Zwemer Center

Fear, misguided patriotism, and racism, are biblical themes that kept Israel from bringing God’s light to the nations. Is the American Church making the same mistakes?

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Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Islamophobia in the Church: The Jonah Syndrome:

Once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist communist and illegal extremists. 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.

Okay. Welcome to episode 4 of The Truth About Muslims, and this is part 2, of Islamophobia. We’re gonna be discussing Phil Parshall’s lecture that was given at Columbia International University. I really love that guy. That that, that particular lecture was I thought it was really provoking and and intelligent and exciting.

But there was another time that you’ve heard well, I’ve of course, you’ve probably worked with Phil Partials a lot and and, lectured with him. But you you were you had a story about another time that you’d heard him speak. That same topic, actually. The exact same topic. And and, actually, when he came to CIU, we encouraged him to give that lecture from the chapel and Right.

He kinda thought, are you sure you remember what happened last time I gave this lecture? And I thought different audience. Different audience. But yeah. He’s a he’s kinda wary from the get go.

Yeah. Understandably so. The first time that that I heard that lecture given was in a church setting, and it did not go over well. Alright. So what was that?

What happened? There was a church. I won’t say the denomination or name, but we were asked to give, a lecture series, and, there was 3 of us. It was myself, doctor Warren Larson, and doctor Phil Parshall. Right.

We went and they said, could you give us a lecture series starting on Friday? We’ll do a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all the way through, helping the church to understand, Muslims so that we might reach out to them with the gospel. Right. And that’s kinda what you do at churches on the weekends sometimes, right, when they invite you. Right.

Yeah. It was a it was kind of a it wasn’t quite a missions conference, but more of a missional focus. And it was their their annual missional focus, and they wanted to focus on reaching Muslims. And so they they, hired the Zwimmer Center to take that over, and that’s what we did. We went, all of our families actually.

My wife and kids, Warren and Carol and Phil and Julie, we all met there and we put together this, what we thought was a dynamic program. Wow. And I’ve heard and I’ve heard all of you speak and you guys are all very, very good. And so we, I think, if I remember correctly, Warren went first and talked a little bit about diversity in Islam. I went second, talked about basic belief and practice and evangelism.

And then, Phil Parshall went 3rd with, the lecture that you just heard, in part 1 of this podcast. Okay. So? Well, on the let’s see. It was Sunday evening, actually, I believe, we did a panel panel discussion.

Oh, right. And so I was the moderator, and, we we kinda felt like, you know, it’s not a huge huge church. Why don’t we just do kind of an open discussion? People can ask questions. And, the the pastor insisted that we write down the questions.

Yeah. I can see where this is building. Okay. Go ahead. You know, I was naive.

I think I probably should have known better, but the pastor said, you know, let’s write down the questions. Wouldn’t be an appropriate question? Well, you’ve done this before, though. Right? Yeah.

I mean, I could understand moderating for a huge crowd because you never know who’s in the crowd, but this is a pretty, you know, less than a 100 people. It’s a smaller church. Right. But, anyway, nevertheless, we we took the pastor’s advice. We moderated, and I’m glad that we did.

So Okay. So what? I got What what was the question? Well, you know, the it was the the question. There was only one, that was bad.

Most of them were pretty basic. You know? Phil Parchel mentioned something about Islamic contributions to the West. What are some of those contributions? And so Phil answers, give some different things about the, sort of golden age of Islam.

You know, Warren Larson mentions this about diversity, share a little bit more about women in Islam and give that perspective. And then all of a sudden, I have this question and I skip over it. And I didn’t think anybody saw me, but but Phil saw that I skipped over it. And so as the time came to an end, he came over to me and he said, hey. Can I see that stack of cards?

And I said, why? You’re trying to slip 1 in the back pocket? I was. I was. And he said, what what was that question that you skipped?

And I said, oh, you saw that? And he said, yeah. Why why would you skip a question? I said, I just didn’t think it was appropriate. And he said, what was it?

And I said, don’t worry about it. And he said, I would like to see the question. And, so I I pulled it out and I showed it to him. And the the question basically was are does everybody who works with Muslims, are they all as, anti American as Phil Parcel? Wow.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So you can imagine why I skipped over it. And Phil, actually, was he wished I had asked the question because he felt like, I don’t see how they could have brought together anti American with what he he had said.

So when we asked him to give this lecture a second time, we felt different audience, different perspectives, and, fortunately, we did have a different response. This particular church that we did this program for and this particular lecture for, we ended up getting a letter actually later from the pastor. Wow. That yeah. You shared some of that with me before, and, it’s heartbreaking.

I was really kind of sad saddened, by the response. Well Go ahead. So so was the pastor. I mean, he was he was crushed. And one of the reasons that he was as disappointed as he was was leading up to our presentation about reaching Muslims.

He had been preaching out of the book of Jonah. Right. Which is, man, that you could see all these parallels and the themes in in Jonah, especially with how Jonah’s response to the Ninevites. Like, he was not interested in reaching out to those people. No.

And when you ask, people in church, so what was the reason that Jonah didn’t wanna reach the Ninevites? Why did he flee from the Lord when the Lord called him to go and preach to the Ninevites? Everybody sort of has this Sunday school answer of, well, he was afraid. Right. Yeah.

I mean, I I can see that. Like, if you’re considered, a prophet at that time and and needing to go to a city and proclaim, the word of the Lord and, you know, you know that these are not good people. No. And by all means, if we want to think of ancient near eastern terrorist, you would think of the city of Nineveh. I mean Right.

Another podcast that I really appreciate is is hardcore history. He has, an excellent, series on the Ninevites of all people, the Assyrians. Yes. I gotta listen to them. Yeah.

It’s excellent. And he talks about the in in the, writings of the Assyrian kings, you can see some of the things that they would do. They would fillet people alive. Wow. They would fillet them and then they would put them on pillars of stone and they would be head people and put that on a pillar of stone and then they would do just modern day what we would consider acts of terrorism to inflict terror and fear of all the people that might see the kingdom of Nineveh and the city of Nineveh and the kingdom of Assyria.

That’s what they were doing. So I could understand why somebody might think, well, Jonah didn’t wanna go because he was afraid, but I think they’re wrong. Right. You know, something else that just kinda popped into my mind as you were kinda telling that is that, the Ninevites weren’t Jews, you know? And so this is a totally different group of people that God commands Jonah to go speak to.

That’s interesting. Well, that’s the that’s the beauty of it. Right? I mean, in the very end when he says, you know, you’ve you’re so upset about the destruction of this plant, which, by the way, is a caster bean plant. I just wanna point out that the name casters in the bible.

That’s right. It’s biblical. So anything like a chair caster where you roll around and cast it. But anyway anyway, sorry sorry for the side note. But, you know, you’re you’re so disappointed about this destruction of this plant.

And, what about the people of Nineveh, and how long have they been on the mind of God? Right. And, and and that bean plant that that you so mentioned, that that was basically just, you know, covering Jonah. Actually, you know, doing a doing a work as far as, you know, shading him, helping him. Right?

And then it and it dies and and that’s not even a life of a person. Right? And so I I don’t know. I get I think I guess what you’re getting at is that it does give us a really good illustration of just how, Jonah’s priorities were completely out of whack. He didn’t care about souls, didn’t care about people at that time.

Well, the Ninevites specifically, he cared more about a a plant. Yeah. Right. And so somebody might say, well, when are when are the Ninevites mentioned in scripture other than Jonah? And, well, moving forward, we see that eventually the the kingdom of Assyria is used as the rod of God’s judgment against the Israelites.

So that’s a bit bizarre, and I’m sure, you know, there’s the potential there where somebody might say, well, what was God doing with the Ninevites and then later gonna use them as a rod of his judgment? But if you look back, Nineveh is mentioned in Genesis chapter 10 in the table of nations. Nineveh has never not been on God’s heart. Wow. I never knew that.

I never I never, looked at in the in those kind of details. That’s that’s interesting. So thinking about it in a term of the lens of the mission of God, you have to recognize that, 1, when God calls us to do something, it might not be about us. You know what I mean? God might God might be wanting to do something among the Ninevites so that they might know him.

Right. And I think partial hits that in the nail on the head. Like, it’s really really hard to love people that are just so different than us. I mean, I just find that, with with Muslims especially here we’re taught that’s what we’re talking about. I mean, you’re talking about a group that we don’t understand as a general population of of Americans, that aren’t Muslim, you know, because obviously we have many Americans that are Muslims.

But, not understanding them, you know, I love the word, that, partial uses was, demonize. We demonize people. It’s it’s almost like propaganda. You know, these old war machines, like, in World War 2, World War 1, and, we would, character, character character characterize people. There it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Just stumbled across that one. But, you know, like, you you know, we’re we’re making a mockery of people that didn’t that aren’t really true images of of who these people are, what they’re like. And so with that misunderstanding, we demonize people.

And, and it’s hard to it’s an you know, Phil Parcel says it’s impossible to love, you know, someone that you demonize. Who wants to embrace a demon? Embrace a demon? I love when he Right. When he says that.

Who wants to embrace a demon? No one. But that’s why I say that even this idea of Jonah and I think why that pastor was so disappointed that his own flock responded so negatively to this message. And and I’m not saying they responded negatively because of that one question. After we left, the pastor had sent around a, a survey.

Yeah. A questionnaire about the weekend. What did you think about the weekend? You know, we would like to the pastor had a heart to be able to support the Zweimer Center’s ministry. And the questionnaire came back and he said there was an overwhelmingly negative response to our presentation.

Now is that common in in these things that you’ve you’ve done in the past? I mean, is that It’s it’s mixed. I mean Was that a shock to you? Was that a blow to you? Well, that that’s when I was very new in doing, doing this.

I had just finished my degree, my graduate degree in Islamics, and that was one of the first weekend seminars that I had participated in. And so it was a shock, and it was a blow to me, and it was, very discouraging. But when I looked at these older mentors and the way that they responded, I recognized that this is just par for the course and we have to keep going forward and and challenging people to love and reach out to Muslims regardless of the response. Wow. I mean, I think that’s that’s pretty courageous.

I don’t know if I you know, every time I went to a church, it was a 5050, and I’d I’d get beat down or or, you know, abused or or, you know, what was, yelled at or what whatnot. Like, I don’t know how long I could keep doing that, but, you know, you guys are doing this tremendous work just trying to open people’s eyes. When I think it’s it’s recognizing that the this Jonah syndrome that’s what we’re gonna call it, the Jonah syndrome. This idea that, Jonah, it wasn’t that he was afraid. And I and I get I get why some people may be afraid to reach out in a love in love towards Muslims.

Maybe they are afraid, and I understand where that’s coming from. I could see where the fear, why it would be there. However, there are those that it’s not that they’re afraid of Muslims. They actually just don’t like Muslims. Right.

And that’s why I say it’s a little bit of a different thing with the Jonah syndrome. I think people are wrong when they say that, well, Jonah was afraid to go to Nineveh. He was he was fearful of what they might do to him. And so, of course, he fled from the Lord. Nineveh was so wicked, but that’s not what the text says.

Right. And I think that gives off the wrong impression. I mean, I think that, all of a sudden, Jonah doesn’t become applicable to our situation When I think God was really just giving us an image of our own heart. You know, just this this lack of love that needed to be there. Especially aligning ourselves with the Lord’s heart as we call ourselves Christians.

Exactly. And we have the same issue today, and I say we, that Jonah had. And that was, when the lord is merciful to the city of Nineveh after, well, what might be the the, you know, worst evangelistic message ever, you know, turn turn or burn message of Jonah. Right? The Lord makes it factual.

He did not care. Right. But he he’s angry with the Lord. And what does he say in the text? I mean, it’s not that, you know, I didn’t wanna come here because I was afraid.

Mhmm. He says, this is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you would be gracious and compassionate. Right? That’s the truth.

He knew that the Lord would be slow in anger. He knew that the grace of God would come down for the Ninevites and he is angry about it. And you know what? I understand why he would be so angry. I understand why sometimes Christians get angry because they think that person doesn’t deserve the mercy of God.

I can get that. That. I can resonate with that. Right. Jonah, you know, as a prophet, he would be considered, you know, a lover of the law, a lover of righteousness.

Right? And then he sees such a wicked people, and he knows that when God commands them to go that, you know, if they respond, if they repent, all of a sudden they’re gonna receive the mercy. And and so for us, I mean, like, as as Americans that that watch in horror as they look at ISIS and and, maybe some of these other terrorist acts that we’ve seen that that have been done in the name of Islam, I think it’s really hard for us to receive the idea that God would save them. Like, do we want them to be saved? Well, I mean, here’s the shift.

This is the shift that we all have to make. You are absolutely right when you question whether or not a person deserves the mercy of God. They don’t. Right. There is not a single person on the planet that deserves it.

However, how much worship does God deserve? Right. That has to be the shift. You have to look at a person and say, do they deserve the mercy of God? No.

Does God deserve that person’s worship? Most certainly. Right. And so we have to have a shift where we look at it and that’s what God is basically bringing to Jonah’s attention by saying, you know, how long have you cared for this plant? You did nothing to bring it about.

It’s not even yours. Not really. But yet, how many people are there in this city, in this city that’s been on the heart of God since Genesis chapter 10? Yeah. I think it’s so it’s so, such a trap, a common trap for us as human beings, not just, you know, Muslims, Christians, whatnot, but to be man centric.

And I think that scripture is consistently reminding us that it’s really about God. And then once we realize that, we look at scripture differently. We read it differently. We respond to it differently. And I think that’s, you know, kind of what Phil Parshaal is saying.

I mean, like, in his in his lecture, you know, he he challenges us to look beyond, you know, our politics or look beyond our our our upbringing or what we’ve been taught in school that doesn’t line up with scripture. I mean, our enemies. We’re supposed to love our enemies. Turn turn the cheek. And and, in practice, it seems like it’s much, much more difficult.

We can say it in Sunday school and have our little flanographs and stuff, but to really, really live that out day in and day out, I think, is, is the difficulty. Well, I think it we’re we’re much more comfortable with the idea of, well, lord, so should we call down hellfire upon these people? Right. I love the disciples’ response to Jesus whenever they’re they’re not welcomed into a town. Like, I got an idea, guys.

Right? Gather around. We’re gonna burn this thing down. They’re looking at the Lord’s say when? Yeah.

That’s right. I can call this down. I’m your huckleberry. Right. That’s Peter right there.

I love that guy. Yeah. I mean, that’s the that’s the challenge. That’s where we all get stuck. We we want to see, the justice of God so long as it’s working for us.

And we want to see the mercy of God so long as it’s working for us. And when God wants to be merciful to somebody that we might not think deserve it deserves it, we forget how quickly when God was merciful to us, how much we didn’t deserve it as well. Right. I wanna apologize beforehand, but, you know, I just wanna talk about the politics a little bit. Just a just a smidge.

Okay? I mean, this is not a political show, but I just feel like Christians are kind of trapped. They’re trapped in their political parties and mix Jesus in and it becomes a pretty lethal, dose of of, spite, anger, vehemence, and every and both sides have it. I mean, just watch Fox News and CNN. And you got Christians that are, like, right wing, you know, Republicans and and, of course, you mix Jesus in there and all of a sudden, you know, you speak out against Muslims and and, and tend to be on the bigot line, you know, and and on the left wing Christians are are calling the the right wing Christians bigots and and, they tend to be, kind of on the on the soft side where they don’t, they don’t deal with the real issues at hand, kinda like the Ben Affleck, debate.

And I just kinda feel like, you know, God’s calling us to be far above all of that stuff. You know? And I, you know, I don’t know. Maybe from the pulpit, people are saying it, but in in the in the in the media, it just seems like, man, the Christians are just we’re pushed into these parties and feel like we have to be stuck there. But I think God’s calling us higher than that.

You know, the the the real biblical mandate, you know, which is, you know, trying to reach these these Muslims for Christ, for Jesus. Right? Well, I I think that we we can easily be we could have our vision clouded by maybe even a misguided sense of of patriotism or a misguided sense of political activity. Those things are not in and of themselves wrong. But when those things trump what we know that we’re called to, which is the love of God and the love of neighbor.

I mean, that is the the 2 commandments on which the entire law of the of the prophets hang. Right. So if we allow anything, whether it be political involvement or patriotic, involvement or anything really, to trump our love of God and our love of neighbor and, of course, who is my neighbor? When Jesus has asked the question, who is my neighbor? We end up with a pretty radical view of who the neighbor is.

I mean, we’re supposed to love our enemy. And so to the person who wants to argue that, well, you just don’t really understand Islam and I’ve heard it from people. I mean, I’m looking at them, and they’re saying, you don’t really understand Islam. And I asked them, well, teach me help me to understand what is the real nature of Islam, and they go on about what true Islam is. And they explain to me how all Muslims really are, these wicked people.

And then I think to myself, okay. Even if you’re right, and I don’t think you are, even if you’re right, let’s say that all Muslims are what you think they are, they’re the enemy, what should our Christian response be? Right. It doesn’t change. And you’d mentioned before the show about behavior not having to do with our response.

I mean, people’s behavior, like the Ninevites, they were evil. They were wicked people. It doesn’t change Jonah’s responsibility, what God had called him to do. Right? No.

Not at all. And I love the fact that even as he flees, and we often forget about this part of the story of Jonah. We think it’s, I don’t know why, but we we tend to make all of our old testament narrative stories about, you know, kind of children’s stories. Right. Fisher Price, Noah’s Ark.

Ark. You know, people the the world’s being destroyed, but all of a sudden, it’s a bathtub toy. There you go. A big whale. This is a story about a big whale and a man living in a fish for 3 days.

I mean, granted that’s a pretty amazing part of the story, but what about the ship that he’s fleeing on? Yeah. How quickly do we forget that as he’s on this ship and the ship is getting ready to go down in this, horrific storm, Jonah’s responses and this is why I say I don’t think he was afraid. Jonah’s response is just throw me overboard. Yeah.

Because it’s not death that he’s really concerned about. Right? And they’re they’re also trying to figure out which god have we offended? What’s going on? And they recognize it is the God of Jonah.

Right. And as they throw him overboard, what do they recognize? This is the one true God. Right. This is a missional text.

Yeah. I mean, even in the story, like, Jonah’s not interested in seeing people come to Lord, obviously, but it’s happening because of his life. It’s happening despite him. Right. Because God’s like, no.

No. No. I’m still doing thing, man. It’s it’s never changed. That’s what I love is that despite us, God’s still able to accomplish what he wants to accomplish despite us.

And so so sometimes I think, we we miss it, but we still have a chance to stop, turn around, and look at it, and say, okay. What is God’s view here? How would God want me to respond? If I’m overwhelmed with fear because of what I see in the media, I don’t know that that’s the motivation you want to begin to draw your theology on how you wanna respond to Right. 1,500,000,000 people.

And it doesn’t fill you with faith. You know, like, when you look in scripture, anytime these men, these godly men, these examples that we have, that have, you know, had tumultuous times, a war, the army coming in invading. What they do, like, I’m reminded of Hezekiah in the temple. He just lays out the letters that he’s receiving, that he’s about to be annihilated. Him and and his, his country is about to be annihilated.

And he lays it before the Lord and he, you know, just lays out the letter and says, God, see? But then he starts to do this thing where he just starts to talk about who god is and the character, of god and how he’s faithful and and how he, is going to save. And, and I don’t know. I I just feel like we, as Christians, need to be constantly putting in front of us, who God is and not about our plight and the issues that that we’re dealing with, without God. You know, just trying to do it on our own strength, like, trying to solve this ISIS issue.

Obviously, this is a spiritual thing, man. You know, there there’s some wicked things being done. And I think our response needs to be, Christ centered, as opposed to just the way the world kind of deals with everything. Let’s bomb them. Just like Obama when he’s he just aided some of the rebels by giving them arms to fight against, ISIS.

I mean, that’s that’s a world’s response. Yeah. It’s a tough thing. It’s a tough thing to kinda look at what’s going on in the world and not be discouraged. But I think it’s because with the media now, we can see what’s happening in the world, and some of these things are just so far beyond our control that we’re left in a very deep sense of despair.

But there really is something we can do. Right? I mean, we can pray. Right. We can pray for Christians that are suffering at the hands of radicals, and we can pray for the persecutors.

We can pray for world leaders, and we know that God uses governments to, bring justice and that God sets up kings and God deposes kings and that God is, you know, has the the king’s heart. He can turn as a river as the scripture says. So, I mean, I don’t think we have to have total despair. I don’t think we have to be discouraged, but we do have to recognize, that we do have a role in praying. We have a we have a role to pray for our leaders, to pray for other world leaders, to pray for, people who are persecuted and to pray for the persecutor.

Right. And I think that, in turn, gives us a heart for the people that we’re we’re praying for. Yeah. It Absolutely. Even if they’re enemies.

Right? So hey. But, let’s parse out that question a little bit. What what do you think? And I know this is just your perspective, but what do you think that, partial was saying or you or or Larson was saying that, would come across as anti American?

Well, I mean, when I’m just in when I was listening to, this lecture again, This was given 4 years ago, and I think we had about 5 years ago is when we spoke in that church together. And, I I think the comment about the war in Iraq was probably not received well because he does mention that we’re fighting a war, that he didn’t think we would win. Right. And anytime we come and call into question our victories. Right?

Then that would be, Anti American. Yeah. Exactly. Anti patriot. But on the other hand, here we are 5 years later and we have Iraq and we have ISIS and it is a disaster and it is, one of those things where it’s very discouraging.

I’m I’m certain. I mean, I have family members that are in the military, and I’m sure that those who have served and given, all their time and maybe even some of their lives, it’s difficult when you see things not go the way that you thought they would and you don’t see, an opportunity for justice and you don’t see a place better than when you when you came in. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think what Phil Parshel was just sort of getting at is people have a difficult time hearing the Muslim perspective.

Do you know what I mean? I mean, at the very beginning, he says, I’m gonna help you understand their worldview. Right. And, something I was thinking about as I was listening to partial, it was like if you come into this thinking, you know what, he’s just putting blame on us or or me or, our heritage. I think we’re kinda missing the point.

I don’t think partial is trying to say, you know what? It’s your fault. It’s your fault because, you know, our natural response will be like, well, well, they did this. And that still keeps us in that that tumultuous, place. Not really of coming to understanding, but just, just clarifying, you know, dividing lines.

But I think what partial was really wanting to get at is like, hey, let’s understand where they’re coming from, what they what they’ve been through, what they think, and that’ll help us in our response to them in a good way, not in a not in a negative way. Yeah. And and also, any any reference whatsoever that would suggest that we’ve had any role in in perpetuating sort of the the the radicalism of Islam would be seen as, has been responded to very negatively. Right. Understandably so.

Right. And so It’s like we’re creating this monster that, we have to deal with now. Exactly. And so I think people have a hard time viewing things in light of history. For us.

As Westerners, we don’t tend to think in historical terms about something that might have happened so many years ago. Right. We are a little bit more forward thinking towards the future maybe than some other parts of the world. Right. But the Muslim world does tend to take a full account of history when they, decide things.

And so even hearkening back to the crusades, I think some people are are probably frustrated. What does the crusades have to do with anything? And so Right. But as far as the Muslim world is concerned, you know, after 911, our president, George w Bush, came off of a helicopter at Camp David and you can go, check it out on YouTube if you want. It’s become propaganda these days for, recruitment.

But he did step off the helicopter and say that this, this crusade is going to take a while. Wow. So that’s a that’s a loaded term. Now I’m certain movement. Right?

Yeah. I’m certain that he didn’t have any agenda there with using that term. Right. He was just using it as a term just, you know, just something off the top of his head or or whatnot and then all of a sudden it could be skewed in any any direction. Right.

And it wouldn’t be hard to turn that into propaganda. And so when you look at it from the Muslim world view, how are these things being perceived? Well, that’s important. It’s important to see how they’re perceiving things, and then maybe that would give us some more compassion, and see that they’re also just people that are trapped and and being told something by their own, media outlets. And I hope that that would produce some understanding and some compassion.

I think that understanding people, understanding their perspective does, or at least it should, reduce fear. Right. And that demonization that we talked about earlier with partial. I really think that people have a hard time, understanding or even the attempt to understand these people whenever they are demonized. And and we need to start recognizing that, that ISIS is not all Muslims.

Right? And we, of course, we’ve talked about that a bunch. But, but it’s still a reoccurring thing that people have to deal with in their hearts that, radical Islam is not the same as, maybe your Muslim neighbor. And and something that I wanted to bring up is, Relevant Magazine. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but you can look up Oh, I know Relevant.

Yeah. Right. Relevant Magazine just put out this article about why we need to have more Muslim friends. There you go. And it was really neat.

It it was basically about what partial was saying about, reducing that that demonization of of Muslims. Just like, you know, reducing fear just like Trevor had like you just said. And, and just being able to understand and and see them as real people. And I thought that was pretty cool. I think that that’s the the best advice, and that is to go visit your local mosque.

Mhmm. Get to know the imam, get to know, some Muslims in your community. Ask your kids, especially if you’ve got kids that are in high school. I don’t find that, because I teach undergraduate students a lot, and I don’t find that these 18 19 year olds are as stuck as some of the, the the previous generation is. Right.

Because they know kids. They’ve they’ve grown up with Muslims. They’ve played soccer with Muslims. They’ve, gone to, you know, high school parties and and hung out with Muslims. And so they they they’ve it sounds really bad, but, I mean, they’ve humanized Muslims as if they needed to be humanized.

I even feel bad saying it. But for them, it’s not as big of an issue because there hasn’t been sort of this, this world view of what does a Muslim look like been given to them by the media. They’ve actually they have personal experience that would combat some of the things they’ve been told. Right. So can we do that as a as a kind of a challenge on our podcast?

Just like I think so. Hey, you know, make some Muslim friends and and expect backlash. I mean, that’s not from the Muslims. No. No.

I don’t think you’re gonna get it from the Muslims. I tell people all the time, the most the the place I’m most comfortable talking about God is actually around Muslims because they like to talk about God. Right. And you had said something about, how we need to understand, the the religion of Islam. Right?

To be able to relate more to to Muslims. No. That was Samuel Zwemer was saying that. But the chief difficulty of reaching Muslims is, a lack of understanding of their religion. So their beliefs, their practices, the the hadith, the sunnah, the way of the prophet, the the things that Mohammed said or did or gave approval of by, in the hadith, and then also the, the the life of Mohammed and then also finally the social aspects of their religion.

Oh, and, of course, their beliefs in Jesus and so the Muslim conception of Christ. And he said in order to really have an effectual ministry with, reaching out to Muslims, you have to understand the full breadth of these things so that you can, 1, build bridges, but, 2, also understand where they’re coming from and their own beliefs. Right. And, and that’s because they’re so their faith is so integrated, right, in who they are, their worldview, their perspective. It it can be for sure.

And which makes it easier for us to speak about God because that’s generally what they’re gonna be talking about or thinking about or dealing with. Right? I think so. I mean, we we’ll do a whole another podcast talking about the the the Muslim conception of God and the Christian conception of God. I think that’s something that we we need more time to talk about.

But, definitely, it’s it’s a whole lot easier to talk to a person about God when you know where they’re coming from about God. And so and that is not to say that go read a book on Islam and then go tell a Muslim what they believe. Right. Right. I’m I’m of the mindset that the best strategy that you can have is not telling somebody, what they believe, but rather sitting across from them and asking them, so what do you believe?

Right. Become a student. Right. Exactly. Ask good questions.

Ask them. It doesn’t matter what you know about Mohammed. Right. It matters what the person sitting across from you knows about Mohammed. Right.

And, of course, you know, be a friend. Yeah. I mean, sometimes people get kinda crazy with evangelism where they think they just have to beat them in a debate. And that that’s not what we’re saying here. No.

I think, really good open door is just basically to say, especially for Muslims in America, just to say, you know, I’ve heard so much about Islam from so many different people. I would really love to hear about Islam from a Muslim. Would you take some time and just kinda help me understand a little bit about your life, a little bit about your beliefs? That would really be a great service to me. And you know what?

I think that would just make the day of most of the Muslims I’ve known. Right. Because how many times have they just just seen the media represent them Exactly. Incorrectly. Right.

And, them just being, you know, just like Ben Affleck says. Just wants to go to school, never punches women, just wants to eat some sandwiches. You know? Like, come on. Gonna be one of my favorite quotes from now on.

I just wanna eat some sandwiches. I just wanna eat some sandwiches. I mean, that’s it, you know? And, and yeah. So that that’s kind of our challenge.

So we’re gonna put that out there, like, make some Muslim friends and expect backlash from family and and just kinda let that open your eyes too. Don’t be surprised. Yeah. Visit visit your local mosque. I think you’ll find that most of the moms are very open to having guests.

I’ve never, had a negative experience at a mosque, and I’ve visited most of the times I go to a town, the first thing I do is go to the local mosque, and I’ve had positive receptions at just about all of them. I can’t think of a place I’ve ever had a negative reception in a mosque. Right. And I’ve been to mosques all over, the world actually. Southeast Asia, especially.

And I’ve never had a bad reception. I’ve actually always been offered tea or food There you go. Or Really good food. Right. And we just hang out and talk.

And they’re they’re they’re, well, they’re not they’re not mean or any of that. I mean, they’re just we just talk and hang out, and it’s actually great. So let me give some instructions for those of you that are thinking about, well, I guess I’ll try it. Let’s see. Let’s see how that goes.

Yeah. So what I would encourage you to do is look up online, visit your local mosque website, And, you’re gonna see on Friday is the Jummah prayer time. It’s probably gonna be around 1:30 on a Friday. That would be the equivalent to a Christian Sunday morning service. I would encourage you to go to that particular time just because that’s when you’re gonna meet the most Muslims.

The Sunday morning worship service, the Friday afternoon service around 1:30. Check the the website. And then if if it were me, and this is what I tend to do, if I’m gonna be in a place for a couple days, I’ll visit the mosque on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, on my own. If somebody’s with me, the 2 of us, and we’ll go to the mosque, and I’ll just ask the imam. Would you know, I’m new to the area.

I’m not a Muslim. I’m a Christian, but I just really wanted to get to know some people here. I have, studied some about Islam. You can even use this podcast as an excuse. Say, I was listening to a podcast.

They encourage us to visit a mosque, and then ask the imam, would it be okay if I come this Friday? And then, you know, just to receive permission. Now if you’re a female, I would encourage you and I think the imam is probably gonna encourage this as well for you to wear, a head covering. Don’t don’t don’t get all upset about wearing a head covering. And Right.

In reality, it’s just a it’s a head covering. Right. It’s a piece of cloth. Yeah. Just be okay with it.

Go to the the mosque and ask them and you can ask the imam, should I wear a head covering? And if he says he would appreciate it, if I were you, I wouldn’t I would do what would be appreciated because you are a visitor. Right? So, ask if you can visit the mosque. Typically, the women are gonna have their own room.

Ladies, I would encourage you to, go to that area. Obviously, don’t don’t try to push an agenda that you wanna sit with the men. Be respectful of the way in which the the service happens. And so women will go to one side, men will to another. Dress appropriately.

Men, you need to wear, I’d say just a pair of khaki pants. Button up shirt would be good. You don’t have to wear anything in particular. You’re gonna remove your shoes when you get to the mosque. You don’t have to perform any of the ritual washing.

I would guess the imam will help you understand this, but you don’t have to perform any ritual washing. You just go into the mosque. You sit in the back. The reason that you sit in the back is that after the imam does the call to prayer, somebody will give the call to prayer. That will be, the the Friday sermon, will be preached.

And it’s very interesting. People will continue to come and go as the Friday sermon is being preached and just sit in the back because after the sermon is preached, then they’re gonna have their prayer time. And when they form their prayer lines, it would be inappropriate for you to be included in the prayer lines because that is a time for just the Muslims to be in solidarity with one another lined up. Right. So sit in the back and just, you can stay and watch if you like.

I’ve never I don’t believe it’s ever been communicated to me that it’s offensive to stay and watch. Actually, I think the Muslims have asked me several times, just come join in. You know, join in the prayer line, but I wouldn’t wanna do that. I feel like that would be deceptive. I would be communicating to them that I’m Muslim and Right.

I’m not. And so afterwards, that’s usually a conversation. Why didn’t you pray? And I say, I’m a Christian. And then that usually turns into a very interesting discussion.

Right. And then what about the, call to prayer? Some people might have some reservations about, being there, when they are speaking, in in the call to prayer or singing actually. What are they actually singing there? Oh, yeah.

Shall I give a call to prayer? You’re just gonna hear God is Please. No. No. No.

No. No. Please. Please. Just a little little snippet.

I can’t do it. Just for the audience. So you’ll hear Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar and it’s sung. It sounds like they’re saying a bunch of different things, but they’re really just saying Allahu Akbar 4 times. God is great, God is great, God is great, God is great.

Let’s see if I can remember all this. There is no god, but god. Muhammad is the messenger of god. God is calling you to pray. God is calling you to success.

Missing a line here. And then, again, it closes with Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar. So, yeah, obviously, it’s, you know, there’s gonna be something that would be a troubling for for Christians, of course, right, recognizing Mohammed as a messenger of God. But other than other than that, there’s nothing going on there that I’ve never, got the sense that it should make you uncomfortable. They don’t believe everything that we believe, of course.

That’s that’s a given, but I think it’s okay to at least hear where they’re coming from. Now here’s I’ll I’ll make this caveat. If you have a sensitive conscience and I think if you feel like I don’t want to visit another place of worship that would make me uncomfortable, I think you should listen to your your own conscience on that one. Don’t don’t feel like we’re saying that you need to go and do this. Right.

But on the other hand, I don’t think going to a mosque and just hearing what they believe and and hearing a sermon and getting to know Muslims is somehow a compromise of your own faith. Right. So, anyway, we we take students to the mosque every semester. And, on the rarest of occasion, I’ll have a student say, I’m just uncomfortable reading the Quran. I can’t really write this paper, or I’m uncomfortable visiting the mosque.

And my immediate response is I completely understand, and, let me come up with an alternative assignment. And, usually, what I’ll do is find a, a Muslim hosted dinner or something at the university that they could attend instead. Right. Which is another option too. Absolutely.

I’ve I’ve there’s plenty of, opportunities to get to know, Muslims and I think it’s until you’ve done that, until you can say I have met a couple different Muslims and I’ve got some good Muslim friends, I think it would be, a snap judgment to begin making decisions about what you think of Muslims. Right. And even if you’re a college student, a lot of universities, I think most actually, would have, like, a, a Muslim program. Yeah. Muslim Muslim Student Association would probably be there.

Where they would have, like, dinners and There you go. And and, actually, they, from what I understand, they encourage, people that are not of the Islamic faith to come and and see what they’re all about. Yeah. Every every university is gonna have something like that. It may not be an a Muslim student association but probably an international student association which would have inevitably some Muslims.

So Right. I think here at USC, we have, let me think. We have a Turkish student association. We have an Omani student association. We have a Saudi student association.

We have a Muslim Student Association, and they all have events. And so our students from the CIU, they’re always connected. I mean, we’ve had actually a couple Muslims say they wish they could come to CIU as students. It’s a Christian college, but they just they’ve appreciated the student body at CIU so much. Right.

Because the response, right, has always been loving and encouraging. Absolutely. Yeah. Great. And that I think that’s I think that’s the greatest witness for Christ, when you’re first meeting, someone of a different faith because it it shows a lot, I think, about their character and their worldview.

Yeah. And for for females listening, there is a website I would encourage you to visit. This will be our resource of the week. It’s a website called say hello. Howard, can you pull that up and see what the exact web address is?

There’s this concept within Islam. You know, you hear Muslims when they greet one another. Everybody kinda wonders what are they saying. Right. And, they say, Assalamu alaykum.

And if you could just learn to say Assalamu alaykum, even if you say it incorrectly, it’s okay. I’ve heard people say it kinda funny. You get a southern choir. Salaam alaikum, you know. If you could just give a give an effort by saying hello, you’re wishing, peace upon them and, they’re they’re obligated actually to respond and, walaikum salaam will be the response of the the Muslim that you, say that to.

So there’s a website called, say hello. It’s it’s it’s specifically designed for reaching out to Muslim women. And so let me, did you find it, Howard? No. I’m not I’m not sure.

Hold on. Do you say hello and then type in Muslim women? But this website was designed specifically on encouraging, Christians how to reach out to Muslim women. What is the website address? Say hello info.com.

Sayhelloinfo.com. That’s an excellent resource, and it encourages females in particular to just go a Muslim woman and say hello. Now you might be thinking, this sounds like a strange strategy. It is, in my opinion, one of the most effective strategies out there. It’s too simple.

Right? But oftentimes, the simple things, they do work. Yeah. They’re they’re one thing that actually kinda sticks. Well, I think that that, women have it a little bit easier because you can pretty much identify a Muslim woman as opposed to, you know, if Howard and I go out into the streets and we’re trying to identify a Muslim man Right.

It’s a little tougher. Right. Because he may be Hindu. Just because he looks like he’s from Pakistan doesn’t mean that he’s gonna be a Muslim. Right.

And even Africans. Right? Nigeria There you go. There’s a lot of it is, Muslims in Africa and There you go. Other areas.

So but with Muslim women, you have this sort of international calling card. Right? This, head covering. Right. And so if you see a woman in the store with a head covering and you walk up and you say assalamu alaikum, you’re going to have her, have a really surprised look on her face and then a big smile, and she’s gonna say back, and then she’s probably gonna ask, how did you know to say that?

That has been the continued response that I’ve heard from students. They just go up to Muslim women and they say, response that I’ve heard from students. They just go up to Muslim women and they say hello. They say hello back and the next thing they say is, where are you from? And then after the woman shares either, you know, I’m American or I’ve just come here from this country, if they’re immigrants or they’re refugees, that gives you the opportunity to say welcome.

Right. And that gives them a totally different feel than probably what they’re feeling right now. Well, yeah. I mean, think about it. If you come from a society that’s incredibly communal, Right?

Women don’t go anywhere alone. They tend to go out in groups, mother sisters, maybe, 3 or 4 people. No one goes shopping alone. And then suddenly now you’re a refugee or an immigrant and you’re here and you’re by yourself and you can imagine you’re looking at 70 different types of shampoo. Right.

You’re alone. It seems like everybody’s staring at you and inevitably some people are staring at you. Right. And probably not with pleasant looks. There you go.

Right. But all of a sudden, a person walks over and this is just for the ladies. Men, don’t approach Muslim women. A female comes up to a Muslim woman and just says, hello. And, she says, you know, thank you, and and you could just start the conversation.

Where are you from? I’m so glad you’re here. How can I help? This must be overwhelming seeing this this crazy store. Is there anything I can do to help?

And you will have so many opportunities, ladies. I don’t think you’re ever gonna find a negative response. And if you do, write us, tell us because we wanna be able to say, with integrity that we haven’t had any negative responses from this. But so far, all the students in the years that I’ve been teaching that I’ve challenged to do this have always come back with very positive feedback. Right.

And, if you’re a foodie and you enjoy food, that’s part of it. I mean, you’re gonna meet these people and they’re gonna you’re probably gonna get invited to their house and you’re gonna get fed well and it’s gonna be amazing. So that’s another, you know, perk of that. I know that’s not the primary reason, but I’m just saying, I mean Howard’s all about the food. Right.

Friend friendships have benefits, and so, I love communal societies where, man, you just get invited and you just come in and eat. I remember I was in Mumbai. Same thing happened. I just walked down the street, came out of my hotel. It was like at a w YWCA hotel.

I don’t I don’t know if we have those here. But, I I just saw all these, men dressed in white all over the street. And I asked him what was going on. And he said it was Eid. Yeah.

Yeah. And so I was like, oh, that’s interesting. So we just struck up a conversation and all of a sudden I find myself in his house, eating dinner, celebrating Eid with these guys. And I just met them, you know, like, 5 minutes before. Just said, ask them a question, what is going on?

And I had a great time. Met with his family. Spent, like, the whole day with his family. And I had not expected that. But that’s just kind of the hospitality.

What you know, that’s just the way it was. And then it’s one of my fondest memories of, Mumbai and India. It’s pretty cool. Do you know what’s amazing? Is I’m I’m thinking of the the story with the the apostles and Jesus tells them to go out 2 by 2 and look for a house and give them peace and when peace is given back to stay a while.

Right. This this would work in Muslim societies. Yeah. To just go out and and share peace and when the peace is received and somebody receives you to stay and when and they don’t receive you to knock the dust off your shoes and move on. Right.

You could actually do this in a lot of Muslim societies. I don’t know that you could do that here in the United States. Right. Because then they’d be like, when are you leaving? Someone comes to my door, I’m like, oh, man.

What’s this guy want? What’s he selling? Yeah. Right? I’m not interested.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that’s the resource of the week. Say hello, say hello info Sorry. Dot, did I say dot dot com?

Say hello info dot com. Right. So we need to find out who’s running that website and see if we can get them on the podcast. Oh, that would be awesome. So That would be awesome.

Anyway, we’ll, in a episode coming up here soon, we’re gonna get Phil Parshall to join us, on the phone. He’s, retired these days. He and his wife, Julie, are down in, Florida, retired missionaries, and, they’re they’re still active in a sense of loving and caring and reaching out to Muslims. And, I’ve I’ve been impressed. Like you said, they’ve been 44 years in the Muslim world.

But even beyond their 44 years of experience in the Muslim world, they continue to reach out to Muslims here in the United States when they were in Charlotte. And now down in in Florida, I’m certain they’re continuing to make connections with Muslims. So That’s awesome. Yeah. Just hearing him, I’m encouraged.

I’m challenged, and, I hope you guys are as well. Right. And that’s it for this week. We hope you guys enjoy the truth about Muslims podcast. Yeah.

And if you didn’t listen to part 1, go back and listen to part 1 and this will make more sense because this is part 2. That’s what I was gonna say. It’s probably pretty confusing, this part 2. But anyway, yeah. So we’ll see you next time.

Thank you guys for listening. And as always Yeah. Be sure to write in, ask questions, share, spread the word, Truth About Muslims podcast. We’ll see you later.

Dr. Phil Parshall explains why Muslims are angry at the West and how Christians should respond.

MUSIC:

Theme Music by: Nobara Hayakawa – Trail

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Phil Parshall; Why Muslims are Angry:

Once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist. A terrorist. Extremist. These terrorists 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 episode number 3 of the truth about Muslims. And in this episode, we’re gonna be talking about Islamophobia.

Yes. And, Trevor, you travel all over the the US and you teach, in churches primarily, right, with the Zwemer Center? So tell us a couple stories about that, and we’ve been talking about some of their interesting theme. So go ahead. Well, in 2010, Time Magazine’s, cover article, was Islamophobia in America, and that kinda prompted my thinking with Islamophobia in America, I can see, but what about Islamophobia in the church?

And so I wrote an article that just said Islamophobia in the church with a question mark. Not making the case that it was there, I just was really curious how the church felt about it. Alright. So since then I’ve, spoke in several churches, and I’ve kind of come to a conclusion regarding this. Pray tell.

Well, a lot of times, there’s, an overwhelming sense of fear of Muslims. And, they there’s a hard time, what I’ve noticed, is for a lot of Christians to separate Islam and Muslim, and so they think, and oftentimes they may not even know. Some Christians would say, you know, all Muslims are this or Islam teaches this and they’re kind of just becoming almost like, repeating kind of parroting what they see in the media. Okay. You said fear.

What do you mean fear? Like, they’re fear afraid for their life? Okay. So, yeah. No.

That’s true. Actually, there’s one particular story. So I got a call, from a a church. I won’t say the denomination or location, but this particular church, said we had a a Muslim come into our service last week, and we have some questions. Personally, I was excited thinking, yeah.

Alright. Muslim came in the church. Let’s reach him. There you go. And, I said, so tell me exactly what happened.

They said, well, this Muslim, he came into our church, clearly from the Middle East. Now I have no idea how they knew he was clearly from the Middle East. Right. But I’ll give it to him. Clearly from the Middle East.

Right. Because all Muslims are from the Middle East. Right. Not really. Anyway, clearly from the Middle East.

And, as as this was the pastor, he said, as I finished preaching the sermon, the man, he he stood to his feet and he walked to the front and he confronted me. What do you mean? He he began to question, points of the sermon, ask him specific points about Jesus. Like, when he was angry? I couldn’t really figure out.

I was asking him, did he seem upset? Upset? And he said, no. He wasn’t upset, but he was very direct. So he was just basically asking questions?

Exactly. Okay. And, I said, so what what happened? And how did you answer his questions? He said, I really couldn’t.

I was so afraid. And I was like, well, what were you afraid of? And he said, well, he had his hands in in his pockets. You see? Kind of, I’m assuming he was wearing a sort of maybe a Shahwar kameez or something like a robe.

He had his hands in his front pockets and he said he wouldn’t take his hands out of his pockets. And, all I could think was, I need to get everybody out of here quickly as I can. Quickly as I can. My deacon, who was over to the right, was watching. You know, I’m thinking he I picture him having a hand kind of twitching with his concealed weapon.

Woo. Yeah. Seriously. Like, say when? But this is this is true.

And he says, and, he was concerned for my safety. And so, I kept talking to him and I told him, you know, we just needed to leave. We need to get out of the church because his number one concern was the safety of his Flock? Yes. The safety of his people.

Now, I don’t know where he got this scripturally speaking. It’s that theology that says the safest place to be is where? God’s will. In the center of God’s will. Someone should have told Paul.

Alright? Paul would have He did not get that memo. You know, how many times beaten with rods? Right. Yeah.

That’d go through that list. Yeah. All things, momentary, light affliction. But anyway, you know, I kinda I understood where he was coming from. I I get that.

You know, you you do you watch the media. There is a certain level of of fear factor. Right. And, I see And a lot of churches now are getting security. Yes.

And there have been, shootings in churches, not by Muslims, but, Like crazy people. Like crazy people. Mhmm. And there have been a few shootings at mosque, strangely enough, by also crazy people, but, not Muslims again. But, anyway, so I get where he’s coming from and so I said, so, how can I help?

He said, it would be really helpful if you would, arrange something to speak to our whole denomination about what to do if a Muslim comes into your church. Mhmm. I said, that’s a fantastic idea. Right. It’s compelling.

Yeah. And I’m thinking, way to go, man. You know, drop the ball on the first one. You were a little bit afraid, but you did the right thing. Yeah.

You recognized that you were operating out of this fear. Right. Let’s reach these Muslims. There you go. So he says, what should we do?

And, I said, well, let’s do it. Let’s let’s call together. Denominational meeting. We’ll meet at the sort of headquarters place and, get as many pastors to come as you can. He said, what should I title?

And I said, title it exactly that. What should you do when a Muslim comes into your church? Wait. So how many pastors showed up? Let’s see.

More than a dozen, less than 20. Right. But a good good good number for a denominational. Right. Just it’s from this denomination of the city.

Right. From the city that they were in. Right. So that particular group, more than a dozen, less than 20, they’re sitting in a room, nice room. So I get, my mentor at the time, doctor Warren Larson, and I say, Warren, here’s the opportunity, man.

We’ve got all these pastors. They’re excited. They wanna know what do we do when a Muslim comes into our church. Can you participate with me on this? He said, sure.

What do you want me to teach on? I said, you teach on, basic beliefs and practices and then diversity within Islam. I’ll teach I’ll teach on practical evangelism, how to start a conversation about Jesus, particularly working within the context of Muslim belief systems. And then, we even brought a Muslim background believer, a girl that was a convert, that she was gonna share her testimony. So, I’m like, man, we got this dynamic presentation.

We’ve got all these pastors. Here’s an opportunity to do something great. And, Yeah. It was not what I was anticipating. What happened?

We, it’s not What happened? I have mixed emotions. Like, it’s funny, but it’s not funny at all. It’s really quite strange. It’s tragic.

Yeah. We, we went in and doctor Larson gave his presentation. And then, I came up. I gave, my presentation about practical evangelism. And, then the young girl who was a convert from Islam shared her testimony.

You know, doctor Larson and I are both over on the side, you know, tears in her eyes hearing her Right. Beautiful. Amazing testimony and then, oh, man. I was really surprised because as I was anticipating that everybody was gonna have the similar response of, like, motivation to reach out and love Muslims and have a lot of questions. Yeah.

Not not the case. There was a little bit of a confused look, and somebody with the first comment question said, this really isn’t what I thought it was gonna be. And, which prompted us to kind of say, well, what were you anticipating? Yeah. Like, I’m kidding.

They said, well, really, we were under the impression that this was gonna be more of a security protocol. What we should do if a Muslim comes into our church? How should we be able to get them out as quickly as possible, separate them from the congregation in case there’s the potential of some sort of violence? We should, you know, train teams how to get them out of the church. But why would they ask the Zwemer Center to do that?

That was the bizarre thing. I’m not really sure, and that’s what, Warren said. You know, we’re we’re not security experts. We actually want Muslims to come into church, and, we’re the What’s up, Chad? We’re probably the worst people to ask.

Terrible. Because our suggestion would be take them to your home, have dinner them, and share the love of Jesus. Befriend them. Yeah. So it was a really Ouch.

Disheartening moment. It was probably my first year. Yeah. My first year working with the Zweimer Center. And I remember on the ride home asking Warren, like, is it always like this?

And, unfortunately, the church and say, yes, the church is Islamophobic. It’s not. It’s not. There are some within the church that most certainly are. Right.

So, I mean, we know that it’s widespread, but it’s not all negative. There are some happy endings. There are some happy stories. There are some churches that have responded more positively. So I don’t wanna give this, you know Infuse infuse this with happiness, please.

Yeah. It’s not so bleak. One one other particular story. I was asking a church in a city that was next to a university if they would, consider using their, youth, their college group and their space to be able to reach out to the Muslim Student Association at that particular university. Right.

Great strategy. Yeah. So I said, we’ll we’ll come in. We’ll do some training seminars. We’ll give you some strategies on how to, create good friendships and be able to live a life that would be meaningful, and display the gospel to the Muslim, student population at that particular university.

Makes sense. And the pastor, I kid you not, looks across at me and he says, Yeah. I I don’t think we’re gonna do that. And I said, well, any, you know, if it’s about money, like, this is free, if it’s by any He stopped me and he said, honestly, I just don’t like Muslims. Wow.

And I I paused for a second. Appreciate your honesty right there. Appreciate your honesty. Well, I was waiting for, like, a crack of a smile, like, thinking he’s making a joke. Yeah.

But he said waiting for a long time. So I said, do tell. Do tell. There’s a story there. Yeah.

And it wasn’t about the media. It was about a negative experience he had had, within the mission agency that he had formerly worked for. He was a missionary previously. Not to Muslims, but in a in an area where there were other Muslims. And he had a negative experience and in his heart he had just developed a sort of hardness towards the Muslim world and I’m you know, I get it I get where he’s coming from and I say Like what you said all the resources were that were supposed to be going to the people he was trying to reach or instead going to Right.

Yeah. There was kind of a reshifting and putting more emphasis on reaching the Muslims in the country rather than the group he was trying to reach, and there was sort of a little bit of a deep seated bitterness there from that. And so More emotional basis, not necessarily logical. Yeah. And it and it wasn’t a based on what he’d seen the media, I’m sure that had some effect, but it was really something that had happened a long time ago.

And I said, alright. Tell you what. How about I give you this little booklet that that YWAM Publishing puts out called 30 days of prayer. I think it’s 30 days of prayer dot net. And, it’s about praying for Muslims through the month of Ramadan.

And, why don’t you just pray for for Muslims and at the end of the 30 days I’ll come back and having prayed for Muslims for 30 straight days, if you still feel in your heart like you just don’t like Muslims, then, you know, it’s not on you. You know you’ve asked the Lord to remove this this bitterness and you’ve asked the Lord to intervene. He didn’t and I will stop asking you. But, at least, let’s pursue some prayer before we just write off the whole Muslim outreach thing because they had such a strategic location. I really felt like it would be a good thing.

And so here we go. Hold on right there. I just want to say that I’m so impressed with your response. Right? In my mind, all of these things are going to you’re you’re a missionary.

You were a how dare you? Of all the people, but you’re like, hey, let’s make a deal. No. I’ve gotten used to it. I’m so impressed.

No. The very first time that I had this sort of experience, I I went home. I actually left work early. Yeah. Yeah.

I told I’d be taking my boss. I told my boss. I’m going home. And he said, what’s wrong? I said, I don’t know how to handle this.

I’m so disheartened. I’m so frustrated. I’m disappointed. I had so many emotions. I felt like, you know, I was being rejected.

The Muslims were being rejected. Jesus was being rejected. Right. Everything was Which is true. Yeah.

That’s all true. But now I’ve kind of gotten to the point where it’s like none of that’s helpful. And so I just try to help the person realize that, despite maybe some of their experiences and some of their own, influences that they still can come overcome and still love. Right. Baby steps.

Baby steps. Baby steps. So I said, let, you know, pray 30 days. And, I know that’s a lot, but on day 3, he calls me. This is this is a mission ex missionary pastor.

Right? So he he can he can pray. He can pray. Yeah. He can pray.

30 days. That’s no big deal. Okay. So day 3, he calls me and he says, I need you to come down, to the church and, I would like to talk with you about something that’s happened. So I’m, you know, kind of curious.

I have no idea what he’s gonna say. Right. Getting goose goose pimples. I’m I’m done praying is what I’m thinking in my mind, honestly. This could be good or bad.

And so I go and I say, so what’s going on? And he said, you know, after you left, I gave it some thought and, you know I’m a man of my word, so I began to pray and I prayed for the Muslim world on day 1 and day 2 and day 3 my computer breaks and, that was a Friday and he needed his computer so that he could work on his sermon and have his sermon for church on Sunday. So, he took it to the local computer repair shop. He said, while he was at the computer repair shop, he asked the guy at the at the front, sermon on Sunday. And the man says, absolutely.

You’re gonna go straight to the front, you know, pull out the pastor card. And so straight to the front This this is the south. Right? That’s right. This is happening in the south.

So, you know, okay. Yeah. Pastor card gets you things down here. Yeah. Sweet tea.

You get extra sweet tea. Anyway, pulls the pastor card, front of the line. Guy says, I’ll have it back to you tonight. And he says wonderful. And so he tells him come back, we close at 6.

Just come right back at the end of the day, and I’ll have it for you. So he goes home, you know, does this thing comes back at at 6 o’clock, gets back at 6 o’clock and there’s the guy with his family and tea and food and you know what’s coming. You know what’s coming. Right? What?

I’m on the edge of my seat. He says he says, what what’s going on? And he says, well, I I told my wife that that you were a pastor and she wanted to meet you and my children of course wanted to be here and we wanted to just give you food and show hospitality and just, you know, you study the holy books and this is such a good thing and what an honor and privilege and please there’s no charge. I’ve done it for, you know, fix your computer for free. And he said this man was just oozing kindness.

And he says, wow, this is so great. Thank you so much. You guys are so kind, you know, and he starting to have a, you know, little snack and some tea. And he thinks in his head, where where are you guys from? Yeah.

He’s trying to be clear. Clearly, not American. Right? Right. Because Americans don’t do that.

Yeah. Where are you guys from? FedEx store. And, the man says, oh, we’re from Iraq. And he goes, I didn’t know that are you you’re Christian?

Oh, no. We’re Muslim. And he at that moment, it all kind of clicked. You have those moments where you’re like The holy spirit is doing something. Uh-huh.

And I’m getting messed with. Yeah. So I love those times. Yeah. I love it better when it happens to other people.

Yeah. Seriously. Whenever the holy spirit speaks so clearly to your heart, you’re just like, yes. Okay. I’ve been wrong.

Sorry. So anyway, he calls and he, you know, he tells me the story and I’m just like, yes, this is like the greatest story ever. And I said, so we’re good. He’s like, yeah, we need to move forward. We need to go for it.

And it was it was really an amazing story. So, there are there are positives out there that happen. There are not all negative stories. I don’t wanna paint this bleak picture. There are Christians out there that are loving the Muslim world and one in particular that I like is Phil Parcel.

Right. Phil Parcel’s got an amazing message that he delivered a lecture that he gives at Columbia International University. Without further ado, here it is. Okay. Why Muslims are angry?

I’ve actually been asked to give this lecture. I always give it, when I teach, wherever. This is, I think, an important part of our Christian, commitment to kind of understand where Muslims are coming from. So I pick out these few verses. Okay?

Starting at verse 43. You’ve heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Well, that’s easy enough to do. And I think some of us are falling into that trap now because the enemy obviously is Islam. They’re threatening.

They’re active. They’re doing dastardly acts. Of course, they’re our enemy. So we love our little holy click and we hate those who are on the outside known as enemies, known as terrorist Muslims. But I tell you, love your enemies.

Now we’re going counterintuitive. This is not the way we would normally move at this point. How can we love these people who are doing such terrible things and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven. There’s even a, like, a qualification there. You’re to be sons of the father, you gotta love some people.

And you gotta love some people that may not be very attractive and may not be the people that you wanna embrace. So if you demonize Islam and Muslim first of all, if you demonize Islam to a great extent, naturally, you’re gonna fall into the trap of demonizing those who follow that terrible system. And then if you demonize them, I’ve never met anybody that wants to hug a demon. Right? One of Satan’s representatives.

You wanna be away from them. Flee from them. Fight them. And this is natural reaction. And this is what’s going on in America and around the world today.

It’s it’s really heavy stuff that’s out there, and I understand that. Who wants these bombs that are going off and that could’ve taken down a couple passenger jets if they have been successful, all the things that are going on. Now what I’m gonna try to do in very few minutes here is take you on a journey of why Muslims are doing some of these dastardly acts. And this the the goal of this is not for you to accept what they are doing today. That is not the goal of this time together.

What the goal is to say, first of all, that not all Muslims are doing those acts. And secondly and and probably most importantly for this presentation, I want you to see what is driving the machine. For the Muslims who would not themselves be involved in a terrorist act, but they themselves are thinking, the giant is falling, it’s good for this giant to fall a bit and to be humbled. Though they themselves would not engage in the actual act. So what’s behind all this?

Let’s move forward and, take a look at some of the issues that we can see here with the historical timeline. Let’s start with the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, and most of us have not really gotten into this issue of, wow, why didn’t Islam just finish off at that point? It should’ve. I mean, God’s in control. God’s sovereign.

God would have known that this whole false system is going to come up and draw people away from himself, at which it is done, And I myself have pondered the question more than probably you have because I’ve had 44 years in Asia working among Muslims. And I’ve said, god, why didn’t you just take care of this at the start? Okay. So we live with reality, not ideals. Right?

And we don’t try to penetrate beyond a certain level the mind of God, the acts of God, the the deeds and decrees of God. So we’re stuck with what we got. Right? So the death of Muhammad in 632, and at that point, they’re just a bunch of guys on camels in in the Arabian Peninsula and the prophet is dead. And they gather around the prophet’s body and they’re weeping.

The prophet is gone. The prophet is gone. Let’s all go back to our tribes and our homes. It’s all over, folks. And then one of the early guys stood up and said, if Muhammad is your god, then take off.

But if God is God, then let us worship the God of Muhammad, not Muhammad. He is not our ultimate leader. God Allah is our ultimate leader, and so therein began this this really unbelievable expansion of Islam in the first 100 years of Islam. That we look here and just see how in 635 they were up in Palestine, over in Iran and Iraq, and then they started moving across North Africa. They went into Spain.

They were stopped at the battle of Tours in 6 in 732 AD. And at that point Charles Martel was able to defeat them, push them back into Spain. They stayed in Spain until 14/92, then pushed back into North Africa. And so this is just a 100 years of these guys, and you can say it anywhere you want. You can say, oh, this is Satan induced.

You can say it’s all done by the sword, or you can say it’s all done because, they had to pay a tax if they didn’t become a Muslim, or whatever explanation that is kind of lost in the fog of history. Still, the the bottom line is they had this fantastic expansion that pretty well wiped out a lot of the church, especially across North Africa with the exception of the Copts in Egypt. And so, Islam had, an ethos. Go into all the world and preach Islam to every creature. For every creature who doesn’t know Islam, doesn’t know the Quran, doesn’t know the the the revelation of God.

They’re going to hell forever, and they’ll burn in fire, and we have the message of deliverance. So come to Islam. Come to Islam. We’ll sacrifice. We’ll give up our home.

We’ll give up our family. We’ll give up our land, and we’ll go into all of this area around the Mediterranean and in the and in the east of, Arabian Peninsula, and we’ll preach the good news of Islam. Now some people have said to me, authentication of Christianity is acts, first couple chapters. It could have all stopped. Instead, these first apostles received the spirit of God and they went out and preached Christianity and they were effective, and and today, we have what we have in the world today because those guys were endued with the spirit of God, endued with the vision, willing to be martyrs, and they went out and they were successful.

So, okay, good. I’m not disputing that. But I wanna wake up your eyes and your minds to the fact that this is what was going on with Islam. So in case you don’t think there can be a counter religion that is false, which I accept it is false, that can do this type of thing. Let me clue you in, it can happen, it did happen.

And so Islam went forth. And then they came into this golden age where they felt that, they could be on the cutting edge of things of, discovery, And you see just some of these things in science. And from 750 onward, architecture, they were really great in, astronomy. And then up in agriculture industry, chemistry, math. All these things now, I’m not saying from 500 to 1500 AD is is a total millennium of, degradation in the church and in the west, but I wanna tell you there were some bad things going on in what’s called the dark ages.

Right? But here, the Muslims look back to this age and said, we got it going. We really made things happen. And I think even the most objective or subjective historian will say, this was their day of, of forward movement. But this was curtailed in about 10/96, when the Pope and others got together and they said, okay.

We’ve got to go and get Jerusalem and Palestine back for the faith. Back that’s where Jesus went. He was born, died, raised. So we need to get that land back. It’s there by Muslims.

They’ve been sitting there since 635 AD. And so they sent out the Crusaders, and they went out from the various countries in, Europe, and they moved across the northern part of the Mediterranean and over and down into, into Jerusalem, and the fights and counter fights, there were 8 major crusades, And back and forth, it went. Each side with an absolute commitment. The Muslim side, they said, well, Mohammed came to Jerusalem in the night journey, and he passed through Jerusalem, and he went up to heaven. He came back to Jerusalem, went back over to Mecca.

He actually was supposedly, literally, to have done that. That’s called the night journey. So Jerusalem is a 3rd most holy city for Islam. You’ve got to understand that to try to understand what’s going on today. 3rd most holy city.

For Christians, holy. For, Jews, a holy city. And so, at this point of history, there was a tremendous lot of emotion going. It was also a time of great warfare between the different countries and peoples and tribes in Northern Europe and Europe. And, so out the Crusaders went with this vision for 200 years back and forth, back and forth with new troops going out, people dying, whatever.

Some of you may have seen the film The Kingdom of Heaven. Actually, that film is one that really highlights what went on in the crusades. It’s it’s pretty accurate film, with Saladin on the Muslim side and what went on. So, we have a very close Arab Christian friend, Syrian, and, we visited him in Syria, and he said, do you wanna see the largest crusader fortress that it was ever built back in those days, in the 1100 and 1200. I said, of course.

He said, well, it’s not far from my home in Northern Syria, Northwest Syria. He said, we used to go there and have picnics. I said, take me there. So our whole family, our daughter and her whole family, Julie and me, we went and, we visited this crusader palace. On on the left there in the front, you can see, probably a person.

It shows how little that is and how big this crusader fortress was. 2,000 men and many, many horses. And so we walked up in there and went in through it, got up on top. We saw an indentation in the roof, and we said, what’s that? It didn’t have anything there.

It’s just that something had been there. And they said, well, that was a table. I said, what kind of table? They said, the table of the knights. And the knights would sit around this table and plan their murderous expeditions of burning, raping, looting, as they went into Muslim areas that have been held since 635 AD, and they wiped them out trying to establish a foothold and a permanent outpost of Christianity within Palestine.

It did not work. And after 200 years, they gave up that quest. So next came the Ottoman Empire and the 15, 1600, and you can again see in the different colors for different dates where the Ottoman Empire spread. And after that, colonialism. And this one blows my mind, because they were basically Christian countries that engaged in colonialism.

Christian in the broadest term. Okay? I’m not saying these were evangelical bible believing, ineritus, but they were basically known as Christian people, Christian nations of one type or another, and they sent out people in a major, major quest to open up all of these countries around the world to their influence and to conquer them. To conquer them. Now they weren’t trying to conquer them for Jesus, they were trying to conquer them for trade, for money, for economic reasons.

I want to tell you, this blows my mind, how these small European countries had enough people to send, and I’m just thinking Muslim this morning, to send to Islamic countries. And so we look at this colonial influence on Muslim populations, that little island of Great Britain, and you just go through all those countries, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Spain, Germany. The Dutch had the big and we just go through it. Spain, Germany. The Dutch had the biggest Muslim population in Indonesia.

How could these few Dutch people go in there? Well, what they did was they got local militia. Right? And they had the money, and they paid them off. And then the traders came after them, and the traders came and started the economic engine going.

And after them, who came? Somebody help me. After the fighters, the conquerors, the traders, came the missionaries. Okay? Pith helmet, bible in hand, we’re ready to take them on.

And they had, unusual opportunities. Not total carte blanche opportunities, but many good opportunities try to win Muslims to Jesus. And, even the USA got into this with the Muslim population of the Philippines and Portugal. Major Muslim people groups in in China and CIS were exempted from Western colonial occupation. But I’ve just given you Muslim countries.

Now as you look at that, you would say, well, why didn’t Islam capitulate to the so called Christian invaders, and the missionaries who came, and the churches that were built on the army compounds, why didn’t they just say, Allah has failed us, Allah doesn’t live and give up their faith and call it quits during the period of colonialism. God is dead. We are defeated. Their god, whoever that god of some type of Christianity is, has won. Did they do that?

Was there a great movement toward Jesus Christ during this colonial period? Answer, no. There was not. So what was the rationale that Muslims used? Well, Allah is testing us.

Allah is testing us And we have to go through the trial, and through the difficult period of time, and we’ll come out the other end. And so this was the rationale they used, much like the Chinese Christians. When communism took over and they said, okay. It’s tough now, but it’ll get better. So then we get to economic subjugation.

Now what do I mean by this? Colonialism’s gone by 196065. Algeria is one of the last countries to, end colonization by France. And, so they’re free, but they have no money. And so now comes a very degrading type of process.

They’ve got to go to the former colonizers and, begin to ask for money, ask for assistance, and then the UN comes into play here. What’s the UN come into play here for? Because the West said, hey, you got 2 choices, you countries. You can go to the communist bloc and vote for them in the UN and, they can be your saviors economically. They didn’t have any money.

They didn’t have much to offer. Or option, you can come to us and we will give you money, but in the United Nations, when there’s a vote, you will vote for us. And if you don’t vote for us, the goodies stop. So this was a process that was going on at this point. Well, that went on for a while until oil got in the picture in the early seventies.

Not the discovery of oil that happened back in the thirties in Arabia, but the idea that oil now can be used as a tool. Something that can actually, give them the financial resources that they need to move forward. And out of that oil, and the OPEC, and the Muslim countries coming together came power. And, then they began to say, well, God is blessing us. And fundamentalism revival just came and began to surge.

And, so that is something we’re still dealing with today. How fundamentalism is fueled by every time you go get a, a tank load of gasoline, there’s a danger that part of that money of oil that has come from the Middle Eastern countries, Muslim countries, that some of that can filter out to fundamentalism and to terrorism. Okay? Then we come to Palestine, and I don’t even have a moment to give to this. Huge complex issue.

All I can tell you is this, I’m giving you the Muslim side of the coin. You pretty well know the other side of the coin. In Palestine issue, the Muslims have been sitting on the land from 635 a d until 1948, after the 2nd world war, and the Jews came out of the holocaust, those who survived. And they said, we want our land and and the world is aghast. And they said, what do you want?

And they said, we want our land. And they said, well, our land. Somebody said, well, how about South America, the new Israel? How about Kenya? The new is part of Kenya, new Israel.

No. Where do you want the new Israel? Not we don’t want the new Israel, we want the old Israel. We want it in the land that God gave to us and our forebearers and our prophets. It’s in the bible.

The Muslims are sitting there hearing that. They’ve been sitting on the land for 1300 years. How long does it take to establish squatters rights? And they’re saying, what? You’re telling us to leave our land and land is precious outside of the West.

You guys don’t have an understanding of how land is so precious to people in Africa, and Asia, and South America as part of the psyche. It’s my identity. And now I’m being told I gotta leave the land in 1948 because in the United Nations, they all took a vote and said, the new nation of this Israel is established. And then came this fantastic, terrible holocaust against the people who were on the land and pushed off the land, and a small remnant stayed, and Israel became a state. And then the whole Palestine thing has just been boiling, boiling, boiling, because the people the the Muslims on the who went out as refugees says, we will not give up the struggle until we’re back in our land.

And somebody says, we’ll write a letter in these days to Obama, say, dear president Obama, please ask the Jews to leave the land so we go back to our traditional ancestral land. And they laugh. Letters are not gonna do a thing. What’s going to take the world’s attention? It’s terrorism.

It’s doing something dastardly, horrible. And then suddenly at that point, the world begins to say, we gotta talk, we gotta talk. We gotta get the Jews together, gotta get the Muslims together, we gotta find some way out of this terrible situation. And so out of this is come this cauldron of of, anger anger. Kill the Jews.

And so then, we come to some of the real hot spots today. Afghanistan, Iraq, where American forces are resident. And I, some years back, went to the Air Force Academy. I met with some Christians right on campus. And, I gave this lecture, parts of it.

And this idealistic young cadet came up Christian. And he said, you told me that we can never win in Islam in, Afghanistan. I’m telling you, we will win in Afghanistan. I wonder where that young cadet is today. Because Russia with a common border to Afghanistan, with all its armaments, everything that they had to push into Afghanistan failed and fled.

Who are we to think as we bring in our armaments through Pakistan, which is a failed state, which is full of terroristic Muslims, who are blowing up our fuel trucks as they make their way from the port of Karachi up to the border and over to Kabul. Who are we to think that we could ever win in Afghanistan to people who say, no foreigner will ever occupy us for any period of time. We will fight. We will die, but no infidel will stay on our soil. This is our soil.

And so they go and they live in in in the rocks. They live in the caves Because of this tremendous dedication that this is our land. And we’re sitting in Iraq, and we’re sitting in Afghanistan. And it’s a very sad thing that we’re going to lose so many people in an issue that, in reality, we can’t win. This is my view, and you can have your say at lunch.

Okay? And, you can give a counterargument, and I’d be very willing to give you the time to do that. Now I realized that after all these years sitting among Muslims that maybe I’ve got just a bit jaded in in one direction. Okay? But I’m trying to get you to see what the other side is when this side over here about how terrible they are, has been said ad nauseam by the press and in the church, and to the point that Christians hate Muslims.

I got a letter today. Just it gave about 6 adjectives of how terrible Muslims are, particularly terrorists, of course. But what it’s so hard to delineate terrorists, Muslims, and the Muslim that lives next door that’s a nice person that I’ve lived among for all these years. I love Muslims. I’ve had the privilege to embrace them, to be in their homes, to be a part of them, and, and I just think that’s a Christian thing to do.

Okay. So here’s just Iran and straight to Hormuz, a hot spot with Iran beginning to move toward nuclear armament, which I think definitely they will, without any doubt. Western Christian immorality, another point of conflict. They say, you you, in your country, you are supposed to have some type of morality and ethics, but look at the stuff that that comes out of the West. This is antithetical to Islam.

Sex in the city, the bathing suits, terrible pig meat, and alcoholic drinks. And and they throw all that together and say, well, that’s Christians and that’s the West. And so this jades their view and makes them angry that this group of people are sitting in Afghanistan, are sitting in Iraq and attacking our people and killing our people. And often, those drones that are up there, the predators that are up there are shooting down those missiles and they can’t be exact and they’re killing our women and children. Do you don’t think they’re angry?

You don’t think that leads to a terrorism? If my mother has been killed in one of these drone attacks at 30,000 feet with a missile coming down on my house, You don’t think that makes me wanna go up and take up arms and kill anybody that I can on the other side? Don’t be naive. Don’t be naive. And so these issues, one last one here, and I think this is pretty important.

This this is kind of a horrible list of items, but as you look at some of those words around there, and you just try to place yourself in the subjugated side, the the poor side, the economically deprived side, the the side that’s being attacked. And you see the West, particularly the US, it’s hard for them to see the good points when you got bombs coming down on your town. Think about it a minute. Hard. And so they look on this group of words that may depict some of those issues.

On Sunday, around 10 AM, in a church in Baghdad, Iraq, Muslim terrorists came into that church and just started shooting and throwing hand grenades. This last Sunday. And this gentleman, priest, he was there a couple days before this was when this picture was taken. He was killed. Many in his congregation was killed were killed.

Photo was taken several days prior in the back, and you can barely see it. The Arabic line behind him reads Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a witness and a martyr in Nazi jails. His last word this priest you’re looking at right now, his last words as he died is, I’m a martyr for Jesus. He could have left. All of those congregation, they could have gone to Jordan, they could have gone to Lebanon.

They could have got out, but they wanted to be a light and salt and testimony, and they’re dead today. 58 are dead and dozens more in hospital severely wounded. Martyrs for Jesus. And I look back to myself, and I think, how easy life is? How comfortable the bubble is?

How nice the comfort zone is. And I say, these Muslims have got to see another side of a white face or a black face who’s an American, or they’ve got to see the love that Jesus Christ talked about that somehow we put aside. Love your enemies. Embrace your enemies. Pray for your enemies.

I’ve had 2 serious threats on my life, Abdul and Datu in Manila. We had a little reading center. A few of you’ve been in that reading center. Just right on the sidewalk, we put, pieces of literature out, and inside, we’d show the Jesus film in Muslim languages. And Datu about drove me crazy.

Datu is this little Muslim guy, and he hated me, and he hated Christianity, and he hated what we’re doing. For 6 months, he came every almost every day. I hated going to that reading center to try to witness to Muslims for Christ. I did it for 22 years in the afternoons. And I hated going because Datu would come.

And he kept getting worse and worse. I think he was on drugs. I don’t think the big thing was Christianity. I think he’s just wanted money extortion. But anyway, I was his goal.

I was a target. He wanted whatever I could give him. Day after day after day, he came. And so finally, he came one day, and he was completely out of it. He was screaming, yelling, I’m gonna kill you.

I’m gonna kill you. You use sexual vulgarities, the whole 9 yards. And as I looked at this guy out of control, I felt he’s gonna kill me. For the first time in my life, I felt this was a serious thing where I would go to be with Jesus in the next few minutes. And, so I went in and told all the Muslims who are watching the film to please leave.

This is right in the middle of one of the most, very violent areas of Manila, and it’s also in the adjacent to the Muslim community. It’s where we had our reading center. So I said, please leave. And they left in a hurry, because they were scared of this guy. I was scared.

And so I’m there facing him and he continues to scream out. And then a Muslim from next door, my friend, who was a guard next door, didn’t have a gun or anything, but he was a friendly person that I’d cultivated relationship, a Muslim from the same tribe, same language group as Sadatu, who’s screaming and yelling at me, came over and he stood between us, and he quieted him down and finally got him to leave. After the guy left, I said, you took a big risk. He said, well, he said, he had a bulge. This is where Muslim he said, us Muslims, we keep our gun or our knife right here.

And he had a bulge there, and I knew he’s gonna kill you. And I could not allow him to kill you. Does he know something about love that we don’t know? That he would risk his life for a guy of an alien religion, a false religion, a copier religion, that he would risk his life for me as a Muslim against the Muslim. What do we know about love?

What do we know about embracing? What do we know about going here in Colombia out to the mosque? Some of you have gone. I praise God for that. Zweimer Center has taken some people to to the mosque, and, to reach out, embrace them.

This is what I’m asking for this morning. I’m asking a little bit further than that. I would not go another direction in my life for anything in the world. God has given me the most wonderful wife, 49 years 5 months today. And it has been the privilege.

We met in in our Christian college, so this is great hunting grounds, guys. Go and girls, go for it. But I’m here today because of her in a human sense. She has been everything to me. Our our love relationship is passionate.

We’ve never failed in faithfulness. And I’m just so grateful that she has sustained me a more mercurial temperament, as you might have imagined as I’ve talked. She’s been there to embrace me, love me, encourage me all these years. But we’ve had the joy of loving Muslims. We’ve had the joy in Bangladesh of starting a strategy that’s that’s led our team.

Dave Cashin’s here. Dave was part of that team, he’s professor here, and seeing tens of thousands of Muslims come to Jesus Christ in Bangladesh, where there was nothing prior to 1975. Went to Philippines, almost nothing among the Muslims there, and the team got together and tried new strategy and new things. And today, there are 100 and 100 of Muslim converts in the Philippines that there never was before. To God be the glory.

But we’re not gonna achieve that by sitting here, embracing each other, and loving each other when God talks about risk. I’ll be 73 tomorrow. There’s a limit to what the human body has in this life. I’m ready to pass the mantle to you. I envy you as you are on the stepping stone of going out and saying, god, what do you have for me?

I’m ready. I’m ready. And that’s the challenge I give. The challenge of Islam that you may seriously consider that as one of the most meaningful impacts that can have on your life and on your Christian experience and on the world today, 1,200,000,000 Muslims. Alright.

So that was Phil Parchel, and this is going to be a 2 part podcast. I know we don’t normally do that, but, this is gonna be pretty long. Yeah. I think that partial brought up a lot of interesting points that we need to, discuss. So let’s let’s do that in a in a 2 part series.

Right. So go see us in the next podcast. It’s gonna be the part 2 episode 4, and we’ll be continuing Islamophobia there. We’ll see you then.

Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Polarized Views of Muslims: Will the Real Muslim Please Stand Up:

Once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist Islamic extremist. These are the mistresses of the country. Random justice and brutal endeavors. Newsflash America. 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. Here we are.

Episode number 2. The Truth About Muslims podcast with our sponsors this week. Columbia International University, as always, CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. Check them out at www.ciu.edu. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to say the www part.

Just just ciu.edu. Is that on the recording? Sorry. I just haven’t heard www. I bet you’re like okay.

No. Let’s go with it. Let’s go with it. And and our other our other sponsor is the Zwemer Center For Muslim Studies at at CIU. The Zwemer Center has been equipping the church to reach Muslims and training the church to understand Islam since 1979.

Just something to say about CIU too is that, I graduated there from there, and, I really love that school. And I I don’t know. This is just a sponsor of ours and I could just say whatever, you know, they tell me to say. But, you know, I just wanted to say that I I really do actually love CIU. So And, I I also graduated from there and I like it so much that I work there.

So it’s really kinda funny. This week, we were we were looking at some opportunities to, take students overseas and, I had to bust out the old school missionary skills of trying to figure out how much would it cost per day for us to take a team overseas and I was reminded of a trip that you and I did together several years back. Wait, wait. Where are you taking these kids? Well, we were actually talking about going to Central Asia.

Cool. But where we went several years back, do you remember? Several years? Several years. We’re talking this is 14 years ago.

That’s more than several. Well, yeah. You and me, we went to Maldives. That’s right. Before we went to Maldives though, we were in London.

In the UK for a month and I think we had set our budget at about $10.10 a day. Well, I think originally it was, like, 20 a day and then we spent, like, 19 of it a day in the UK. Right. It killed our budget. We got to the So expensive.

We got to the Maldives assuming since the Maldives was in South Asia, it was probably one of the cheapest countries to live in. And so we figured we’d be fine on about $5 a day. That was a lie. And we had loaf of bread and Nutella pretty much for breakfast all day, every day. And the guys, we were lucky because we could go into tea shops.

The ladies weren’t allowed in those tea shops. Remember the the short eats? The tea shops. The basically, the little appetizers. They’re they’re delightful appetizers anytime of the day.

Right. And, you just get a cup of black tea, which is really sweet. Did did they sweeten it or did we sweeten it? No. They would sweeten it.

It tastes like hot sweet tea. Right. But it was so sweet. It was so sweet. Like Bojangles would have competition.

I don’t know why hot sweet tea tasted so good on a hot humid island. Right. And there was, there was no milk. It was just, you know, black I mean, it was black tea. I mean But but, anyway, what I was thinking about and I was telling somebody at work was, we we showed up in this this island nation and, we had very little money to our name.

By the time we had secured a guest house, we had almost nothing left for dinner and then we realized to go anywhere, we needed a taxi because it was just way too hot to walk anywhere and we had no money, we had no food. And Howard had this excellent idea about halfway through our 2 month stay. He wanted to it was rent a boat. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No.

No. We didn’t rent the boat. 1 of our friends, you know, we had we had made, friends with 1 of the the islanders and, his dad offered to rent us a boat. You remember? Well, I don’t remember how it came about.

I just know that I came home one evening and Howard said, hey, guess what? We’re going on a boat for the next 2 weeks. So we It was a week. It wasn’t 2 weeks. I don’t think it was more like 2 weeks, but we’ll settle on 10 days.

It was short for us, but for you it felt like an eternity, I’m sure. So I couldn’t go on the boat because earlier in that week I had, broke my ankle playing soccer. Okay. Let’s let’s be honest here. You could go if you wanted to.

Yeah. Howard was my, he was my team leader and he just said, hey, We’re going on a boat and I kinda looked at him and I thought I got a cast on my leg. What am I gonna do on a boat for a week? And he’s like, watch us swim. It is, the Indian Ocean.

We’re gonna go island hopping. We’re gonna go visit all these villages. We’re gonna have an awesome time. And I’m thinking, I’m gonna be sitting there in a cast. I can’t go on a boat.

Right. And so, what was the solution then? Do do you guys hear my dog barking? It’s usually the mailman, but it’s not today. The solution was that you stayed you decided to stay back.

And I and I gave you an allowance, per day and, and you had a great time. Tell us about what So we had we we we had all these bags and we couldn’t fit them on the boat. It’s a relatively small boat and so we did we we kept one guest house room, and we filled it with all of the bags and myself and my crutches. And Howard gave me if I remember correctly, correct me if I’m wrong, Howard. Maybe in my mind it’s exaggerated, but Howard gave me $3 a day to survive on.

Liar. Okay. I don’t remember. It could have been. It could have very well been 14 years ago, it it might not be in my head still.

So I don’t remember if it was $3 but, however, so that that means I sincerely believe that it was adequate adequate enough to survive. And it and it would have been considering that I could have gone to tea shop and eaten for a dollar. Mhmm. $3 a day in Howard’s mind, that’s one meal a day, he should be fine. Except for the fact that I had a cast and I had to walk with crutches and I had to take a taxi anywhere I wanted to go.

So to get to the tea shop cost me a dollar, to get home from the tea shop cost me a dollar, so I’m down to 1 meal a day. You’re lucky that island was like a mile wide. So Crutches. I’m on crutches. Right, right, but the taxis couldn’t have been that expensive.

So so it really it really created an interesting opportunity for me so I would be able to call these, this network of young Muslim guys that I had met over the last, month. Trevor is a surfer if you didn’t know, but, he would just sit there and surf pretty much all day whenever the well, actually, the break was always, the waves were always awesome. It was really good surf. And so I would call these guys and they would show up and they kinda developed a little bit of a schedule, like, one guy would show up in the morning to bring me breakfast, another guy would show up in the afternoon and give me a ride to the surf break, somebody would come in the afternoon and give me a ride back to my place and then somebody would give me dinner. And then they got they were so concerned about my well-being that at one point a guy just volunteered to stay with me and he’s like, I’m just gonna stay for the next week.

Yeah. As Howard says, I’d say 2 weeks. We we nicknamed him smiley because he was always smiling and he had dreads too. He looked like a he looked like a Maldivian Bob Marley. Yeah.

Awesome guy. And he he he basically just shows up on the, like, 2nd night, and he’s got his backpack and his clothes and some food that his mom gave him to give to me. And he’s like, I’m moving in. I said, alright. So we’re sitting there.

It’s the first night, and, it’s a it’s a small room, double bed. I’m just laying on one side of the bed. He’s laying on the other side of the bed and and I said, hey, Seanie. Do you do you pray? And he says, yeah.

I pray. And and he’s a Muslim. Right? He’s a Muslim kid. I I said, I pray too.

Can I pray for you? He said, okay. You pray for me and I’ll pray for you. And I was like, right now? And he’s like, yes.

Let’s pray together. You pray and I’ll pray. So I’m sitting there and I start praying and I’m, like, God, I just thank you so much for my friend Johnny. I pray God that and all of a sudden I hear him praying and he’s praying a little bit louder than me. So I kinda pick up the the volume a little bit and pray a little bit louder.

And then he prays a little bit louder. And then by the end of, like, 30 seconds, we’re shouting in the room praying trying to figure out I felt like it was one of those moments with, like, prophets of Baal. Like, he’s screaming to to God. I’m screaming to God. And we’re both praying that God would bless the other person and it was just one of those really funny experiences that happened with a Muslim.

It’s a bless off. It it was a bless off. So who who won? I’m not really sure. I was a little bit concerned, like, secret police would come breaking down the door and arrest one of us.

Wait. So so do Muslims generally pray like that? Okay. So when we think about Islam, we often think that they only pray in one way and it’s the way we see on the news Yeah. Where they get down on their knees and they prostrate and they put their head on the ground.

Facing Mecca. Right. And that’s the typical raka, the style, the ritualistic prayer that we see. But there’s other types of prayer in Islam. There’s actually a couple different types.

1, and that was the one that that he was doing that night was it’s called dua and it’s a basically petition to God. It’s the way that most Christians pray. And when I say most Christians, I mean, we have ritualistic prayer too. Right? Right.

High church. High church. Anglican. Lord’s prayer, liturgies. There you go.

But we also have personal prayer. We sit around at the dinner table. We have prayers. We have prayers some with our children at night. Right.

Before they go to bed. There you go. So we have ritualistic, but but a little bit more personal. Yeah. And then there’s personal prayer.

Muslims have that. And then they also have something called zikr, which is, more of a Say that again? Zikr. Zikr? Yep.

Okay. And it’s a, more of a liturgical type prayer. And a lot of times, you’ll see them carrying beads, prayer beads. Okay. So I thought about it, and I asked somebody the other day, would it be odd if I carried around some beads around the campus?

And this is a conservative Christian college, and so some I said, no. They’re not they’re not Catholic beads and they’re they’re not, Muslim beads. I was thinking The Buddhist beads. Yeah. Buddhist beads.

And so they just beads wouldn’t be a good idea. But, anyway, the thought was the 99 names of God, that’s a a form of of thikr where they will literally rotate the 33 beads in their fingers three times and each time they recite a name of God. Is is that considered a prayer though? Absolutely. Yeah.

It’s remembrance. And I mean, when you think about Islam, one of the doctrines that’s important to to keep in mind is the doctrine of taqwa. It’s called God consciousness and it’s to be in remembrance of God. Is there anything like that in Christian terms? Well, I think so.

I mean, we should be constantly remembering God and doing what we can. As a matter of fact, I have a student that has, tattoos on his wrist of, crosses. Okay. And so he came to the house one day and, my daughter who’s kinda sassy, she’s 7. She’s 7 and she looked at him and she said, why do you have, you have crosses on your wrist?

And, he said, so I can remember Jesus. And she looked him right in the eye and she said, are you afraid you’re gonna forget about him? So in that sense Yes. In that sense, he kinda took a step back and was like, well, no. Then he had to reconsider why he had crosses on his wrist.

Right. Nothing like a 7 year old girl to change the way you’ve done everything in the past. But we do have some concepts of remembering God and doing what we can to remember God. Some, more liturgical practices would be, Luther, for instance, would say on a daily basis, we should recite the I believe it was the apostle’s creed, make the sign of the cross. Mhmm.

Those were just rituals, daily rituals that he had for remembering, remembering God. Of course, communion. Communion. Yeah. Definitely.

Other things that we do, joining together in prayer, maybe even some of the ways in which people, dress. They might take on a certain discipline that looks a certain way that would cause them to remember God daily. I mean, I don’t know. Fasting, there’s tons of things that we do in Christian disciplines throughout history that are about remembrance. And, Muslims have those too.

Cool. Alright. So this week’s podcast is on angry people. Let’s talk about the media. So what’s been going on in the media that’s, kind of?

Well, it’s not hard to find angry people. I’m I’m not really sure, you know, they make medicine for that these days, but there’s a lot of angry people out there. Right. Right. So this week in the media, we were, just kinda watching and seeing what was happening.

And, actually, it was the, it’s Bill Maher show that kinda caught our attention this week. The, Real Clear Politics, video where there was a Bill Maher, interaction between Sam Harris and Ben Affleck that was very interesting. Right. And, it seemed like it was, Sam Harris and Bill Maher on one side and Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristoff. Nicholas Kristoff.

Who’s a Pulitzer Prize winning writer. I didn’t know that. But, yeah. He’s a he’s He runs an op ed piece for the New York Times. He’s often writing about Islam, Christianity, and, I usually appreciate the things that he brings to the table.

He’s a he’s a a sharp sharp guy and, this interview that goes on is really it it encompasses the whole show because we have the boom goes the dynamite session. Yeah. Definitely. It’s it’s in here. There is a couple opportunities here where there’s, someone drops the bombshell on Muslims and Ben Affleck the whole time is just you can see he’s stirring.

He is angry. Yeah. He almost chewed his finger off. He was so frustrated. Right.

And, I I can understand why. Yeah. And so this is basically the rundown. Harris and Maher seem to be coming, actually just to to bring this whole thing introduce this whole topic. He’s basically saying that liberals have really dropped the ball, on the topic of theocracy.

Right? So, they’re willing to fight for the feminist movement in the US, the the gay rights movement, minorities, so on and so forth. But when it comes to Islam, he’s saying that the Liberals aren’t facing up to the real issues, which are the things that they’re they’re seeing, these atrocities like ISIS, beheadings, killing, Muslims that convert, so on and so forth. So he’s saying that because they’re minorities, liberals are afraid to touch them. Yeah.

It was interesting. He was actually saying in some sense that he really wants them to take more of the approach of criticizing the ideas of Islam, but they’re too afraid because, they are a minority in this country and that they shouldn’t criticize, minority views. And his idea was that we really should be more critical of Islam and and Bill Maher Maher, of course, was on his side that we should be more critical and Ben Affleck kinda snaps a little bit. Not a little. Well, let’s look at some of the things that were said specifically.

So so, the what Maher was coming at it was and listen. I don’t think he meant this, but what he kinda came across as let’s bunch all of Islam together and say that these are the, you know, the they’re all bad. They’re bad ideas. Harris, it was interesting is that he was saying at the basic, the core of Islam was actually violence. So that if you are a true Muslim, if you were a true true Muslim then you would by nature, be violent.

Yeah. And he he didn’t actually say it, specifically, but the way he presented his argument was he talked about concentric circles. So let’s say at the center of the circle, you have the radicals and maybe that’s a smaller circle. Right. And then at the next layer, you have maybe not people that are radical and willing to fight and kill in the name of Islam, but you have people that are wanting to kill those that, maybe leave Islam.

And then at the next circle, you have the, people that just want to live a peaceful concentric circles, what he’s basically arguing for is at the core, at the center of the belief system are the radicals. Right. And then it works its way out. And by the time you get to a peaceful moderate, what I would say is a the majority Muslim world, what he’s saying is, well, they don’t really hold their faith, in such a way that they would act based on their doctrines and beliefs. And that’s the that’s where I take issue.

Right. He’s he’s basically saying that they’re not serious about their faith. Exactly. Actually, here’s here’s the quote. Let me give you let me just give you what you want.

This is Harris speaking. There are 100 of millions of Muslims who are nominal Muslims who don’t take the faith seriously. There you go. Who don’t wanna kill apostates, who are horrified by ISIS, and we need to defend these people, prop them up, and let them reform their faith. So it sounds like what he’s saying is that in order for reformation to happen in their faith is that these Muslims, these nominal Muslims have to have to basically propagate a a less serious faith about Islam.

It’s really ironic. I mean, to say that the reformation of Islam is gonna come through people that don’t take the faith serious seems like an oxymoron to say that we we need a bunch of people that don’t take the faith serious in order to be the ones to reform it. Right. So tell me, I mean, you obviously know way more than than I do, but, is the core of Islam violent? No.

I don’t I don’t think that there is a true core of Islam. I think that you have to look at it as a spectrum. And on one end of the spectrum, you have 15 to 20% of your Muslim world that is more of a radical leaning. And that’s a large number. It’s not to be minimized.

But on the other end of the spectrum, you have another 15 to 20 percent that are the reformers. And I would say that the reformers are not the nominal Muslims. They are the ones that are looking at the text, challenging some of the older ways of viewing the text, challenging some of the commentaries, challenging some of the rulings of the different schools of law and saying that we need a reform. And then in the middle, right, you have that 60 to 60 to 70% that is going to be your moderate Muslim majority. And both of those two groups, the 15 to 20% on either side of that spectrum are fighting for that moderate majority.

To get them off the fence. Yeah. They want them on their side. Right. And so where is where would where where would Sam Harris because early on the interview, he says that he’s very well educated or maybe just says well educated, on Islam.

Well, that was the thing. The, Ben Affleck challenges him and says, so are you, you know, do you know are you the one who can speak for all of Islam, the 1,600,000,000 people in the world who gives the the codified, you know, doctrines of Islam. And Sam Harris’ response is, well, I am well educated on this. And I thought, well, there’s a little bit of an appeal to authority there just to say that he’s well educated on this. He is certainly, a brilliant man.

I’m not questioning his intellect, but to say that he’s well educated on Islam might be a bit of a a bit of a stretch. So And and he didn’t answer the question. No. The question the answer is no. Yeah.

No. He is not. He’s not. I mean, he isn’t. And for for instance, we had a, a 120 Islamic scholars who are who are the, the codified, representatives of the Muslim world.

Right. Those 120 scholars recently published an open letter to ISIS telling them how what they were doing was un Islamic. And so I find it strange that Sam Harris would argue that the radicals have it right when he’s looking at the, Islamic scholars, those who do speak for Islam, meaning the, consensus of the Islamic scholars in saying that they don’t have it right, The radicals have it right. That seems very bizarre to me, but I do think he has an agenda and his agenda is based on his, kind of underlying presupposition that religion in and of itself is is is a bad thing. Right.

You might know Sam Harris from his book, A Letter to a Christian Nation, which basically just rips down Christianity. But his arguments, I’ve always found were weak, straw man type arguments that aren’t robust at all. So I don’t know. I I just kinda felt like when he kinda came in in this Bill Maher talk show that he was going to come from a slant of anti religion, seeing all religion is unviable or inviable or unviable. Is it in or un?

Unviable. Not viable. Not viable. There you go. Not viable.

Not viable. So yeah. Yeah. So where would he get this idea from back to that question? Where where would he get this idea that that Islam is violent by nature and that if you’re a faithful follower of Allah, that you’re gonna be violent as well?

Well, I think it comes back to that idea of how is he interpreting the the Quran. I mean, for instance, he brings up the law of apostasy and he brings up some Pew research, work that’s been done on the law of apostasy. Pew has done an excellent job surveying the Muslim world asking them, do you agree with the law of apostasy? Do you agree with Sharia law? Do you think Sharia law should be in different countries?

And what you’ll see through the interviews is there are some countries that are certainly concerning, I think, depending on the type of Sharia they’re talking about. But there are other countries. 1 in particular that I was looking at was Indonesia, and it’s by no means a majority consensus on law of apostasy or Sharia. And that’s the largest Muslim country in the world. So to generalize that Islam in and of itself is gonna produce a radical person if they take their faith seriously is ridiculous in my opinion.

Would you okay. This is just a shot in the dark, but would you say that, or could you see any connection between, the the general populations of these nations that are more moderate when it comes to apostates or killing apostates in connection with their their their level of connection to the West? Like, Indonesia, there’s certain areas of Indonesia that are very, very touristy. Right? Do you think that those those that tourism mentality would bring into, that culture?

You know, ideas might not necessarily be there in general with other Muslim countries? Yeah. It’s a good question. I I don’t know exactly what would be the influencing factors. I would say that the, the overarching theme that goes throughout the Muslim world is there isn’t one.

There isn’t an overarching narrative that plays throughout the Muslim world and that’s why you have groups like ISIS coming and saying things like, we are the new Islamic State and we are the new, representatives of the Muslim world, Abu Baghdadi, Bakr Baghdadi saying that he is the new caliphate. And what he’s saying is, I’m gonna unify Islam under one sort of, interpretation of Sharia, one sort of interpretation of Islamic, you know, the hadith and all of the different texts that you have in Islam. And that hasn’t happened in a very long time. I mean, the Ottoman Empire is the last empire of the Muslim world that was, abolished in 1924. Mhmm.

So to say that there’s an overarching narrative that goes across the Muslim world is to ignore world history that has been each Islamic empire has fallen usually at the hands of another Islamic empire. Right. So you you you’re not seeing any kind of pattern. They’re they’re just basically swinging from right to the left as far as, apostate and some of these other, what? These other, aspects of Islam?

Different doctrines? The diet doctrines or Yeah. No. There there’s certainly, like I said, I think we’ve talked about it in our last podcast, the different schools of law, and the individual really doesn’t get a chance to say, what Islam should look like. It really comes down to the school of law system of which Islam is in.

And so the it doesn’t necessarily matter. I mean, I couldn’t say that there’s a pattern based on every, Muslim country depending on where they are geographically. All I can say is that the diversity within Islam is is vast and anytime somebody starts to break that diversity down and get very reductionistic about what a Muslim is supposed to look like, I think that they’re headed for, a problem. Right. And it seemed like Egypt, look, just looking at the polls, Egypt was far the extreme.

Yes. Most definitely. Egypt has got, a pretty extreme view and and there’s a history there too. When one of these podcasts will look specifically at the, the role of Egypt in sort of the resurgence of fundamentalism and radicalism looking at the Muslim brotherhood, but there’s a history there. It didn’t just sort of crop up out of out of nowhere.

Just a little bit of a teaser. Ayman al Zawahiri, the current leader of al Qaeda, was imprisoned in Egypt, back in, I guess, that would have been the seventies. So Egypt has a long history of dealing with radicalism, dealing with Sharia, dealing with trying to keep a, Muslim theocracy working. And, when you look at that history, it doesn’t bode well for this sort of successful Islamic state. I mean, just really quick, let’s think of some of the countries in the world that are trying to operate under these theocracies and see how they’re doing.

I mean, we have, what, Pakistan, Egypt. Tunisia actually has completely rejected this idea, and they’re getting becoming more and more secular. You have other Muslim countries, you know, you have Morocco, the Berbers are becoming very antagonistic towards Wow. So Muslim governments are are failing all around the world and the people are becoming incredibly dissatisfied with Islam, especially when you you talk about people that have left Islam. We’re talking about apostasy.

Those who have converted to say Christianity, for instance, when they were interviewed, the number, four reason that they gave for leaving Islam was a dissatisfaction with Islam, particularly related to seeing these Islamic theocracies rise up. Up. Okay. So what is that from? What what what do these theocracies have in common that are causing so many to be dissatisfied?

Well, I think a lot of it is is violence. I mean, there’s something inside of us that just doesn’t feel very good about seeing, a a fellow human being suffer. I do think that there is an innate belief in every human being that says something that that we’re created in the image of God and that we do not wanna see other people suffer. And so when you see these Islamic governments coming in and they become oppressive towards their people, some of them, not all of them, but some of them are oppressive towards their people, people kind of look at that and they’re the they’re disillusioned. They they think this doesn’t really seem like a utopian society.

Interesting. So in some ways, Islamic theocracies are becoming their own worst enemies. Okay. So for this week’s boom goes the goes the dynamite, Sam Harris says in the same interview that we’ve been talking about, says that Islam at the moment is the mother lode of bad ideas. Yeah.

That’s a definite boom goes the dynamite to characterize an entire religion by saying that it is the mother lode of bad ideas. I’m I’m not sure that that’s that’s such a good idea. Okay. So let’s let’s talk about some of these, these things that they would declare as bad ideas, like, the most common, jihad. Let’s talk about jihad.

So kind of explain in terms that, that we would understand that that me being uneducated in Islam would understand what is it what what is this jihad thing, and why are there radicals, and and why are there people killing in the name of jihad? What is exactly going on there? We’re gonna have to do a whole podcast just on jihad because it’s that complex. But if you just wanna hear sort of the the two main streams of thought when it comes to jihad, some Muslims would argue that there are 2 jihads. Okay.

As I would actually, I would say most Muslims would argue that there are 2 streams of jihad. There is the greater jihad and there is the lesser jihad. The greater jihad is the internal struggle. Jihad means to struggle. The greater jihad is the internal struggle that happens within the life of every Muslim.

It’s somewhat comparable to the idea of the struggle within a believer between the spirit and the flesh. Right? To to maintain, a sense of God consciousness, to follow after the teachings of Allah, to follow after the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. And there is that struggle to sort of be in the world but not of the world, if that makes sense. Yep.

The lesser jihad, obviously, the well more more well known jihad is the holy war. The struggle to, fight against those who are fighting against Islam. And that’s the one that really gets debated within the Muslim world as to what that looks like, what qualifies as jihad, and To what extreme they go? To what extreme? Should it be only nuances to the idea of jihad for somebody to just put a blanket on nuances to the idea of jihad for somebody to just put a blanket statement out there and say, hey, jihad is holy war.

It’s about fighting in the cause of Allah and that’s really all there is to it. It’s way too simplistic. So is there precedent for that? For jihad? Uh-huh.

Oh, most certainly. There’s precedent for battle, for fighting, for war. Absolutely. I mean, when you look at the Quran, the the Quran is I’ve never said that the Quran is a book of peace or a book of violence. I don’t know that you can really say that it’s either.

To just simply take a text and say, well, it has a lot of violence in it, therefore, it must be a violent book, I think is is not true. Or to say that, well, this is a very peaceful, has a lot of peaceful things and then it must be a peaceful religion isn’t true either. And so I don’t think the Quran is filled with violence or peace. It has both just like the Bible has both. I mean, if we took the 2 side by side, we just ran a textual sort of analysis and said which book is has more violence?

Which which one do you think Howard would come up as being the more violent text? The bible. Of course. Right? I mean, I don’t know how they come out with bible movies that are rated anything less than r.

There’s some just straight violence that goes on in the bible. Right. Book of Judges. That’s what comes to mind. Book of Judges.

That would be an n c 17. Right. A lot of problems in there. Lot of problems. But we would not say that the religion of Christianity or Judaism is a violent or violent religions because the texts themselves have violence.

Right. Because the bible is mostly narrative. Right. It’s narrative. It’s descriptive.

It’s not, well, there are some commands for for violence, but we have ways of, interpreting our text. Right? We do what we would call hermeneutics. We read the bible in light of its context. And so we can read something and say Deuteronomy chapter 13 where there is a clear statement of apostasy, right, to kill those who would secretly entice you to follow other gods.

Even if it be your son, daughter, or even the spouse that you love, we aren’t doing that today. Yeah. Right? You’re not killing people that are not wanting to follow or trying to secretly entice you to follow other gods, are you? Right.

So how do we get by that? Well, we have hermeneutics. We interpret the text in light of its context and then we take the entire text as a whole in order to determine what are the doctrines. And we also have a historical tradition in which we do that as well. Right.

Muslims have the same thing. That makes sense. And so with jihad, with ISIS, that’s why there will be so many Muslims that are outraged by what they’re doing. I actually saw this, Instagram thing where people, Muslims from other countries were hashtagging everything, not in my name. Mhmm.

And it was basically against, opposing what ISIS was doing and saying, this is not in the name of Islam or in the name of Allah or in the name of Muslims. Yeah. It’s it’s becoming harder and harder to to silence the other side. For instance, after the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi, Chris Stevens was brutally murdered, by, radical Muslims. Following that, there was a protest, a march in the streets with Muslims holding up signs that said Benghazi is against terrorism.

Chris Stevens was a friend to all, Libyans. Right. This is not the behavior of Islam or our prophet, but most people didn’t see those signs. Right. Because that’s not what sells newspapers or magazines or No.

No. Gets clicks or visits to websites. Right. Exactly. So but how do you get one Muslim having such a radical view of jihad wanting to fight against the whole world to establish an Islamic empire?

And how do you get another Muslim that says, you know, I just wanna live live at peace. Actually, Ben Affleck. Let’s let’s look at how he says it. What’s his quote there, from Ben Affleck? Well, this is our this is our carpe diem award goes Ben Affleck.

Ben Affleck gets the carpe diem. If anything, it’s because of his creativeness and how he presents his case. He was very angry but he was funny at the same time. So Classic Ben Affleck. Right.

I I don’t know how he pulls that off, but it’s a gift. So he says, how about more than a 1000000000 people who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punch women, who just wanna go to school, have some sandwiches, pray 5 times a day, and don’t do any of the things you’re saying of all Muslims. It’s stereotyping. I really like the sandwiches part though. Just Just wanna have some sandwiches.

Who doesn’t want to just have sandwiches? They don’t punch women. Go ahead. They just wanna go to school. They just wanna have some sandwiches.

Pray 5 times a day. Pray 5 times a day. And and it’s a great argument because really what on this podcast we deal a lot with is stereotyping. Because I you know, me personally, and I think this is maybe part of the the reason why we have this podcast is that we don’t think, that anything in this world will change by just drawing up battle lines. I mean, it’ll change.

It just won’t change for the better. Right? And I I was I was reading some quotes, Martin Luther King Junior, doctor Martin Luther King Junior. He in his sermons, he would always talk about how darkness cannot be dispelled by darkness Mhmm. And hate cannot be dispelled by hate.

Only love can do that. And I think that’s really, really powerful in this terms. Like, it’s not it’s not we’re we’re I think as Christians, we’re called far beyond that. Yeah. Absolutely.

Far far beyond the the the natural, the the the worldly response of, you know, like, you know, kill my enemies. Well, can you imagine the Pharisees when Jesus comes and says you’ve heard eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and they’re, like, oh, yeah. We have. We practice it. And then I say that you should love your enemies.

Right. Turn the other cheek. And we don’t know how to do that as as Americans and It’s unnatural. And and what’s sad is that it’s really filtered into Christians. So because we’re no longer we’re no longer Christians, we’re Christian Americans or we’re American Christians.

And so we see things totally different. So our our war is against Islam or Muslims or people of different faiths. But we’re we forget the great commission. Right? We forget, being salt and light to the world and and trying to reach out to people and, yeah.

You know, I I think that’s a that’s a a tragedy. But this isn’t the first time that Christians have found themselves in this situation. I mean, think of Saint Francis. You know, he gets, an interesting rep. Everybody thinks of Saint Francis as being somebody that was, just preaching to the animals and, in the woods.

Right? I was thinking I was thinking of a recorded sermon to a bird or preach the gospel always use words when necessary, which Yeah. By the way, that we don’t have any record of Saint Francis actually saying that. We’ve got a lot of good rumors, but Right. There’s no People quoting that.

Yeah. Yeah. But there’s no there’s no, you’ll notice there’s never a citation along with that because we don’t know that he ever actually said it. And but what we do know about Saint Francis is that when the crusades were going on, he was he made a direct appeal to the pope to be able to go and share the gospel with the enemy, the Muslims. Wow.

And So he wasn’t interested in killing them? No. Yeah. He was interested in saving them. Yeah.

Yeah. And so he and his, monk buddies, they they go out into the battlefield knowingly that they’re going to be captured because there’s, gold being offered for the heads of any Christian that’s caught in this battle. They willingly allow themselves to be captured, and then they’re presented to the Sultan of Camille. And Sultan Camille, asked them what they’re doing and Saint Francis shares the gospel with him. And then Saint Francis actually volunteers Francis, preach the gospel, always use words when necessary.

It’s the Saint Francis, preach the gospel, always use words when necessary. It’s preach the gospel, always be willing to walk through fire if necessary might be a good a good quote. Right. And that stands I mean, that’s that’s stands in the face of what we as Christians in America do, I think. You know, in that, I mean, look look at Fox News.

And I’m not saying that Fox News represents Christianity, but a lot of people use that as a weapon, to bash people. Yeah. No. That’s not that’s not the it’s not supposed to be the behavior of of Christians to be bashing and tearing down. It’s to be one if let’s just think of it this way, Howard.

One of the ways I like to think of it is if if all Muslims really were, radical. Let’s say that I’m wrong, Sam Harris and some others are right. All Muslims really at the core are radical. They’re the enemies of Christianity. They’re gonna persecute.

They’re gonna do all these wicked things. They’re gonna set up, tyrannical governments that are gonna rule with an iron fist and smash down Christianity. Let’s say that’s the case. What would be the proper Christian response? To love them.

To love your enemy. Right? Right. I mean, let’s think of Romans 131 where Paul’s dealing with the church in Rome and he’s talking about all authorities are in place by God not to rebel against authority. Who is the authority of Rome at this time in this?

If there was ever a governmental system that was out to smash and crush Christianity, it would have been the governmental system that was in place when Paul wrote Romans. Right. Nero and And he says to submit. Same thing with Peter. Do not be surprised when this fiery trial comes upon you.

I mean, this is the the mantra of the early church is persecution is coming. We’re told it’s gonna come, and we’re not supposed to rise up and rebel and fight against it. We’re supposed to preach the gospel in spite of the fact that we’re being persecuted. Right. And I think Matthew the book of Matthew is a great, illustration that we constantly he’s talking about the kingdom of heaven and how different it is from our kingdoms, you know, here on earth.

And that that hearkens back to judges in which it’s funny because we were talking about judges earlier and it was like, you know, we wanna be a nation. We wanna be We wanna have a king. We wanna be a king. We want to have a king. Like the other nations.

Yeah. Like everyone else. And and look where that that led them. Ultimately, I mean, to the absolute destruction. You know?

And I don’t know. So here we are with, our carpe diem of the week is, Ben Affleck. And and, you know, I don’t I don’t necessarily just, you know, be fair, I don’t really necessarily agree with his, His sandwich approach? No. The humor was good.

But I don’t think that he was coming across as as humorous. He was very, very bitter, sarcastic. It was coming from an angry place, but I I kinda understand why he was so frustrated. Our last segment that we’re gonna be talking about is resource resource of the week, which is Phil Parshall’s book, Muslim Evangelism Contemporary Approaches to Contextualization put out by InterVarsity Press. Trevor, you wanna say anything about that book?

Yeah. It’s it’s a again, anything that Phil Parshall has written is is excellent. I think he’s probably got about 8 or 9 different books, that I can think of offhand. They’re all excellent, but really for me, the sweet spot is Phil Parshall’s writings on contextualization. When Phil Parshall was doing contextualization, back in the day, it was almost as though he was on the fringe.

But now, Phil Parsley Wait. Wait. On the fringe. On the fringe, meaning too much contextualization. Right.

Because he was looking to build bridges. I think his original text that he wrote was building bridges, to Islam, if I’m not mistaken. So, like, Hudson Taylor kind of extreme, like, beards and, you know, like, garb and Oh, yeah. Beards, garb, Going to the mosque. Nature of God Kind of thing?

Kind of thing. Well, not not worshiping within the mosque, but certainly, speaking with people in the mosque and and presenting themselves as religious men by their their dress and by their look and then dealing with where they’re at and what they believe about God. I mean, he just did an excellent job on, taking people where they were and, being able to translate the gospel into terms and, actions that they would understand. So today, we wouldn’t see those as extreme? No.

Not at all. Today, we would actually see him as being the one who’s keeping people from becoming extreme. But it’s kinda funny. You know? Historically, it was almost like he was an extremist in the beginning, and now he’s the man of reason.

And so maybe it’s because he has white hair now and people are just not so concerned about his approach. I think his approach is fantastic, and I’ve been so encouraged by just about everything he’s written. And, I think he’s an excellent, excellent contributions to, reaching the Muslim world. Right. So back to the fringe.

I’m really interested in this. So, like, what would you say is on the fringe now? What what what what That’s a whole another podcast. Not naming names, but like what kind of I’ve got a list. What kind of things do people do that make them on the fringe of Muslim contextualization now?

Like, be being Muslims, like, I’ve I’ve heard that. Alright. Let’s, just a tease. Just really quick. Just a quick.

I mean, we can talk about this next week. I don’t know. Sure. In saying that the Quran specifically references the disciples of Jesus saying that they decide that they were submitted to God and following Jesus and they were good Muslims. And so based on the fact that we, as Christians, are also submitted to God and following Jesus, we can say that we are Muslim according to the Quran Quran too because we are submitted to God and we are following Jesus.

But Wow. That would be on the fringe in my opinion, just because I’m not so sure that when you call yourself Muslim that the Muslim understands what you’re trying to get across. Right. And so there would need to be some sort of qualifying statement. Like, I am a Muslim because I’m submitted to God and I’m following Jesus.

I’m not sure that that would necessarily communicate what I would want them to know. I’m I would want I would wanna ask them, what do you mean, by calling me Christian before I would want to use that term. If they said, well, you’re Christian, so this means a, b, and c. And if I don’t agree with a, b, and c, I’m gonna say, I’m sorry. That’s not who I am.

You know, I’m I’m I’m a follower of Jesus or I would want to redefine what it means to be Christian. But I wouldn’t just take on a term that they would like that would get me in that later they might feel deceived with. Right. That’s what I was gonna say the word deceived, deceitful. Yeah.

Okay. Great. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this week’s podcast. Stick with us till next week and, we’ll be talking about more interesting things. Yeah.

Apparently, we gotta talk about contextualization and being on the fringe. Right. We gotta talk about a lot of new things. And I think we’re gonna do our best to get, doctor partial to get him in on an interview. He’s, retired these days working in, Central Florida, but I think he’d still be up for doing a maybe a phone interview or something like that.

So we’ll give him a call and see if we can get some some updates on where he’s at and kinda his perspective on what’s going on in the Muslim world. So look for that as well. Alright? Like the show or hate the show, we wanna hear your comments. Post them below.

We’ll talk to you next week.

 Here starts the auto-generated transcription of ISIS and the True Nature of Islam (Pilot): 

Once again, Muslim terrorists A terrorist. Communist and illegal extremists. These random justice brutal endeavors. Newsflash 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. This week’s show is brought to you by Columbia International University, University, educating people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ.

And as always, the Zwemer Center For Muslim Studies at CIU. The Zwemer Center has been educating the church about Islam since 1979. Pretty much they’ve been talking about Muslims before it was cool. Definitely. That’s been a long time.

30 years? 30 years. Alright. Alright. It’s been a crazy week.

Howard, I, I understand you had an encounter with a Muslim this week. Yeah. Yeah. I did. My car, actually broke down.

And, what Trevor is your friend. Right? He’s he’s he’s been a friend for a long time, a friend of the family? Well, crazy thing is week before, Howard says to me, hey. My car seems to be, leaking some oil.

What do you think about that? Should I, get it looked at? And I I kinda forgot to look at it before I left and the next thing I know I get a phone call and Howard says, hey, man. I’m broken down on the interstate. What should I do here?

Yeah. And then then you called, mister Khan and, I mean, he was awesome. He he towed away my car and, you know, didn’t charge me anything. And, apparently, he, he has this business where he gets rid of cars. He, you know, junks them or tries to fix them and resell them or whatnot.

But, so Trevor basically says, hey. You need to go talk to this guy and, you know, talk about what you’re gonna do with the car. So I, you know, I called him up. I was, like, coming over to to this guy’s house, mister Khan’s house, at 9:30 at night. And I I text Trevor, and I’m like, hey, man.

You wanna come and, you know, hang out with us? You know? Because I think we’re probably gonna have tea and all that good stuff. And, Trevor’s like, no. You got this.

He’s he’s a great guy. I’m I’m pretty sure my response was, don’t worry. He’s Muslim. He’s hospitable. Yeah.

So I’m like I don’t think anything of it. I’m like okay Trevor goes to bed early so I drive over to his house come in of course they serve me tea is awesome we had a great talk and it went on And on. And on. And I find myself, like, I have to figure out how to leave politely because he’s not stopping. We just kept talking about everything.

I always tell people that if you’re really interested in reaching out to Muslims with the message of Christ, just get ready for intense community because if you really do pour into the Muslim community, you’re gonna have really good friends and it becomes intense because you see each other all the time. They’re very communal. Yes. And that’s what I kinda figured out, and it was awesome. Actually, it was a great experience because, now even though we only met really once, I feel like I’m, like, best friends with the guy.

Like, anytime I see him, I’m like, hey. How are you doing? You know? And we just talk about anything. So, yeah, I mean, it was it was a great experience.

And and he he took care of my car. So that was Yeah. I Howard, I noticed you got a new car. That’s right. It’s very masculine.

If I could just describe it to you right now for all you listeners out there, it is a periwinkle blue. Kinda fuchsia, actually. Yeah. It’s it’s this blue with a purplish tint. Feeling a little awkward trying to put, like, masculine hunting stickers on the outside just so people don’t get the wrong idea about me.

So He’s actually got a a a set of bike racks on the top. I don’t think he even rides a bike. Howard, do you have a bike? Those those are kayak racks. Yeah.

That’s that’s manly. That’s still really manly. But my wheels, they’re so tiny. I asked how much it would cost to get my wheels fixed, and they were, like, you know, like, 50¢. I mean, it really just wasn’t much.

They’re like, we got matchbox wheels for your for your car. So What’s great is, my wife, when he pulls up, she says, oh, is that Howard’s new car? I said, yeah. What do you think? She said, it’s so cute.

And I was like No. That’s not. It is. That’s nothing a man wants to hear about his ride. Anyway, it was a good experience.

Howard got to meet one of my Muslim friends, and, my Muslim friend got to meet Howard. Good times. And, just a great opportunity for, you know, my my Muslim friend to realize that that there are other Christians out there that are that are kind like Howard. Yeah. Yeah.

And, actually, we had a lot in common just to be able to talk about things. He has kids. You know? He has the same worries that everybody else does. So it was really neat to kind of, to remind myself, you know, that, even though they might come from a different religion or even a a different nationality, you know, they’re they’re people too.

And, we had a lot we had a lot of fun, and the tea was awesome. What’s funny is last Friday, I was at the, the local mosque here, and I was leaving early because I had to go pick up my son from school. And as I’m leaving, I see mister Khan in the parking lot. I’m leaving, and he’s walking in. And, he says, where are you going?

Where are you going? I said, oh, I’ve gotta go, pick up Benjamin. And he says, did you eat? And I said, no. They just started serving, and and it’s a really long line, so I I’ve just gotta go.

And so he comes flying in there and immediately goes to to serving the food and, like, walks me right up to the front, and I’m just like, oh my goodness. And my my philosophy is sorta like when you cut in front of a bunch of people, you never look back. That’s right. Just don’t look back because you never look back. There’s a cutter.

I just wanna let everyone know this has got a cutter. But here’s the funny thing. In in the mosque, it’s of like, well, of course, he’s going to the front. He’s our guest. And I’m just thinking I feel the daggers.

I feel the daggers. Don’t look back. And mister Khan’s like, it’s okay. He’s a guest. He’s a guest.

Bring him to the front. But I bet there were no daggers. Right? There might have been some. I don’t know.

I didn’t look back. I’m serious. I just looked at the footage. Long enough, they’re like, wait a minute. We don’t do that here.

He is definitely cutting. We have formed a line. Right. You belong to the line. I don’t know how many times, Howard, you’ve traveled overseas, and you’re just like, guys, seriously, can we just form a line?

Oh my gosh. Something something about Asia and the lack of the line for most Americans is just too much. When I was in India, man, you just couldn’t help but laugh because the the, airline, you know, worker, the attendant or whatever, she would be like, please everybody form a queue. Right? And these they were just like, what?

I mean, they didn’t even think. They just, like, all just gathered around the desk, like, 5 rows deep. Just people just, like, bombarding her with questions and yelling. And then, and I was just like, man, this is, this is culture shock, man. And then Howard looks over, and I’m wrestling over the top of, like, 7 people to get to the front of that.

That’s right. I’m like, go get him, Trevor. He’s a cutter. He’s a cutter. Just never look back.

Principle for the day, when you cut, never look back. That’s right. It’ll it’ll it’ll take care of you in the end. Alright. So this week’s podcast, we’re gonna be talking about the threat of ISIS because that’s in the media all over the place.

You can’t turn on any news channel and it not be dominated by the discussion surrounding ISIS. Yeah. One thing that, I we found that was really interesting is this article, that CNN put out or maybe even a video, and it basically says this is the title, get this. From Glasgow Girl to bedroom radical and Isis bride. So Trevor, tell us what tell us what happened.

What what what’s going on in this article here? I I just, can we focus on the title for a second? I mean, seriously. CNN is getting classier by the moment. I think Fox and CNN’s, you know, their their their, feud, I think it’s making them lose their mind.

Who who can have the most sensational Yeah. Kind of, in your face title possible? Bedroom Radical? Yeah. We’re moving back to yellow journalism.

You know? This is just Lessons are not learned apparently from history. But yeah. Sorry. I Better medical.

I got stuck on the title. But, basically, this, this young girl, her her parents think she’s going off to college and it turns out she goes over to join, the Islamic fight in, Syria and joins ISIS. So she just ups and leaves, and her parents, it sounds like a breast. Yeah. They’re shocked.

Her whole family is shocked. Well, the next time they hear from her, she basically tells them, I’ve I’ve joined the fight on ISIS. I’m gonna be a a martyr, and hopefully, I’ll see you on the day of judgment. Jeez. And what’s really interesting I think what stuck out to me is that these these these this family is not like this, terrorist type or like this, really, you know, adamant, dogmatic, like, you know, we hate westerners.

They’re they’re just normal people, and their daughter just kinda ups and leaves. Like, it said on in the article that she was reading books like Harry Potter. Yeah. I told you about those Harry Potter books. Hunger Games.

Like, she’s not reading, like, you know, any of these inflammatory type, type books that, would get you, you know, to become militant against, the west. I have said so many times that when you think about Islamic radical ideology, it’s more of a sociological issue than it is a theological one. She’s not staying home at night studying commentaries and the biographies of the prophet Mohammed. She is literally reading Harry Potter. Okay.

So you’re thinking the sociological part would be an influence from an external source, some Wanting to belong. She’s on Facebook. I mean, that’s what that’s what you see in the article is that she’s going on Facebook. She’s reading some of these things that are being posted, and she just wants a place to fit. Yeah.

And so that would even lead her to move to Syria. That just seems like a huge jump to me, but you’re saying that, that desire to fit goes so much further than what we even imagined. I think that is innate in every single human being. We want to belong. We want to fit.

We wanna be a part of something. And when you live in a society where you see a particular group of people being pushed down or stereotyped and maybe you belong to that group in some sort of way and then you see another group that’s fighting for that identity then suddenly it’s a draw. Do you think it’s that she has this real heart for, humanity like injustice or do you think it has more to do with just her feelings of wanting a place to fit and and, you know, just a a a pure psychological reason? I mean, it’s hard to say, but I’m I’m just thinking about cults. Right?

When people join cults, you know, they’re just they really want a place to fit, and it doesn’t really have to do with what the people believe, I don’t think, because it’s not like they’re compelling them so much in their minds that they would join a cult and move in with a cult and commit mass suicide as a cult or whatever these cults do. You know what I’m saying? I mean, what the research has shown is that a person can go from being, you know, just a moderate everyday Muslim that has the same hearts and desires as every other human being. For instance, our friend, to a radical in a very short period of time. And it doesn’t take a theological training seminar to do so.

It’s just sort of feeling that sense of I don’t belong, I don’t fit, and then they see a place where they could fit, they could fight for something. And that’s sort of the process. It’s not a long process and it’s certainly not a theological one. That’s not to say that all radicals are not theological. Some most certainly are.

Sure. Do you think that I’m kinda jumping just off a cliff by comparing ISIS or those kind of radical Islam to cults? I mean, is that, is that too far fetched, do you think? It’s not too far fetched because I think that’s the way a lot of the Muslim world sees some of these radical groups as cultish. Really?

Like, the people on the ground, just the nationals? Well, yeah. Because they see one guy that claims, you know, this guy, the Baghdadi, he claims that he is the new Islamic caliphate. He is the leader of the Islamic world. He is a self proclaimed leader of the Islamic world.

That in and of itself sounds very cultish. So Baghdadi is the leader of ISIS. Yes. Okay. And I read somewhere in a couple of articles before that, ISIS had previous leaders.

So this guy’s not even really the first leader of ISIS, but this guy’s claiming that he’s the leader of all of Islam? The entire Islamic world. Okay. So how does that work, because You just kinda say it. That was his approach.

I’m just gonna claim it and see what happens. I am in charge. What what’s that, adage? If you have to say that you’re the leader, you’re probably not the leader. Yeah.

If you’re if you’re if you’re leading and you look back and no one’s following, you’re just taking a walk. Yeah. That was from John Maxwell. I thought that was pretty profound. He does have have people following him.

I don’t wanna I don’t wanna make it sound like he’s just sort of proclaimed that he is the Islamic world leader and no one’s following. People are following him. But in the same sense of you were making the connection between the cult, you’d when you have a self proclaimed leader of a of a group or a splintersect of a religious, and they have a religious affiliation and people are following them that does not necessarily mean that it was a theologically compelling argument. It might have just been sort of a movement, that gave people a place to belong. And that’s the case I’m making for this young woman.

Got it. So you’re kinda separating, Islam as a whole from this splinter group. Well, you have to. I mean, if you have 1,600,000,000 people in the world and if I just randomly picked 10 Muslims from across the globe and put them together and asked them what should the Islamic empire look like I would get 6 radically different answers I think. Wow.

Okay. So, basically, as, Americans, right, we get this media barrage of ideas. And it just seems like for me, like, when I watch the media and we talked about we’re trying to make it fun of Fox and CNN, but it kinda seems like the the idea is that this is most of the Muslim world. They hate us, and they want us dead, and everybody supports ISIS, but you’re saying that that’s not the case. I was meeting with a young Muslim man earlier this week and, he asked me.

He said, Trevor, do you can you explain to me what ISIS is? He had no clue. Wait wait wait wait wait. You were meeting with a Muslim guy and he was asking you about ISIS? Absolutely.

Oh. I mean, he no. He knows my background is studying Islam. Sure. And then I have, you know, studied this.

And so in his mind, he’s thinking, well, maybe Trevor can explain this to me. I think he’s afraid to ask another Muslim because he honestly doesn’t know how they would respond because so many Muslims feel divided over ISIS. True. Many Muslims are negative towards ISIS. Yeah.

Some Muslims are sympathetic towards ISIS. And he kinda just wants to know what is ISIS all about? What do they believe? Wow. And so, after you talked to him about it, what what was what was his takeaway?

What did he go away with? Just from the brief conversation that we had, I think he felt like the the most despicable thing was that the people who suffer the most at the hands of ISIS are fellow Muslims. Wow. And he just felt like any group that would destroy fellow Muslims couldn’t be right. Yeah.

That that that’s actually pretty stark because in the media, we’re seeing a lot of, persecution against Christians, but we’re not actually seeing, the whole the whole scope. I I guess we’re just reading what we wanna or they’re reporting what we wanna hear Yeah. And things that we’re interested in. And there is there is persecution of Christians by all means. That’s not to be minimized.

No. No. Absolutely not. But in my mind, these Christians have eternal security. Yeah.

When you look at all of these other Muslims that are being lined up and mowed down because they refused to follow this radical ideology or because they are of a different sect of Islam and they’re being mowed down and murdered. Yeah. They’re caught in the crossfire. I mean, this is this radical group and, man, it’s crazy. It is.

It’s it’s just absolutely crazy. But you’re right. We don’t see the fact that Muslims are the ones that suffer the most at the hands of radical ideology. So radical ideology in some ways is its own worst enemy. Yeah.

So going back to this girl, this Glasgow girl, her name’s Aqsa, I guess. I don’t know if I’m probably butchering the the pronunciation. But, she basically, she became pretty radical. Like, her father says, I don’t know when she became this brave. So she was just probably an ordinary girl.

So I I don’t know where I’m going with this. Maybe just the idea that ordinary people become extraordinarily militant and do crazy amounts of damage to other people. So, I mean, I guess in ISIS, it’s really easy just to say, you know what? These people are crazies, you know, but they had to come from somewhere. They had to be someone’s son, someone’s daughter.

They had to have a, a semi normal upbringing. Right? But then the flip, what it was that Al Qaeda said that, they were too aggressive. They were too, brutal, and so they were kicked out, right, of the Al Qaeda? Well, you before Baghdadi, you had another leader in Iraq named Zarqawi, and Zarqawi was also a radical too radical in some sense for even Al Qaeda.

He was the one with, the first beheading of the American journalists, Nick Berg. Mhmm. And so when you see these guys and they’re becoming so radical that even the other radicals are saying, hey, you gotta tone it down. Wow. It’s, it’s kind of it’s it’s, yeah, it’s it’s a little bit crazy.

But you’re making a good point when you talk about how do they go from just being normal sort of, you know, law abiding citizens to radicals. I mean, think of the Boston bombers, at the Boston marathon. Yeah. When they interview the friends, they’re saying, I don’t really know. He was a soccer player.

Yeah. Had him a long life. Yeah. Had to see. Brother was a pothead and music.

And, you know, suddenly he’s willing to commit these crazy crimes. Yeah. Even give up their own life. It’s like I don’t know. Yeah.

I know. I I’m just trying to think in my own mind what would that take for me to go that far with my own life. Well, we’ll we’ll get into that some because there is some research and there’s one particular researcher I I have in mind, that I’d like to bring on the show. He’s the one that’s kind of researching the process of a person going from being at high school, they’re attending the mosque regularly, they’re pretty much just a normal moderate everyday Muslim. I I really just think of them as a normal everyday person that happens to be Muslim.

Yeah. See, his research is really focusing on what are the trigger points that bring them from that to within less than a year being willing to kill others and even themselves for the sake of a radical ideology. Right. And it’s fascinating research. Who is this guy?

I can’t think of his name offhand because he works under a pseudonym. He’s got two names, and I wanna make sure I give the correct name publicly. Right. Yeah. Let’s let’s be safe.

Yeah. But but one of the interesting things that he talks about is there’s gotta be a cognitive dissonant moment. And when you look at Where there’s, like, they’re not satisfied or something’s No. Think about yes. But think about the Boston bombers.

For instance, their mother being arrested and being put in jail because she was caught stealing. Sure. And then think of the older brother when he was arrested, for spousal abuse or he was, I don’t think it was even his spouse at that time. It was his girlfriend. Mhmm.

And then he was not allowed to pursue his dream of becoming an Olympic boxer. And you sort of see these things happening in his life and he’s becoming more and more and more angry. And his idea of the American dream is suddenly this this illusion sort of jaded. What am I gonna do? Yeah.

Right. And then all of that’s happening and suddenly he comes across a website and the propaganda’s there and he buys in and he’s all in. Got it. That that actually makes a lot of sense. Well, it’s a But it wasn’t it wasn’t like he joined a Koranic study and suddenly came up past the the sword verse surah 9 chapter 5 and was like, yes.

That’s what I have to do. That’s not the way it works. I don’t Yeah. You know, no matter what the media says. Yeah.

That’s something else about the media is that, this is just be like a warfare tactic where the enemy, if you if we were going to war with somebody, the enemy would set up propaganda, to our own troops basically making our, enemies into, like, cartoonish evil villains. Mhmm. And we did this in World War 2 with Hitler. Yeah. We did it with the Japanese.

Which was actually a lot easier probably with Hitler because he was doing a lot of, atrocities, obviously. Imagine what it was like to live as a Japanese person in Hawaii Oh, yeah. Post Pearl Harbor. During during Pearl Pearl Harbor. Yeah.

But in this case, with the media, it seems like they’re doing that with Muslims. I mean, to be honest with you, like, ISIS, I don’t know. I just can’t help but I think the the the common American person doesn’t know enough about Islam or Muslims or know enough, no Muslims to be able to separate, that ISIS doesn’t represent Islam. You know, that’s that’s that’s been one of the cries from the Muslim world is, when a Muslim commits an atrocious crime, why do we have to define them by their religious identification? When a Christian commits an atrocious crime, we don’t often say a Christian did this.

Yeah. But the Muslim world is saying, why do we do it with Muslims? And, of course, the media would argue that, well, because they’re doing it in the name of Islam. But it does. It’s hard to separate.

I mean, if you’re honest with yourself, it is hard to separate this idea of Muslims being sort of peaceful and loving and Muslims being radical and, dangerous. It’s hard to know. Yeah. But, I mean, I just kinda think about it in Christian terms. I mean, there are crazies out there that said, you know, they’ll murder somebody and say, god made me do it.

But we don’t automatically think, you know what? Oh, those are all that’s what Christians do. No. Right? We don’t have this thought in our mind that, oh, yeah.

That represents Christianity. Well, I think it’s because we’ve allowed ourselves to believe that that there is a true nature of Islam. I hear that term being thrown around so much nowadays, the true nature of Islam. Yeah. And the bottom line is I don’t believe there is, quote, unquote, a true nature.

I just don’t. Because if you have a true nature, then you’re gonna have to somehow draw a connection between why then is there 1,600,000,000 people around the world that are demonstrating so many varieties of the expressions of their faith when there’s really this true nature. I think we’re giving way too much credit to, to the Koran and the Islamic laws to say that there is, quote, unquote, a true nature. Okay. So explain that to me.

Like, for me, I feel like we as Christians think, okay, true nature, that makes sense because we believe in the Bible. And in the Bible, if you, understand it and interpret it correctly, right, then you’ll get to the true nature of our faith. But you’re the one with Islam, it’s not the way. Say Westboro Baptist then? They they believe they have the true nature of Christianity.

Oh my gosh. Those are the crazies that we’re talking about. I mean, those guys They do not represent Christ, to most Christians. I I, you know, I don’t think the public even thinks that too. But yeah.

Okay. So go on. What was your question? What No. I’m just saying true nature The true nature of Christianity, well, you know, it’s gonna depend who you ask because the the Westborough Baptist really does believe that they have the true nature of Christianity.

Pope Urban the second, when he cried, for the the murder of people in the holy land and said, you know, paradise is your reward or heaven is your reward. Let that be the cry of your heart. I’m sorry, but that was not the true nature of Christianity. And so it was depending on who you ask. So you’re saying that, even amongst Christians, the interpretation, you know, is is, It varies.

It varies. Yeah. Right? And so the true nature I’m I’m quoting. I’m putting my fingers up.

Quoting the true nature it really is, up to each person, I guess, when they interpret it. Well They’ll come up with different things. So Islam, you’re saying the same way? Well, I’m saying in Christianity, we do have we have creeds. We have councils.

We have denominations. We have, historic traditions that we draw from. It’s not that just some guy do do you remember, Howard and I went to school together many, many years ago. And one of the things that we learned, I remember being said is that that heresy and cults are started with 1 person reading their reading their bible in the room late at night alone. Late at night.

Alone. I don’t know why I had to be late at night. Yeah. Probably because they’re tired. Yeah.

I don’t know. But but and I think of that and I think that’s kind of what we look at in Christianity. Right? If you have this one guy who’s starting a new thing and saying, hey. I’ve got this special Kool Aid.

Follow me. Right. This is the new interpretation, then we can kinda look at that and say, well, that doesn’t go along with the historic faith in the global church. Right. Islam has the same thing.

Okay. You following me? Bring it. Bring it. They have schools of law.

Uh-huh. So there there are 4 different schools of law within Sunni Islam. Okay. Within those schools of law, you have certain ways in which Islamic theology happens. It isn’t just some guy reading his Koran in his room late at night coming up with his own theology unless his name is Baghdadi.

Right. Okay. School’s a law. Explain that. I don’t know what a school law is.

Like, law school? Like, congress? Like, bill of rights? Like, what what what kind of laws are you talking about? Okay.

Let me think about it in terms of, like, theological institutions. Uh-huh. So we have a, So the council of Nicea. Well, they do. They do have councils most certainly, and they have what is called the consensus of the scholars.

It’s a nice Arabic term, the Ijma, the the consensus. Say that again slowly. Ijma. Ijma? Ijma.

That sounds good. Well, I like that. Yeah. Throw that one out. But these these Islamic scholars, they they get together and they wrestle with these issues.

They wrestle with them. And so when you hear a person say, well, Islam really is as simple as this, you can pretty much be sure it’s not. Right. Because the scholars are arguing about it. Think about it.

Think about our own Christian history. I mean, how much wrestling Oh my gosh. Used to go on. I mean, even burning at the stake at some time. Spanish inquisition, heretics, heresies.

Yeah. There’s yeah. Yeah. We didn’t we don’t take our theology lightly. Maybe some people do.

Yeah. But I I don’t personally. I don’t think that we should take theology lightly. We should consider that it’s gone through this huge process of historical Islam or true what is that? The true nature of Islam.

True nature. True nature. True sense of Islam or true what is that? The true nature of Islam. Well, there’s a true nature to Islam to a lot of different people.

Right. And that’s the problem. Mhmm. If there were this quote, unquote true nature that everybody’s supposed to be following, like, someone make the case that, oh, well, the the most radical representation is the truest form. Mhmm.

They’re giving way too much credit to the the Quran. And basically, what they’re saying is, well, the other 1,500,000,000 people out there don’t really know the true nature of Islam. And it’s just that’s that’s just ignorant. Which we kinda see in the church too when some church says all the other denominations are going to hell. Because we’ve seen that over history.

Right? Everyone else is wrong, and we’re right. That’s right. They’re they’re pretty sure they’re the only ones going. Yeah.

That’s pretty presumptuous. Yeah. So, okay, that makes sense. That that helps. That clears up a lot of things.

Yeah. Well, we’ll get we’ll get more into it. And like I said, we’ll bring, a particular expert in on Islamic theology. We’re also going to bring in, an expert on the Koran who’s going to explain to us sort of how the Koran is interpreted and see that same process that that Muslims go through when they bring, theological interpretation. It’s just all we need to know right now is that the way that they come up with their theology is equally complex to the way that Christians have come up with theology.

Right. And it doesn’t, it really stirs me when somebody pulls out one verse out of the bible and says, you see? You see what your religion teaches? And I’m just thinking that is so frustrating. And then when I see Christians do it to Muslims, I think That’s not fair.

Dash. No. That’s not fair. Let’s this is 3rd grade theology. Yeah.

We’re better together. How you wanna be treated. That’s right. Yeah. So, anyway, there’s something to be said for being truthful and just just speaking the truth and not making these straw man arguments about other religions.

Yeah. I think our faith is far more robust than that. Mhmm. And it has to be able to encompass the fact that there are other peoples and how we treat them, you know, isn’t, dictated by the media. Right?

It shouldn’t be. Wow. But it often is. You’re right. It absolutely should not be.

Yeah. We should not be taking our theological cues from the media. Wow. It’s amazing that we do that. Sometimes we get stuck in that, America complex.

Everything is America. America. You know? And I love our country, man. I’m I’m blessed that we live here, but Absolutely.

But it doesn’t mean that, you know, Christ has come second to our citizenship. Right? Well, Christ is certainly not American. Merkha or Republican. I remember, Keith Green.

Mhmm. Great guy. Yeah. Keith Green. I remember, him saying that that that Jesus Christ is not a republican.

And everybody was you know? And then he said he’s not even American, and I just thought, oh, man. We’re still dealing with the same issues today. Yeah. I was listening.

Keith Green, man. I listened to that when I was, like, 18 or something like 19, and I was shocked. I’m like, he’s not American. We we need a new Keith Green, a voice in the wilderness. Right.

Right. Anyway, I think it’s time for our boom goes the dynamite moment of the week. Boom goes the dynamite. Alright. So here we go.

This is kinda crazy, like, the boom goes to dynamite should. This segment, we’re really excited about well, okay. Not excited. I think that’s the wrong term. Yeah.

It’s it’s exciting but not for the right reasons. It’s basically somebody has literally dropped a bombshell. It’s a utter moment of just like, what did he just say? Yeah. Why?

Why? Why would you do that? You almost wanna say, did he just say that? Yep. And then you realize that he did, and there’s that moment of anticipation.

Did he just say that? And you’re kinda hoping he didn’t, and then he didn’t. You’re just like, wow. And and the thing is, like, it’s funny to us because we think it’s ridiculous, but it’s not funny because he was serious when he had it. It’s not funny at all.

I mean, unfortunately, it’s when he’s fortunate. Yeah. It’s unfortunate. Alright. So here we go.

It’s Duck Dynasties, Phil Robertson, the patriarch. Right? He has a massive beard. And he seems like a great guy, just to be honest. Like, I I’ve seen the show a couple of times.

He seems like a really nice guy. He does. This isn’t the first time where he’s kind of, maybe said some things that he shouldn’t have in the media. You almost wanna pull him aside or somebody pull him aside and just say, don’t meet with the media? Yeah.

It kinda reminds me of the shock and awe of the Gulf War, you know, George Bush era. Yeah. You know? It’s like it just kinda has that method. I’m gonna shock and awe you because he knows it’s not political work.

Maybe he hates being politically correct. You know, some people like that. They just wanna do what’s opposite, but come on. These are people. Okay?

So It’s almost like he’s swinging the pendulum to the other side against political correctness. Let me just see how radical I can say something and stir people up. Right. And so this is what he says. Here we go.

He’s talking about ISIS and he says convert them or kill them. Convert them or kill them. And boom goes the dynamite. And we are back in, man, the crusades. Welcome back.

You thought we were in the 21st century, but we are back in the crusades. Okay. So I think honestly Phil Robertson’s has more more alike with Isis than he realizes. Alright. Explain that.

Convert or kill? Right. Do you hear me here? This is exactly what he’s saying. I’m picking up what you’re putting down.

I mean, convert or kill. That’s the same radical theology that ISIS is promoting. And here we have an ordained pastor saying the same thing. Yeah. And he’s preaching to the Bible.

That’s why I say this whole idea of there’s a true nature of Islam. Well, what if we said that Phil Robertson’s theology is the true nature of Christianity? Where do we go with that? Yeah. That’s what I love about Jesus is that he’s not like everyone else.

No. I mean, he he like you said, he seems like a really nice guy. I’ve watched the show. I like the show. There’s some entertaining things on the show, but the bottom line is I think he just got this wrong.

He’s got a dynamite beard. I think that if he were to go into the Middle East, they would welcome him as a older man with a big dynamite beard, and he would just connect. He’d be drinking a lot of tea. And I don’t doubt that he would try to share the gospel with them. Yeah.

Absolutely. I hope that if they did not accept Christ that he would not try to kill anyone. Well, what he says is that he’d much rather have a bible study with all of them, but was also prepared for a gunfight alone. Against ISIS. Against ISIS.

Yeah. I mean, I I’ve seen the guy. I mean, like, you know, he looks like he’s in okay shape. He’s a duck hunter. But I’m not so sure if he could take on a military army.

Dude, he could take 2 ducks at the same time. Yeah. You would. I think I think he was just speaking off the cuff and was a little bit too presumptuous. I mean, if the United States air strikes aren’t slowing down ISIS Right.

I highly doubt that his shotgun skills are gonna do it. Yeah. And I you know, that’s the thing about, I don’t know. The the the media, it just seems really cartoonish, and I think Phil Robertson’s kinda adding to it. Like, this one gunman, you know, this one gunman that’s, you know, well past his prime is gonna fight ISIS or have a bible study with him?

I’m like, what world what planet do you come from? He’s gonna have a Doc Holliday moment. I’m your Huckleberry. Do you want? I mean, like, no.

That’s not gonna happen. You will die. Right? Yeah. I maybe he’s underestimating the, the military strength devices.

I mean, they have gained quite a bit in the last few years in strength. Right. Right. And they’re gonna continue until, they’re stopped. But, this these kind of, I think these kind of blanket, you know, cartoony kind of statements don’t help.

Right? He should have stopped with a like to have a bible study with all of them and then maybe just stop right there. Yeah. Because really, you know, ultimately, what we’re doing here is as Christians. Right?

The the whole point, of the mission of God, right, is to to spread God’s glory, and I don’t think that does that. No. The destruction of a man who’s made in the image of God is not not spreading the glory of God. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that ISIS should be loved. Wow.

What’s that in the bible that love your enemy great theology in life. Love your enemy thing? That was a little bit of sarcasm. I’m sorry. No.

I’m I’m no. I’m being serious. Yeah. Right. 3rd great theology.

Like, I keep coming back to it. Like, even if the Muslim world was all like ISIS, it would not change my view about we still have to be able to love our enemy. And the bottom line is ISIS makes up a small percentage of the Muslim world. Right. Most of the Muslim world I’ve encountered is quite easy to love.

Yep. Just like mister Khan. Mister Khan. I mean, he drove out a 100 and I think he said it was a 100 60 miles round trip to pick up Howard’s car for free. 160 miles round trip.

That would have been like a $300 tow. But because he was my friend. Yep. Mister Khan’s like, your friend is my friend. I mean, there’s no doubt.

I’ve said it time and time again. I can name a half a dozen Muslims that would willingly lay down their life for me. Right. Right. I totally yeah.

And I should, right, be willing to do the same. Yep. I just think about, the good Samaritan. You know? I think Jesus was you know?

Like, I I don’t know. We’ve heard it so many times, and we don’t really see the racial tension in that story. No. It’s there. But, if we were the one that was injured, it would be like an ISIS terrorist coming and helping us.

You know? It’s like, it’s not what I thought. You know? It’s, you know, we gotta get out of this I like what you said, the 3rd grade theology. Yeah.

We gotta get out of that. No. I’m saying we gotta go back to 3rd grade theology. Oh. That’s what they teach you in 3rd grade.

Right. You mean we gotta obey what the word says, James. That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying Endoers of the word, not just hearing the word. Saying when when my son is talking to me about what he’s learning in Sunday school and where he’s at in his own walk with God, I’m just sorta like, wow.

I’m still learning that one. Right. And it’s not the the deep areas of theology that I find myself wanting to swim in. It’s the simple things like loving my enemy. Yikes.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, anyway, boom goes the dynamite. Phil Robertson. Let’s hope that he has an opportunity to, redeem himself and and give a better better, sort of theology.

Yeah. A better representation for for the church and and how we respond to Muslim radicals. Next up, the Carpe Diem award or the encouragement of the week. That’s right. We just referenced to dead poet society.

Awesome. Awesome. Great movie. Carpe Diem, season the day. Alright.

So Trevor Season the day this week. Yeah. Tell us about, who we who we nominated. Yeah. This week, we actually have a Muslim as the carpe diem award.

This guy, the grand mufti of Al Hazar University, arguably the, the top scholar in the Muslim world. And what was it exactly was his quote, Harry? Well, what, what the article was titled is is ISIS is not part of Islam. And it says That’s right. That’s right.

Its horrific actions are far from Islam. Yeah. He was actually suggesting that we stop calling them ISIS because by calling them ISIS, we’re encouraging the idea that there can be an Islamic state that this guy is leading. Yeah. And then he put himself in charge.

Yeah. I’m the leader. You can’t just go and say you’re the leader. Yeah. And so he’s publicly going out and he’s saying so what so what is a grand Mufti?

Well, he he is the top scholar of the top university in all of the Islamic schools in the world. It’s argued Got it. So the Islamic University School of Law again. Yeah. Al Azhar University is the top university.

This is sort of the the the cradle of knowledge for Islam. So the the is, in the Islamic world, this guy is well respected. Well, the most well respected. Okay. So this is not a political stunt by him, like, trying to take a power from ISIS because he wants power or something like that.

I know that sounds kinda irritating. No. No. No. No.

No. Yeah. No. But you’re right. I’ve I’ve I’ve even already heard people saying, well, he’s probably just, lying and trying to hide the true nature of what they’re doing, and they’re really all working together.

And Mhmm. This this is the thing that I keep hearing and it drives me crazy because do we not realize that even ISIS just went into a partner Al Qaeda group and sent in their own suicide bomber to destroy their own partners because there was a competition for a jockeying for position. Yes. Wait. So ISIS sent a suicide bomber into Al Qaeda?

Yes. Into another Al Qaeda group in Syria. So ISIS is the, Al Qaeda group. It used to be Al Qaeda group in Iraq. Right.

And then there’s an Al Qaeda group in Syria. Right. And so, as ISIS has formed, they’re no longer part of Al Qaeda. They’ve been denounced by Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda. And so what they’re doing now is trying to destroy Al Qaeda.

Wow. And so the grand mufti is saying this is not Islam. They have misunderstood the Quran. They do not understand jihad and we should stop calling them the Islamic State because they are neither Islamic nor a state. Wow.

So okay. So him saying this, the Grand Mufti saying this is a is a you would say is a large representation representation of the Muslim peoples out there. Most definitely. Most definitely. Because when you think about the Muslim world, you you’re really thinking what are the individual imams teaching in the different mosque.

And all of these imams are going through the same sort of, you know, not the same, but theological training that all comes down from a couple different schools of thought in the cradle for that. I mean, if I’m trying to think of this as the Harvard of, knowledge, you know, for you know, we think of Harvard as the top, Ivy League school. Al Hazar is the top religious school in Islam. Okay. That makes sense.

So these 4 schools, they they have this mutual respect for one another? Some mutual respect and some disagreement. They recognize they recognize each other. That’s what I’m saying. They recognize each other and they recognize what their differences are in their interpretations of the Koran and the Hadith and the biography and all the different texts that Islam has.

And they have their their nuances. But for the most part, they all kind of flow within the same stream of orthodoxy for Islam. Right. And so this guy, when he says this, he has a lot of he has a lot of influence over all of these guys. Yeah.

It should it carries weight. Wow. Okay. So tell me about this guy. So, like, is it dangerous for him to publicly denounce ISIS, do you feel?

No. In your opinion? That’s a good question. Because I can’t he’s not a political leader so much. Right?

He’s not the kind of guy that walks around with an entourage, secret service, has his own country. He’s just a normal kind of dude, right, that that, that represents these top scholars. I’m trying to think of who to compare him to, in America because America even American evangelicals, right, there are a few theologians that we kinda prop up as, sort of the keepers of orthodoxy. I think of, j I Packer. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. J I Packer. Yeah. There’s not everybody agrees with ji packer, but no one’s gonna come right out and when ji packer says something and say, oh, that’s wrong. We’re gonna take some time and think about it because this guy has committed his life to scholarship to you.

Yeah. And so, I mean, you think of another guy, with the reformed theologians, definitely, you’ve got, John Piper Right. Tim Keller. Right. So we have sort of people that we respect and that we think are producing good theology.

And this guy would be the top guy for all of Islam, even though not everyone is gonna agree with all of his theology. Right. It matters. Okay. So I know this might be a jump in the wrong direction, but like the pope?

I wouldn’t I wouldn’t say the pope. I would say Baghdadi. What he’s trying to do is claim the pope. Okay. So this idea of the Islamic state, there is certainly room for that in Islam.

Uh-huh. And whoever leads that Islamic state will lead ruling through a theocracy that will be the caliph. That would be the pope like figure. I wouldn’t say that this man is a pope like figure. He is a scholar.

Okay. Let’s go into dreamland for a second. Alright. Let’s say Baghdadi does for some amazing miraculous, like, bad miracle, he We’re just dreaming here. Yeah.

Just dreaming. He actually becomes the the caliphate. He is. He’s already said it. Well, I mean, like, you know, he unifies.

I said it. That makes it true. What does that mean if if the Muslim world becomes under a single theocracy? What does that mean for the world in dreamland? In dreamland.

What does that mean? Alright. In dreamland, there is a because this has been this has been done. Right. Right?

In the past. Several times. Right. And it hasn’t worked yet. Oh, Well, that’s encouraging.

Right. You have so many Islamic empires that have risen and fallen. And what’s ironic is really the reason that they fall is another Islamic empire comes and crushes it. Okay. So division within.

Of course. Okay. Okay. So you’re basically saying that there’s no shot. There’s no there’s no chance that this would happen even in dreamland because it’s never happened before.

It’s never happened before. And the only time that there is a significant movement of progress and sort of a unity behind the Muslim world is when there’s a common enemy. And then when that enemy dissipates Yeah. There’s inward fighting. Wow.

But we we we know that as even Americans. Right? I mean, think about the most unified times America’s experienced. Do you remember after 911? Yeah.

Do you remember they used to sing even in after the take me out to the ballgame? They would sing God bless America. Right. You saw stickers all over people’s cars. God bless America.

Yep. I mean, it was that was a very tough time. Yeah. We were very conscious of our of our being under 1 nation, This one nation, you know. And so there is an Arab proverb that says it’s me against my brother.

It’s me and my brother against our father. It’s me, my brother and my father against the tribe. It’s my family and my tribe against the nation. It’s our nation against the world. It keeps going.

And so long as there’s a common enemy, there’s gonna be a certain amount of unity. But with ISIS, they have they have not yet gained the, popularity with the common, with the majority Muslim world. The majority Muslim world is actually looking at ISIS in great terror. Okay. But the reason I bring this up is because I’m not saying this against I don’t wanna make a blanket statement, but there have been Christian leaders, right, and some, proponents of the media that have tried to create this fear tactic that Islam is unifying and they are coming.

They are coming. Are we are we still in dreamland? No. I mean, that’s what they’re saying in in the Oh. They they I don’t wanna say this blanket statement, but, you know, I’ve read articles where people are warning, you know what?

Islam is invading. Yeah. And we need to be fearful. Secretly. And we need to stop it, and we need to go to war.

I mean, I come in and they pretend to be moderate. And then when they gain enough popularity, they’re gonna take over. And within 15 years, America will be a Muslim country, and Europe will be a Muslim country, and the entire Russian army will be Muslim. I saw that YouTube video. Yeah.

What is that nonsense then? Because what you’re saying is that that Because what you’re saying is that that cannot happen. Correct? It’s a complete and utter fear tactic, fear mongering sort of argument because the the bottom line is when you look at, so let’s let’s just take for instance if we had a Muslim immigrant that moved here and let’s say he was a little bit radical in nature. Okay.

A little bit crazy. He got in somehow and he has the secret agenda. K. And then his kids go to high school. Maybe his kid starts dating a cheerleader.

Okay. Maybe his kid starts using drugs. Maybe his kid, like every other American kid, begins to kind of explore and own individual identity. Right. It’s not so simple to think that just because a Muslim comes here, he’s gonna have 8 children and those 8 children are gonna marry 8 other, Muslim children and all this radical ideology will just kind of multiply all the way down.

Right. What we know for sure is that he comes in maybe with his 5 or 6 kids. Yep. And then his 5 or 6 kids get married and have 1 or 2 kids, maybe 3. And then their kids may or may not even marry within their own faith.

And they may or may not even have any kids. Right. And so if you take this mathematical anomaly and you just look at it and say, well, we have, you know, we have 3,000,000 Muslims and they’re all gonna get married and they’re gonna produce, you know, this many million. I’m not a mathematician. So I’m I don’t wanna just throw out numbers there.

But this many million. And then you do the exponent exponential multiplication. And the next thing you know, the majority of America is Muslim. Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s just not true.

Actually, I should say fortunately. Right? Unfortunately, that’s just not true. It’s not what’s happening. It’s not reality.

Wow. But it did make a good YouTube. It did. It was exciting. Scary.

Yeah. I watched it and I was like, oh, man. I can’t sleep. And then, you know, I had to, like, turn on a a fun, you know, little sitcom just so I could sleep that night. Yeah.

Wow. And see, that’s what I’m saying. And that’s what the you know? And I’m not saying the media because, you know, who is the media? But, you know, there are proponents proponents in the media that just kinda help us, to go into the wrong direction, I think.

You know? It’s like I tell my kids not to watch horror movies because it just kinda makes them feel helpless. A lot of scary movies. I can’t remember. But when they you know, like, whenever you watch a horror movie, the the the number one thing you’re not thinking is, oh, there’s definitely power in God.

You’re not thinking that. I’m absolutely thinking that. I’m thinking, I’m so scared right now. Jesus told me. My legs have gone completely numb.

No. But that Jesus, right, this moment. But you know, like, you leave that movie theater and you’re like, man, that guy got out and he was lucky. But it wasn’t like the power of God. No.

You know? No. You’re right. And and when you when you watch certain media outlets, you know, just kinda think the same thing. You’re just like, oh, no.

They’re coming. And I just, you know, I just don’t think that helps. It’s kinda like watching jaws right before you go to the beach with your kids. Right. You don’t go in the water.

Yeah. Because if it’s really rough out, man, I’m just gonna put on jaws. Kids aren’t gonna go swimming. Yeah. That’s kinda messed up.

No. I told I told my wife we would never watch that movie with the kids just because I I honestly I mean, I grew up surfing, grew up in the water, and swim all the time. Every time I’m in the water, I feel like I can hear it. You just see this, video camera pan from the bottom. You see your feet dangling.

Right? And even if I’m in a freshwater lake, I’m thinking, seriously There’s something. That bull sharks have been known to swim up rivers. That’s messed up, man. Do not say that.

And alligators? I did not plan to get eaten. Anyway, I don’t know how we got off on that. Well, the media is the media. No.

No. No. Right. Trying to eat us. Yes.

That’s what you’re saying. The media is trying The media is jaws. Is jaws, and we’re surfing. We’re just having a good time. Beware.

Right. When you hear the media this is what I tell people when I’m speaking at a church and I and they’re asking me, you know, I I got this email the other day. And I say, okay. Yeah. I should.

I should start doing the noise when they say I got this email. And I always ask them, did the email that you received the email forward, did it cause you to a fear Muslims or b love and want to reach out to Muslims? Wow. And if it caused you to be afraid, I say delete and even reply to the person who sent it and said, I’m not interested in spreading fear. I’m interested in spreading the love of God.

Wow. That’s a great filter. It is. I mean, what what what good are we doing by making people afraid? Yeah.

No good. No good. No good. Because it takes the power out of it. I mean, there’s just, like, you know, the Lord has given us a command.

Right? Make disciples of all nations. And that I think that that fear, that powerlessness, I don’t think that, that aids us in any way. Yeah. We’ll do a whole podcast on the Jonas syndrome.

Alright. Yeah. Which leads us to our next segment, the resource of the week. Who do we got here, Trevor? We have an excellent resource this week.

We’ve got a, new book, David Garrison, a wind in the house of Islam. Cool. I’m gonna say that again, but if you could give, like, a Okay. Here we go. Alright.

Try it. New book by David Garrison, A Wind in the House of Islam. That was good. I I thought that was great. We need to send that to Garrison to see if he wants to add that.

We didn’t we didn’t even practice that, guys. Excellent book written by David Garrison, a, for, former church planter. He actually wrote the book, church planting movements as well, which was another kind of game changer back in the day in in the eighties, I believe it was. Remember, we read that. Yeah.

We did. Yeah. It was a game changer. Absolutely. I think it’s still a game changer.

But this one, I think, is an even bigger game changer because there is so much division and polarization with the Muslim world and so much negativity that when you read this book Mhmm. You will actually be encouraged about what God is doing. You’ll be reminded that God is at work. Wow. I haven’t even read this book, but I wanna read it now.

You did a good job. Yeah. I mean That’s a great job. I didn’t I didn’t write it. No.

No. No. Great job in, like Oh, getting you excited? Right. It’s like reading rainbow.

You remember that? Yeah. Yes. If you wanna read the if you wanna find out what happens next, you gotta read the book. There you go.

I was, like, reading rainbow. Me again. That’s what we should call the resource time is the reading rainbow time. We could get the I’d take a look at this in a book. I don’t I don’t know.

We could get we could get Lamar we could get Lamar to come and announce that part. Anyway, David Garrison’s book is excellent. We’re actually gonna work really hard to get him on the show. So, hopefully, he’s gonna be coming to Columbia International University at the beginning of next year. They have their annual Evangelical Missiological Society.

It’s a mouthful. Right. Is there, like, nothing that we can shorten that with? EMS, the Evangelical Missiological Society. So he’s the keynote speaker and that’s gonna be I believe it’s in March.

We’ll definitely get the, the time on that because he’s gonna be here and we’re gonna try to get him as a guest on the show to just talk about his book and really encourage you guys, take them. Nice. He didn’t he didn’t practice that one either. That was off the cuff. Yeah.

I I I don’t like this thing. I hope that was not too bad. Anyway, we’ll we’ll we’ll get with, with Garrison and hopefully he’ll join us on the show and talk about all the things that he’s doing because what he reminds us of is that God is at work in the Muslim world. Right. We need to remember that.

Yeah. I don’t know. And just something I wanted to say, this podcast is not getting you to just love Muslims for Muslims’ sake. Right? It’s really because we have a mission.

Right? We have a purpose. We have a And it’s not man focused, this mission. It is not man focused. If it’s all about the idea of I’m gonna go out, and I’m gonna engage in the mission of God because people need Jesus, trust me.

That motivation will be short lived. It’s about God. Yeah. And he’s in control. Right.

He is working. Because, you know, I’m I’m just, you know, going through my head thinking about some people being, like, you know, trying to write us off because they think I wouldn’t mean to love Muslims. Yeah. Yeah. And, they just can’t handle it.

And I just wanna say that upfront. You know? This is bigger than just people. Right? Yeah.

It’s not about people. It’s not even really about Muslims. It’s about God. Right. Man, maybe we should change the name of the show.

The truth about God. Wow. That’s kind of presumptuous, isn’t it? Yeah. We can’t do that.

But one thing I am really excited about is bringing Muslims onto the show. Absolutely. Right? Some of our friends and Man, we ought to make one of our first Muslim guests, mister Khan, since we we totally, shared his story about He would be so awesome. He would be.

That’s right. And you can just imagine us drinking tea as we make this podcast. Mhmm. Because that’s what we’d be doing. He does make excellent tea as well.

It’s delightful. Yeah. I gotta tell you. Alright. Alright.

Don’t forget that you guys can call in, write in, whatever you like. We’ll put all of the show notes on the website. We’d love to hear your feedback. Eventually, once we get enough people listening, we’ll have questions and answers. Yeah.

We will love to be able to discuss that. And, you know, I’m the guy here that doesn’t know much. I’m just kind of an entertaining personality that’s friends with Trevor, so I’m doing this podcast. Trevor’s the guy who knows more, and, of course, he has the connections with, all of these experts and PhDs and stuff like that. So, realize that, I’m I’m gonna be here for you.

For those that don’t know much about Islam, they don’t know much about Muslims, Right? I’m gonna be the guy asking, like, the questions like, okay. What does that mean? What does that mean? Right?

So that’s what I’m here for. So write in those questions, and I’ll be glad to ask those questions. Right? As you write the question, Howard’s gonna literally go, oh, that’s a good question. Yeah.

I was wondering the same thing. Excellent question. We’re on the same page. And he’s gonna ask it, and I’m gonna go, I have no idea. I know.

I feel like we’re friends already. This is great. Alright? I don’t even know all of you listeners, but we’re all friends now. And we we wanna ask you guys one last favor.

Right. Spread the word. We want people to listen to this podcast. We do. Because otherwise, our wives are gonna be like, what are you guys doing up there?

Yeah. I mean, it just sounds like you you disappear for, a couple hours We do love that. Afternoons and hear a lot of laughing, but That’s right. No one’s actually listening to the podcast. Yeah.

That would be unfortunate. That’d be sad. So listen to the podcast, spread the word, get other people to listen. And as we generate some more people listening, we’ll be able to bring on more people and do, more segments. So appreciate you guys listening this week.

So that’s that that’s it for the truth about Muslims. Episode number 1. Educate yourself beyond the media. Thank you so much for listening.