Question to Muslims

I have revised my article, Muslims or Mohammadeans, because of some renewed interest in it, by adding documentation to many of the statements. I'm interested in what you think about it, especially if you are a Muslim.

Presbyterians Take Action Against Islamic-Christian Syncretism

The Presbyterian Church in America, the largest evangelical Presbyterian denomination in the US took action last week against the "Insider Movement," a missions trend which encourages Muslims to "love Jesus" and "be good Muslims." While there was debate on how far to go in investigating the heresy, there was little hesitation in condemning the movement in principle and condemning Bible translations which remove references to God as "Father" and Jesus as "Son." The denomination adopted a resolution condemning the Insider Movement and erected a study committee to investigate exactly what is happening in the mission field.

A pastor involved with passing the resolution blogged extensively on the subject here. His short explanation of the Insider Movement from an evangelical perspective is here. Below is the text of the resolution (italics are mine):

A Call To Faithful Witness

Approved By The 39th General Assembly
Of The Presbyterian Church In America
June 10, 2011

Whereas; the Church is called to take the gospel to all peoples, including those who have historically been resistant to the gospel;

Whereas; contextualizing the language and forms of the gospel, while remaining faithful to the truths of Scripture, is good and necessary for the advancement of the gospel;

Whereas; the Church must exercise wisdom in discerning appropriate expressions of contextualization, reserving its public corrections for genuine and substantive threats to the gospel;

Whereas; in recent initiatives known as “Insider Movements”, some groups have produced Bible translations that have replaced references to Jesus as “Son” (huios) with terms such as “Messiah” in order to be more acceptable to Muslims;

Whereas; some Bible translations of Insider Movements have replaced references to God as “Father” (pater) with terms such as “Guardian” and “Lord”;

Whereas; these Bible translations are harmful to the doctrines of the authority of Scripture and the deity of Christ, bringing confusion to people in need of Christ—concerns that are held by many national leaders and Bible societies;

Whereas; some PCA churches have knowingly or unknowingly financially supported these Bible translations;

Whereas; Muslims should not be denied a full and faithful witness;

Therefore be it resolved that the 39th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America:

• Affirms that biblical motivations of all those who seek to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who have never heard or responded to the gospel should be encouraged;

• Repents of complacency or comfort that keep us from a faithful witness;

• Declares as unfaithful to God’s revealed Word, Insider Movement or any other translations of the Bible that remove from the text references to God as “Father” (pater) or Jesus as “Son” (huios), because such removals compromise doctrines of the Trinity, the person and work of Jesus Christ, and Scripture;

• Encourages PCA congregations to assess whether the missionaries and agencies they support use or promote Bible translations that remove familial language in reference to persons of the Trinity, and if so, to pursue correction, and failing that, to withdraw their support;

• Encourages PCA congregations to support biblically sound and appropriately contextualized efforts to see Christ’s Church established among resistant peoples;

• Calls PCA churches and agencies to collaborate with each other and the broader Church to discern and implement biblical authority in gospel contextualization.

• Authorizes the Moderator, as an aid to greater gospel faithfulness throughout the PCA and the broader Church, to appoint a study committee to report to the 40th General Assembly concerning Insider Movements, including but not limited to:
o A summary and biblical assessment of Insider Movements’ history, philosophies, and practices;
o A biblical response to interpretations of Scripture used in defense of Insider Movements;
o An examination of the theological impact of removing familial language for the Trinity from Bible translations;
o An assessment of PCA missions partners regarding the influence of Insider Movement within them, including assessment of their theology of religion, ecclesiology, Scripture, and relationship to the Emergent Church;
o An explanation of the relevance and importance of this issue for the PCA;
o Suggestions for identifying and assessing the influence of Insider Movements among mission agencies, missionaries and organizations;
o Recommended resources for faithfully training and equipping congregations to reach Muslims locally and internationally.

• Set the budget for the study committee at $15,000/year and that funds be derived from gifts to the AC designated for that purpose.

Rationale:

The Committee is convinced this critical issue for the global church strikes at the vitals of religion. However, the lack of sufficient analytical, biblical, and theological resources from a Reformed perspective, compels us to ask for a study committee to produce a cogent report for our churches.

bin Laden & Old Dublin

I really should write a post on Bin Laden and porn, but haven't been able to care enough yet. I just keep thinking, "Of course." The 9/11 hijackers spent the night before drinking and watching strippers and Bin Laden lectured America on its decadence while keeping porn under his bed. The guy had four wives - with him. Islam locates male sexual sin in the woman. If the wife just puts out enough, if he just has enough wives, if all the other women would just cover themselves from head to toe - then the Islamic man will be ok. And of course, then one day he'll go to paradise and get to deflower 72 virgins for eternity. Islam is a sex disease masquerading as a religion.

Anyway, three pipe tobaccos I've tried recently -

Peterson's Old Dublin
Peterson's Irish Oak
Dunhill's Royal Yacht

Royal Yacht is a very highly rated and popular tobacco. It is a strong Burley tobacco cured with raisins and molasses. Maybe I should have opened the tin and dumped it in a jar or just opened the tin and let it air out. It seems that a lot of guys do that sort of thing to age the tobacco and it often gets better. I just couldn't stand it. It didn't taste great and it was very heavy in nicotine. The taste was strong and unpleasant and the nicotine was strong and unpleasant. A lot of people remark on the nicotine. My neighbor, a new pipe smoker, loves it. So I gave it to him. 2/5 (Bob likes it and it smelled good in the tin)

Irish Oak is another popular tobacco made primarily from Virginia with some Cavendish and Perique. They age it in oak barrels for the distinctive taste. It is also a stronger tobacco, but nowhere as strong as Royal Yacht. I grown to like (not love) the taste. I wonder if I'm just getting used to it or whether it is benefiting from being open a while. It burns cool and fairly fast. I find that sometimes I actually want this tobacco blend over others. I don't know if that's because I'm craving a Virginia or it's this blend specifically. Right now I'd definitely buy it again. 4/5

Old Dublin is my favorite. I read a reviewer remark that if he could only smoke one blend, it'd be Old Dublin. So far I agree. It is a heavily Latikia blend. It smells and tastes smoky, like a campfire. It burns well and cool. The nicotine is light. It doesn't bite my tongue. It is everything I wanted a pipe tobacco to be but didn't know it. I'm ordering a whole sleeve next month. 5/5

Good bye Osama bin Laden.

Geert Wilders Gives Politically Prophetic Speech in Nashville

Jihad Watch has posted the recent speech by Geert Wilders in Nashville, Tennessee. It makes me ill that a European politician has to come here to remind us of the preciousness of freedom, especially the freedom of speech and religion. But there it is and I can only pray that Holland will be able to turn the tide before all of the Jews have to leave and the United States will wake up before we end up with a dual system of law (one for Muslims and the other for the rest) and de facto blasphemy laws under the guise of protection from "hate crimes."

A Warning to America
Speech of Geert Wilders, Cornerstone Church, Nashville, 12 May 2011

Dear friends from Tennessee. I am very happy to be in your midst today. I am happy and proud to be in this impressive church.

My friends, I am here to speak words of truth and freedom.

Do you know why America is in a better state than Europe? Because you enjoy more freedom than Europeans.

And do you know why Americans enjoy more freedom than Europeans? Because you are still allowed to tell the truth.

In Europe and Canada people are dragged to court for telling the truth about islam.

I, too, have been dragged to court. I am an elected member of the house of representatives in the Netherlands. I am currently standing in court like a common criminal for saying that islam is a dangerous totalitarian ideology rather than a religion.

Read it all here.

Things I Like About Arab Culture

A missionary friend of mine often tells Christians of a conversation he had with a Muslim in Morocco. The man said, "Some missionaries hate Islam and some missionaries love Muslims. You are a good man. You love Muslims." The point is a pretty simple one: Don't get caught up in attacking Islam when you should be loving Muslims and winning them to Christ. Even though I get it and I'm all for winning Muslims to Christ, I have to say that I hate Islam and love Muslims.

I hate the religion that denies the truth of Christian Scripture and turns the Gospel of Love into a message of violence and hate.
I hate any religion that encourages men to beat women or otherwise demean them.
I hate the religion that is responsible for killing more of my brothers and sisters than any other ideology in the world.
I hate the religion that is the world's leading promoter of slavery.
I hate the religion that encourages sex with children.
I hate the religion that hates dogs.

But I don't hate Arabs or everything Arab.

I love Arab hospitality. Arabs can be some of the most personally welcoming people in the world. If you've never been around Arabs, you'll never fully get the story of the Levite and his concubine in Judges. Arabs are so welcoming they can trap you with hospitality.

I love Arab food. Arabs, Persians and Turks are the masters of the world when it comes to meat. They make Westerners look like barbarians with their meat skills. You've never had truly tender meat unless you've eaten Middle Eastern food. And the rice! The rice is to die for. I've read that it takes Persian women years to cook rice well. I believe it because I've tried it. It's hard to reproduce.

I love Arab music, at least the music that hasn't been stomped out by Islam.

I love the desert. There is something intoxicating about the desert. Especially at night. The desert comes alive at night. I love how sound travels at night in the desert. I have a dry land farm in West Texas. The desert reminds me of my farm.

I love smoking. I can leave the cigarettes, but hookahs are the bomb (not in the terrorist sense). Any culture that has hookahs has something big going for it.

Antiquity. I love that Middle Eastern cultures are old. I love that people stop at oases that have been used for hundreds of years. I love that Damascus has streets which are named in the Bible, and still exist. I love that old is measured in thousands of years.

I love the Arab sense of time. I love the lack of hurriedness that I find in most Arab places. Arabs have the ability to just be when westerners get caught up in doing.

It's not Arabs I hate, it's just Islam.

Security, Immigration and Justice

This is an article I wrote over five years ago concerning the immigration debate and House Bill 4437. While the circumstances have changed, the biblical and philosophical principles remain valid. Some of these principles should be thought through by Christians in relation to Muslim immigration to the United States. House Bill 4437 was the GOP House response to President Bush's proposal to create a guest worker program in the United States. Provisions in the bill created a rare wave of criticism from the Church, especially the Roman Catholic Church.

One of the reasons I am reposting this is that many people don't understand that the Gospel speaks both to personal behavior (how we treat aliens and strangers) and political policy (what kind of laws we enact). But the Gospel speaks to these things in different ways. The individual Christian and the Church have a call to incarnate Christ to the alien and stranger. The State has the responsibility to protect and govern its citizens justly. The State has a mandate to protect its citizens from stealth jihad. But if the State takes actions or institutes policies which destabilize another country and create a situation where a minority becomes persecuted, the State would be responsible to protect or even receive the victims it created.

Here is the (long) article, with a few updates:

At the risk of beating on a dead horse, I’m writing again on the topic of immigration, this time to address a specific piece of legislation, House Resolution 4437. HR 4437 is most likely dead in the water, as it seems the United States Senate will never pass it. So why would I take time to talk about it at all?

There are lots of reasons. While this specific bill may be dead, the ideas driving the bill are very much alive. And issues of justice are the major theme of the prophetic books in the Bible. While some groups of Christians effectively jettison over two thirds of the Bible from their lives, this is a terrible mistake. God hasn’t changed. He still is concerned for the poor and powerless. Jesus’ sermon in Matthew 25 ("The Sheep and the Goats") declares that those who have no ministry to the poor and powerless will be sentenced to eternal death. [2011 Update: See also Leviticus 19:34, et al.]

HR 4437 also effects many Christians (an "illegal alien" is more likely to be an evangelical Christian than a narco-killer), and Christians should think through how to respond to these kind of things, both as affected people and ministers to affected people. [2011 Update: Still, most terrorists will come to our country by legal means or through our Canadian border, not walk through the Sonoran desert. This bill never was going to have a great impact on National Security.]

While much of the Christian right has lined up behind the anti-immigration movement (I’ve been receiving anti-immigrant emails from the American Family Association, apparently a completely separate organization than the Mexican Family Association), the issues for Christians are not as simple as many political statements. Whenever the Church lines up completely with a political party, either the party or the Church has become an idol. The Church can never line up completely with a political party (and never should try) because the Church has as its calling the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Political parties have as their calling the advancement and improvement of the Kingdom of this world. And "friendship with the world is enmity with God."

I hope you caught that. The Church and the State both have legitimate obligations. But often those obligations compete. If the State gives up her obligations to support the mission of the Church, she is irresponsible, and the Church becomes polluted. If the Church gives up her obligations and becomes a pawn of the State or a Party, then she is a whore. Christians should strive to be good citizens inasmuch as doing so does not compromise the mission of the Gospel. The State should attempt to be friendly to the Church inasmuch as she can do so without becoming the Church.

At no time in my recent memory has a clearer example of this arisen than the recent immigration controversy. I know that some of you might protest that the abortion debate is more weighty, but in the abortion debate the line between the State and the Church is more clear and the State has not attempted to bind the Church to the degree which the House of Representatives has.

Many consider this a cut-and-dried law-and-order issue. It is against the law for people to enter this country without proper documentation and permission, therefore Christians should support law-keeping and law-enforcement. Likewise, Christians should not support any scheme with encourages law-breaking, dishonors those who kept the law at great effort or expense, or weakens the intent of law. All of these are arguments which Christians have made against amnesty programs and offering guest-worker status to aliens here in the US illegally.

The problem is that Rome was a law-and-order empire. They were all about law-and-order. And if Christianity was simply a law-and-order religion, Christians would never have been persecuted and Jesus would likely have not died on the cross. Rome had a law-and-order religion, Stoicism. One of the greatest Stoic teachers, Marcus Aurelius, was also a persecutor of Christians. John and Peter stood before the Sanhedrin as Peter thundered, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right to obey men rather than God." Christianity recognizes that there is always a higher law above the laws of men. If you make abortion legal, it is still murder. If you pass "Jim Crow" laws, they are still unjust. Plenty of laws are a stench in God’s nostrils. Christians are not obligated to keep all laws, and some laws they are obligated to actively resist.

Currently we have an immigration problem in our country. At least 12 million people are living in this country illegally. Terrorism is a growing global problem and the government cannot adequately protect its people if it cannot secure its borders. Our country’s population is not growing with the demand for workers, largely because we’ve killed 40 million children in utero. And many of the undocumented persons in our country come from countries where the United States has fostered fascist governments fighting "wars" on communism, wars which are excuses for bands of US-equipped militias to murder, rape, and pillage villagers in Central America (does "Iran-Contra" ring any bells?). The villagers fled to the United States, which would not grant them refugee status because to do so would be to admit the covert wars which the government denies waging [The US government finally shut down its School of the Americas, where militias were trained to torture and kill villagers]. What would Jesus have the Church do?

Currently our North and South borders are fairly porous. Incidentally, most of the prospective terrorists the United States have apprehended have flown into our airports or driven across from Canada. Why would a terrorist make his way across a Mexican desert on foot when he can drive across at Buffalo, New York? According to our current laws, an immigration violator is guilty of violating immigration code but is not a criminal any more than you are a criminal by local standards if you don’t mow your lawn. That is why police departments don’t round up "illegal aliens," they have no jurisdiction. [2011 Update: The Arizona Immigration Act is an attempt (possibly an unconstitutional one) to create jurisdiction to act. I can easily sympathize with their motivations in this.] This means that our immigration laws, which ostensibly exist to control the flow of desperately poor people into the US have about as much effect as setting a cold glass of water in front of a person dying of thirst, saying, "Don’t drink this," and walking away. Central Americans know that the US doesn’t really enforce its laws, and know that they are not technically criminals, and so they come seeking economic opportunity. They want to eat well, have good health care, and want their kids to have the same opportunities that we do. But the "Republican base" is fed up with the tide of illegal immigration, and it’s an election year. So the politicians are acting. And the House passes HR 4437.

One thing that HR 4437 would do is increase security at the borders. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens. Liberals wail about the idea of a wall, but there’s nothing Scriptural against it. All nations in the ancient world had walls, some around cities, others around whole nations, and the Bible never says a word about it. There is some question about whether or not it will work. Building a wall without having a system for moving the needed people into the country legally is a little like building a dam without a spillway. Before you get the whole thing up it’ll fall and wash down the stream. Maybe we can get some Mexican guest-workers to build it.

Another part of HR 4437 is the changing of the status of violators. Under HR 4437, they become felons, and not just the violators who enter after the passage of the law, but all who are currently in the United States. This provision might have been struck down by the courts as being a violation of the US Constitution. It is very close to being an ex post facto (after the fact) law (forbidden by the Constitution). The framers of HR 4437 have denied this, saying that there would be a "grace period" wherein people could return to Mexico (or elsewhere) without penalty. The biblically questionable part of this has to do with justice and compassion. These people have built lives here. Consider an analogy. The city you live in has a law that you need a building permit to add on to your house. The permits are expensive and City Hall grants so few that you know it’s not worth it to try. You know that if you get caught, they’ll fine you a small amount and let you go. So you build without the permit. After living in the addition for a few years, the city passes a law making it a felony to build without a permit. The law will effect everyone retroactively. You complain that you’ve already build the edition but they say that you’ll have a "30-day grace period" to tear it down. I’m sure you’d bet overjoyed at their compassion.

[2011 Update: Christians in various forums have challenged this part of my argument criticizing me for promoting lawbreaking. The Christian should wait for the building permit. I think this criticism is naïve. First, I think people don’t understand that ANY ex post facto law is unjust unless the law and the punishment would be universally understood as reasonable. It would not be unjust to create an ex post facto law concerning shooting your neighbor’s dog in his yard and attaching a moderate fine and applying the law after the fact because anyone would find the law to be just common sense. Without getting too deeply into the philosophy of law, consider another analogy. You city informs everyone that they are going to use their traffic camera data to issue fines to everyone who drove 1-4 miles over the speed limit in the last year. This fine will be $1000. Would you protest? Should Christians pull out the checkbook because they knew that 56 mph was against the law? What makes the law unjust is that people didn’t worry about breaking the law at that law because there was no enforcement which created a grey area. When people drove 56 mph they didn’t do so in light of a $1000 fine. While my example is more extreme, maybe you get the point.]

HR 4437 would also up the bar for employers who hire aliens illegally. The first effect would be to move most of these aliens out of tax-paying work [and yes, most of them currently pay taxes, just with fake Social Security numbers, 40 billion dollars a year, gone] and into a completely underground economy. Because even the most ardent anti-immigrant activist admits that the US doesn’t have the infrastructure or money to detain or deport 12 million men, women, and children. While not explicitly an evil move, there is certainly room to question the judgement of such a scheme.

The other consequence is the vast need this would create for legal workers. Since our unemployment is pretty low in most areas (especially in areas with undocumented workers, they go where the jobs are), this law creates an immediate vacuum while the country waits for the legal guest workers to make it through the INS. Conservative columnist Mark Steyn notes that if you wait for the INS to approve Mary Poppins to nanny your newborn, Ms. Poppins might make it over to the US in time for you kid’s college graduation. Will the jobs stay in the US long enough to process the guest workers? This isn’t really a biblical issue, because people in Indonesia need jobs too.

[2011 Update: This issue seen in light of the subsequent recession in the United States might highlight a need for a guest worker program, as President Bush suggested and the GOP House shot down as “amnesty.” The problem with the GOP Congress’ actions is that now, with much higher unemployment, we have most of the illegal aliens still in the US. We had no way to ask them to leave because without something which will induce them to register, they all remain in the shadows. From a Christian standpoint this is not a tragedy, but the GOP seems to have shot themselves in the foot with this and anyone could have predicted it.]

The long and short of it is that strengthening borders, giving or not giving amnesty, building a fence, requiring people to learn English, starting a guest worker program, changing the law for future violators, etc. are all POLICY decisions. These kinds of policy decisions can be informed by Scripture, but the Bible doesn’t speak to them directly. Christians can fall on different places in the debate. But HR 4437 steps into an area where no Christian should waver, the role of the Church in showing hospitality to the alien and stranger.

HR 4437 would make it a felony for any people to feed, clothe, educate, treat, transport or house any person in the United States illegally. It would be a felony to buy a little Guatemalan girl an ice cream cone. I’m not kidding. ESL programs would be illegal if they did not confirm immigration status. Even providing medical help would be felonious. There is no provision exempting people who do so as charity (the bill explicitly makes this kind of charity illegal). There is no provision exempting churches or religious workers. The Federal Department of Homeland Security would be responsible for rounding up Christians who defy this law. This is all under section 202 (a) of HR 4437. You might ask, How could they do this? The authors, many self-identified Christians, say that if you help a felon commit a felony, you are a felon. Christians shouldn’t help people break laws. The problem is that violating immigration law (which Christian missionaries do routinely) is not the moral equivalent of bank robbery. And while Christians don’t have an obligation in most instances to assist people in crossing borders (and probably shouldn’t, in most instances), Christians do have an obligation to show all aliens and strangers kindness and charity and hospitality, regardless of their status with the United States government. The Roman Catholic Cardinal of Los Angeles has publicly stated that he has pre-emptively ordered his thousands of priests to disobey this resolution, should it become law.

You don’t have to be a right-wing nut to believe the United States should do something about her borders. You are not violating Scripture to promote stronger laws and better enforcement. You are not a racist to think that immigrants should learn English and United States history. Ann Coulter isn’t bigoted to suggest that we issue more visas to educated and skilled immigrants than unskilled laborers (which would be great if we could get them to work in poultry packing plants). But if you forbid Christians to do what God commands, you are committing an act of evil.

Egypt's Only Hope

In my very cynical mind, the only hope for an Egypt that doesn't embark on a religious purge akin to Iraq's (though I think it will be a tad slower) is for the military to impose some form of long term rule where they exercise some sort of veto over the radicals and consistently move against the jihadis. They will have to outlaw certain parties and preachers, but I don't see how a multi-faith democracy can exist where 70-80% of the nation believes in Islamist ideology.

Muslims or Mohammadeans?

[This post has been revised because of renewed interest in it. I have corrected a typo and inserted documentation for many of the statements I have made. With many of the statements, vast amounts of documentation could be provided, but I have only given one reference per citation. CL-April 16, 2011]

I've been working this one up for weeks at my son's basketball practices and writing it on my BlackBerry. It's hard to write with any polish on a mobile device and this thing has grown far beyond what I expected. So I'm posting it just to finish it. I hope it's helpful.

Christians have many misconceptions about Muslims. One of the most common is equating the Koran with the Bible and Mohammed with Jesus. Intellectuals "correct" this by pointing out that Muslims actually think of Mohammed in the same way that pious Jews think about Moses. The Koran is in a sense, the incarnation of God. It is perfect, fully divine and the word of God (Allah). To some extent, Muslims view the Koran the same as Christians view Jesus.

Without going much into how Muslims view the Koran, it is important to note that unlike the Christian view that the Bible is both fully human and fully divine, the Koran is only fully divine. All the words are God's words. Instead of the Spirit of God working through an apostle to bring his revelation (2 Peter 1:21), Muslims maintain that Mohammed was directly reciting God's words (2:129). Because the words are divine alone, Muslims do not write in the Koran as Christians do in the Bible, and the Koran can never be translated, only interpreted. Muslims have a much simpler, and less nuanced, understanding of the Koran than Christians have of the Bible.

But while this explanation of the Koran does seem to make sense of the way Muslims interact with the Koran, the abovementioned explanation of Mohammed doesn't seem to account for the relationship Muslims have with Mohammed. There is almost nothing in common between Jews and Muslims and the way they relate to Moses and Mohammed. You never hear Jews argue about the way that Moses urinated (Fiqh-Us-Sunna 1:19a). They don't riot in the thousands when a child names a Teddy Bear "Moses” (Somalia, 28 November 2007). There just isn't any resemblance between the Muslim view of Mohammed and the way that Jews or Christians consider ANY prophet. There are a lot of good reasons why Christians referred to Muslims for centuries as Mohammadeans. Whether we should call them that today I'll address at the end of this article.

One difference between Mohammed and Moses is that Mohammed is the perfect man, the standard of conduct for every Muslim (especially men) (33:21) much in the same way that Jesus is for Christians (1 Peter 2:21). However, while Christians hold up Jesus as the standard for morality, ethics, love, etc, Muslims hold Mohammed as the standard for dress, eating, bathing, and eliminating as well. While Muslims don't pray to Mohammed, they arguably pay a great deal more attention to his person.

We're not comparing apples to apples with the two men, however. Jesus had a three year public life which is recorded in one book, The New Testament. There are few outside sources for the life of Christ. The reliable contemporary sources (such as Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, the Talmud) are so sparse that they add nothing to our understanding of Jesus. There are extensive non-contemporary sources (Gnostic Gospels), but orthodox Christianity does not accept them (Eusebius, Church History, VII). The New Testament, then, is the sole window we have into the life of Jesus.

The picture that appears of Jesus is in some ways strikingly non-personal. We don't know what Jesus looked like, how he dressed or what kind of food he liked. Jesus taught about faith in God, faithfulness to God and his identity as the Messiah and Son of God. His entire ministry was directed at loving God and loving people. There is not one instance of Jesus pursuing a personal desire or preference or even defending himself from a personal attack.
All of this is different with Mohammed. The Koran is considered Allah's speech but often Allah seems very concerned with Mohammed's agenda, preferences, desires and honor. When Mohammed is mocked, Allah gets even (Ibn Ishaq, Hisham, 819). When Mohammed desires his daughter in law, Allah annuls all adoptions (33:37).

In the other written material concerning Muhammed we find out even more about Mohammed's preferences. He doesn't like music (Bukhari 7:494); he hates dogs (Muslim 3815) and salamanders (Bukhari 4.54.525). And he really likes women, young beautiful women (Bukhari 1.5.270). Mohammed marries Aisha at six and sleeps with her at nine (Bukhari 5.58.234). He lies to his wife to sleep with a slave (Bukhari 3:43.651). He feels free to attack and plunder from large extended groups of people based on the actions of a few (History of al-Tabari, McDonald, VII, 28-29). All of this becomes conduct to imitate for Muslims.
It isn't a coincidence that Islamic law doesn't recognize adoption or that Islamic countries permit child marriage. There's a reason that an action by the US military turns all Americans into "legitimate targets." It isn't random that Islamic law allows Muslim men to lie to unbelievers or their wives. If Mohammed did it then it is not only permissible, but commendable.

Another huge difference between Mohammed and Moses is his relationship to the Koran. Moses didn't write the Hebrew Scriptures, only a part of them. The entire Koran from first to last was recited by Mohammed - he stands alone. It is impossible to overemphasize this. The Bible has many, many authors but one Spirit. Part of the argument for the divine origins of the Bible is the continuity of the message over dozens of authors over 1500 years. It de-emphasizes human authors and makes them simply part of a vast and grand salvation epic. The Koran is all about Mohammed.

For a Muslim, everything is about the person of Mohammed. He is it. And the fact that he stands alone amplifies his importance to Muslims. The fact that the Koran focuses so much on the person and personality of Mohammed (and the Hadith even more so) amplifies his importance. This is why even though Muslims claim to follow Allah, what they really have is a Mohammed-cult.

Now I know that Muslims will protest this, but everything about their piety supports my thesis. Today in Pakistan the penalty for blaspheming Allah is imprisonment but the penalty for blaspheming Mohammed is death (Penal Code 295c). You can question the existence of God, but if you dishonor Mohammed, you will die. And actually, if you are accused of dishonoring Mohammed, of his book, you must die. It is better to kill an innocent than possibly let someone who dishonors the Prophet live.

They ARE Mohammedeans. Islam is the cult of the 7th century warlord whose honor is protected as if he was still alive and whose example and words are followed as if there has been no change in context in 1400 years. We don't call them Mohammedeans, however, simply because, in the words of Wafa Sultan, "It is wrong to call people by names that they do not choose." Or, in the words of the Son of God, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," (Matthew 7:12) a commandment absent from Islam.

Democracy vs Human Rights

As the Mubarek regime seems poised to topple in Egypt, reporters, pundits, and human rights workers are describing this as the moment human rights and democracy defeat dictatorship and oppression. Experienced analysts and historians know that the situation in Egypt is also likely to go horribly, horribly wrong.

To be sure, by many standards Mubarek is a serial violator of human rights. After he took power 35 years ago, he assumed "emergency powers" which he has never relinquished and which have allowed him to reign as virtual sovereign. Elections in Egypt are mostly a joke and political dissent is crushed using secret police and the courts, which function as an extension of Mubarek's power. Political speech, which is one of the only two types of speech that matter, is tightly controlled and the main opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, is outlawed.

On the other hand, free democracy is not as clear a path to human rights as one might assume. The problem is that democracy is a vehicle to protecting human rights when there is a consensus regarding the rights that must be protected. Egypt is over 80% Muslim. The Muslim consensus will govern Egypt in a democracy. The important question right now is this, "What is the Muslim consensus regarding human rights?"

Here are just a few of the items that will be part of the consensus, should a democracy take hold:

1) Muslims believe that people have less right to "blaspheme" Mahomet than to commit first degree murder. Blasphemy always includes any criticism of Mahomet or criticism of (or mistreatment of) the Koran. Muslims believe, as a group, that anyone who insults Mahomet deserves to die. The only variable is how urgently a particular Muslim feels about the death sentence. Ten thousand screaming Somalis took to the streets demanding the head of an English schoolteacher because her children named the class teddy bear "Mohammed."

2) Muslims believe that women are more sinful than men and their primary value is to gratify sexual desires, produce male offspring and carry the honor of the family. This is why women's testimony is worth half of a man's and why about 70% of "secular" Turks condone honor killing. Muslims will vote these things into existence because they are a majority and it's in their DNA to do so. Think about it. Incest is repugnant to a Judeo-Christian worldview. It has been forbidden long before any genetic arguments were made against it. We don't allow people to practice it because it's outside of our worldview. It doesn't matter if someone else protests that their morals permit it. Ours don't allow them to. That's how deeply held the Muslim view of women is.

3)Muslims believe, also at the DNA level, that anything belonging to Islam belongs to Islam forever. This applies to women, people (distinguishing the two) and land. This is why Muslim men can marry non-Christian women but Muslim women cannot marry a Muslim man. Apostasy carries the death penalty. Freedom of religion means freedom to convert to Islam. Israel creates a problem in the Middle East because it was once a Muslim land. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood are already calling for war with Israel.

Mubarek was able to suppress or curb many of these things, but only because he was an autocrat. But when the majority of people in Egypt hold the reigns of power, they will certainly begin to act on them. Does it sound like human rights are advancing?
Offending the religious and enraging the heathen

Christian Honor Killings

I am constantly surprised at the depths of absurdity Muslims will attain in their dialogue with Christians. Every time I think I've heard it all, I run across something new. Recently, I Muslim woman wrote to me that honor killing was as common among Arab Christians as Arab Muslims. Since I cannot believe that she came up with this herself based upon any kind of research, I thought some about where such a belief might come from.

In thinking about how she could possibly make that claim, the thing that occurred to me is that this is one of the stories used to cover up kidnappings of Christian women: "They converted to Islam and you can't talk to them because they are afraid of you." Christian women are regularly abducted and forcibly "converted" to Islam. The girls are kidnapped and forced into "marriage," which is actually rape and ongoing sexual abuse and domestic slavery. The girl's family goes to the police. The police go to the family that kidnapped the girl who tell the police that she converted to Islam and doesn't want to talk to her birth family. The girl gets a new identity and ceases to exist legally. Jihad Watch and International Christian Concern reports dozens of these stories every year.

The absurdity of the claim that Christians perpetrate honor killings could be answered at almost an inexhaustible length, but I'll just mention three things.

First, it is unbelievable to think that Christians would be honor killing converts to Islam in an Islamic country (which all Arab countries are). It is just not happening. Christians in Islamic countries are just trying to survive and avoid giving any excuse for Muslims to burn their churches and kill them.

Second, it would be interesting for someone to try to produce the incredible list of honor killings by Christians (even Arab ones) in non-Muslim countries. If Arab Christians are as violent as Muslims, surely they are killing women in the same numbers as Muslims. Pam Geller has an amazing (and horrific) list at Atlas Shrugs. Can anyone produce a similar list from a non-Muslim country? No? I wonder why that is? Can anyone find a single Christian country which offers reduced sentences for honor killings (as do almost all Muslim countries)? Can anyone find a SINGLE Christian honor killing confirmed by a non-Muslim? Hmmm. Thought so.

Third, honor killings are part and parcel of Islam, not Christianity. I've noticed that Muslims have a very difficult time imagining that anyone in the world thinks differently than they do. Since Muslims are a pretty violent lot, Christians must be the same. It's just not true. That doesn't mean that Christians don't commit acts of violence, but it does mean that the more religious a Christian becomes, the less violent they become. With Muslims it seems to be exactly the opposite. The most peaceful Muslims are secular.

The reason for this is pretty simple. Jesus didn't kill people. Jesus healed people. Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and pray for those that persecuted them. Then Jesus did exactly that. When Christians want to become more like Jesus they become more kind and loving towards their enemies.

Mohammed is pretty much the opposite. He was a warrior. He killed people. He had others killed. He told his followers to fight their enemies. He told them to even to fight those who insult them. And according to a hadith believed authentic by most Muslims in the world, he ordered his followers to kill anyone who left Islam.

Many Muslim women are deceived. Being deceived allows them to remain in a violent religion by telling themselves that all religions are equally bad. It would create a great deal of pain for them to know that they are trapped in a world where their families would likely seek their deaths if they leave Islam. I am very sorry for them. I am very sympathetic and don't blame them for believing the things they do. I also know that when Christian women leave the faith, they are prayed for, sometimes pleaded with, but are in no physical danger.

Jihad Bells

Thanks to Jihad Watch...

Christians in Danger this Christmas

Christians in both India and Iraq are under threat of attack this Christmas by Hindu radicals in Oriss, India and al-Qaeda in Iraq (respectively). Hindu radicals are having a gathering on Christmas Day this year. The last gathering on Christmas 2007 resulted in a mass wave of violence against Christians. In Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq has vowed to purge Christians from the country. Please pray for the safety of our Christian brothers and sisters and the conversion of Muslims who are so full of hate.

Losing our Fantasy Islam

Today I saw a picture in World Magazine of two women standing side by side. On the left, an older woman holds a sign, "No Victory Mosque Here." On the right a younger, hip-looking woman in shorts with a sign, "Peace Love Tolerance." I don't think I'll even completely understand the love affair that liberals have with Islam, which violently opposes everything about liberalism.

I think the real issue is that people are in love with their fantasy of Islam, not Islam as it is actually practiced and believed by a billion Muslims. I might have been susceptible to this, until I spent some time outside of Kampala going door to door talking about Jesus. I met Christians and Animists (who let me preach in their temple) and Skeptics and Muslims. There was a terrifying difference between Muslims and all the others. A Muslim girl told me, "If I leave Islam, my father will kill me." I thought, "Dear God, she means murder. She really believes that her own father will murder her if she leaves Islam." Now I can say, "Of course he will. That is Islam."

The fantasy of what we imagine Muslims to be (think the movie, Kingdom of Heaven) vanishes when we stare face to face with the gaping maw of evil that is Islam. A missionary friend of mine tells people, "Just read the Koran."

There isn't a week I don't think about this thought: If liberals ever succeed in enabling Islam to become dominant here in the US, all of them will die. Muslims will hang every atheist, homosexual, feminist, sexually "liberated" person in the society. That's what they do. The rest of us "conservative Christians" will get to live as dhimmis. So we're (Conservative Christians) are fighting a (non-violent) battle for hearts and minds (with a few conservative Jews and a tiny fraction of realistic skeptics) to ultimately save the lives of the people who are aiding the Muslims in their plan to become dominant. And the goal of Islam is to kill precisely the people who are helping them.

Austrian MP Puts Smack Down on Turkish Ambassador

Hat tip to Jihad Watch for this one. An Austrian MP takes the Turkish Ambassador to task for hypocrisy and his country's persecution of Christians.

Lightly Beating Our Wives

In the Western world the Koranic injunction for husbands to beat their wives seems to be a constant source of embarrassment for those trying to explain Islam to a secular or Christian audience. The way the force of this injunction is muted is to a) argue that Mohammad really loved women and treated them well and b) that "beat them" means "beat them lightly only if it is necessary" (Sura 4:34). Now, anyone who knows me and knows my family knows how well a "light beating" would go over with my missus - the next visitor I'd have would be the coroner. But, that aside, does the Koran really tell husbands to "beat lightly"?

In a word, no. The Koran simply tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives. In most translations of the Koran you find those words in parentheses, indicating that they are added. They are nowhere present in the Arabic text. They are also not implied in the meaning of the word translated thusly. The word in question, daraba, is used to indicate forceful violence. For a very readable article by a non-Muslim Arabic speaker, see here.

A quick YouTube search on "How to Beat Your Wife" will reveal many instructional videos on the practice (all from Islam). Here is one gem. Is it any wonder that it is reported that a woman married to a Muslim is TEN TIMES as likely to be murdered by her husband than a woman married to a non-Muslim in the UK?

New Documentary on Islam

Thanks to Staring at the View for the heads up on this new documentary...

One of the problems with discussing Islam in the West is that Muslim leaders intentionally deceive and mislead people as to the true nature of Islam. Following the pattern of Mohamed himself, the plan of Islam in a new land is that it always begins peacefully and pluralistically. As the influence of Islam grows in the new land, Islam becomes less and less tolerant of offense. Muslims first begin to fight against those who threaten them and finally move towards fighting all those who do not submit to the rule of Islam.

This video is in Arabic and subtitled in English. The narrator, Rashid, is a Christian from Morocco who is the host of Life TV's Amazing Question. This program has had a significant impact on the Islamic world and many Muslims have converted to Christianity on the basis of this program.

After 18 seconds, the program will start to show the English subtitles. In the worlds of Rashid, this program is not enjoyable, but it is important.

What Asia Bibi Revealed...

Praise God that Asia Bibi, Christian mother of four in Pakistan has been set free from jail and pardoned after a year and a half of incarceration. Unfortunately for Christians in Pakistan, Asia Bibi was set free not because of the recognized injustice of the blasphemy law, but because the accusation was untrue.

This is the second greatest injustice of the law, that it is used to settle personal scores since any accusation, no matter how unfounded, immediately lands someone in prison (if he/she is not a Muslim). The greatest injustice of the law is that it is a barbarous continuation of Muhammed's mentally-ill violence against all critics. No slight was too small to escape his retribution. His followers quickly learned that a wonderful way to ingratiate themselves to him was to kill some helpless woman who had laughed at him or criticized him in some small way.

Asia Bibi was sent to jail for eighteen months after a dispute over water. Her Muslim co-workers did not want her to dip water out of the same barrel because as an unbeliever she is unclean. Islam seems to breed this kind of exclusivist pettiness like bacteria in a dumpster. And a bitter work rivalry is turned into a jail sentence and near execution. Asia's ordeal reveals the inherent and functional injustice of the blasphemy law.

Another revelation is the dehumanizing effects of Islam. Islam twists her co-workers into resenting her for drinking water. Islam inspires them to attempt to judicially murder her. Islam creates a system where this kind of incident occurs with frequency. And not only do we hear that Muslims are going to take to the streets to protest her release, but she has to be in hiding, because in Islamic cultures, if you've been accused of blasphemy, you WILL be killed, and it doesn't matter if you are demonstrably innocent of the charges.

But the most revealing report out of all of this is found in a CNN article. The imam who reported Bibi to the authorities, Qari Muhammad Salim, told reporters that the death sentence was "one of the happiest moments in his life." When he heard the sentence, "tears of joy poured from my eyes."

The blogger Hesperado has made a name for himself by getting kicked off of Jihad Watch for writing that Muslims are not human. Many have interpreted him as being genocidal facist, but he's more likely just very provocative (and probably a little mean). He's arguing that they don't exhibit the characteristics that we commonly associate with being human. If that's his point, he's certainly got one.

The Asia Bibi case, and many thousands of others, demonstrates how Islam dehumanizes people on a large scale.

Asia Bibi Released!

Pakistan Releases Christian Woman
Sentenced to Death for 'Blasphemy'


Washington, D.C. (November 22,2010)–International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that today the president of Pakistan has pardoned a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

Asia Bibi was sentenced on November 8 after a court in Punjab province found her guilty of making blasphemous statements against the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Pakistan’s blasphemy law, it is a crime punishable by death to blaspheme the Islamic prophet.

Her release came after intense international pressure by politicians and church leaders as well as coverage by several media outlets.

Asia has now been taken to an undisclosed location for her safety. In the past, Christians have been killed by vigilantes after being accused of blasphemy. On July 19, gunmen killed Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother, Sajid Emmanuel, while police were transporting them from the court in Faisalabad to jail. The gunmen also seriously wounded a policeman accompanying them.

Some Muslim lawyers and other fundamentalist Muslims are preparing to demonstrate against Asia’s release.

ICC’s Regional Manager for South Asia, Jonathan Racho, said, “We are delighted to learn about Asia’s release and we would like to commend Pakistan’s president for taking the right action. It’s high time for Pakistan to repeal the blasphemy laws that have caused so much persecution against Christians and other religious minorities.”

Reposted from International Christian Concern.