’ve done it, so I would just like to hear it from you. Well, the anthropologist, I believe it was, Gerasimov, as I recall. They unearthed, Tamerlane’s, sarcophagus, and they wanted to study this guy. You know, he’s all under Soviet control.

 

This was in 19, what, 42, something like that. And, so they they pry the lid off of his, coffin to look at his body to study it. And there, inscribed in the inside of his coffin, it says, whoever disturbs his coffin, a, a, an attacker or something Unleash a Unleash a person twice as vile as me or wicked as me. Even greater than than Tamerlane, that they’ll unleash some force. And so, sure enough, it was like 2 days after they opened up the tomb that, Hitler, turned.

 

Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU. CIU educates people from a bib Biblical.

 

Biblical world review World view. Real world review. Kids say. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. They unearthed, Tamerlane’s, sarcophagus.

 

And they wanted to study this guy. You know it was all under Soviet control this was in 19 what 42 something like that. And so they they pry the lid off of his coffin to look at his body to study it. And there inscribed in the inside of his coffin it says whoever disturbs his coffin a, a an attacker or something, unleash a a person twice as vile as me or wicked Even greater than than Tamarlane. That they’ll unleash some force.

 

And so, sure enough it was like 2 days after they opened up the tomb that, Hitler, turned on his Soviet ally and led Operation Barbarossa, which was the largest invasion of any country that we’ve had in history. And by the end of the war it had extracted some 20,000,000 Soviet lives, which is 3,000,000 more than, Tamarlane’s reign had extracted. And at the end of the war they actually near the end of the war they sealed Tamerlane back up in his tomb and buried him. Actually, they put him back in a sarcophagus and sealed it with full Islamic ceremony. And within just a few days after that, Hitler was defeated and, it was the end of the war.

 

So there’s some weird stuff going on. Yeah. Like, I’m kinda like I’m squinting a little bit. I’m like, But it but super interesting. Mhmm.

 

But wouldn’t you say that, Tamalein is not not a good example of, Muslim violence because it was a person that was I can make a list. I can give you a list of Muslim violence. It’s just it’s been endemic to Islamic history. Violence has the difference and this is what we’re getting at Howard. The difference is today Mhmm.

 

The bible has been translated into the language of these people. The Musalmani Bingali bible translation was done just as they were emerging out of their war of liberation. So they were starting to get portions of the New Testament, and then finally the entire New Testament. The same thing was happening over in Algeria where they were starting to get radio broadcast. They even did a walk through the Bible in the local language of the people in Algeria.

 

Wow. So they were getting the scripture just as they were asking the questions. Can this really be the will of God, this horrible violence? The same thing was going on in Iran. Just as the Ayatollah was coming to power, we were starting to see new translations in the Farsi language, Persian language that were being widely disseminated underground over a 1000000 copies now inside Iran.

 

So that’s that’s a part of the secret here. It’s not just the violence. It’s the violence coupled with an alternative. Right. And the alternative is now coming in through satellite television, through radio broadcast, through Jesus films, through internet, etcetera.

 

So this is one of the parts of the book I found fascinating is that the king of Saudi Arabia is funding to see or, you know, former king’s funding to see, the the Quran translated into every, you know, tribe, tongue, and language. Essentially, he has his own desire for Quran translation. And you mentioned that this is actually having a negative effect for the Muslim communities. How is that so? Well, it’s amazing isn’t it?

 

I think, King Fahd, peace be upon him, he passed away a few years ago. He saw the tremendous advances that were being generated by indigenous language translations, colloquial language translations of the bible into every language of the world. And he said, you know, that’s why these Christians are expanding going into places. Our Arabic is stuck in 7th century Arabic. Theologically they believe it cannot be translated because that’s the language of God.

 

The problem is nobody speaks 7th century Arabic, not even Arabs. You know they can understand it to some extent, but most Muslims, the vast majority Muslims, to them it’s a mystery. So King Fahd got the idea, let’s set up a foundation and a big printing translation center and let’s get the Quran into all the languages of the Muslim world and beyond. What he did not anticipate is that when Muslims began reading the Quran in their own language and they saw what it was, it was no longer a mystical, magical, mysterious holy book. It was something they understood and frankly it offered no salvation.

 

In fact, the only promise of salvation is if you die in the cause of Jihad, in the cause of defending or advancing the faith. So other than that they’re left with that when you ask a Muslim, do you know if you were to die tonight that Allah would let you into heaven? They can only say Insha’Allah. You know, God willing. And as Christians, of course, we have a very different, relationship with God because it’s based upon not what we do, but based on what God did for us in Jesus Christ.

 

And Muslims are finding that that that they need that same assurance of Salvation. We had so many Muslims we talked to, we asked and said, how did you come to faith in Christ? The guy said, well, you know, I’d I’d read the Quran, I’d memorized it in Arabic, but I didn’t really understand it. And then someone said, oh, it’s now been translated into Bengali, the Bangla. And I read it in Bangla, and for the first time I realized I was lost.

 

Wow. Okay. So a a question I have is what kept them in the Muslim faith when they didn’t have understanding? Was it the imams, the teachings, the the culture? Well the very fact that, to convert from Islam is a capital offense is a pretty good incentive to stay a Muslim.

 

Yeah. That’s a good incentive. That’s pretty effective. Yeah. That’s that’s been a pretty effective tool.

 

I tell people that Islam is like a superhighway that’s been growing over years. It’s got all on ramps but no off ramps. There’s many, many incentives to become a Muslim but there’s really no way off of that highway. That’s a good way of explaining it. When we’re thinking about the Quran there was another part that I thought was really interesting because I’ve heard rumors of this, and I’m so glad that you went and researched it and found out that it’s actually credible.

 

But we have Imams, Muslim leaders, sheikhs, scholars that are coming to faith in Christ in in in certain places. Tell us a little bit about that. We saw that in several places. It has been kind of a surprise. I think we often think about going after the low lying fruit, the person’s non literate, the person’s marginal, or person is unemployed.

 

I don’t know why but I reminded him why when we called it hunting evangelism, you kinda look for the lowly guy that looks lonely and maybe he would be open to the gospel and you go and you pull him aside and we’ll tell him the gospel. But you’re saying it’s the it’s the high learned scholars. Well, it’s it’s probably happening all over the all over the place, and so you’re probably getting every sector of society. But I was struck many times. I was taken to to meet a sheikh or an imam.

 

I talked to a sheikh in the Horn of Africa who I said tell me your story because he had had he came to breakfast with me. It was a day after Christmas back in 2011. He had, 9 guys, I think it was with him and he had led about 7 of them to Christ and those 7 were imams and shakes. So I asked him, I said, tell me, how did you come to faith? And he said, well, someone, this in this case, it was, an African evangelist gave him a new testament in Arabic.

 

Now Arabic is not the language of that culture, so it’s a little bit strange. But because he was a a sheikh and he had been studying the Quran since he was 2 years old, he understood Arabic. Furthermore, it created a bit of a conflict because he says, you know, I knew Arabic was God’s language. This could not be corrupted. So he started from this basis of here’s an Arabic, New Testament.

 

He begins reading it that night. He put it in Arabic, New Testament. He begins reading it. That night, he put it under his pillow, went to sleep, and he had a dream. In his dream, he said, I saw, there was this minaret at the top, it had a big loud speaker on it, and someone was working on the loud speaker, it was broken but the the minaret started shaking.

 

And I looked down at the bottom and see why was it shaking? And someone at the bottom of the minaret had an axe and they were chopping down the minaret. And I looked at the person and I looked closely at his face and it was me. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors, and this week’s sponsors are Swammer Center. Swammer Center.

 

The Swammer Center. The Wammer Center. Zwemer Center. And what does the Zwemer Center do? Talks about Muslims and and tells them on computers that we love you.

 

Very nice. The Wehmer Center equips the church to reach Muslims. The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. He said I had the same dream four times and so the next morning I went and I found that evangelist who gave me the new testament. And I told him my dream and I said, what does this mean?

 

He looked at me and he smiled and he said, you are going to win many shakes to faith in Jesus Christ. That is so cool. So I was baptized. I I don’t even know if we would we would probably say you probably you had some bad pizza, you ate too late last night. We have to open our our eyes to the fact that God is doing miraculous things in the Muslim world.

 

Things that we don’t have categories for sometimes. And yet it’s, you know, we have dismissed dreams in the West. When you read the Bible though, dreams just they’re pervasive through the bible. From from old testament Joseph, you know, who had dreams and interpret them, to new testament Joseph who saved the baby Jesus. Because in a dream he was warned to go to Egypt.

 

Right. Okay. So back to that first point when we were talking about why Muslims were coming to the Lord. And we’re saying that it’s more than just violence. It’s violence coupled with actually having truth Mhmm.

 

And that they’re finding that the Bible does have salvation in it as opposed to the Quran when they look at the Quran and they read it in their own language and see. But what about the argument that, whenever it’s translated, the Quran is translated from Arabic, that it is no longer the truth or not the truth, but, skewed. I would use that story too because you gotta have some reason to explain why this thing no longer has the power. And and it is frankly, it is more powerful not understood than understood. And I to try to help Christians understand, I point to to our own history.

 

In the middle ages, when the Bible was in Latin, originally you know it was translated in the Latin to make it available to the people because that was their language. It was called the Vulgate Right. Or the the common language. By the middle ages no one was understanding Latin anymore except the priests, and the people were illiterate yet they revered the Bible as somehow a magical holy book. And when they would go into the the the mass, each week on Sunday, they would go in and they would see the priest.

 

He would take the host. He would take the body or or the bread and he would lift it up over his head and he would speak scripture in Latin. Here’s what he would say. In Latin he would say, hoc est corpus meum. This is my body.

 

Sounds like hocus pocus. Exactly. That’s what the people heard. They heard hocus pocus. And that’s the origins really of our magical formula.

 

Because at that point when he said this is my body, hocus corpus mayum. What was happening in their understanding was that bread was being magically transubstantiated into the body of Christ. Well if we had the same misunderstanding, imagine how Muslims are when they hear formulas. In fact in some places when you go to a pharmacy in an Islamic market and you tell them what’s wrong, they’ll take a Koranic verse, write it on a piece of paper, burn it, drop the ashes in water, and you drink the water and that’s your medicine. So it’s a real mystical, magical, not logical understanding.

 

So it’s not just that, you know, common people are coming to faith. It’s not just that imams are coming to faith. We even have some testimony in this book about radical Al Qaeda, mujahideen trained fighters coming to faith. I’m thinking of, in particular, Ahmed, but and, obviously, names have been changed for their protection. But that story, I mean, that was a riveting testimony.

 

Would it be okay to share that testimony? Yeah. Sure. In fact, that one blew me away as well. I remember sitting next to Ahmed.

 

He was my translator while we were doing a number of interviews by Skype. We had to do that because they said David you can go in and get these interviews. I’d been in that country where we were getting interviews many times. But they said today if you go in there you’ll probably get these guys killed. It’s better for us to put them in a safe house.

 

Let us do the interviews by Skype. Ahmed was sitting next to me. In between the power going out and guys going by with Kalashnikov shooting over the roof and throwing bricks through the window, I listened to Ahmed tell me his story. It was a fascinating story and I had several corroborators. The fellow who baptized him had actually told me one side of the story and another fellow who was one of our Baptist missionaries told me another side of the story.

 

So then hearing it from Ahmed himself, I was able to hear the amazing things that happened to him from the time that he was he’s just a young boy, I think he’s about 4 years old when he said his father threw him into the mosque or into the madrasa. I said what do you mean he threw you in? He said well he took me to the madrasa which was in a neighboring village. He took me at night, early early in the morning when it was dark so I couldn’t find my way out. He wanted to make sure I didn’t run away and come back home.

 

Because he had had siblings that he had tried to do the same thing and they just kept coming back home. Yeah. So his strategy was to get him there at night. You don’t know your way back home. You’re stuck.

 

They had an understanding in their village that a, an imam is spiritually, substantial enough to take 7 people to heaven with him. And they said we had 7 people in our family and so it was important that one of us become an imam so that we could get the other 7 into heaven. And, it’s actually pretty practical. It is. You know, there’s such an internal logic to all this.

 

It’s just very sad. It’s what happens when you’re the youngest though. He’s the last hope for the whole family in some sense and so they have to have him there. So anyway, sorry. He he’s at the Wait.

 

No. Wait. I have a question. So they threw the dad was throwing him into the mosque because he He was madrasa. Okay.

 

Because he wanted him to become an imam. Yeah. Yeah. Madrasa is a Islamic school. Oh.

 

So he basically was like a boarding school. He lived there for the next several years without ever once going home from the hospital. Because he didn’t know. He didn’t know how to get home. Where he lived.

 

Yeah. Exactly. Wow. Really sad. And so they would beat him and make him memorize the Quran.

 

He’d memorize, I think by the age of 9 he’d memorize the Quran and went on and studied the Hadith and learned all about the life of Mohammed and the ideals. At the time the area he was in there was a lot of war going on. There was war in Afghanistan, there was war up in Kashmir, There was war with various tribal factions. And so after he finished his formal training, his, his leader said to him, now we’re gonna give you practical training, which, you know, for a Christian, that would mean now we’re gonna teach you how to knock on doors and or how to be a cross cultural communicator. We’re gonna teach you things like bible translation.

 

Well, for him Short term outreach time or something. Yeah. Exactly. So when he finished his formal training, he said, we’re gonna teach you practical stuff. Now they taught him all kinds of ways to kill people.

 

And he’s only 12, 14 years old at this point. He says he’s 12 when he begins his Al Qaeda sort of connections, and then 14 when he begins some of this stuff. Once he’s being up to carry a gun. Wait. So was this madrasa a different kind of madrasa?

 

No. Not in that area. Now now the thing is every part of the Muslim world is different, and you that’s one reason I divide the Muslim world into these 9 rooms in the House of Islam. Right. His room had been in war and conflict for generations.

 

So I was amazed. I think every one of the testimonies I got out of that room, someone had been involved in killing someone or had someone close to them murdered. And I I asked later, I asked around, I said, is this normal? Is are these been are these cherry picked because of their drama? And they said, no.

 

It’s really just where they are. This is a very, very, war torn area. And I think it’s a good example too that the diversity of Islam also is represented in the diversity of cultures that we see some cultures that are more, you know, violent and that they’ve been in war. They had a lot of violence in this particular room that we’re we’re discussing in Ahmed’s story comes from a long history of violence. Exactly.

 

And, you know, with 1,700,000,000 Muslims in the world today, now it’s important that we not try to treat them all the same. Some are very, very even pacifist, you know, and very intellectual. Some are very pro women. Some women are very outspoken as Muslims. That’s certainly wasn’t the case in the room of Islam that, that Ahmed was found in.

 

So what what ends up happening with Ahmed? How does he get to the point where you’re talking today? Story short, Ahmed’s brother had gone for a job in one of the big cities there in Western South Asia. And in the course time he met a couple of American missionaries who had shared the gospel with him, loved him, shared their life with him and led him to Christ. When Othman found out about this, he was determined to kill that missionary.

 

So he arranged an ambush and was gonna, they were gonna cut off his head. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, Bringing this show to the world.

 

Email. Then email us and let us know. And something happened. Yeah. He was somehow stopped and he stood put the missionary in the back of his motorcycle.

 

They rode away. So he got the missionary? He did. The missionary actually went out to his village to witness to him. And, the first time Ahmed drove him drove him and his brother away he said, you know, if you come back here again we’re gonna kill him.

 

Well, the missionary comes back again. And this time, Achmed is prepared to kill him. He tries to be acts like he’s friendly with him so he can lure him into an ambush, takes him up on a dirt road up in the mountains. Had 2 of his friends waiting there are gonna jump out and cut off his head. And then, at the last second, Ahmed just has this change.

 

He said, I put him on my motorcycle and drove away. But I told him, said, you get out of here. Don’t ever come back. Ahmed then is constrict conscripted into the military. They they tell him, basically, you can go fight in the Afghan front, or you can go fight up in Kashmir.

 

But you’re now prepared to go and give your life for Allah. He chooses the Afghan front. He just does some horrible things, including wiping out an entire village. Everyone in it, they kill. He talks about picking up this little one and a half year old little baby girl, holding her in his arms that already killed her parents, and how she held his finger in her hand as he stuck a knife, a poison knife into it and killed her.

 

That was one of the things that began eating his soul. Later, they captured a guy and they told, Ahmed, you’re gonna have to cut off his head. Got a bag over his head, they had him on his knees, and they had made a circle around there. They’re chanting, and they give him this long knife to cut off the head, and he just drops it. He says, I can’t do it.

 

And they grabbed him. They said, either you do it or we’re gonna cut off your head. And he says, and you’ll have to cut off my head. I can’t do it. And he runs away.

 

He ends up going AWOL, finds his way by train all the way back to that city where the missionary who had, he had almost killed was living. He said, I spent the next few days sleeping on his couch. And, when I finally got over my extreme fatigue, I just started talking to him. Over the next few months, extreme fatigue, I just started talking to him. Over the next few months, Achmed began reading the bible.

 

God began working in his heart. And finally, not only did he come to faith, he gathered his family together. He said, you know, you put me you threw me into the madrasa because you wanted me to become an imam. You said, whatever I would do, you would follow me as your spiritual leader. I said, do you still feel that way?

 

And they all said, yes, whatever you say, we’ll do it. And they said, well, I’m becoming a follower of Jesus. I want you to follow Jesus too. So, the whole family joined him in following Jesus. And he has a story there as well of having a dream and a light coming through a window and saying, I’m gonna send to you 3 messengers that are gonna bring you the truth.

 

This is a reoccurring testimony that we’re hearing out of the Muslim world, dreams and visions. Yeah. I think he had that dream like the day before. These these two missionaries and his brother showed up. And, they had actually been praying that God would reveal himself to Ahmed and it’s like this convergence of things happening.

 

The dreams are so common. One of my good friends Kevin, who wrote a book called The Camel. Kevin, loves to to talk with muslims about Jesus and he’ll often ask him, you know, have you had any dreams lately? And invariably there’ll be some guy in the group who’ll say, yeah I’ve got this dream, it keeps coming back. There’s this being.

 

He’s glowing bright light and I can’t quite make out his face, but he seems so loving and he’s reaching out to me. And Kevin has taught me, he says what I’ll do is I’ll take Matthew’s gospel, and I’ll flip over to chapter 17. And that’s the story you know of the Mount of Transfiguration. And I’ll just turn to those first two chapters. I won’t read it to them.

 

I’ll hand it to them. I’ll say, hey why don’t you read these first two verses in Matthew 17. Tell me what you think. And they’ll be reading that Jesus, went up with his disciples into the mountain and, while they were watching him there, he was transfigured. His clothing became bright as the light.

 

His face shone like the sun. And this Muslim has been having these dreams. So look at that. He goes, that’s the guy. That’s That’s the one of my dreams.

 

Who is this? And Kevin said, why don’t you just keep that book and read the rest of that and and let’s get back together and talk next week. So it’s a wonderful bridge. God doing his part, us doing our part for the sake of the kingdom. That’s an amazing testimony.

 

I can’t even get over the the baby one. I mean, you know, the the eroding of the soul, I think that that, I think I’ve heard much of that lately with, ISIS. I’ve read a report about an ISIS soldier coming to the Lord, but I I you know, I I bet it has more to do with the eroding of the soul, just the things that people do. There’s Well, that’s the message, Howard. I hope people will keep in mind when they see Boko Haram in and the horrors of what’s going on or they see ISIS or Al Qaeda or Hamas and the list goes on and on.

 

Violence within Islam is something that’s been going on since the beginning. The difference today is that now we know that if we do our part and we get the word of God to them, we keep pushing the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ to them, it can be the perfect formula to bring about a change. Right. And I think for maybe our listeners, at least for me, I think sometimes I forget the power of the gospel or the power of the word. Mhmm.

 

You know, when it comes to someone with a, you know, a machine gun or somebody that wants to kill you or a known terrorist or or whatnot, It just seems like the gospel sometimes pales. But with the stories that you’re telling, like, I am just overwhelmed by how much just that truth is just unleashed or opened the door for for a lot of these Muslims Amen. Regardless of who they are or what, you know, what level of, you know, extremism they are. So, yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah.

 

I think with that story with Ahmed, the thing that was striking to me was that God’s forgiveness is that big. I don’t know why, but when I heard the story there was something inside of me that just said, can you forgive him? I don’t know. Yeah. But God’s forgiveness is that big.

 

Well, I gotta admit, Ahmed was sitting next to me and when he got to that part of his story, I found myself scooting my chair over a little bit. I thought this is awful. What a horrible person. And here’s a guy that loves the Lord with all his heart, and he is truly repentant. And and God continues to to to to transform him.

 

He had a lot of baggage when he came into the faith, related to women, for example. He he had no comprehension of women as really having the the image of God in them. And it wasn’t until he began to let the word of God change his heart that he began to see women as needing salvation and needing, Jesus just as as much as men. One of the things that, maybe as we come to a close that was striking as well, and it’s something that we’ve known through church history, is that that martyrdom is is the blood of the martyr, the seed of the church. We’ve we’ve heard that, we’ve heard testimonies about it.

 

But when I was reading in the, in the book, I think it was in the house of Persia, there were a couple strong stories of martyrdom there that were very instrumental in in bringing movements. How has that been, used in historically or at least in some of these movements, martyrdom and suffering of Christians? Well, that is a very special place. You know, in Iran, they’ve they’ve long had an appreciation for a righteous martyr. Even within their branch of Islam, they think about Hussain, the son of Ali.

 

And they think about Ali both as somehow being righteous martyrs. Now, we would have questions as to how righteous they were. They were killed in battle for Pete’s sake. But nonetheless, every year they they commemorate those martyrdoms by having this flagellation where they’re beating each other on the back. Well, in Jesus they really have their true righteous, martyr.

 

The one who died for them and in their place. And and they see that when Christians step into the role of Jesus and function in the same way as a suffering servant, one who’s willing to lay down his life. The great example, that the book talks about is, is an Armenian, Armenian Pentecostal, from the start of the First Assemblies of God Church, or Bishop of the 1st Assemblies of God Church in Iran. His name’s Haik Hovsepian. And Bishop Haik was told because you’re an Armenian, you’re an ancient community here in Iran, you’re free to worship, you’re free to have church.

 

The one condition is you don’t mess with the Muslims. We don’t want you sharing the gospel, in Armenia, but instead, he learned about a a in Armenia. But instead, he learned about a Muslim background believer named Mehdi Dibadj. And Mehdi had been arrested just because he was a Muslim who’d come to faith in Christ. He’d been in prison for a number of years.

 

And, High Cove Sepion, Bishop Haike learned that, Mehdi Dibadj was to be executed. And it was all being done on the hush-hush because, the Iranian government didn’t want international opposition to this activity. And they told, Haykou Cipients that if you if you publicize this, if you embarrass us, we will wreak havoc on you. But, that created a crisis for Bishop Pike. He said, I could have been quiet and had a good life.

 

But here was a Muslim background believer who was about to die for his faith, and I refused to be quiet. He sent out faxes. He publicized. He spread the word everywhere. And, when he did it, he knew what he was doing.

 

He said, I put my hand over this the hole of the snake, the viper. And within a few days, bishop Hike disappeared just as Mehdi Debaj was released from prison. For a long time, the police said they couldn’t find Bishop Pike. They didn’t know what happened to him. He just must have left or or gone.

 

But then there was a cemetery worker, a gravedigger, who said he remembered burying a body that had a cross on the lapel. And what he remembered about it was it had 27, I believe, stab wounds in the heart. And so they went following his story. They dug up this body and sure enough, it was high Kopechsepi. He had been abducted from the streets, stabbed 27 times, and buried in an unmarked Muslim cemetery.

 

The Christians gathered up that body, and they were weeping. And 1,000 of them turned out in a a rainy funeral service to rebury his body in the Christian cemetery. And one of the people, it was all videoed, one of the people, that was in the in the funeral, at the funeral was Mehdi Debaj. And he spoke up. He said, you know, when Jesus died on the cross, he said, there was one person there in the crowd who knew that Jesus died in his place.

 

He said, that person was Barabbas. He said, when high Cosephian died, it should’ve been me. Wow. He went on from there and began preparing to be a missionary to Afghanistan. And it just galvanized the hearts and spirits of everyone.

 

They said, we will not be silent. We will stand up for Jesus. Mehdi Debaj prepared to be a missionary. And within a few months, his body was found hanging in a tree. He too had been murdered for the gospel.

 

Today in that country, there are well, there’s a new book that says it well, a book by Mark Bradley. It’s called Too Many to Jail. Too many to jail because he said, interviewing 1 of the prison, guards there, he said, look, we don’t arrest everybody. If we did, there’d be too many to jail. We can’t get them all in here.

 

We don’t have enough room. So that’s what God is doing in Iran today. So that should change the way in which we view the world and we’re living in in this very moment where we do see violence and we do see a lot of fear, but it seems like 35 years ago, a lot of Americans were probably in the same place with Iran. And we’re now seeing the fruit where there’s too many to jail. Should that change the way in which we view the world we live in right now?

 

Absolutely. You know, I interviewed a fellow, actually, several years ago. His name was, Akbar al Masih, which means the messiah is the greatest. Such a cool name. Ain’t that a great name?

 

I know. Why don’t we have names like that? Well, you know, that was a name he took after he became a believer. But his name at birth was Mohammed Akbar. Mohammed is the greatest.

 

And I said, well, tell me your story. How did you come to faith? He said, well, I was actually in a free country. This is he told me before the Shah of Iran fell. He was actually in Iran as a guest worker from Afghanistan.

 

He said, I was looking for work. I was unemployed and there was a sign that said free movies. I went in and I sat down and I watched this movie. And I was watching, it was about the life of Isa Al Masih, Jesus the Messiah. And I watched the Jesus film from start to finish.

 

And he said there was one point when I became a believer. I said when was that? He said when Jesus was hanging on the cross and they had done all these horrible things to him. I thought oh he’s a prophet of God. He’s gonna call down fire.

 

He’s gonna destroy them. He’s gonna do all this revenge because in my country, revenge was the way that we lived. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And Jesus hanging on that cross looked down at them and he said, father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.

 

He said, at that instant, I said, that’s for me. He said that’s what my people need. They need that kind of forgiveness because we don’t have that in my country. And that is when he changed his name to Akbar al Masih. The Messiah is the greatest.

 

Wow. Listeners, I know that you guys are enjoying this as much as me and Trevor have. David Garrison, thank you so much for, coming in. You’ve, you’ve blessed us so much, and the book is called A Wind in the House of Islam. I’m going to be putting that on our website, so that you guys can see a link, to Amazon to purchase.

 

David, you had one more thing to say? Yeah. Let me give one last shout out to 30 days of prayer for the Muslim world and just encourage our listeners. We have an opportunity every year to join with Christians around the world during the month of Ramadan when Muslims are praying, they’re seeking, they’re hungry, they’re they’re wanting to get God’s message to them, and so we join them during that month. It begins this year, June 17th.

 

I invite you to join in 30 days of prayer for the Muslim world. You’ll find a website. Do a little Google search 30 days of prayer and you can get your own little brochure to follow day by day as you pray for the Muslim world. So we’ll put that link on the website as well and, if you’re interested in getting the book as I said right now there’s no book I would recommend more. I say that with all integrity.

 

When in the House of Islam has been an encouragement to my soul completely, just changed even my own views of how I’m looking at history and what God is doing, and I’ve just been encouraged. And you can go to wind in the house dot org, wind in the house dot org. Thanks so much, David, for being with us. Thank you, guys. God bless you.

Islamic Theology and the True Nature of Islam with Dr. Warren Larson

Discussion surrounding Islam inevitably leads to whether the true nature of Islam is violent. Who has it right, the violent extremist or the passive nominal Muslim? Which begs the question, is the nominal Muslim a true Muslim?

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Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Islamic Theology and the True Nature of Islam: 

 

 

That’s a basic difference in Christianity where we know, we believe, and we preach that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. In Islam, apparently, he is willing that some would perish. God will some to go to hell. Once again, Muslim terrorists. A terrorist.

 

A terrorist. Islamic extremist. Extremist. Terrorists of the country. They’re random justice and brutal endeavors.

 

News flash America. These Muslim extremists are are alive and well, they are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the Truth About Muslims podcast. The official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media.

 

Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. So, we’re here in the studio with doctor Warren Larson. And, doctor Larson teaches a course, Columbia International University on Islamic Theology. And I think today with everything that we see in the news, this particular subject matter is of is of new interest to people, Warren. So it’s good to have you and I think the big question for us is Thank you.

 

We see, Muslims, 1.6 7,000,000,000 Muslims around the world being presented, as sort of this, well, oftentimes they’re presented as terrorists. And it seems that there’s there has to be more complexity, more nuance in how theology happens in Islam. So it’s good to have you. How how should we view Islamic theology in the 21st century? Well, I I just when I think of of a Muslim theologians and, I I I realized that they have not all been the same.

 

In fact, in fact, that they have struggled over, how to interpret the Quran for 100 and 100 of years. And, we hear things in this country like the Quran is a violent book, or we hear that, we get the impression that the Quran is just, interested in in in telling people how to kill their enemies, how Muslims should kill their enemies? The truth is is that that is a matter of interpretation, and there are Muslims who have, who have advocated, you know, warmth and and injustice and all of those kind of things. I’m not saying that some Muslims are not, are not mean spirited and and and as we see today that’s true. But I guess I guess the study of Islamic theology for me has given me new respect for, for the type of for for Muslims who have who have been good theologians in the in the sense that they have tried to be fair.

 

They’ve tried to they’ve tried to be good scholars and they go all the way back. Some of these Muslim theologians, they have, you know, they’ve built on Plato and Aristotle, and they’ve confronted them. We sometimes forget the fact that Islam was in Europe and was getting along quite well with, you know, up until 15th century when they were kicked out of Spain, in 1492. They confronted Western theologians and philosophy. And in some ways, orthodox Islam has rejected philosophy, but they have been afraid too.

 

And some many of them have been afraid of of the influence of the, I guess, the lack of morality in the west. And so they’ve reacted against, against the west in that sense. I I think of one philosopher by the name of Mohammed Iqbal, who was the father of Pakistan. He said, something to the effect, god save us from the west and its ways. In other words, he felt that, the influence of the west was morally not completely good for Muslims.

 

So in other words, they’ve they’ve looked at this cuff, and they’ve they’ve struggled with it. Now now the image that you are, portraying, I think, of Muslims is very different kinda than than what is in my mind. Uh-huh. It sounds like you’re talking about Muslims in the past as being like this united front, in the way they’re thinking and developing their thoughts and and theologies. But today, I just have this idea of, like, a scattered Islam, a scattered, theology just with with so many different extremes all over the the world, actually, because there’s so many Muslims.

 

Mhmm. Mhmm. It just seems like it doesn’t match up with, what they used to be. It what what changed? What was different?

 

Yes. Well, I I didn’t mean to give the impression that they were united in the past. What I meant to say was that they have argued over issues, like moderation, like extremism. In other words, you had, Muslims are, discussing actually violence and, and and they they discuss things like, what you call, predestination. I was gonna say, do they talk about Arminianism and Calvinism the way we do?

 

Yes. Exactly. They that that’s a good question. Oh, they they do? You’re not kidding.

 

No. They don’t use that term, but, yeah, free will versus the sovereign. Yes. In fact, they’ve had a great argument in the past. They fought over this, and so we don’t wanna be too critical.

 

But basically, they have argued over predeterminism or predestination versus free will. And some Muslims by the name of Methazilites in the past, they have said in the 10th century, they said that, we have free will. But eventually, others by the name of Asherites eventually won the argument. And today, by and large, Muslims put a whole lot of emphasis on predestination, predeterminism, and the truth is that it is very chronic. In other words, it’s it’s basically it’s mostly the emphasis in the Quran.

 

However, there are verses there in the Quran that do suggest, that there is some free will involved. We can choose. So so you’re saying that, Islam looks very different today than it was in the past and that it could have changed. It could have been No. I’m not saying that.

 

I’m just saying that Muslims have argued about the same things we have. Okay. We have a Calvinist, Armenian dis disagreement. In other words, Calvinist would say, put a lot of emphasis on the predestination Right. God can control.

 

Right. Whereas the Armenians put all the emphasis or a lot of emphasis on free will of man. Muslims have argued about the same issues. The only thing is that in Islam, the Asherites, which have they’ve emphasized the predeterminism Right. Predestination, they’re the ones that have basically won.

 

So Sunni Muslims today are very much into God is in control. God plans everything. Uh-huh. He, has planned our will, wills. He plans good and and and and he actually chooses those who will believe and will not believe.

 

Now let’s let’s face it. They are very good at using 2 expressions, which is if God wills. And the second one is, God has willed it. So those just those two expressions tell you a lot about Muslims, that by and large, it’s heavy into predestination. God, according to the Quran, leads some astray.

 

He leaves some straying. He, lead he guides some, but he’s the one that decides. Be before the Asharites, kind of brought their influence Right. Were they I mean, obviously not Armenian, but were they closer to the emphasis on free will? Yes.

 

Yes. The the Matanzalites emphasized that, the free will, and they were actually were more rationalist. They were they were it isn’t really so logical to think that God plans everything, but basically, that’s what most Muslims today would say that, you know, God plans everything. And it’s true that you can find those verses in the Quran. There’s preponderance of verses in the Quran that would give you the impression.

 

It says over and over again, God leads whom he will. And he, he leads lets others go astray. He guides whom he will. And it says, for instances in the Quran that he will fill hell with men and with jinn, as if, you know, it’s all god’s will. That’s a basic difference in Christianity where we know, we believe, and we preach that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

 

In Islam, apparently, he is willing that some would perish. God will some to go to hell. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And this week’s sponsors are Zweimer Center. Zweimer Center.

 

Zweimer Center. The Wamers Center. Zweymer Center. And what does the Zweymer Center do? Talks about lessons and and tells them on the computer that we love you.

 

Very nice. The Swimmer Center equips the church to reach Muslims. The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. It sounds like what you’re saying though in the past that the Muslims at least got together to Right. Right.

 

To discuss or argue these points. Do you find that that happens today? And is it equally represented by, all of the different groups of Islam? No. No.

 

You’re right. That in the past, they argued about this in the right way. They fought about it and they discussed it. And then, basically, they shut out people like the Methazolites. You don’t have Methazolites today.

 

Methazolites are basically gone, but, the product the the real strong new today is heavy into predestination, predeterminism, and they find enough basis for it in the Quran. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. No. It makes sense. And I think the important thing that we need to realize is that this happens right from the very get go in Islam, that there is already debate.

 

And so for the first, you know, 300 years of the church, there’s a lot of debate about the divinity of Christ, about the nature of Christ, you know, about the free will of man and all of these debates that go on and on throughout church history. Similar debates are happening within Islam, not particularly about Jesus so much. They kinda had their mind made up pretty early on that I’m assuming. But in some ways, there have been some shifts in theology even regarding Jesus. Correct?

 

I mean, there was the at least the option early in Islam that Jesus might have died. Right. But nowadays, no. He did not die on the cross. That’s right.

 

Islam in that sense is hardened in a very much of a sense. And if you want to in discussion, we can also talk about some major differences between Sunnis and Shia. I don’t know if that’s interested if of interest to your reading or listening audience. A lot of people have been asking questions about that, but can we do that in a podcast? Is that I mean, is that is that even possible?

 

It is possible, but it’s your choice when to bring it up. Well, I mean, at least give us the the rundown on what are the basic differences. What what really caused the split between the Sunni and Shia early in Islam? Yeah. That was the first that was the first thing that actually, broke the community apart.

 

And it happened just after Mohammed died in 632 when they began to ask who is going to be a success his successor. That’s a good question. In other words, it’s a question of leadership. Who is gonna be the caliph? And, some said that the caliph has to be a relative of Muhammad.

 

They said that the person that should be the next leader is, would be Ali, who was the actually his son-in-law married to his daughter Fatima. Others said no. Ali, we don’t like him. We want to choose somebody else who’s a, a born leader, somebody who’s a a good head head good head on his shoulders. And they chose a guy by the name of Abu Bakr, who was the father-in-law of Mohammed, and he was the caliph for a while, couple of years.

 

And then somebody else came in for another 10 years. And then thirdly, somebody came for 12 years. And finally finally finally in 6, 56, finally, Ali gets chosen. But you see, again, the difference the main difference between Shia and Sunni is the question over leadership. Because, the Shiites felt, and they still do today, that the only person that’s qualified, to lead the Muslim community is someone who has Muhammad’s is connected to Muhammad through, he’s a he’s a descendant of Muhammad.

 

Whereas the Sunnis said, we don’t care about that. And so this division that started back there in the 7th century grew and grew and grew. Then after a while, you get theological differences. But I think the if we could just keep that in mind that it was a question of leadership, that’s what broke them apart, and that’s what, caused Iraq to be such an explosive place, and that’s what’s trouble with Iran today and Saudi Arabia and all of those things. It’s the same old fight.

 

So in that sense, Warren, help us understand what happened. I I’m sure it’s complicated, but is there some things that we can look at specifically? We have the first 300 years of Islam. We have a pretty incredible movement across all of North Africa up into Spain, across the entire Byzantine Empire. And we have some of the best scholarship being produced by Persians and Arabs under these Islamic Dynasties.

 

And then and something radical happens in the 10th century where it seems like everything sort of stops. Right. What do you think happened? Why did it all stop and seem to go backwards from that point? Well, the modernist, the late Fazlur Rahman, who has written several books including, one is Islam and then Islam and Modernity, plus a few other books.

 

He says that Islam made the big mistake of closing the gates. He’s not the only Muslim that said that. In other words, they they basically closed the gate on Islamic law. They quit thinking, and, he is a marvelous fellow, this this fellow. He taught, he got kicked out of Pakistan for his views because he’s a moderate moderate, years years ago.

 

And he came over here and he taught in the University of Chicago. I have more respect for him. In fact, just listen to that fellow and reading his works, sort of raises your view of Muslims. He’s an excellent thinker, and, he’s not one of these narrow minded bigots like we some often think of Muslims. We have the idea that they’re all hardliners perhaps, and and but that’s not true.

 

Rahman is a good thinker, and he’s marvelous, and and, he thinks, that Islamic education he doesn’t even use the word education. He calls it intellectualism. And he says, Muslims are gonna have to start using their minds, and they’re gonna have to start thinking things through. He says for the last 500 years, they’ve been closed, stagnant. They’ve been, not making a a progress.

 

He’s, disappointed with Islamic education, the stagnation, the, just a sort of a closed system. And he and yet, on the other hand, Rahman is hopeful that they can change, that, Muslims can come out of this demise and start thinking again, like they did, during the middle ages when they led the way in medicine and science and, mathematics and made discoveries in agriculture and optometry and things like that. Muslims, I mean, have done some tremendous things in the past, but the trouble is, is that 500 years ago, they seem to go into sort of a, a dip and they stayed there. And that’s the unfortunate thing about Islamic history, that that that this is not a criticism from the outside. It’s the Muslims themselves recognize it.

 

And, Rahman is is one of my favorites. I can’t but help, but seek some comparisons with Christianity. Uh-huh. A lot of people would be saying the same thing about Christians. You you know, used to be at the forefront, you know, science and and research and all those kind of things.

 

And now, all of a sudden, they’ve stopped using their brains. You know, at least invent you know, like these, actually I don’t wanna name names because it’s just offensive. But, you know, like in the same way. And then you have fundamentalist Christians who are attacking anybody else that would would try to, you know, start, you know, thinking intellectually or in intelligently using logic and those kind of things. So it is it is interesting.

 

I I I only bring that up because I think about, how, you know, how, this relates to us, you know, even as as Christians Right. And the struggles that we have, even as, you know, as people of faith. And when I think about, you know, some of the things that we talked about the with the the people that came and they argued these points and how our history is the same way with Christians, You know, these councils in the past, Nicaea and such, where they would argue these points. Alright. This week’s sponsors.

 

CIU. CIU. CIU educates people from a bib Biblical. Biblical world review. World view.

 

Real world review. Yeah. It’s it. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. It is Well, I think it’s true that Muslims are Christians have somehow pulled away sometimes, pulled away from, engagement And even the fundamentalists themselves in some ways have have pulled away thinking that this was the way to solve problems when in fact they should have remained part of the discussion, and and engaged with the world in Christian philosophy.

 

I I could say another thing is that that, when you think back in the history of Islam, there was a fellow by the name of, Al Ghazali who died in 11/11, and it’s an easy date to remember. Al Ghazali is perhaps the greatest Muslim theologian philosopher in the history of Islam. And he made a decision in his life where he sort of, he he rejected philosophy or rationalism, and he said that, the way to go is through Sufism and one thing or another. And it seemed that after that, Islam started to go downhill. I don’t know, but, Al Ghazali was brilliant, the the greatest Muslim theologian.

 

He seemed to make a decision that helped to close the doors. However, there have been since that time, of course, some brilliant Muslim theologians and I think we need to know them. We need to know people like, Ibni Sina whose name in Europe was, Avicenna, who was brilliant, in in medicine and philosophy. We need to know that that Islam has this. They have, they have moderates like sir Sayed Ahmed Khan in India who tried to bring the British and the the fundamentalist I mean, the the the Muslims together.

 

He he advocated Western education. Yeah. I mean, there’s all kinds of names back there that were were moderate, and they had moderate interpretations of the Quran. They weren’t, all fundamentalists. There is a fellow in, in the history of Islam called, ibnat Miya.

 

And, he was a hardliner. He was a fundamentalist. But he wasn’t the only Muslim theologian. He was 1. And that is the guy that influenced Saudi Arabia.

 

He was the one that influenced guys like Sayed Qutb, the fellow who seems to be the inspiration for terrorists today. He wrote the book Milestones and, became a martyr. He was killed for it for his radicalism in 1960 6. Well, Tamia is back there, and he was a fundamentalist. He was a, he was a fundamentalist and he influenced people.

 

That’s true. But but, you know, there are other Muslim theologians who were not like that. They were they were, reasonable. They were moderate. And I think we need to be aware of that in in our understanding of Islam.

 

We most people don’t they don’t know that. They just they just pick up the Quran and they don’t recognize that there are different interpretations different ways to read it. And I think we should realize that people haven’t always interpreted the Quran in that way, one way. It sounds almost like you’re saying that we would, bring these moderates up to bring them to the light as far as, our understanding. And what does that do for our average listener?

 

Do you think that is a conflict a little bit, for what we believe, by kind of like highlighting a Muslim, I guess, in in Well, certainly supporting them and being aware of them. I mean, when you listen to, some of the comments, in our country, in North America, in Europe, you would never think that there is such a thing as a modern Muslim. Or you would think that the only Muslim that there is, if he’s really a true Muslim, he is a violent one. He’s a fundamentalist. He’s one who, who advocates violence and Jihad and all that kind of stuff.

 

The truth is that there are moderates and they’re speaking today. They may not be speaking, as boldly as we would like them or as clearly, but in some ways, you know, it is a little dangerous. Warren, wasn’t there a recent meeting in Saudi Arabia with the the scholars to discuss, radicalism, to discuss ISIS Yes. And all of these things. And one of the calls that kinda came forward was a need for reform in education and in the Islamic schools and and training programs and that this is an internal debate that’s it’s not going away anytime soon and they’re working through this and they’re quite divided.

 

Yes. I all these issues. I think it’s, it’s, it’s a good sign. In other words, that they are talking about it. Whether or not they they can handle it and succeed, we don’t know.

 

I mean, we don’t know what’s gonna happen with their internal discussions. They’re trying to. They’re talking about it. Whether or not Islam can change today given the dynamics of chaos and confusion and the, violence of some extremists. We don’t know exactly what they’re gonna do or how it’s gonna turn out.

 

All we do know is that, I would I would argue that we do know that god is in control. He’s sovereign, and I often think of the verse that he’s making the wrath of man to praise him. So in the midst of this terrible turmoil that Muslims are in, fighting among themselves, disagreeing among themselves, God is is busy saving people like never before, Muslims. So that’s the only thing that I can cling to. I don’t know what’s gonna happen with, as far as their own disputes.

 

With the media, it sounds like we emphasize obviously all the terrorist attacks, which, you know, rightfully so, that is news. Right. But in in the same sense, do you think that if the media highlighted some of these moderates and heard what they had to say, gave them a voice, maybe a broader voice, do you think that would help, in in changing, like, the minds of No. They they’ve tried. I mean, for instance, there’s Raza Aslan Right.

 

Who’s a Who’s talking to people for. Right. Right. He’s a he’s a moderate. Yeah.

 

He lots of things you like that he says. He he comes across. He’s cool. He comes across well. He’s cool.

 

He’s a cool looking guy. He’s a cool yes. He’s a good speaker. He did write a book on Jesus that I didn’t like because it was just a liberal view of Jesus. Zealot, wasn’t it?

 

Zealot. Zealot. The zealot. Yes. Because it’s just liberal Christianity.

 

But but when he talks about Islam, he does a good job. And I think that I think that he does get some press. But, you know, overwhelming, like you’ve said, overwhelming news is is to pick out the the bad stuff, and to fill the the airwaves with that. What are they doing? And and and, and and also then, to get behind it and to say that, oh, that’s all really that the Quran teaches, and that’s the theology and and and, and so then that fear drives fear of Islamic law and fears of Sharia and all of this kind of stuff.

 

So that really, often it’s it’s filled with ignorance. It’s misinformation or lack of information and a whole bunch of experts, who think that they know all about Islam. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.

 

So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. Alright. So William Lane Craig says, that moderate Islam is to Islam what nominal Christianity, cultural Christianity is to Christianity. And that’s, you know, some of the things that we’ve been hearing a lot lately, like, Sam Harris. Remember when, he was, had that debate?

 

I wonder, is that true? Is it is, can we measure because you’re talking about theology here. Can we measure nominal Christianity with, the the moderate Muslim? Yeah. This seems to be a theme.

 

Like, everybody makes the case that the the real Muslims are ISIS and the nominal Muslims are all the moderates that you see walking around. So how how do we respond to this? Is he right? Is, what should our viewpoint be from somebody that has actually studied Islamic theology and teaches this at the university level? Yeah.

 

I mean, William, Lane Craig is brilliant. Highly respect him. He’s a great thinker. He has a terrific mind. But I don’t think it’s true that, you can like a moderate Muslim to a nominal Christian or a cultural Christian because basically when you say nominal Christian you mean that there’s not really a Christian just a Christian in name.

 

I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think it’s historically true for one thing because as we’ve just been talking about, you know, over the past hour or so, when you look at Islamic theology, the history of Islam, you’ve got cases of moderate Muslims, sir Sayed Ahmed Khan in India who was moderate, or, a guy like the name of Mohammed Iqbal who was the father of Pakistan. He was a moderate, or, Abdul, Mohammed Abdul in Egypt. These guys are moderate Muslims.

 

Now what are you gonna say? Are you gonna say that, that they weren’t really Muslims? They they claimed to be Muslims. They believed in the Quran. They followed the Quran.

 

And and, no. I I I I can’t agree that that’s true be, because I think if you look at history, moderates have been there. It is true that, in some case, you know, by and large, fundamentals have won out, but it doesn’t mean that by by what I mean by the fundamental have won out, I mean that, fundamentalist theology has seemed to have won the argument. In other words, that they are, dominant today, but the moderates are still there. They don’t have a strong voice.

 

They do speak. You have moderates today. I’ve, met before mentioned the name Fazlur Rahman who is a moderate. He’s he’s passed away now, but he did get kicked out of Pakistan. Are you gonna say that he is not a Muslim?

 

I mean, it’s it’s like saying that the Shiites are not Muslims. It’s like saying that, anybody who’s not, Sunni Muslim is is is not a Muslim. I think that’s unfair. I think it’s it’s really the what the hardliners are saying. It’s what the, the Taliban would say.

 

It’s what ISIS would say. It’s what, Boko Haram would say, but it’s not true. It’s not fair, and it’s not, it’s not the thing that we should be echoing. We should be aware of the fact that there’s a variety of Muslims. They, have different views and different, viewpoints.

 

And I think, I think we have to recognize that, and we should support it. I’m on we can always feel that the moderates should be speaking out more strongly, But we have to be keep in mind that, that the moderates are sometimes afraid, I mean, to to speak too strongly. So that’s all I can say is that I don’t agree with that that particular point of view, but I sometimes think that that’s what we want to hear. Well, I think that’s what sells. That’s what sells in the media.

 

I mean, I think the moderates every time they try and speak, they don’t get, a voice. They don’t get any coverage. Right. And the unfortunate thing, I mean, it’s not just, you know, Christians who would say this, but sometimes the non Christians would say it too that the real Muslim is a violent one. The real Muslim is is one who, who takes the hard line.

 

I don’t think it’s fair because, it’s almost like saying that all those Muslims who, who advocate warmth and, it’s it’s it’s saying that the Sufis are not Muslims for example. No. It’s not fair. It’s it’s an extreme view and I reject it. Yeah.

 

It’s it’s pretty simplistic, especially when you look at all of the different religions around the world, particularly even in the 1st century with Judaism, you had zealots, you had Pharisees, you had Sadducees, you had all of these different representations of Judaism, and there was disagreements about resurrection. Would it be bodily? Would it be spiritual? There was all these disagreements happening and all this diversity within the 1st century of Judaism, and then you go into Christianity, it gets even more complex. And then somehow Islam comes on the scene, and we’re looking at Islam and saying, well, no, there’s really only one true interpretation, and it’s the radicals.

 

And the irony is that the Christians are siding with the radicals, and I just find that just I mean, there is reason for it. There is the abrogation principle that, some of the the later verses that Mohammed, was inspired to write supposedly are more anti, stronger against Christians, stronger against the people of book, of the book and so on. That’s true. But the moderates would argue for another interpretation of the Quran, and that is possible. I don’t think this might sound radical to some people, but I I don’t think that the Quran in itself is a violent book.

 

I think its interpreters can be violent. That might sound like a pretty extreme Yeah. That’s that’s gonna be considered radical. So you’re gonna have to explain that in a little more detail. Yes.

 

Well, just what I’m just trying to say is that you can find, verses in the Quran that are quite warm and fuzzy. But you can find, a lot of verses too that are quite, violence. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that, there are different interpretations. In fact, I have a book, written by Helmut Gatje, g a t j e, who was German and he has the name of his book is the Quran, I think it’s chronic exegesis, isn’t it? Yeah.

 

Chronic exegesis, but then there is something at the end that caught, about interpretations. So I think that we have to admit that there are other interpretations in the Quran. It’s not just, the violent approach. And whether or not the moderates will gain ground, in the in the battle that is going on is another question. I don’t know that they will, but they’re there and I would root for them and I would give them permission to to to claim to be Muslims.

 

I wouldn’t say that they’re nominal, like, nominal Christians, I wouldn’t say that. That doesn’t seem that seems to be a judgment call as to the nature of Islam. And would you want to make any judgment call? People want to make judgment calls on this. This is something I hear, I mean, almost every church I go to, Warren, somebody says, well, you don’t understand the true nature of Islam.

 

Almost as though I’ve been napping and somehow missed out on the true nature. And and this concept, is it possible that we see this concept because we, try to view Islam through the lens in which we view our own faith? Exactly. Exactly. I mean, the, it’s not it’s not right and I think the best approach here is that one we’ve been talking about today is the history of Islamic struggles, the nature of Muslim theologians and what they’ve talked about and the positions they’ve taken.

 

It’s certainly you have to look at Islam in all of its history, 1500 years to to to to to say, I’m not, you know, I’m not as, an exceptional scholar of Islam, but I have studied it. I’ve looked at it for the last 46 years. And I think what’s helped me the most from a personal point of view is that I’ve lived with Muslims, in Pakistan and South Asia for 23 years, and this helped me to see Muslims as people, not just to see them as somebody over there, who is trying to kill me. So I think that has helped to live with Muslims and still to have Muslim friends and to understand them, and to see their concerns, their sentiments, their love, their acceptance, their, openness, even their forgiveness and their generosity. When you see Muslim like this, what are you gonna say?

 

Well, they’re not Muslims? You can’t say that because if you do it, it is a terrible judgment call. I think the best thing we can do is have Muslim friends. I would wonder about some of these people who make these strong statements about Islam. Do they really have Muslim friends?

 

Warren, I wonder if it’s the common denominator. Maybe they knew one Muslim somewhere, I don’t know, but I do think that there is some something there about not having known Muslims as people and trying to say that, hey, we just look at the text and this is what the text says and Right. And there’s no such text apart from an interpreter when it comes to Islam. There are people that read the text, interpret it, and live their lives and we have to know Muslims if we’re gonna make these hard line statements about Muslims. Yeah.

 

I think that’s true. Yes. I think we would feel the same way about people that study Christianity. I mean, goodness, how many people are out there writing about Christians that have never opened the Bible or met a Christian in their life? Well, that’s true.

 

Yes. And it’s frustrating. So I think that’s a good one to, to end it on, and, we appreciate you being here, and, thanks so much for helping bring a new perspective to this, ongoing debate about the true nature of Islam and looking at it from a perspective of Islamic theology. Thanks for inviting me.

Reaching Muslims in NYC Since 9/11 with Kevin King

Since 9/11, many Christians have viewed Muslim immigrants with suspicion and fear. Kevin King of NYC International project offers another perspective based on what the Bible says about immigration. Listen to his insights on reaching out to immigrant communities in America.

MUSIC:

Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean

Interlude Music by: LaBon – Man

Kevin King Ministry Website:

http://nycinternationalproject.org/blog/sliders/equip/

Discovery Bible Study PDF:

http://www.movements.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2008-Discovering-God-2.0.pdf

 

 

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Reaching Muslims in NYC Since 9/11: 

 

 

My friend called me, a partner in ministry, and said, turn on the news. So, of course, I turn it on and find out that this airplane hit one of the buildings. At that point, we had no idea. We didn’t think anything about anything as far as a terrorist attack or anything. We just thought maybe there’s a fire or some accident and so forth.

 

And, then we found out the second plane hit, then it started to become clear, wait, this isn’t just an accident in a building. So my wife was dropping my son off. I tried to call my wife. At this point, all of the cell phones were jammed, so we couldn’t communicate. At some point, I’m just like, well, I’m gonna jump on the subway and go down and get him out of school because I didn’t know what was coming next at this point.

 

So I jump on the subway, and probably halfway there, subway stopped. Everything stops heading downtown. So we’re sitting in a tunnel for literally 45 minutes just waiting. Once again, Muslim terrorists. A terrorist.

 

Islamic extremist. These are the terrorists of the country. They’re random justice and brutal endeavors. News flash America. These Muslim extremists are are alive and well.

 

They are not dead, and their video is not gratuitous, and it certainly is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast. The official podcast of the Zwemer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor.

 

Alright. We have a special guest in the studio today, Kevin King with New York City International Project. Welcome, Kevin. Thank you. Alright.

 

So what makes it international? Well, we’re working with internationals and immigrants from all over the world. So really, our whole ministry is focused toward reaching out to people who come either temporarily on as students or who are immigrating here. Some people are here and they’re planning to live for the rest of their life. Other people come here.

 

Their entire family’s back in their country. They’re just trying to make some money to send it back and to support them. And so do you work with churches, or is it, just you guys your your your, what would your ministry, is that what they do? Just, meet with immigrants, or is it, something that you try to get other churches to get involved in? Well, we we have a philosophy of ministry where we’re trying to to start churches and see churches highly reproducible, multiply, and so forth.

 

So we have a very different paradigm of church that’s very simple. We’re trying to ask the question, what’s the basic essence? What’s the very essence of what the church is with no additions? And we’re trying to live that out. So we’re not doing the whole building thing.

 

No programs. We’re just trying to live as a body of Christ. So we we have a network of house churches. We do partner with other churches in in part in areas of outreach. But as far as when we see people come to Christ, we’re really trying to have them reach their friends and family, see a new church started.

 

We’re not even necessarily trying to invite them into our house church. We’re just trying to we’re trying to find these people of peace who will gather their friends and family together, start a discovery bible study where they’re they’re studying the word of God and then see them eventually become a church. So would you say that you guys are church planters? Right. We’re church planters.

 

Wow. That’s really interesting. So you’re starting you’re you’re starting a house church movement in New York. We’re well, we’re seeking to start a house church movement in New York, but we’re also our our real vision is to see churches started as a result. And I shouldn’t say real vision, but I should say another part of our vision is to see churches started as the the gospel spreads and is carried back relationally through relational lines in different countries.

 

And we’ve seen, 5 different churches started in different countries as a result. So interesting. So immigrants will come, right, to New York. It’s it’s filled with immigrants. You reach out to them.

 

And then as you disciple them and plant the church through them, then when they go back, they kind of they’re equipped. They they do that. They go and plant churches in their own home countries. Right. So either, they go back and they start churches or they’re they stay and through the relationships and communication or visits a church has started.

 

Okay. So it sounds like there’s a huge shift even with globalization, transnational communities. You have social media. You have ways that they communicate back home. So they they maintain those connections when they come and they live here.

 

And through those connections, you’re saying you make disciples who in turn make disciples. And some of those disciples are actually across the sea and they’re being made via social media, telephone, Skype Exactly. Facebook. I mean, that’s our vision and we’re we’re seeking to see that happen more and more. So thinking in terms of of of Muslims, New York City, I mean, immediately what comes to my mind, I can’t help it, is 911.

 

Mhmm. Were you in New York City on 911? And if so, what was the the feeling from people in New York? Yeah. Actually, we were in New York City, and, I live in Manhattan, and it happened in lower Manhattan.

 

And my my son was actually going to school fairly close to the building down downtown. And, the what was the reaction of the people? Or Well, I I kinda wanna hear that story. What what was your feelings like with you on that day? Oh, my goodness.

 

I mean, your son’s downtown. You wake up. See this going on. Everybody kinda remembers where they were. Yeah.

 

So I woke up. I mean, I was I was, I was doing something. I don’t remember what I was doing, but my friend called me a partner in ministry and said, turn on the news. So, of course, I turned it on and find out that this airplane hit one of the buildings. At that point, we had no idea.

 

We didn’t think anything about anything as far as a terrorist attack or any we just thought maybe there’s a fire or some accident and so forth. And, then we found out the second plane hit, then it started to become clear, wait, this isn’t just an accident in a building. So my wife was dropping my son off. I tried to call my wife. At this point, all of the cell phones were jammed, so we couldn’t communicate.

 

At some point, I’m just like, well, I’m gonna jump on the subway and go down and get him out of school because I didn’t know what was coming next at this point. So I jump on the subway and probably halfway there, subway stop. Everything stops heading downtown. So we’re sitting in a tunnel for literally 45 minutes just waiting. And everybody knows this is going on, but we’re just all in a tunnel because they’re not letting any any more trains go downtown.

 

You know what I mean? Is there, hysteria at this point with people? I mean People are starting to, you know not hysteria, but there’s definitely. I I think there’s a good number of people on the train who didn’t turn on the news in the morning, and then there’s those who are talking about it, what’s going on. The train stops.

 

It takes us about 30 minutes before they get us to a platform. They let us all off. And so I’m at this point, I’m like, okay. I still need to get down there. My son’s at school.

 

I go up to someone in someone’s car and I say, hey. Can you give me a ride? You’re heading downtown. And they said, yeah. Jump in because now it’s becoming I get off so I got on the train and the buildings were on fire.

 

I get off the train, and I hear on the news on the radio, this guy has it on, and it says the world trade towers are no more. And I was thinking, oh my gosh. That’s an exaggeration. I mean, I know they’re on fire. Right?

 

You know what I mean? Right. But how can there be no more? Yeah. What what Classic media Exactly.

 

Alright. Come on. Stop being so extreme. That so I was just thinking it was I didn’t know any so anything about what actually happened. So the guy, heads downtown.

 

He was heading down. Gets to a point where the police say, you can’t go any further. They’re not letting cars. So now I jump out of the car and I’m running through the the street, you know, and I’ve I’m used to running. So I I didn’t, you know, run-in the park and so forth.

 

But now I’m thinking, okay. I have to run another mile or so down to my son’s school. I’m running down and there’s just herds of people all on the street walking. I mean, like, quickly towards the course of getting in the opposite direction. Uptown.

 

Getting uptown. Right. Because downtown, everybody’s like, this is a target zone. You know what I mean? Who knows what’s gonna happen?

 

Wall Street’s down there. You know what I mean? So, finally get to the school, and I said, I’m I I I wanna get my son. They said your wife took him about an hour ago. Oh my gosh.

 

And you still haven’t had contact with him? The cell phones are completely jammed. I had no contact with her. There’s a whole another story about what happened to her because she had gone all the way uptown, then dropped him off, went all the way uptown, and then found out what’s happening. She ended up she had to walk, like, 50 blocks back downtown to get him.

 

Anyway, by the time I got there, she was gone. It was like it really was like a movie. I mean, at this point, there is dust, clouds of dust filling the air. There’s cop cars and fire engines and, you know, streaming down the streets. I finally I come out and there’s this car with dust all over it.

 

And I said, hey, you guys. Can I get a ride with you uptown? And they said, we were just about to go to into the building. They worked in the towers and they said, you know, and our car was parked right there and we ended up getting out of there. So I I hitched a ride with them to a certain point.

 

I left at 9 o’clock, like, I think it was probably 9 o’clock in the morning to go get him. I finally got home at 3 because all the transportation was dead, so you’re walking everywhere. It was just a absolutely crazy day. I mean, to make a long story short, it was a crazy it was like a horror movie. It was just absolutely crazy.

 

And your son, does he still remember that day? I don’t know. He was probably it was preschool at the time. He was probably 4. So he probably wasn’t really aware of what was happening.

 

Right. I don’t think he was completely aware of what was happening. I’m I’m really tempted to sidetrack here and just go for moment that you actually invented Uber where you kinda just share a ride, like, you’re the Yeah. That was the that was my impression. That moment.

 

I’m I don’t know. I have this They charged me. We don’t wanna generalize here, but I’m I’m just thinking New York City, there is sort of, because we we only hear from other people about New York City, but there’s a kind of a thought that, man, New York City wouldn’t just ask a stranger for a ride. So so help bust our paradigms here. What’s New York City really like?

 

I think you wouldn’t you normally wouldn’t ask a stranger for a ride, but it’s just really at this time, everybody was kind of it felt like, okay. We’re all in this together. Right. Jump in the car. You know what I mean?

 

It was like, it just it just changed the whole mood of the city, and everybody was helping each other out and working together. And you could probably go up to any car and say, hey. Can I jump in? They’d be like, yeah. Jump in.

 

It was just completely, like, New York City was gone at the I mean, gone in as far as the way we operated normally. And now we’re all in this together, and we’re helping each other out. So this is, I think, for listeners something that we need to take into consideration when we think about Muslims sometimes. Sometimes, utter chaos and a feeling of a togetherness when somebody else is sharing in a suffering can actually draw people much closer together. And dividing walls come down, boundaries come down, and you actually link together under whatever it is that unified sort of we’re in this together, we’re New Yorkers.

 

That’s the identity crisis that the Muslim world is facing right now because they’re trying to figure out, are we a unified Muslim community? And hearing you kinda tell that story from a New Yorker’s perspective, wow, it kinda it sheds light on the power of that sort of connection that you had with those people that you didn’t even know. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And this week’s sponsors are Zweimer Center. Zweimer Center.

 

The Zweimer Center. The Wamers Center. Zweimer Center. And what does the Zweimer Center do? Talks about Muslims and and tells them on the computer that we love you.

 

Very nice. The Swimmer Center equips the church to reach Muslims. The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. Hearing you kinda tell that story from a New Yorker’s perspective, wow, it kinda it sheds light on the power of that sort of connection that you had with those people that you didn’t even know. And and not only was there this whole new atmosphere of coming together in unity, but then in with these horrific things happening around us, there was this spiritual, every every wide spiritual sensitivity and openness that there wasn’t before.

 

And I’m not and I’m not I’m not saying it lasted super long, but it probably lasted 4 to 6 months, possibly. You know what I mean? Where there was just people you could to get into a spiritual conversation after 911 was, like, so easy. It just happened. It just happens.

 

I mean, people were just ready to because life and death and and the real and and in New York City, probably different than anywhere else. People are for a good 6 months, people are on the subway on the subway, and it stops for maybe there’s, like, a a traffic jam or something, and people are starting to, like, get jittery. Like, people are Wow. I mean So the aftershock, the after effects. The after effects.

 

And numerous times, I was on the subway, and they had to stop because there were, like, fears of bombs, scares, and so forth. So I think we call that PTSD. Well, that’s what that’s what it sounds like. This post traumatic stress. Right?

 

I mean Post traumatic yeah. Right. And and it there was a, like, this citywide, you know, post traumatic stress that was, you know No. No. There’s a lot, obviously.

 

There’s a lot of immigrants that come into New York, New York City. In your ministry, obviously, you deal with a lot of them. Did did you see any ill effects that have come from 911 to, these Muslims, that they were kinda dealing with on a daily basis that had kinda changed the culture of New York? You know, I could what I can say is that I think after 911, I can definitely notice that in churches you know, I interact with churches inside the city and mostly outside the city, but I do interact with churches some inside the city. But I definitely have noticed a change in the way Christians view Muslims after 911, and it it’s it’s not for the good.

 

It’s they, they’re viewing Muslims more from a perspective of fear rather than from a perspective of the gospel. You know what I mean? Right. Do you have any do you have any interactions that you can think of that, brought you to this conclusion? I don’t know if I could I don’t know if I could give a story that’s worth just comments that people make, Just off the bat.

 

About about immigrants that, well, they shouldn’t be here, you know, or just this sense of we need to keep them out. We need to this idea, this feeling, this these comments here and there that the Muslim is the enemy. And and I think this is coming. And it also flows out of this feeling, like, you know, the they’re not only the enemy of Christianity, they’re the enemy of America. And there’s this almost, like, this false patriotism, like, where we just need to they’re the enemy.

 

We need to keep them out. And I think people are thinking more from the perspective, and I and I do think it’s a false patriotism, but more from the perspective of their citizenship within the US versus their citizenship in heaven. You know what I mean? It’s it’s Well, I think the are you saying that you’re seeing more of this within the church than you are just with non believing or non church going New Yorkers? Like, the New Yorkers in general aren’t like this, but in the churches, it seems to be more prevalent?

 

So New York is kind of like a haven where the major message and if this is happening over the US, but the major secular message is tolerance. Right. You know what I mean? So I think that they’re that people on the outside communicate this tolerance. It doesn’t mean that their internal fears aren’t there, but there’s this political correctness of tolerance.

 

So it’s really hard to tell with just normal people, but as far as what’s actually going on. But I definitely see it in the church especially outside the city because I’m interacting with a lot more churches outside the city. So I I don’t know if I could, give an accurate representation of churches in the city, but I would say that probably since New York City is such an international city, people are interacting with Muslims on a daily basis. And what I think most people, what they find is that a lot of their Muslim friends are just as horrified by what happened as they are and just as scared about what’s happening and their own insecurities. It’s not like these aren’t people.

 

Do you know what I mean? It’s not like these aren’t people with children in the same schools, and they love their kids just as much as we do. Right. So I think that probably the advantage that the New Yorker has is that it’s such an international city that they realize I, you know, I almost feel like people on who aren’t around Muslims and aren’t around internationals, they almost, in a sense this is gonna sound extreme, but they almost, in a in a sense, forget that these are people Right. With feelings.

 

You know what I mean? Like, who have kids and who actually love their kids just as much as we love our kids, and they have the same insecurities, and they have the same desires. They don’t they want peace. And Right. So when you interact with regular people who happen to be Muslim in the city and you’re going to the same PTA conference together Yeah.

 

And working on a project. You see them in a normal context. Yeah. Yeah. You realize that this is the these are not the enemy.

 

You know what I mean? You’re both fighting for healthy school lunches. Yeah. I mean Right. You know, you’re on the same side and so Right.

 

And and I think what we tend to do is, when you don’t have that interaction, your mind is able to create this almost like this monster. And look, I’m not trying. I am not defending terrorism in any way. You you understand what I mean? Right.

 

I’m just trying to help people to that there’s a human side to there’s just a human side to every people from every group, and it’s almost as if, you know, I’ve traveled to different countries, and sometimes I have to let people know when I travel to a different country. I know you hate America, but there’s a difference between the people and the government. You know what I mean? What the government does. Right.

 

Right. Right. And once we have this relationship, they realize, wow. I’m not the United States government. Well, that’s kinda the same way.

 

You know, there’s a separation between what’s happening in this global political arena and these normal people who are completely separated from it Right. And who are just trying to live normal lives. And Yeah. We get so represented by our political governments. Right.

 

So it’s interesting. Yeah. Now you you mentioned a funny word. You called it, false patriotism. Can you kinda give us a a little definition or what you think that is or how you’ve seen that in a story, maybe?

 

Well, I I I think I I don’t know if I can give a story. But I think that Oh, we have stories. That was great. No. You’re just kidding.

 

Go ahead. Just try to pull a good story out of me or something. Like, you know, I just think that I say false patriotism because it, in some circles, it almost feels like that if you love America, then you’re against the Muslim. And that is just not it’s just a false patriotism. It is not It’s actually the exact opposite of what America’s supposed to be found It’s totally the exact opposite.

 

Give us an understanding of America and immigration. What what have we missed here since 9/11 where there’s clearly been a shift of anti immigrant? You live among immigrant communities. You read the scripture through the lens of how does the scripture speak to an immigrant theology. How should we view immigrants, foreigners?

 

Help us help us see that. What is supposed to be our role as Christians when it comes to the foreigner? Yeah. You know, let me just say from I think that the whole issue of immigration from a political standpoint is complicated. And and it’s interesting because I’m working with internationals who have also have strong feelings about illegal immigration because different people are trying to come in in different ways and some who are trying to come in through legal channels are upset.

 

So it’s not like Oh, that’s interesting. It’s not like the the the non immigrant is they’re the only ones upset with it. So the political side, I’m just I I think I’m just not gonna try to go into that because it’s too complex. I don’t think I understand it fully enough, but it’s not as if, oh, the, quote, unquote, American who was born here is the only one who’s against illegal Right. Immigration.

 

The complexity. There’s just it’s much more complicated because Yeah. I found that Muslims that come here legally actually are quite frustrated with those that try to go around the system because they make the system more complicated. Exactly. And it makes And so Yeah.

 

Let’s let’s avoid the political aspect of of immigration and groups and ethnicities and races, and let’s just talk about a biblical as a believer, as a follower of Christ. What what’s my role? What’s my responsibility to the immigrant, to the foreigner? Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that’s interesting in scripture is that migration the migration of peoples is is scattered throughout the scripture.

 

And this whole idea of the alien or the stranger or the foreigner, we see that throughout scripture. And, I actually think that God uses my the migration of people, in his plan in in multiple different ways, but one of the primary ways is to see the gospel spread to the nations. And, you know, it’s interest well, look at Solomon in the old testament as an example. Solomon was, you know, built the temple, and, there’s now this prayer of dedication. And in this prayer of dedication, he specifically mentions that we should pay attention to the foreigner who’s come from a distant land.

 

And this is in second Chronicles chapter 6, and it says something like this. It says, as for the foreigner who has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm, when he comes and prays towards this temple, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and do whatever the foreigner asks of you. And then it says, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you. So Solomon says that we should pay attention to the international who has come from a distant land so that all of the earth may know the name of God and fear him. And how does that happen?

 

Well, the international either comes and goes back or they come and they have bridges and connections to people from these different places. Right. It’s so weird that when you read scripture, right, you see the immigrant in there. But I’ve read I’ve read that passage before, and it’s never like, when you brought it up the other day in chapel, I was just like, I don’t think I’ve ever read that, but I’ve read it. It just doesn’t stick out.

 

You know? So it’s really interesting how you’re highlighting it and then adding that, not adding, but, bringing out the emphasis, you know, on the immigrant and and and how, you know, that was a that was a big deal, you know, in God’s eyes. I think it’s it’s definitely a big deal because this is the one time where we see Jesus actually turn over tables and get angry is when he’s in the temple and the court of Gentiles is made into a den of thieves. Mhmm. And he even quotes and says that that this is meant to be a house of prayer for the nations and they’ve turned it into a den of thieves.

 

And it’s it’s interesting that the temple always had that court that was set aside specifically for the foreigner and there’s all of these places in scripture within Levitical law where we’re supposed to take care of. Watch out for the foreigner when they come. Take them in. Be kind to them, their guest. And what makes me really sad is that it seems like the Muslim community has kept this sort of, culture of caring for the guest.

 

And the Christian community, at least in the West, has has for a great deal lost it. Totally. I mean, the the Muslims from different countries that we interact with, their level of hospitality puts us to shame, you know, in the church. Right. I mean, you are when you enter their home, you are welcome.

 

I mean, we have Muslim friends. We go over their homes often, and it’s just there’s just a culture of hospitality, and it’s yeah. I mean, I’m just totally agreeing with you. You know what I mean? So, yeah, our whole ministry let me just can I just share what Acts chapter 2 as I think is a great example?

 

You know, in acts chapter 2, we think of acts chapter 2. And if you were to ask someone, oh, what’s it about? Some people will say, well, it’s the beginning of the church. Some people say that, you know, the Pentecost, the holy spirit, all that stuff. When and that’s, you know, probably all that’s all true.

 

But, really, you look at acts chapter 2, and in it says in Acts chapter 2, it says, now they were staying in Jerusalem, God freeing Jews from every nation under heaven. So Jerusalem at this time was this international city where people were migrating or traveling to, and then they were going back you know, to their countries and so forth. So it was a very international city with foreigners from all different lands. And, you know, the apostle start to to share the gospel, and the miracle of Pentecost is a miracle of God reaching the nations who are in Jerusalem. Alright.

 

This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU. CIU educates people from a bib Biblical. Biblical world review World view.

 

Real world review. Kids CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. And that’s why it says all of these how is it that all of the all of us hear them speaking in our own native tongues? 3000 people get saved on that one day. 3000 internationals.

 

And and this was this is God’s way of seeing the gospel taken to the nation. I think migration, if you were to if we were to do a lay out a deep study, we would see that migration is a major part of God’s plan to see the gospel taken to the nations. So we need to take advantage of this rather than see the Muslim from our political false, you know, patriotism or political standpoint or personal standpoint. We need to realize that God has brought these people to us, and we have an incredible opportunity. And in Deuteronomy 10, God says, you need to love the foreigner among you, as and he talks about how he loves the foreigner.

 

Anyway, it’s just, it’s such a huge opportunity that the church is oftentimes missing, I think. Yeah. You mentioned, yesterday in your chapel message that, there’s this vulnerability, that the foreigner is exposed to, like being in a new place, in a new land, a spiritual receptivity. Kind of explain that a little bit because, you know, you deal with immigrants all the time. So when they come over to the US, what are generally their feelings?

 

What are the what are they going through? Yeah. That that that’s a that’s a big question because, I mean, I can basically summarize it. I’ve traveled to different places, and I don’t know. I’ve traveled to different places, and you’re there.

 

You just get there, and you don’t know the simplest things. Like, sometimes I go and buy something and they’ll say, you know, whatever they the currency is. They’ll say it’s this much, and I’ll pull up the money, and they’ll see me kind of looking trying to figure out. Is this right? Okay.

 

Is this You hold out a big hand of change, and you just kinda let them take it. There’s a deep sense of trust there. There totally is. So you’re just like That vulnerability. You’re totally and so you hand this big one, is this good?

 

And they’re like, and you know what? They always you what I find is when I travel to these places, especially in Muslim country, you hand out this big wad of money and they just take out this little bit. Right. Right. Right.

 

I’ve done that before. It’s it’s it’s funny. Well, that just the thing about the vulnerability of that situation, our kids do that now. Oh, right. Right.

 

Right. $2 and they’re, like, I don’t know what that is. Here’s a funny Hand them a 20 and kinda recommend it to them. They treat you like a small child too, so they don’t wanna steal from you. They’re like, here you go, poor poor guy.

 

You know? That’s exactly what it is. So imagine you multiply that by a 1,000. How do I find a dentist? How do I Oh, wow.

 

Do you know what I mean? How do I How do I navigate the health care? How do I yeah. I mean, there’s just so many issues. And then, seriously, my international friends, they go into a restaurant just to order a pizza, and they’re like and remember, New York City, there’s big lines.

 

You have to go quick. Oh, right. And so they’re actually afraid to go in and just order a pizza because they ask or order a sub you know, something from Subway because they’re like, do you want this? Do you want that? Do you want and it’s just too fast.

 

They can’t quite get it. Right. And so there’s just this general fear of doing the most basic things. So all of that to say, you have an extreme vulnerability. They’re self conscious about their English.

 

They don’t understand the culture. They don’t know if they understand the appropriate ways to say thank you or to interact or what should I put my feet here or my hands there? Oh, right. Right. All of these things that just come so naturally as so it creates this incredible vulnerability.

 

So these are incredibly courageous people, but they’re incredibly incredibly vulnerable. And when you have people who are this vulnerable and and are forced to have this kind of humility, there just becomes an incredible spiritual receptivity. They’re open to new ideas. They’re open to learn new things because they have to. They’re open to new ideas because they’re seeking to learn your culture and your life and so forth.

 

So I just think that people who are in this kind of vulnerable, humble situation just have a a new openness, to the gospel than people who aren’t. And what we’re finding is, you know, I interact with people who are doing ministry overseas, and and I also interact with people who are doing ministry to American students, for instance, on campus. And, you know, we have about a 150 unbelievers in bible studies from all different countries. There’s just the receptivity that and I think it’s due to this vulnerability and just being the foreigner. So I I think God uses that.

 

So a 150 unbelievers A 150 In Bible studies. Right. Every week. How did that happen? Yeah.

 

You did mention earlier discovery Bible studies, and I think a lot of people are kinda wondering what exactly is a discovery Bible study? Discovery bible study? I know I am. You want me to tell you? Yeah.

 

What what it what because I wanna do it. I wanna, like, I wanna bring that into my community. To discover what it is. Well, no. I mean, not for myself, but, like, you know, there’s immigrants everywhere, and it’s like, how do I engage?

 

It’s overwhelming. And where do I find them? And, you know, so there’s a lot I we can get from you. Well, we do this church planting training in New York City called equip. And, you know, it’s amazing.

 

We are so used to thinking from our Western American individualistic, you know, paradigm that there’s just so many so one of the things that we’ve changed, just as far as starting discovery bible studies, we’re trying to understand that the people that we’re interacting with come from very communal cultures and so forth and world views. And so it used to be this isn’t direct. I’m gonna get to Discovery Bible submitted. This is I’m not there yet. I’m just kinda talking about some other stuff right now.

 

But give me give Go for it. Go for it. Give me a little hey. Give me a few pages. Right.

 

So it used to be we’d meet somebody, and we’d be having coffee with them, and we’d find out that they’re spiritually interested. And and I would say, oh, I have a bible study. You wanna come join it? And they would say, yeah. Great.

 

And they would come. We don’t do that anymore, and it’s made a huge change. Now we find someone who’s spiritually interested. And instead of saying, do you wanna come? We say, hey, why don’t you gather together 3 or 4 of your friends and then we can start a bible study?

 

Oh. It’s kinda sounds like Jesus’s model. I don’t just throw that out there. He he did that, you know. No big deal.

 

It’s, you know, it’s amazing, You know, it’s that it actually people actually do it. And I think that we’re thinking, oh, we you know, I would never ask my friends to join a bible study or an Americans didn’t wanna do that. But we go to our international friends and we say, hey, why don’t you gather your family together and we’ll start a bible study? And they do it. Yeah.

 

And they’re just like, yeah. Sure. Of course. They’re totally like That totally makes sense. Yeah.

 

Yeah. I’ll ask my friends. They’re all curious. Yeah. But it’s it’s not even like, yeah.

 

Ask them to study bible. Sure. Why not? Not? It’s not it’s not even a second thought.

 

And from that so we’re not only reaching people, but we’re reaching their community there. We we call it, like, their, their household there. So we’re reaching Oikos. Nice. Yeah.

 

Their their their friends and their family and so forth. And and so that’s how we start these discovery bible studies. And then so the whole idea of the discovery bible study, is we’re trusting we’re opening up. There’s actually a process, and there’s, like, about 7 different parts that are highly reproducible that are part of a discovery bible study that, you probably don’t want me to go fully into that all of that. Well, is this is this David Watson’s discovery bible study?

 

So what we’ll do for those of you that are like, man, I need to understand the steps. We’re gonna put a link, David Watson’s, Discovery Bible Studies material, and then you’ll be able to download. I think they have a PDF online that goes through the whole the whole process. And so It’s I actually think the PDF is like 60 pages. Alright.

 

Well, we’re gonna have our guest, put it together in a 2 page summary for you. Kevin King will release the 2 page. The PDF is, like, 60 pages. That doesn’t seem I don’t know. I’ve never actually read it.

 

It’s too long. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

 

That’s terrible. But, basically, we’re we’re we’re having people go through different passages, and we’re trying to teach as little as possible, and we’re trying to have them discover what the word of God says. And you know what? And we’re trusting the Holy Spirit to guide them, and and we’re trusting that they’re gonna understand the main big ideas correctly. And you know what?

 

They usually do. And we’re seeing more people come to faith this way than when we were teachers and so forth. And it’s far more reproducible because what what we’ve seen is we’ve seen people who are a part of Discovery Bible Studies go back to their countries, never being trained on how to do it, and they start discovery bible studies. One of the things that we do is I’ll facilitate the discovery bible study that I that I start with this group. I’ll do it for 2 weeks, and then I’ll tell them up front.

 

I say on the 3rd week, I’m not gonna leave the bible study anymore, and I’ll have this person and then or or they’ll take turns. So from the beginning, after the first two weeks, I’m not leading the study. I’m not facilitating it. Someone some unbeliever in the group is. So they’ve done this week after week after week.

 

They go back to their country, and the idea of starting a Bible study, yeah, I can lead this. But that’s insane. The 3rd week. 3rd week. I said 3rd week.

 

I’m gonna model 3rd week. We tell the people coming through equip. I said, look. By the 3rd week, have them doing it. And if it’s not by the 3rd week, you better have them leading it by the 4th week.

 

So anybody can lead a discovery bible study. So the the the big naysayers gonna say, 3 weeks, you’re gonna have people producing heresy and everything else under the sun. What’s what’s the response? Let let me let me give you a response by analogy. Can I do that?

 

Absolutely. It sometimes when I go to churches you know, once I was in a church and I was sharing how we do these discovery bible studies, and we actually had tried to have them done in the language of the people. So for instance, it might be in whatever language. And I was I started a Bible study and with a group of Chinese students on campus, and I was telling the story at a church and someone said, oh, do you speak Chinese? And I said, no.

 

And they said, well, then who’s leading the bible study? Who who is you know, how do you know if they’re understanding it correctly? And I said, I I don’t. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors.

 

And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad. So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. How do you know if they’re understanding it correctly? And I said, I I don’t. Let me just say that I’m not gonna tell that story anymore when I go speak at a church.

 

But let me just say this. What I did say is, I said, how many people here have heard of the Gideons? And everybody has and I said, who who loves the ministry of the Gideons? And everybody’s like, oh, we love the ministry of the Gideons. And the Gideons, it’s great when we hear of someone in their hotel who picks up the word of God, reads it, and then they become believers.

 

And then I say, but aren’t we afraid that some unbeliever in a hotel is gonna pick up the Bible and wrongly understand it? Can we really leave Bibles out there for people to read if we don’t think if they don’t have a teacher with them? Wow. No. Because we’re trusting that the word of God and the Holy Spirit is powerful and that God can bring people to faith through it.

 

And the Gideon, that’s the that’s the premise of the Gideon ministry, and we’re just doing that with groups. Yeah. But the Gideon Bible’s in English, Kevin. Okay? Not Chinese.

 

That’s right. That’s right. It’s King James. Yeah. Well, there you go.

 

That has to count for something. Right. Right. So that’s a great point. I remember as a young believer being out on the field in India and this guy said, well, we’re gonna go plant a church today.

 

And I thought, what? And going out into this village and him planting a church and having this guy lead Bible, I said, well, how you know, where did he go to seminary? How long has he he’s been to seminary. He’d never been trained. And I thought, well, what about all the heresy?

 

He said, of course, there’ll be some heresy. That’s what the Holy Spirit’s for, and I’ll disciple him through that. And I thought, well, there you go. That takes the pressure off. I I like that.

 

That’s what the Holy Spirit’s for. Right. You know you know what you know what happened in in I would I’m gonna say it’s it’s probably on all of them, but let me just say almost. Do you know what happened in almost every church that Paul started? What?

 

Heresy. Heresy. Right. Exactly. I love Corinthians.

 

It’s great. That that’s why we have the new testament. So I try to explain to you. Look. I’m not promoting heresy.

 

I’m just saying, yes. It’s gonna happen, but God’s bigger than that. And then we deal with the heresy in different ways. But we what we don’t do is we don’t restrict all teaching to this high sacred teacher. Right.

 

Everybody has to go through him. I mean, you know, look, I have a lot of friends who are Catholics, who are who are true believers. I I grew up in the Catholic church. But, you know, there was a time when the Catholic church wouldn’t allow people to have the scriptures because Right. They needed a priest to interpret it for them.

 

Right. And, you know, we just don’t believe that. We believe that the word of God and the Holy Spirit that God can use that and transform people’s lives, and we’re seeing him do it in groups. And we’re actually seeing that when people read the scripture and do these discovery bible studies that the main ideas they’re getting completely clear. Right?

 

So, like, for instance, we’ll go over Genesis 1. The main thing we want them to get is that God created the world. Genesis 3, the main thing we want them to get is that people disobeyed God and now things are bad. You know? So these are the big ideas from passages.

 

People are getting it, and they’re they’re drawing close to Christ. Yeah. I’m I’m sure I don’t need to point this out, but I feel like I need to for those that are, like, stirring in their seats right now. You guys are walking with them in life. Like, you’re making disciples.

 

You’re not just sort of dropping in, dropping a Bible off, and taken off. Like, you’re actually doing life with these folks. We’re doing life with you. Training them, you’re equipping them, and then you’re actually making disciples who in turn make disciples. Right.

 

Yeah. This isn’t I mean absolutely. So help us understand what’s going on positive among Muslims in New York City because we need to hear more and more encouraging things about what God’s doing in the Muslim community in America because that’s I think that will help disarm some of our fears about, oh, all these Muslims are coming. Well, if we looked at it from the lens what you’re putting on, which is basically saying it’s a good thing these Muslims are coming. They’re here.

 

We can share the gospel with them. Is God doing anything amongst groups there, in New York City through equip? Let let me say that anybody who’s listening, if they are involved in Muslim ministry, they their whole perspective of understanding these people is gonna completely change. 1st, let me just say that, and they’re gonna see these people as normal everyday people who have the same desires, cares, you know, wants that that we have. So and I say that because in any group, any group that you do ministry with, you’re gonna have people who reject it and people who receive it.

 

You’re gonna have people who are interested and people who aren’t interested. You’re gonna have people who wanna study more and then people who completely resist it. So that’s normal. That happens in any ministry. It happens.

 

We have a team reaching out to Tibetans. We have a team reaching, you know, international students on campus, and, you know, some of those are from China. It’s with any culture. We have we just have we actually have some amazing we actually have right now, we have one of our teammates. We’ve had this relationship with a Muslim community center in one of the neighborhoods in in New York City.

 

And one of our teammates went to the community center. We have this relationship with and they said, we’d like to do an art workshop. And then the the head of the this Muslim woman who’s the head of the whole center said, that sounds great. And the girl said, well, let me just explain because when I do my art workshops, I really it’s all about, how my life has changed and how God and and Jesus Christ has changed my life. And the the director was like, that sounds great.

 

And Really? Yeah. And then she said she said she stopped her and she said, no. I just need to make it clear that when I do the art workshop, I share a lot about Jesus Christ and how he’s changed my life. And she said, great.

 

Now they’re doing an art they’re doing an art workshop, and it’s amazing. You have 60, 70 high school Muslim girls completely covered sitting in rows as as our teammate is just sharing through art how Jesus Christ has changed her life. And you see, people who aren’t It’s blowing my mind right now. Who don’t do Muslim ministry would never imagine that you can have this kind of relationship. One of the things that’s that that is so refreshing about working with Muslim people is it’s so easy to get into a spiritual conversation with Muslim people.

 

Whereas you talk to any other American on the streets and, oh, they don’t what are you crazy for bringing up God? I don’t want to come up with It’s private. It’s private. You know what I mean? That’s that’s none of your business.

 

Yeah. You talk to a Muslim, and they they are open, and they wanna talk about God. And so it’s just it’s really refreshing, really fun. And to get into a spiritual conversation, it’s just it’s just so easy. So we’re seeing lots of spiritual conversations happen.

 

We had one of our teammates this was about a month ago. It’s just awesome. He’s friends with this guy, Mohammed. They’re reaching out to West African Muslims in the city. And, he he was he was on the street in Harlem, and he thought he saw Muhammad.

 

So he went up to him and put his hand on his shirt and said, Muhammad, guy turns around, it’s not Muhammad. Right? And hate that. Yeah. I know.

 

Howard hates that because he’s, like, you guys think all Asians look the same, you know? Because we we have actually had we have a mutual friend that literally was at the gas station. He was, like, hey, Howard. What’s up, man? And the guy just kinda looked at him.

 

He’s, like, Howard, no. You’re not you’re not Howard. Howard was, like, you think all Asians look the same. There’s probably a little bit of truth. You know what I mean?

 

I think that where that happens in every culture both ways just so It does because Koreans I worked in a Korean church and they’re like, you all you white people look the same. I’m like, yeah. It says it goes all the all the way across all the cultural boundaries. So Okay. Sorry.

 

Total distraction. We’re offending everybody today. Okay? So, Mohammed, go ahead. So he puts his hand on this guy’s shoulder and says, Mohammed, it so it’s the guy turns around.

 

He goes, oh, I’m so sorry. And he he starts interacting. He goes, oh, I thought you were Mohammed blah blah blah. I don’t remember that. And then the guy the guy said, oh, he said, oh, you teach you talk about I don’t know how the conversation went.

 

Anyway, this is what happens. The guy pulls out a scroll. A real scroll? A a real scroll. Okay.

 

Like, a roll I don’t know if it’s a it was a rolled up piece of paper. Okay. I don’t know exactly. Scroll ish. It was scroll ish.

 

Scroll ish. Scroll like. Scroll like. Right. It could have been a scroll, but and he says the guy says, I’m looking for someone who can talk to me about this man.

 

He opens the picture, and it’s a picture of Jesus. Get out of here. He’s obviously and, I mean, these are the kind of divine appointments. You said he’s he’s al Masih. You gotta explain that.

 

Jesus the Messiah. This is the the Arabic term Yes. That Muslims would know Jesus as. As he’s revealed in the Quran for a Muslim, it is Isa Al Masih, Jesus the Messiah. This man shows up with a squirrel.

 

A squirrel? Squirrel. A squirrel. Shows up with a squirrel, unrolls this thing and says, I’m looking for somebody who can tell me about Issa Alemassy. Yeah.

 

I mean, these are the crazy kind of things that are happening. This is straight out of the New Testament. Straight out of the New Testament. These kind of stories. You know, there’s also spiritual warfare.

 

So, you know, we’ve had teammates who have had really great conversations with imams and and where the imam says, oh, can you please come and teach the Injeel, which is the, you know, the gospel. That’s the word in the Quran. In in the mosque. And so open doors and then spiritual warfare comes in, and there might be someone else who, you know, completely makes it closes the doors on this. So this is like ministry in any area, but there’s incredible receptivity, by Muslims to to talk about spiritual things, to talk about Jesus, to talk about the gospel.

 

And it’s just really exciting to be a part of it. In closing, is there anything that you would like to challenge our listeners with? The big thing I would challenge is that the nations are here. The nations are here, and we need to view ourselves as citizens of heaven. And the only reason I say it is because of this false patriotism that people have.

 

View ourselves as not citizens of a certain nation, but citizens of heaven, and our our calling is to be an ambassador to the nations, that we are bringing the gospel. And the fact that God is opening the doors to bring the nations to us is just an opportunity that we can’t let pass, and we need to be intentional about befriending the foreigner and bringing the gospel. I think that’s a good good word, Kevin, because when we look at the scripture, we see that the the Babylonian exile is what spread the Jews throughout all those nations so that they could come back in Acts and they could hear the gospel. And then in Acts chapter 2, we can see nations from under heaven, every nation from under heaven. And then we see the Roman Empire and the spreading of the Roman Empire and the Roman soldiers hearing the gospel and migration movements happening there.

 

And then when we look throughout history, there’s all of these things continually happening and, hopefully, when people look back at this time in history, they will say that God spread the nations out and that they came to the United States and they met Christ. Amen. That’s it. The nations are here. Kevin, thank you so much for coming in.

 

Hey. My pleasure. This was pretty awesome. We’re gonna put a link, to your website. You you have a website.

 

Right? Yes. Yeah. We’re gonna put a little bit New York New York City international project dot org. Dotorg.

 

That’s a good Yeah. That’s the other challenge. Right? Come to New York City. Oh, yeah.

 

Amen. Come. And and the equip, program, anybody can come to that? Equip program, anybody can come to it. It’s a 10 month training.

 

10 months. Wow. It’s really 10. It’s really 10 months of cross cultural ministry. So don’t you don’t have to think of it as a training.

 

You come where you can work with unreached people groups for a year, and we’ll give you a training. You come just as you are. Now you guys have also partnered with Columbia International University for people that wanna do their master’s degree in the field that wanna live in New York City, serve for a year, and get their master’s degree through CIU online. Correct? Absolutely.

 

You can you can come Cool. Be a part of the training, really being part of teams reaching out, doing hands on ministry, reaching Muslims, and getting a master’s in Muslim studies or a master’s in intercultural studies from CIU at the same time. Wow. That’s so cool. Listeners, thank you for listening.

 

This is Truth About Muslims, and, check us out on iTunes. Write reviews. We got 18 so far, and they’re all good. We’re still waiting for some hate. It hasn’t happened yet.

 

I do have to share one quick story about the hate. I was really encouraged by a friend at church the other day. He said, hey, man. Listening to your podcast, I’m loving it. He said, I am circulating it to so many friends.

 

And I was like, oh, that’s great, man. He goes, well, not yet. Sort of. He’s like, they all hate you guys, but, you know, he’s like, he’s like, but don’t worry. You would wanna be hated by these people.

 

He said, the good thing is they’re considering some of the things, but the vast majority still hate you. So I was like, oh, okay. I still slept. But anyway, praise God. Praise God.

 

Anyways, so, tune in next week. Thanks.

Live from Columbia International University: Should We Fear Muslims?

God is at work in Jordan Despite Isis: “I Am Muath”

The burning of the Jordanian fighter pilot shocked the world. Find out from a Christian living in Jordan why ISIS chose this method of execution and what they were trying to say to the Muslim world. Her stories about God’s faithfulness will encourage you.

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Here starts the auto-generated transcription of God is at work in Jordan Despite Isis: “I Am Muath”: 

 

 

Once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist. Islamic extremist. These is not irrelevant. It is a warning. Welcome to the truth about Muslims podcast.

 

The official podcast of the Swimmer Center For Muslim Studies, where we help to educate you beyond the media. Here are your hosts, Howard and Trevor. Alright. So here we are in the studio with a friend, Lisa, from Jordan, and we’re really excited to talk to her today. She’s graciously agreed to come in and, just to kinda share some stories about Jordan, what’s going on there.

 

And, yeah. So let’s, Trevor, you got a question you wanna start with? With? I do. Always.

 

How long have you lived in the Middle East? Yeah. We my husband and I have been there 14 years now. Wow. So yeah.

 

That’s a long time. It has been. It feels doesn’t feel like it, but, yeah, it happens quick. And and you have you have children? Yes.

 

I’ve got 3 girls. So And do they go to school in public? Public school? I don’t know what they would call it. International school.

 

We kinda do a combo, and, 2 of our kids were homeschooling. So it’s always, you know, one of those kinda mixed situations. So Do your kids speak better Arabic than you or your husband? No. Actually not.

 

Alright. So in the news, there’s a ton of stuff going on about Jordan, especially with, ISIS and the fighter pilot burning. Mhmm. And and, also the king of Jordan Mhmm. Actually getting into a a a fighter jet and, and bombing, ISIS.

 

Well, just to clarify on that, there was a picture of him in the in the regalia of where but he himself did not actually fly. He he he has been trained as a fighter pilot in jet but that was more of a of a promo picture that was kinda put out there to say, hey, we’re going to battle, but he himself did not from our Jordanian news, we we did not get that impression. But I know in the American media, that was the impression. Oh, yeah. In the articles, it was like, oh, yeah.

 

He’s going out. He’s giving them. You know? I’m just like pulling mock, you know, however many, pulling g. You know, it’s really sad.

 

It’s kind of been a unifying factor, the death of this pilot. So the name of the pilot and it’s kind of it’s the slogan everywhere is he has united us all. So it’s very much this call of he’s kinda being, you know, lifted up as kind of the symbolic symbol now that we are united now against this fight because of him and his death. If you heard about how this went down, it wasn’t just a simple burning. It was it was brutal.

 

It was it was antagonistic. And then not only was he burned, but then they brought a bulldozer and crushed his body. And if for a Muslim not to be buried in the in the right way is incredibly shaming. So it was, this is in your face. This is absolutely and so the response was just to the very deepest core of you have just defiled us, and you are you know, the emotion that was tied to that whole event was so deep.

 

So so you would be saying that ISIS was sending, an insulting message. Like, I am insulting. Not even the right vocabulary. It was a degrading core, you know, like, as as low as we can get to to defame you, we are we are doing this event. Yeah.

 

And and we in the west were just like, wow. That is tragic. No. No. But to to Jordan, they would be like, this is a message that’s loud and clear.

 

Is absolutely loud and clear. Yeah. And and and, you know, I don’t know I don’t know enough about why they would have done this. I think it’s, you know, their reasoning was to, you know, they they’re trying to bring instability to Jordan, but it almost brought the opposite response. But that’s interesting because, when we had talked to missionary Brady, who’s working in Southern Sudan, he had mentioned, this tribal identity and how that was oftentimes stronger than political identity, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in Jordan.

 

Jordan’s unique. You know, Jordan in the 1921 became a a state, and it was particularly Jordanian. Then in the 4860 7 when the Palestinians came in, they’re a big part of the population now too. But there is a very strong sense in Jordan of a national identity. It’s very nationalistic in a lot of ways.

 

And so even though it is tribal and there definitely are big tribes and family names, they really have a very united identity. That’s really interesting because, there’s Bedouins in Jordan. Are they nomadic? Yes. So still so even as a nurse, I particularly even work out with these nomadic, people.

 

I mean, they still live in tents, herd their camels and sheep and And and and they work out. Yeah. Wait a minute. Work out. You have you you have bedwins coming into the the gym.

 

Oh, well, that’s another part of what these are city 5 bedwins. So I also work at a community center that we do a lot of, like, fitness and things like that. So would you Yeah. But we do, but these are bedrooms. So they have their house, their city house, their concrete house.

 

Oh, okay. And next door, they have their tent. And so they’re grandma, and they’ll still go out and have dinner out in the tent, but then they go sleep inside their concrete houses in the lake. Interesting. Yeah.

 

So it’s a little city fied. They’re the city fied ones. Yeah. But there’s still this national identity. There very much is.

 

Very and there’s a lot of pride in being Jordanian. They have a very patriotic kind of sense about them. Okay. So what what would you attribute that to? Because this is kind of one of those things that’s going on.

 

This is the one of the many identity crises going on within the Muslim world is who are we? Are we Muslim? Are we Jordanian? Are we Turkish? Are we Muslim?

 

Are we Muslim or Pakistani? Yeah. There’s all of these sort of mixes of identities going on. How did Jordan, just from, you know, living there for the past 14 years, that’s kind of been you’ve been there for a good portion of this process. How did they do it?

 

I think, you know, they’ve had some very strong leadership, you know, from the monarchy, the Hashemite Kingdom. King Hussein, you know, who was the very strong king through the seventies eighties, and he passed away in the, nineties and his son, Abdullah, came over. But they have endeared the people. I mean, they have been a very compassionate monarchy to the people and very understanding of the plight of the average person. I mean, they can, obviously, they can, deal with the high, but they have really identified, tried to meet the practical needs of the average Jordanian.

 

And this has really been very unifying for the country. There’s a very pro king type, type atmosphere within Jordan. That’s interesting. And and you also, mentioned that there was yesterday, that you mentioned there’s a parliament. There is.

 

Is this is this a like a British type government where there’s no the king doesn’t have any power or what? It’s a constitutional monarchy, but the the king still has the final say. And he will, you know, at any moment, he appoints the prime minister, but then he can disband parliament and call for reelection. The reelection of, like, their idea of a congress is democratic. You know, people vote, but he at any time can have say into when that is disbanded and when new vote happens.

 

But he overturns anything, you know, but he but he does listen to the people and he’s not he’s not you know, he doesn’t come across the as the perception of being superpower hungry. He’s really for the people, and that’s the attitude that most people have about him. There’s a bunch of refugees coming in from, Iraq, Syria, from basically, were fleeing from ISIS. Yes. And Jordan has opened their doors.

 

Yes. And that, you know, that kind of, goes along with what you’re saying about the king. Yeah. But you had mentioned that the the a lot of the Jordanians had come from Palestinian descent. You know, in 48 and 67 again, you know, if Palestinians flooded into Jordan as well as Lebanon and Syria, but Jordan was one of the very few countries that actually granted them, citizenship when they came in.

 

And so this really gave them a sense of, you know, you know, there were they weren’t they didn’t just have side papers that they were kind of side lined Right. People that Secondary citizens. They were genuinely citizens now of that country. So many times now as we’ve seen the Iraqi war happen, the Syrian war, there’s a strong that’s been hospitality. This comes even back to the Bedouin roots.

 

When you have guests and they’re in need, you accept them and you feed them. You care for them. And this is very much tied into the culture. And even with these refugees that are coming in. Now it’s not always all loved.

 

I mean, there’s definitely tensions that come with it. But in their innate part of their cultural heritage, that’s part of who they they are. So a lot of these, tribal groups, particularly thinking of Bedouins Mhmm. They’ll have a story within their their culture about offering protection Mhmm. Even for the guests.

 

Exactly. Exactly. I heard one recently and I’m just curious. What what is the story that goes with that? Well, pretty much if anybody is on the run kinda from an enemy or something and comes to your home and you you are you are kind of to welcome them under your tent, under your roof.

 

When they’re in your home, you protect them and you care for them. You know, this came back to the old days of, you know, in tribalism and a lot of tribal wars were literally happening. But there’s a strong sense of protectionism. And even us as westerners, as an American there, they very much take that under themselves. We have particular families that have even said you are under our covering now.

 

And when you have a problem, if you have a legal problem, a social problem, you are under our covering, and we will protect you. We will take care of you in our legal system, in our, you know, whatever issue you have, we will we will fight for you. And it’s very much part of the mentality there. On a nationalistic level, you have this refugee group from a neighboring country flooding in. And and, and this is interesting too, listeners.

 

Jordan is not an economically wealthy country. No. No. Yeah. So it’s not like they just have all this to offer, but they’re still doing this out of sacrifice here.

 

They really are. And even in, you know, part of Jordan, there is even a Christian church there. 4% of the population have Christian heritage. Out of that, there’s a very small number that are are evangelical. Most of them are from the Coptic or the Orthodox or Roman Catholic.

 

But with this ISIS, you know, a couple months ago, there were these tribes in Iraq, you know, Christian tribes that were being slaughtered. And we just heard today on the news about some more Christians being slaughtered with through ISIS. But these actually Christian Arabs with the same kind of mentality of open homes if they own any apartments or having extra property or have extra rooms. They have welcomed these Christians fleeing out of these some of these places to come and stay in their homes. So there’s there’s really this, really beautiful spirit of hospitality that’s there in the country.

 

One particular family, they, he, just a wonderful Christian believing family, and they had an extra apartment in kind of another city. And it was actually a very nice apartment. And they offered it to, there were 5, actually, 5 of these Iraqi families that were fleeing. Five families? Five families went into one apartment.

 

And they opened the doors, and they were willing to know, you know, hey, our furniture’s gonna get scratched up and our, you know, our dishes might get broken and but, but they, you know, just they were they were kind of a more of an upper class family but really had a a strong sense of this was what God was asking them and calling them to do. So So these Iraqi families, they don’t they didn’t know this man. No. And and, yeah, there’s a risk on. You know, there’s a risk when they do this, but they they feel like this is our contribution.

 

Our our region, our you know, and especially with other Christians, you know, they really they’ve really felt a strong sense of, hey, God. You know, you we need to really care. We need to care for people. You know, on a sacrificial level. And and and there wasn’t any, like, end in sight.

 

I mean, they were refugees. Right? So I know of this this family who’ve given up this apartment. There are 5 Iraqi families now living in that apartment. It’s been that was in October.

 

So it’s been since October that they they that those families have been living there. And and how how has the family’s been responding? I think they’ve had you know, there’s some growing pains because they have a lot of children with them, and so I think a lot of their apartment has actually got a little bit trashed. You know, and when you think 5 family units living in a small apartment. Right.

 

So that’s been a little difficult for them. But, but at the same time, you know, it’s kind of go back, you know, where your treasure is. That’s where your heart’s gonna be also. And they’ve they’ve kind of really put that in. They’re living that out.

 

Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU. CIU educates people from a bib Biblical.

 

Biblical world review. Worldview. Real world review. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. What are your thoughts about Jordan and kind of the social structure there and how does that play into what we see in radical recruitment?

 

Mhmm. Yeah. You know, from our experience, we don’t see a lot of the radicalism, obviously, of ISIS to that extreme. People are pretty nominal in a lot of ways. My husband and I find that we actually sometimes know the Quran and a little even more about Islam than many of them do.

 

Wow. And so, so, really, what what feeds a lot of him what we’re seeing I have a personal friend, and her son was just a, you know, kind of a punk kid. And but he they started, Islamic clerics started coming to his school and after school programs. And they started taking a couple of these young boys and kind of talking to them. Then, Ramadan happened.

 

This was last summer. Ramadan happened. And they started meeting with these boys and doing things with them. Well, my my friend started to notice that her son, he was 16 at the time, began to, you know, go to the prayer times a little more. He started growing his beard a little more, dressing more conservatively.

 

And, you know, he was just a he was just kind of a a jerk kid. But all of a sudden, he just started to kinda clean up his life. And then his mom started hearing him kinda say, I think I wanna go up to Syria. And, you know, it was very slowly, but just kind of over a couple months, she just completely kinda saw her son almost transformed. But it was the way she put it, it was almost like this kinda gang mentality of kind of her sons and his friends had nothing else to do.

 

They were understimulated and kind of almost sees Islamic extremists have kinda come in, given them a lot of ideology, kind of helped given them a sense of, hey, you could belong to something. You could be part of something. And almost kinda and she’s just terrified. That that word that you said before, that, gang mentality, that was really, really kind of eye opening for me just to see, wow, this isn’t yeah. It’s it’s social also, you know?

 

Yeah. What do you find, I guess when I think about young people, I don’t think that they want to become more strict Mhmm. In their religious beliefs. Mhmm. But here you have these guys that are recruiting and turning these kids, I mean, you know, from the outsider’s view, you know, straightening up their life, like you said, about your friend.

 

Mhmm. So do you know what draws these young people to to that type of lifestyle? I really think that they’re really not part of anything. It’s community. It’s a sense of wanting to belong.

 

It’s a sense of wanting to to to do something, to have something significant with your life, to you know, and and athletics or or, you know, things that in, you know, in America, there’d be opportunity know, for kids to be involved in music, in arts, in in athletics, you know, different variety of different outlets. I mean, there’s nothing like that for these kinda kids. And so a lot of it is, well, hey. What’s the thing that we’re hearing that’s, you know, the what’s the rah rah rah? What can we really you know, what’s exciting?

 

What’s adventurous? What’s interesting? So even though it’s stricter, it’s still more adventurous. It is. It captivates, I think, on those emotions and and those feelings.

 

And and when you begin to hear it, okay, and then it has this, oh, but it’s a noble the nobility of this is a religious, you know, banner that’s been weighed. There’s an automatic feel good. Yeah. Whenever Americans deal with troubled youth, troubled teens Okay. One of the questions they usually ask is, where are the fathers?

 

In Jordan, where are the fathers? What are they are they just working all the time? Or do they have a divorce problem and the the father skips out of town kinda thing? I mean, like, what because we just don’t know Yeah. Over here.

 

Family units are very strong. It’s a very high patriarchal system where the father, you know, is is is you know, he works, but he is removed. You know, the mother is the primary dominant, you know, one that raises the children. The father, though, holds the boys in line. He doesn’t hold the girls in line as I mean, there’s yeah.

 

This is a whole more of a complex social issue in families. But the the boys are given a lot of freedom. They’re very unruly a lot of ways, and it’s very the moms have a difficult time saying no to their boys once they reach after the age of 10 years old. And so you get very poorly behaved, actually, kids that know discipline and know authority and listen to it. Schools have to be incredibly strict in those age groups, kind of that junior high, high school level for boys because they’re not taught and home is not a place where, respect respectfulness is is endeared.

 

Now from your father, it would be very harshly. But you’re you’re you don’t often give that. But you get a lot of kids that, I mean, kind of are very, like, wild in spirit. I I don’t know the right kind of but they haven’t learned to discipline and self discipline in many ways. It’s interesting that the the mothers have really a great source of power in the family.

 

They do. They do. Because we don’t often hear, Muslim women presented in that way. But, I was talking with a friend here recently who’s worked extensively in the Middle East and she made the comment, about the power of a mother and a son. Mhmm.

 

And, so of course, I was thinking, you know, being a mom’s boy is not an insult in an Arab context. No. No. And mother’s day is one of the biggest days of the year. You know, to come and honor your mother is actually a very big thing.

 

And mothers do this because your your boys are your, retirement plan. And how you raise your boys, they’re the ones that are gonna care for you as you get older and your husband dies. You’re gonna be the one living with them. And so, you know, this is very important for a mother to raise her sons because that’s that’s who’s gonna care for you as you get older. So And so there’s a strong bond and relationship that even happens.

 

So even though there’s, there’s unruly children, unruly children, there’s still a deep sense of obligation. There is in a way. It’s this tension. You know? It’s, like, the sense of obligation.

 

You need to love your mother, but you but but boys, like the sense of obligation. You need to love your mother, but you but but boys, once they start reading to you in their teenage years, they’re actually quite, a lot of mothers are scared of their kids. Scared of them? Yeah. They’re just they’re very the rudeness, the, you know, they’re they’re very demanding of their mothers.

 

It’s a this it’s a it’s a really unique dynamic of Yeah. Of socially what kinda happens in those in those in those ages. So Okay. So Yeah. Do you have do you have a son?

 

No. I only have 3 girls. Okay. I was gonna ask how how you’ve handled this with your own son when he’s loading. I know.

 

I know. But it’s hard actually with my girls because there’s very different standards from the way girls are treated from the way boys are treated. Now girls are a lot more strict. They need to be, you know, the top three things. You know, they need to be respectful.

 

Demure and don’t draw attention to themselves, you know. So that’s you know, those are very important qualities. It’s kind of a crazy story, but this she actually had a father-in-law that during the Iraqi war went into Iraq to to find work because he was he was having a difficult time in Jordan. And while he was there through satellite TV programs, actually, through, Coptic Egyptian, minister, priest actually came to know Christ through the through the satellite TV and began a correspondence In Iraq. In Iraq.

 

This is other there’s other crazy satellite Internet is huge in ways people come to know Christ. Huge. But, so he became to know Christ and became a correspondence program with these guys in Egypt, grew in his faith some, and then came back to Jordan. Well, he came back to Jordan. He had 3 sons.

 

And, so but in the meantime, my friend, her name’s Miriam, he, she began having these dreams. And a man would come to her and say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.

 

So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. She began having these dreams, and a man would come to her and say, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. And she had no idea what it meant. So this father-in-law came back and began sharing with his sons and her as the daughter-in-law about things, you know, his life change. And they would beat him up, kick him out.

 

You know? Just yeah. I mean, they just they hadn’t want nothing to do with him. But he kept persistent. We come back.

 

They beat him up, kick him out again. You know, beat him up, kick him out. Well, then after a few times, they started feeling bad for him. And so finally, they’d let him come and hang around for a little while, then finally, you know, kick him out again. Well, one day he you know, after a series of this, he became and one day was had opened up his bible and actually started reading.

 

She’s under his breath. I’m the way, the truth. And she just said, stop. Stop. Stop.

 

She’s like, immediately, what is that? What in the world? And this had been a recurrent dream of hers. And it had really been, and he said, this is this is Jesus. This is Jesus.

 

And it just opened her heart, to the gospel and and being ready to hear. And then all 3 of his sons, and just each one of those has a different cool story about how God did it, but the whole family unit became to know Christ. Well, I mean, just so they’re all now as a family. Her father was a well known sheikh in our in our town. And so they put under tremendous persecution and pressure for their whole family to to follow Christ.

 

But their persistence and perseverance to follow after Jesus, to lose so much, Their children, you know, were, you know, many times, you know, family members would come and just say, we’re gonna take these kids away from you because of these decisions you’ve made. But they would just pray over it. He times of intense sickness and issues with their family, God needing them. But their absolute pursuit of god and wholeheartedness that, god, you are worth it even more than these persecutions and struggling. I am humbled.

 

I’m just humbled to be around her and know her and to see her faith, in tremendous difficulty. It’s so cool because I don’t know, but, I think I meet a lot of people that just kind of assume God is not working in Muslims. Oh, man. You know? Like, this is impossible.

 

It’s it’s, like, just let them go. They’re they don’t wanna be they don’t wanna, you know, they don’t wanna have their eyes opened. But, like, you just see things like that, and you’re just like But that was, like, there was no missionaries. There was nobody. That was just God interact.

 

God pursued. Yeah. You know, God’s nobody. That was just God interact God pursued. Yeah.

 

You know, God’s pursued. And I could tell you I could still tell you hundreds of stories of just experiences we’ve had over the years of meeting people of pursuit of God. You know, like, I had another friend. Could I tell another story? Absolutely.

 

We love stories. But, you know, I mean, just I had another friend. Her son had pretty severe epilepsy. And so we went, had a visit, and she told us this. And we said, we can just pray.

 

Pray. And we said, can we pray in Jesus’ name? You know, Jesus is a is a good prophet in Islam and a healer prophet too. So she said, okay. So we prayed.

 

And, a couple days later, she said, my son hasn’t had any epileptic seizures. In a couple more weeks, she said he has had nothing. And she said you prayed in that Jesus name. What was that about? We said, well, hey.

 

Come. Let’s let’s study about this. Let’s let’s read about this. We want scripture words to mean more than just our words. So we try as fast as we can to get them into scripture life words.

 

So she was just I mean, she has just been blown over. But this this was god’s touching her family. Then she had another friend whose husband was gonna go marry a second wife and absolutely devastated this woman because, you know, up in Islam, it’s the 4 wives and but she mostly in Jordan, most only keep 1. It’s only the wealthy or the very poor that often have more than 1. But, but but she was devastated about it.

 

And our friend said, well, come to this meeting. Come hear about this Jesus. He’ll tell you that you’re significant in the airport. And so she started coming. So then another friend’s husband died, and, we go to their we go to visit her because her after after the death, you know, you woman can’t leave her house for about 4 months afterwards.

 

And, and while we’re there, as women, we get into random conversations. We begin talking about plucking our eyebrows. Well, in even This is the first evangelistic strategy I’ve ever heard in my life, plucking of the eyebrows. Ladies, I don’t understand it here. I don’t understand it in Jordan.

 

Hey. This is this is good stuff here. I guess it works. Alright. Go ahead.

 

Yeah. Alright. However, we gotta try it. You know what? No.

 

In Islam, in the Hadiths, there are are rules about how hair should be removed. No. Yes. Yeah. And nails and hygiene.

 

Yes. So this that night, she went to bed and felt the shame and the condemnation of, you know, Allah that because she had been, you know, plugging her eyebrows for years and the next day, on a follow-up visit, said, I’ve got to know. Would God forgive me of this? And do I have a place in heaven and paradise with him? Please tell me, is there any way?

 

And just, again, share the gospel with her. And she comes to this meeting. So now it’s these 3 ladies meeting together, open scriptures. You know, God is Jesus is meeting them at their practical needs. And this was just a few months ago as we were preparing to come back to the US, but this was a group of ladies gathering together.

 

But can you say God is not pursuing these people? You know, I keep continuing to hear this theme, but, like, people are studying the Bible with Muslims. They’re not Christians yet. They’re they’re No. It’s not.

 

They’re studying the Bible with Muslims. Yeah. And it’s not weird. Mm-mm. No.

 

Now in our context, religious, you know, religion and politics are our top two topics. So we immediate it’s easier for us to get into religious discussion in Jordan than it is here in the US. But, you know, we have to deal with some issues about, you know, talking about the scriptures, you know, this corruption issues. And often some people feel like they’d be cursed if we bring a scripture into their home. So it just depends on who or how we’re engaging, but we have ways.

 

You know, we have to navigate some of those things. But usually, when Jesus comes and touches them and meets those felt needs, that that stuff just goes to the wayside. And they just wanna get to knowing, hey. Really? What’s this Jesus stuff really about?

 

Okay. So we we see that, one, there’s an assumption that god’s working. Absolutely. And we assume every visit. Every visit I go into, I assume that god, you’re gonna show up and you’re gonna give me an opportunity to share and he does.

 

Right on. He does. Why why would we assume anything else? It’s so bizarre that this this is something that is probably earth shattering to us. Right?

 

I mean, we’re thinking, yeah. Why not? Why should I assume? Yeah. But we should assume that God is working in the lives of his creation.

 

Absolutely. So you you go in with the assumption that god’s working. Yeah. Yeah. And then 2, you’re And I’m more curious than I am cautious.

 

Okay. What does that mean? Because, you know, most of the time we think, oh, Muslims and for our contact, Arab Muslims. Oh, we gotta be a little cautious. We don’t know where they’re coming from.

 

This could get a little, you know, this interaction could get a little extreme or volatile. But you know what? We can live curious. We wanna know about it. We wanna learn about it.

 

We wanna figure out about it. And that they just you know, everybody, we they love talking about themselves. And as they began to peel back a little bit of more who they are and what they’re about, you get to the heart stuff and you get to the real stuff. So instead of that attitude, instead of caution always immediately, we say no. Let’s not be cautious.

 

I mean, you know, there’s but let’s be curious instead. Change to have a genuine curiosity about a person. Yeah. Yeah. Because we are, as Westerners, pretty private.

 

And we don’t want people to be curious about us. But Yeah. You’re suggesting that with Muslims. Oh, and Arab people that we work with are just we find them to be warm, hospitable, interesting. They wanna engage.

 

They wanna know you. You they want to be known. And so they’re you know what? They might initially give a facade of being a little bit closed. But once you ask start asking those questions, they open up and they’re great conversationalists.

 

They really are. Okay. So inadvertently, you’ve started giving us advice on how to talk to Muslims, which is just awesome, which is awesome. But the first one you said, or we we discovered was assume that God is at work. Oh, absolutely.

 

The second thing is be curious Mhmm. Not cautious. And that’s that is huge. Just take a leap and and and be curious, not try to convince them. Right?

 

And then number 3, what would you say? Number 3, I would just say be persistent. You know, they they did a study. This was years ago. They took 730 MBBs, Muslim background believers, and they said, what was the thing?

 

How many or one of the studies was, like, how many times do you think you heard the gospel before you believed? And they came out. I remember this from my studies. It was 22 times that they had heard as an average. Woah.

 

Woah. Woah. 22 times as an average. They’ve heard the gospel 22 times. Before there was any belief.

 

Yeah. So I say, hey, it’s not just that one time. It’s not the second time. It’s not the third time. It is keep sharing it.

 

Keep talking about it. Come at it from different angles. Talk about it in different ways. Just keep doing be persistent. Churchill.

 

We’re Winston Churchill. Don’t never give up. Never. Never give up. Never give up.

 

Never give up. Oh, and another really important principle is you have to establish yourself as a moral person. Because there is an assumption as an American that Muslims will assume that we are amoral people. Because where I live, they get all of our movies, all of our TV shows. Oh, yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, now it’s Kardashians. Now it’s Oh, no.

 

Beverly Hills, Quiet Housewives. I’m so sorry. So so they think you want me to become that? That’s a Christian to them. So I’ve got to totally change their perception and mentality of what it really means to be a Christ follower.

 

What it really you know what? We don’t even call ourselves Christians there. We don’t we say I’m a follower of Jesus because if I say I’m a Christian, that means something very different to them. Okay. So in in reality, calling yourself a Christian might be actually a little bit deceptive because what they’re gonna hear you say is not what you actually are.

 

So I clarify it more by saying I’m a follower of Christ, of Jesus. And then they’re like, well, what does that mean? And then You get to explain it. It opens up the door. So you’re saying be actually religious.

 

To be. You have to show you have to show that you’re somebody who really prays. You need to share scriptures that mean a lot to you. You need to, you know, you need to engage them because they will see you. They will elevate.

 

You need to be seen as a spiritual person in their eyes. Now also, sociological studies say that you talk about the most important thing in the first 20 minutes of a conversation. No. So yeah. Don’t you yeah.

 

Hey, I study. What do I talk about? Both Howard and I are looking at each other like, what do we talk about in the first meeting there? So you have to It’s always my wife, Katie. I love you.

 

Me me too. Me too. Not Katie. My wife. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors.

 

And this week’s sponsors are Zwammer Center. Zwammer Center. Zwamer Center. Zwamer Center. And what does the Zwamer Center do?

 

Talks about Muslims and and tells them on the computer that we love you. Very nice. The Zweimer Center equips the church to reach Muslims. The Swimmer Center has been educating people about reaching Muslims before it was cool. So but yeah.

 

But you have to get out there and say, hey, within 20 minutes, if somebody is if a Muslim’s in front of me, do they know that I’m a spiritual person, that I’m a moral person, and that God and my relationship with God is significant and important? You know, it’s that same thing on an airplane. Mhmm. When you get on an airplane Yeah. You have a period of about 5 seconds Okay.

 

Where you’re either gonna have a conversation for that flight or not. Yeah. And it’s usually like in those 5 seconds, I’ve either had a conversation or there’s no talking for the entire flight. Yeah. And it’s almost like, man, what do you do?

 

And usually it’s the person puts their headphones on before they even walk on the plane. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The non verbals.

 

The non verbals. Yeah. And the and the thing that you talk about is what do you do? Yeah. What do you do for a living?

 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So, you know, be religious, be moral, and and display that you care about God and you care about spiritual things.

 

Yeah. Be cautious. Be cautious. I mean, be curious. Be curious, not cautious.

 

It was a test. That’s right. And we both failed. Be curious and not cautious. Yeah.

 

And don’t be deterred. Don’t be to keep at it. Keep doing it. You know? Yeah.

 

We have I think we forget that that even though they seem far off, they’ve been brought near. Yeah. That that Christ is working. Yeah. Yeah.

 

And if you’re interacting with them here in the US, I just think, wow. How cool is that? That God has brought them right here to your doorstep and have this opportunity. And don’t make the assumption that, wow, they’re a cell group person or, you know, here to infiltrate our country or Right. I mean, just I mean, those are the things our minds go to.

 

Don’t they? We’ve seen movies about all this. Right? Right. But but to go to and saying, hey, God, you have placed this person from a far off land, put it right on my doorstep, and I didn’t even have to go anywhere.

 

Right. And, Lord, you are at work. You are in pursuit of that person. My favorite. That’s my favorite.

 

Of them. Yeah. Believe that God is at work because he is. Yeah. He is.

 

Oh, it takes the pressure off. Yeah. And it’s he’s the one that’s gonna save them. We don’t have to. Let’s just be genuine and loving and truth tellers and truth walkers in front of them, and he’s the one that’s gonna do the work, the spirit work.

 

Yeah. Yeah. Lisa, thank you so much, for coming in. That was awesome. Your stories and, of course, all the interesting things just to see on the ground to help us to kinda see.

 

I told Lisa, when, you know, she was interested in being interviewed, actually, we pestered her until she agreed. Relentlessly. I asked her 3 times, not 22, 3 times. Persistence? Right.

 

Persistence. I was not to be deterred. And, you know, basically, I wanted the listeners, I wanted you guys to hear, you know, like how it is on the ground so that people know that, you know, Jordanians are real people that have real struggles, that that think and feel and are have goodness and, and also want to know Jesus and that God is at work. And so, so, yeah. Lisa, thank you so much for coming in.

 

I know that, it was a sacrifice, but hopefully you had a lot of fun. Yeah. I hope I’m encouragement to people because we just love Arab Muslim people. Right. They are a joy to us, and I cannot count any other privileged place than to be where I’m at with those people.

 

Right. Well, thanks so much. Thanks so much for coming in. It’s been a huge encouragement. This is, Truth About Muslims podcast.

 

Check us out on iTunes. Subscribe, write reviews, and, keep listening. Thank you. Alright. I have to ask one more one more question just to to see where what what the response is.

 

But, and this may or may not go on. I don’t I didn’t wanna ask because I didn’t wanna put you on the spot. But, what is it like for for Arab women living in that context when it comes down to that honor shame paradigm? Because I don’t think that we, as Americans understand an honor shame system. But Jordan is quite world known.

 

I mean, it’s renowned as being a society of honor and shame. How does that work in a in a female context? I think one of the base things you have to understand, it’s a collective society not individual society. So you are part of a whole. You are not just your own.

 

You, whatever you do is reflective upon your family and then ultimately on your tribe and who you, you know, and and your family name. And so it’s a very strong sense of the whole is more important than the individual. So in this honor, shame, if if somebody was to step outside of what, you know, what is deemed as honorable, You bring shame not only to yourself. It’s not just individual. It’s to that whole family unit.

 

And that’s a very strong thing because how marriage works. When somebody even goes to get married, you find out, well, what’s that family name? And every family has a reputation, not just individuals. The whole family does. And you will even make a choice.

 

Will I marry into that family reputation or will I not? So this is a this whole collective idea. So it is a very strong ingrained when you have people that make choices that bring shame onto your family, how that is dealt with. And how the family then can repair its honor again is very important because that that is your identity in your community. It impacts your employment.

 

It impacts your view, how, you know, your your economic status. It it it has a significant ripple effects your your, your identity. And so, you know, we’ve talked about, like, honor killings and things like this that even happened in Jordan because of this collective idea. If somebody, you know, maybe is promiscuous and has a pregnancy or something like that out of wedlock, that in the Muslim is seen as bringing great shame onto your family. That’s just not reflective of that of that person.

 

But that then is a whole family. You are seen now as a very loose or a very amoral family grouping. The whole family. The whole family. And so often to repair that, then in these extreme situations, an uncle or a brother or something will go and even kill.

 

You know, this these are very extreme situations. You know, we’ll go and kill that girl or it’d be only girls. It wouldn’t be boys. We’d kill that girl that has brought that shame onto their family. Does it repair?

 

And it then it would repair in the eyes of the community then you have rightly and justly repaired by showing you have this moral code and you are willing to even sacrifice your own child to elevate this moral code again. So is there any connection there with the gospel about restoring the honor of God? This is something I’ve been thinking about in in classes that we teach here in in how to present the gospel in an honor shame context. Is there a way in which we can present the gospel to a person in an honor shame system that would be more understandable? Because we we talk about legal, modes of salvation.

 

Right? Yes. Yes. It changes. So I’m just it’s something I’ve been thinking about, and I’ve I’ve thought, if I ever meet somebody working Jordan, I’m gonna ask them so that you you’re the lucky contestant.

 

Well, like this. I’ll give you a couple examples. Often we get people and they say, oh, you believe as a, Christian that God had sex with Mary and that produced Jesus. And if I say, oh, no. That’s not right.

 

You know? I say, what? What are you thinking? How can you even think this? You know, this is crazy.

 

You know, I say this to my friend. Really? But I have to be passionate and I have to be this is you think I would think I mean, she’s dishonored me. Shameful. You have shamed me by even thinking this, you know.

 

And so this you know, I have to I have to I have this kind of attitude when I’m addressing the way we even do evangelism is impacted by this. And if that kind of is addressing the way we even do evangelism is impacted by this. And if and if they say your Bible’s been corrupted, you know, and I say, you believe God’s word? God would allow his word to this to happen to his word? And this this gets them then.

 

Then they’re like, woah. She’s been shamed by this. How could I even think this then? You know? And not only that, but you’ve you’ve actually brought God into the picture and say, are you saying God can’t protect his word?

 

That he is somehow weak? Yes. Yes. You know? And so these these are the kind of honor, shame things.

 

When I am shamed by their misconceptions about what I believe, I have to put a back on them and say, how could you even think that, you know? So never ever heard, like, that type of thinking. It’s crazy. Yeah. So is this why we have such a hard time understanding when somebody does something foolish and and and and salts their prophet and says something negative about Muhammad, they feel like there’s been a great shame.

 

Oh, yes. Yes. And there needs to be a making right of that shame. Absolutely. And that’s the context to which they approach it.

 

Absolutely. You know, in years, my husband and I have studied apologetics, studied Islam, you know, a lot of these type of things. But you know what? In honesty, we don’t go after it for us. As western people, we don’t feel we have the place because the often our words and our harsh words about Muhammad, about certain aspects of Islam, bring incredible shame to them as we communicate that.

 

And so we have to be very honorable in the way that we don’t we don’t wanna be accepting of it. But the way we can craft our words to still not be condescending Right. Actually opens so many more doors for us than closes doors. Right. And so we understand a lot of the apologetics.

 

We understand a lot of those, and and there’s a place for this. And there are people now. A Muslim who’s come to know Christ out of Islam can speak very powerfully on an apologetic level because they’ve come out of it. Right. And they know it.

 

They’ve and they can they have a voice into it. But because I haven’t come out of that background, I I’m I I I bring greater shame when I communicate it. So I I’m very cautious about how we navigate those those those along those ways. Does that make sense? Yeah.

 

It does. Okay. Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s just it opens up a whole new world of understanding when you’re looking at somebody through the world the way that way they view the world, you know? And I think we have to do that.

 

Yeah. We can’t just assume that they see things the way that we do. And I think we can understand the honor shame system a little bit because when that Jordanian pilot was burned alive, nobody seemed to be nobody seemed to mind when Jordan immediately executed 2 radicals Yeah. In his place. Yeah.

 

And they didn’t recognize that they were actually seeing that honor shame system get played out right then and there.

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