Name Withheld

NOTE BY SALAAM CORNICHE:

   There is a glaring typographic error in the above article.

Please change the all occurences of the word "metanarrative" to "mega-narrative."

Sorry for the confusion.

Shalom

Greetings Greg:

   I just read the following headline on the Clarion Project blog:

• "Canada: Parliament Shooter Was Muslim Convert" that follows the following other headlines:

• "ISIS Attack in Canada: Inspired by Online Al Qaeda Magazine?" and

• "America's "Most Influential Muslim" Endorses Sharia Law"

Now you might reply that this is social media that is portraying Islam in a bad light. Is it? Just for information this is a blog that features Muslims as correspondents as well. Here is their by-line: 'CHALLENGING EXTREMISM -- PROMOTING DIALOGUE'

Greg, I think it is time to smell the roses:

a. People are using social media to talk about Islam, because in many politically correct quarters one cannot do so. As well they are expressing fear, rage, anger and frustration. Fear at the fact that many politicians seem paralyzed into inaction, rage at the fact that gross injustices are being done in the name of religion and that so called Christian clerics stand by and sing Kumbuya, anger at the fact that supposedly wiser people seem to have duped them into saying that there is nothing to worry about from Islam, and frustration that hard-fought values of free speech, freedom of expression of religion and freedom to disagree with someone are being eroded away.  Are there those who express these things in inflammatory or incendiary ways that are returning evil for evil? Absolutely. Yet to wish things away under the rubric of peace, is to be either willfully blind, multi-culturally paralyzed, or to love political correctness more than being enraged that one religion on this planet feels that it can squash anyone in its way. [Just for information,  this comes from its core texts and not from some kind of "violent aberration."]

     I do agree that the challenge to separate the "supremacist, war-mongering, ideology of Islam"--to quote a former Muslim--and the eternal destiny of one's Muslim neighbour--who is a fellow human--is no small challenge. In your post above, you frequently conflate the words "Muslim" and "Islam." This is not helpful.

 May I be so bold as to challenge you to use social media to actually speak the truth about Islam instead of coming to its rescue repeatedly? Oh yes, thank you for the challenge to pray for ISIS leaders as well. That is helpful.

Shalom

Greetings Greg:

   As I read your post, I see that you are doing something that the Apostle Paul did as he "carefully observed" the practices of the Athenians in Acts 17. Careful observation is hugely important, and careful observation will lead to questions. As I carefully observed your post, I noticed a few things.

1. You seem to insinuate that a mosque is the Islamic equivalent of a church and an imam is the Islamic equivalent of a seminary grad. From an Islamic point of view, this is questionable. If you read the description of a mosque from the hugely influential Muslim named Yusuf Al-Qaradawi in his 2006 fatwa:

<<<<The mosque at the time of the Messenger of Allah [Muhammad] was the center of the activities of the Muslim community as a whole: it was not just a house of worship and prayer, but included worship, a university for science, a forum for literature, and a parliament for consultation ... it was used by delegations from various places in the Arabian peninsula to meet with the prophet [Muhammad], and it was the place where he gave his sermons and guidance in all religious, social and political aspects of life.

In the life of the prophet there was no distinction between what the people call sacred and secular, or religion and politics: he had no place other than the mosque for politics and other related issues. That established a precedent for his religion. The mosque at the time of the prophet was his propagation center and the headquarters of the state.

This was also the case for his successors, the rightly guided Caliphs: the mosque was their base for all activities political as well as non-political.

... Politics as a science is one of the best disciplines, and as a practice and career it is the most honorable. The surprising thing is that it is politicians, who are totally immersed in it [politics] from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet, who are inquiring if the mosque should embark on and leap into political affairs. Politics in itself is neither vice, nor evil, according to Islam. ... For Muslims it is part of our religion: doctrine and worship constitute a system for the whole of life. 

... It must be the role of the mosque to guide the public policy of a nation, raise awareness of critical issues, and reveal its enemies. 

From ancient times the mosque has had a role in urging jihad for the sake of Allah, resisting the enemies of the religion who are invading occupiers. That blessed Intifada in the land of the prophets, Palestine, started from none other than the mosques.  Its first call came from the minarets and it was first known as the mosque revolution. The mosque's role in the Afghan jihad, and in every Islamic jihad cannot be denied.>>>>

      So what is the bottom line here? The mosque is essentially the "mini-headquarters of a political-religious state" for the advancement of Islam in a given geographical area. This view is also stated by Sheikh Omar Bakri, principal lecturer of the London School of Shari’ah he lists in order the following functions of a mosque.

1. the headquarters of the Islamic State's supreme leadership

2. a section of the Department of Information and Culture

3. a Judiciary Court

4. a University for Learning and Teaching

5. a platform for oratory, eloquence and poetry

6. a place where war booties are divided

7. a detention centre for the prisoner of war

     If I have not persuaded you yet, the book The Mosque Exposed, by two former Muslims, Sam Solomon and E. Alamaqdisi will attest to the above. 

    Greg, your making "careful observation" in your honourable quest to be a good neighbour might need a bit of "careful observation."

2. Your title: Since you mention love and terrorism I wonder if you could ask your imam dialogue partner a couple of questions.

a. What does he think of the Qur'anic injunction to "prepare" in Qur'an 8:60 and its relation to terror..

b.  I also wonder what he thinks about Brigadier Malik's book "The Quranic Concept of War" with its bottom line "

Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only
a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into
the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be
achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet
and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon
the enemy; it is the decision we. wish to impose upon him.  p.59

c. Does he see any connecting lines between the "time of terrorism" that you refer to and any kind of primary source documents?. 

Shalom.

Greetings Greg:

   A couple of questions:

1. Are there two kinds of Islam?   Extremist and moderate? 

2. Imagine that a convicted criminal moves into your neighbourhood. Would it be more prudent to really check out what makes him tick, or to simply talk at length about depravity and the sins you or your neighbours might have committed? 

I ask these two questions because your rhetorical questions would seem to be designed to lead the reader down a certain path of thought. What is not said, however could lead them down the wrong path. For instance it would seem that you have conflated the spiritual solution and a political solution. It would appear to be wise to tease these apart..

a. It is clear that humans love power. ISIS and company have found the perfect recipe for seizing power. That is to say, it is a religious justification to seize such, and they have found it in the example of their founder, and they are just applying the adage WWMD.  Hand-wringing about Christian wrongs will not change this dynamic. Yet from a Christian standpoint it is only the power of love which will overcome this love of power, topped off by a good dose of Jesus always wins, and prayer changes things. That is the spiritual side of things.

b. On the political side of the equation, take the example of Churchill who was willing to look the evil of Naziism in the face, call it for what it was, and use equal and opposite military power to confront the tyranny of Hitler and company. By contrast Chamberlain was a fool who bought into the peace rhetoric and lives were lost needlessly.

In the face of the religiously justified brutality fully in line with WWMD,  directed against Christians brothers and sisters in Iraq I wonder if you would call yourself a Churchill or a Chamberlain?

Shalom

Greetings Greg:

 Here is a sampling of responses to similar questions from a global sampling of  x-Muslims in Christ. They touch on mosque attendance, being an insider, identity issues, and so forth. [This material will form part of the deliberations of the PCA on the insider movement this summer.]. I would hope that you would agree that it is incumbent that the minority Church [i.e. mostly Western and Northern]  begin listening to the majority [mostly Southern] Church, and not only that, to the Church invisible over the centuries, whose collective wisdom dwarfs some new-found methodologies of largely pragmatic Westerners. My question is: Are we really listening?.

Q. What do you think of the insider movement in your country?
A. "I am totally against such ideas: that someone who has never been a Moslem and
who does not fully understand the challenges faced by MBBs still wants lo perscribe
me how 1 should behave as a Christian. To give you as an example, why should I go
to the mosque or call myself a Moslem if I am a secret Christian in Somalia? How
can calling myself 'a follower of Christ' and going to the mosque open me doors to
witness." (A D)

Q. Should CMBs be encouraged to call themselves Muslims?
A. "Not only is this concept improper, it is like poison mixed into food. It is a great sin
and clear hypocrisy [two-facedness] for a Somali Christian to say "I am a Muslim."
(C)
A. "Somali Muslims look on us as carrion, and this will only reinforce their mistaken
idea of Christianity." (C)
A. "The Muslims are saying, 'If Christianity is right/true, then they would openly
witness/display their faith and even be willing to die for it.'" (C)

Q. Should believers and the gospel penetrate Islam like yeast in the dough?
A. "Is infiltration idea biblical? We are not to infiltrate any religion, but totally
transform and change. I agree with the Minority Report that IM is infiltrating into
Islam. This is going into one's culture and live therein by polluting it but not being
set apart from it. So practically IMers are being infiltrated rather them infiltrating.
The more they go backward the more they distant themselves from being salt and
light for Christ." (E A)
A. "Whether the MBB feels 'called to stay relationally connected to their relatives and
friends' is almost a moot point. The community, not the M whether the MBB will stay.
If it is predetermined that the MBB must stay in good status BB or missionary,
determinesin the community, then he or she will likely need to remain a secret believer or deny the
beliefs that warrant expulsion by the Islamic community-namely. the Incarnation,
Crucifixion, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ." (F F)

Q. Can followers of Jesus have two identities: followers of Jesus and Muslims?
A. "An IMer proves his or her sectarian identity on Islam by death — by how the
Muslims view and accept him as Muslim and bury. This has become a huge issue of
focus since many IM leaders are dying. They are proving to Muslims that they were
real Muslims. So their funeral service and burial are conducted by the Muslim clerics
in Islamic way. Two questions may arise here: First why do Muslims at least
relatives try to bury in Islamic way? Conversion is to them a one-generation issue so
the relatives want to kill the influence of the converted after death. In the Muslim
majority countries, even the graveyards preach Christianity." (E A)
A. "My friend, the message of the Gospel offends Muslims. Don't worry! I have never
seen a Muslim convert to Christ who was not offended first before coming to the
saving knowledge of Christ. We need to offend them by being very clear about the
teachings of Christ!" (F B)

Q. Should followers of Christ enter the mosque?
A. "To enter the mosque is to 'reconcile/agree with Satan,' to agree to work together to
bury the cross, and God's entire plan for which He intended the cross."
(C)
A. "Church should be cautious in finding commonality between Christianity and Islam
— Islam applied this strategy to reach Christians, the followers of already existing
religion. Islam contextualised to win Christians. By learning and applying their
strategy would be suicidal for Christian church. There is no common ground between
Islam and our faith." (E A)

Greetings Greg:

    I asked a couple of friends who are former Muslims what they thought of your post. Sorry to say, but comparisons to something that an ostrich does were made. This is painful, especially in light of the fact that you appear to want to diminish wrong ideas about Muslims, as people, and as neighbours.

    If I can level with you, this series of questions comes with very mixed messages. You pose questions, but actually they are only the springboard for making assertions--whether directly or not---that would make Islam seem closer to Christianity, more benign, and more acceptable as a so called "peaceful religion."  

   Might I suggest talking with Nabil Quereshi and David Wood in Dearborn? They have a much different view than you. Might I refer you to a Toronto Sun article of this last February which detailed the incursions of Sharia-thinking in Canadian universities? Might I refer to a recent news event where in Mombassa Muslims were instructed to "kill the kuffar."? Might I suggest that what is happening with Boko Haram in Nigeria is consistent with Islamic theology, and not a lunatic fringe as you seem to assert?

  Greg, I think you misunderstand Islam's structure. At the un-negotiable core are the Qur'an, the Sunnah or hadiths, and the Sira or life of Muhammad. All Muslims circle around this center of gravity, like it or not. The distance at which they circle is different in each case, which you have observed above. But that does not take away from the core. Careful distinctions here are vital, or you will send mixed messages that are confusing at best, and misleading at worst.

The demographic argument means nothing. Lenin asked for 12 dedicated men. Jesus had about the same. Both turned the world around them upside down with just a few people. If you take the example of CAIR in the USA, they are using the political system to their full advantage to make the US Sharia compliant. . You cannot say, "peace, peace when there is no peace"---witness the worldwide news, and the enormous challenge that the likes of Geert Wilders and others must exercise in order to speak truth. That said, neither must we be fear-mongerers, as I believe you would rightfully assert.

As to the program for Islam, it pictures itself as the solution to humanity's problems, as the superior religion, as the final religion, and that all others are living in ignorance. No wonder the USA Muslim Brotherhood documents reveal that its stated plan is to destroy Western civilization [say Judeo-Christian ethics and all] from within. For one to say, "peace, peace" with these facts in mind, might be a case of willful or unwitting ignorance or as stated above, an ostrich posture. 

I close with a challenge for you to engage with more former Muslims who are now in Christ. I think of the vital question raised by .   Abdu Murray in his new  book, "The Grand Central Question" (IVP, 2014) where he asks "Can the gospel satisfy the Muslim mind’s desire to apprehend God’s greatness while satisfying the Muslim heart’s longing to submit to it in awe?" (p. 170). Now that is a question!

Shalom.

Re the various flood stories:

  Greetings all:

The book by Egyptologist John Currid called "Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament" along his audio series called 'Crass Plagarism' puts a lot of the other flood stories in perspective.

His bottom line?

   "In addition, and of utmost importance, is the truth that the biblical writers often employed polemical theology as an instrument to underscore the uniqueness of the Hebrew worldview in contrast to other ancient Near Eastern conceptions of the universe and how it operates. In this day and age, when a considerable number of scholars seek to diminish the originality and uniqueness of the Old Testament, this is no small thing."

   "If the biblical stories are true, one would be surprised not to find some references to these truths in extra-biblical literature. And indeed in ancient Near Eastern myth we do see some kernels of historical truth. However, pagan authors vulgarized or bastardized those truths— they distorted fact by dressing it up with polytheism, magic, violence, and paganism. Fact became myth. From this angle the common references would appear to support rather than deny the historicity of the biblical story."

Essential reading for this discussion, it seems.

Shalom

Dear Greg:
I noticed a lengthy postlude to your question that included an aversion to debate, a stated desire to only focus on the positive, and a shift to the person of Jesus. All of these are laudable, but can avoid the question that you posed.
The Jews of Muhammad's time had to answer the question you posed. They had the Hebrew Testament in their hands. They looked at the Biblical qualifications for a prophet--i.e. one who did not only foretell but one who spoke on behalf of God--or forthtold. According to their criterion---not mine--as much as Muhammad had the persuasiveness of someone convinced that they had a divine commission, which most "prophets" including Joseph Smith of the Mormons had, they found that his claims were lacking according the following categories from Deuteronomy 18.
1. YHWH said if a prophet speaks "a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak" or speaks in the name of false gods, that person is a false prophet (v. 20).
[see http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Wood/deuteronomy_deductions.htm ]
2. YHWH said "if the word does not come to pass or come true" that person is a false prophet. (v. 22).
[see http://answering-islam.org/Nehls/Ask/proofs.html]
for a longer discussion

The prophet according to Deuteronomy 18 was to speak on behalf of YHWH, and thus for Muhammad to pass the true prophet test, everything that YHWH has revealed in the Bible would be the test of truthfulness of the Qur'an. If the Qur'an is anywhere out of sync, then the true prophet test would fail according to this test.

Secondly, Christians who have the New Testament have a further criterion
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already (1 John 4:1-3 ESV).”

--Since it is clear that in the larger context of I John, a true prophet must and would confess that Jesus is Lord and the Son of God and is equal to God. Clearly this is not the case of the Qur'anic writings, the hadith, or the life of Muhammad.
For further reading see the material from the Arabic speaking Father Zacharia Botros
http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/was-muhammad-a-messenger-from-god-or-satan/

Was Muhammad a prophet?
I will respond with a question as you recommended: "Was Joseph Smith a prophet?" Regarding Smith, all we can say is that he was a self-appointed, charismatic leader who used religion to further his appeal and thus you might call him a prophet. According to Biblical definitions, however, Smith is clearly a false prophet..

Greetings Greg: As much as your passion to reach Muslims for Christ is evident, I wonder if you are proposing something with a more shaky foundation than meets the eye? Sure, to learn the semantic similarities of a religion is incumbent on anyone who wants to talk intelligently to their neighbours . Learning background meanings in the context of the whole of a religion is also vital. 

     Thus it would appear that you have proposed to construct a bridge from the Qur'an to the Bible and by extension to Jesus. This of course assumes that they are somehow of the same genus and species. Your note would also seem to suggest that  the Holy Spirit was somehow guiding the author of the Qur'an. Is everything what it seems?

First, it would seem that we need to examine the Holy Spirit inspired Bible, regarding the state of the unregenerate heart.

     We see God's radical "no" to the past which he describes as being 'futile' (Acts 14:15; I Peter 1:18) [mátaios]= fruitless, aimless, chasing after the wind, running after one's shadow. In the unregenerate state humans are described as 'dead', 'following the course of the world and the prince of the power of the air' (Eph 2:1;2). Picture a group of lemmings all being herded by an evil tyrant, brain-dead in their mindless their race to destruction. It gets worse: they are described as having 'disobedience' as their father and as such, wrath as their destination (Eph 2:2;3). They live in the overly strong desires [=passions]  of both their flesh and their 'former ignorance.' (Eph 2:3; 4:18; I Pet 1:14). This ignorance is a dark hole, a light sucking entity.

Before we get to God's  radical "yes" in Christ, which thunders through this slough of despond with blazing light, the critical question remains:

     Can a text which self identifies as having eclipsed the revelation of God in Christ in the Scriptures, as one which identifies Muhammad as having eclipsed Jesus Christ and which reduces Christ to some kind of John the Baptist figure for Muhammad, as well as declaring the Muslim ummah as the "best of all people" thus eclipsing the Church of Christ, and which categorically denies the need for a Saviour due to the denial of all of the above picture of humanity, somehow have a source as you say in the Holy Spirit?  

Greetings all:

A lot of good comments going on.

     I have heard said that some organizations suffer from too little administration and the staff suffer from burnout and the 'clients' in the field waste huge amounts of time trying to get answers from untrained and unavailable staff. Meanwhile the organization can boast how little it spends on adminisration. On the other hand, there are organizations which hire all kinds of administrative staff and they create make-work projects to justify their jobs. The 'clients' in the field get burned out, not because they do not get answers, but because they have to produce answers for all kinds of people.  I have seen both sides of the coin. 

  Yet, it would be interesting to crunch some statistics with organizations to see what the administrative staff to 'clients' on the field actually is, where it has been, and where it is going. If the trajectory is to more and more admin staff, and less and less 'clients' one has to wonder if a problem is developing.

  As long as the admin staff does not need to have the entrepreneurial mindset of the 'clients' who now have to raise more and more of their support, essentially you will have an organization who is riding on the backs of the 'clients'.

  Any thoughts

Shalom

Thank you Greg and Joe for your respective comments.

      A few observations. It would seem that you are making some kind of emotional appeal for the loneliness of Allah of Islam for his state of mind as an entre for Christian Theology. Would it not have been better to have asserted that Allah of Islam, is largely a deity created in the mind of Muhammad, and in effect is simply his super-ego, who stands in sharp contrast to the Trinity of the Bible? This is well documented by those who have studied the parallels of the Islam original life [Sira] of Muhammad, and the nature of Allah in Islam.      I fear that inadvertently you are acting as an apologist for Islam, here.                  Secondly, you assert that the Qur'an is a post-Christian document. This can be interpreted variously. Joe observed that there is a polemical anti-Christian edge to the Qur'an. This is accurate. Truth be told, Mark Durie, Arabic specialist, scholar of Islam clearly asserted at a lecture at Calvin College, that the Qur'an is a compilation of sources from Rabbinic Judaism with all of its tortured treatment of the Old Testament, as well as largely apocryphal Christian accounts along with Nestorian and other aberrational Christian doctrines. Thus to say that it is post-Christian, begs the question of "what kind of post-Christian?" 

Shalom

Thank you for the clarification, Greg:

   I am reading a very interesting thesis about how the Gospel of Mark was very much an anti-imperial [=Rome] document. The author shows, however that Mark did not only "tear down" Roman imperial constructs, he actually proposed others in their place. His bottom line is that Rome had hijacked terms like 'savior', 'son of god', 'lord', 'the good news' 'the way' and so forth, and now it was up to the Gospel writers to show where the hijacking had taken place, and rightfully assigning those to  the actual and real Saviour, Son of God, Lord, with the Good News who is The Way. This was nothing less than subversive to the empire.

  In a fashion, anyone reading the Qur'an must realize that many concepts have been hijacked from Christianity and not just to take them at face value. Terms like prayer, sacrifice, worship, the messiah, faith, revelation are all found in the Qur'an, but they have been emptied of their origin Christian meanings and infused with Islamic ones. Just because there are parallel words, has nothing to do with parallel meanings. For instance, to see the word Messiah in the Qur'an does not say anything about the Biblical concept of Messiah. The Biblical definition will and must rule the day, and will determine if the Qur'anic definition contains any truth at all.  Parallel to what the Gospel writers did, we must identify this hijacking process for what it is--and that takes dedicated study--e.g. to understand just what is meant by the Qur'anic messiah---and recapture these concepts back to their rightful possessor, namely Jesus who is Lord of all and who unlike the Qur'anic messiah is truly The Prophet, The Priest, and The King.  [oops, I think a sermon just started]

Glad to see that your theology is being sharpened, and pray it will continue to be.

Shalom.