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William Kilpatrick — ‘Needed: A New Church Policy Toward Islam, Pt. 3’

Jun 5, 2015 9:44 am By Ralph Sidway

Here is the final installment of William Kilpatrick’s important three-part series advocating for a fearless, truth-based, and vigorous Church policy towards Islam, as opposed to the current stance, which embraces dialogue at the expense of truth. Read and share widely, along with Part 1 and Part 2. 

Although writing for a Roman Catholic audience, Kilpatrick’s observations apply to all Christians and, indeed, to all those dedicated to freedom:

Theologically, Islam is a house of cards. It can’t stand up to examination, which is why Islam’s guardians go ballistic at the least hint of criticism. Nevertheless, Catholics should start making the case while there is still time — before the questioning of Islam becomes a crime, or before the Islamic world goes ballistic in the literal sense of the term.

Kilpatrick’s ‘New Church Policy’ is personified in the life-work of famed Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoev, killed in his church in November 2009 by a Muslim extremist. Fr. Daniel had a successful mission among Moscow Muslims, publicly debating them, and converting over eighty to Christ, including many hard-core Wahhabis. A friend and fellow clergyman had this to say about Fr. Daniel’s work (emphasis added):

Among those who call themselves Orthodox, I have met such strange people who say that Fr. Daniel should not preach to Muslims, that one must respect their religion, and that there is no benefit from his preaching. But Fr. Daniel thought, as did the Lord, the Apostles, and all the saints, that one must respect mistaken people but not their mistakes. Truth is one, that which contradicts and negates truth is a lie, and respect for a lie is contempt for the truth.

It is this conviction which the Christian world needs immediately to guide its response to the challenge of Islam.

Needed: A New Church Policy Toward Islam [Pt. 3]

by William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine — February 11, 2015

3. A Theological House of Cards.

In his book America Alone, Mark Steyn observed that “there is no market for a faith that has no faith in itself.” He was referring to Christianity’s loss of faith in itself as exemplified by the decline of Christianity in Europe and the corresponding rise of Islam—a faith that does have faith in itself.

A new Church policy toward Islam should be geared toward reversing that situation—that is, undercutting Islam’s faith in itself while at the same time strengthening the faith of Christians. Many others have written about the second half of the equation, so let me concentrate on the first. How do you sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of Muslims?

I’ve already addressed the objection that sowing doubts is not a nice thing to do. Many Catholics seem to believe that religion is ipso facto a good thing, which means that weakening someone’s religious faith would be a terrible thing to do. Yet history provides many examples of religions that seem best consigned to the past—for example, the child-sacrificing religion of the Carthaginians and the human-sacrificing religion of the Aztecs.

Catholics are reluctant to put Islam in the same category as the Carthaginians for two reasons: First, Islam is a very big religion—the faith of a billion and a half people. Second, Islam bears a superficial similarity to Christianity; Muslims believe in one God and they “revere” Jesus. Yet it’s estimated that some 270 million people have been killed in the name of Islam over the centuries—far more than the combined total of all those killed in the name of Nazism or communism. It’s not politically correct to compare Islam to totalitarian ideologies, yet many respected authorities including Catholic authorities, have done just that. Consider this entry from the 1910 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia:

In matters political, Islam is a system of despotism at home and aggression abroad…. The rights of non-Muslim subjects are of the vaguest and most limited kind, and a religious war is a sacred duty whenever there is a chance of success against the ‘Infidel’.

As I suggested in the previous column, a new policy toward Islam should be based on the assumption that Islam is an ideological enemy, just as communism once was and still is. The idea is to wean people away from the ideology by undermining and discrediting it, and also by offering a better alternative. Because Islam has proven itself to be a totalitarian system, we should try to weaken faith in it just as, during the Cold War, the West (with considerable help from the Catholic Church) attempted to weaken faith in communism.

Once you’ve studied up on Islam, the first thing you realize is that the key to sowing the seeds of disbelief is Muhammad himself… If he is discredited, Islam is discredited. 

But it’s difficult to give other people second thoughts about their religion if you don’t know the first thing about it yourself. And there are numerous indications that Catholic authorities are badly informed about Islam—else why do they continue to maintain, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that Islam is a religion of peace? So the first thing that Catholics need to do is to get up to speed on Islam.

 Getting up to speed means that you won’t be thrown for a loop the next time a Muslim apologist (or a Catholic defender of Islam) quotes the Koran to the effect that “there shall be no compulsion in religion” (2: 256). You could confidently reply that that verse is cancelled out by the Koranic doctrine of abrogation (2: 106). Or you could point out that the non-compulsion clause doesn’t square with the apostasy laws. Islamic authorities are universally agreed that the penalty for apostasy is death. It seems safe to say that most rational people would agree that the prospect of being killed if you leave Islam is a form of compulsion. For the exact citation about the penalty in one of the most authoritative Islamic law books see Reliance of the Traveller 0.8.1 and 0.8.2.

Another Koranic verse that is frequently used to reassure Islam illiterates is this one: “We laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being … shall be regarded as having killed all mankind” (5: 32). That sounds fine unless you happen to be familiar with the next verse:

Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides (5:33).

The trouble is, too many Catholics, including a great many in the Catholic leadership, aren’t familiar with the Koran or, for that matter, with the Sira, the Hadith, or the Islamic law books. They seem content to rely on whatever Islamic apologists tell them about Islam. All that is necessary to deconstruct and dismantle the political-religious ideology of Islam is readily available in the Islamic sources, but Catholics first need to become acquainted with them.

Once you’ve studied up on Islam, the first thing you realize is that the key to sowing the seeds of disbelief is Muhammad himself—he who must not be maligned. The prophet is Islam’s main prop. The whole religion rests on his veracity. If he is discredited, Islam is discredited. We often hear of the five pillars of Islam, but Muhammad is the essential pillar. And he is a surprisingly fragile one. He is Islam’s link to the Almighty, but also its weakest link.

Islamic leaders intuitively understand this. Which is why any cartoon or criticism of Muhammad is met with displays of rage and fury. An attack on Muhammad is an attack on the whole faith. As some experts on Islam have suggested, criticism of Muhammad is a more serious offense than criticism of Allah. To get an idea of Muhammad’s centrality, consider that there is no corresponding outcry among Muslims when Jesus is mocked or caricatured in a cartoon. Yet, according to Muslims, Jesus is also a great prophet and is, in fact, considered to be the greatest Muslim prophet after Muhammad. The truth, however, is that the Muslim Jesus plays a relatively minor role in Islam. For strategic reasons, the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation’s anti-blasphemy resolutions are formulated to protect all prophets from slander, but in practice the only prophet that matters is Muhammad.

Jesus—the real Jesus, that is—has survived a good deal of mockery over the centuries. More to the point, he has survived the tests of critical and historical analysis that have been applied to Christian scripture. If anything, the examination has served to strengthen the case for the trustworthiness of the New Testament accounts. It’s highly unlikely, however, that Muhammad could survive a similar examination. That is why, from a survivalist perspective, it ought to be undertaken.

For example, did he even exist? Contrary to what is commonly supposed, the case for the historical Muhammad is not nearly as well-established as the case for people who lived long before him such as Julius Caesar, Cicero, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, and Pericles. Some scholars have suggested that the stories about Muhammad are more legend than fact, and some suggest that Muhammad was the creation of Arab conquerors who needed to invent an historical and theological justification for their conquests.

Revelations about Muhammad’s character are the main reason that Muslims leave Islam.

In any event, there is little historical or archaeological evidence to confirm the traditional story of Muhammad. The question of his existence is an avenue of inquiry that merits further exploration. Yet, curiously, few seem willing to explore it. However, there are some exceptions. Some books on the subject for a non-scholarly audience are Emmet Scott’s Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited, Norbert Pressburg’s What the Modern Martyr Should Know, and Robert Spencer’s Did Muhammad Exist? (which includes a helpful bibliography of scholarly sources). Was Muhammad more myth than man? If so, the next pertinent question is the one raised by Spencer: “Are jihadists dying for a fiction?”

If Muhammad did exist as traditionally portrayed and if the canonical accounts of his life are accurate, then there are some questions about his character and credibility that need to be asked.

According to Raymond Ibrahim, revelations about Muhammad’s’ character are the main reason that Muslims leave Islam. Muhammad is supposed to be the perfect man, and it comes as a shock to many Muslims when they discover he was far from perfect. A youngster’s first encounter with Muhammad is likely to come in the form of hagiographic stories that describe him as noble and saintly. It can be sobering to eventually learn that Muhammad ordered mass executions of defenseless people, traded slaves, permitted rape, married a six year old, married his own daughter-in-law, and engaged in deceit and trickery. And that’s only the short list. Fr. Zakaria Botros, a Coptic priest whose TV show is broadcast to the Arab world, sometimes presents a catalogue of Muhammad’s sexual habits and then asks his Muslim audience: “Is this the prophet I follow?” It’s a good question to put to the members of an honor culture because if the leader you are following is a dishonorable man, then your own honor is at stake if you continue to follow him.

Of course, when evaluating a prophet, the most important character trait to consider is honesty. Did Muhammad really receive a revelation from the angel Gabriel, or did he make the whole thing up? We have only his word for it. There is no other corroborating evidence. Here is where the historical-critical method comes in handy. Exhibit A is the Koran. It’s supposed to be the eternal word of God. Muslims say that Muhammad couldn’t possibly have invented it because he was (supposedly) illiterate. The proof that God wrote it, they say, lies in its inimitable style: who else but God could write so well? This is a little hard to swallow because, although there are beautiful passages in the Koran, much of it does look as though it were written by a semi-literate merchant. Well, that’s a little harsh. It’s more accurate to say that it seems to have been written by someone with a flair for poetic language, but with little sense of composition and with limited storytelling ability. Here are a couple of scholarly assessments:

His characters are all alike, and they utter the same platitudes. He is fond of dramatic dialogue, but has very little sense of dramatic scene or action. The logical connections between successive episodes is often loose, sometimes wanting; and points of importance, necessary for the clear understanding of the story, are likely to be left out. (C.C. Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam, New York, 1933, p. 108)

The book aesthetically considered is by no means a first-rate performance…indispensable links, both in expression and in the sequence of events, are often omitted … and nowhere do we find a steady advance in the narration … and even the syntax betrays great awkwardness…. (Theodor Noldeke in Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. 15, pp. 898-906)

The Muslim comeback to such quibbling is that people who can’t read classical Arabic can’t possibly appreciate the Koran. The soaring style and lilting language of it are simply lost on the Arabic-challenged. In short, if you don’t speak Arabic, then who are you to judge?

When I first came across this argument, it seemed to make sense—for a few minutes, anyway. Then I remembered that I don’t read Greek either, but when I read Homer in translation I can usually distinguish the parts where he is telling a ripping good story from the parts where he is merely nodding. For that matter, I don’t read Russian, but when I read Tolstoy in translation I can appreciate the beauty of his descriptions while noticing at the same time that he occasionally goes on too long about peasants cutting hay in the fields. You don’t have to read French to appreciate Balzac or Italian to appreciate Manzoni. Why is Arabic the only language that doesn’t translate?

There are tedious passages in the Bible, too. Most of us, I daresay, tend to skip over the “so-and-so-begat-so-and-so” parts. But this does not present a serious problem for Christians since most do not consider the Bible to be a word-for-word dictation from God. Likewise, the fact that parts of the Bible are problematic from a scientific point of view doesn’t vitiate the authenticity of the scriptures. The human writers of the Bible were limited by the scientific knowledge of their times. However, when the Koran says that the earth is flat and is composed of seven layers, Muslims are faced with a problem. On the one hand, Allah, the author of the Koran, would have unlimited scientific knowledge; on the other hand, he is uttering obvious scientific falsehoods.

If the tools of textual criticism were applied to the Koran, it would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that it is a fabrication—if not of Muhammad’s making, then of someone else’s. One glaring clue is that the author of the Koran, whoever he was, keeps insisting that it’s not a fabrication. The phrase “this is not an invented tale,” or some variation thereof, is repeated dozens of times in the Koran. For example, verse 10:37-38 declares “This Koran could not have been devised by any but God…. It is beyond doubt from the Lord of the Universe. If they say: ‘He invented it himself,’ say, ‘Bring me one chapter like it.’” The net effect of all these self-referential attestations to the authenticity of the Koran is to cast doubt on its authenticity. It’s as though your neighbor is telling you a fish story and feels compelled to assure you at regular intervals that “It’s the God’s honest truth. I swear!” The more he protests the truth of his account, the more you doubt it.

If Muhammad is the key to casting doubts about Islam, Jesus provides the path out of Islam. 

Whether out of fear or out of politeness, the Koran has not been subject to the searching examination that historians, archaeologists, linguists, and textual critics have applied to the Bible. To put it bluntly, it would never survive such an examination. The same holds true of the Jesus of the Koran. He is not a believable character. In fact, he hardly rises to the level of a character. He is more like a disembodied voice than a person. The portrait of him in the Koran is so one-dimensional that to call him a stick figure would not do justice to sticks.

Which brings us to the other Jesus—the real one. If Muhammad is the key to casting doubts about Islam, Jesus of Nazareth provides the path out of Islam. The penalty for converting away from Islam is death, so it takes a fairly compelling reason to convert—such as Jesus himself. According to various reports, a surprisingly high percentage of Muslim conversions to Christianity result from a dream or vision of Jesus—the Christian Jesus, that is.

This suggests a promising avenue of approach for evangelists, apologists, and theologians. Instead of congratulating Muslims on revering the same Jesus we do (it’s not the same Jesus), try to introduce them to the real story of the real Jesus. Most Muslims aren’t familiar with the Gospel story. Most have learned that the Bible should not be consulted because they are taught that Christians and Jews have thoroughly corrupted the text. The true story, they believe, is the story of Jesus that’s presented in the Koran. And since it’s not a very interesting story, they can be forgiven if they think that Jesus is not a particularly compelling figure.

So, one of the first orders of business is to convey the story of Jesus, whether through the Gospels or in film or in simplified story versions. How exactly this message should be conveyed is a matter I will leave up to Christian professionals who know more about media and communications than I do.

However, it’s important to remember that Muslim countries have high rates of illiteracy. Audio and visual messages are more likely to have an effect. One other thing to keep in mind is that Islam is a religion that emphasizes power. For that reason it seems important to underscore the power of Christ—the casting out of demons and moneychangers, the healing of the lame and blind, the raising of the dead, the fearlessness in the face of authorities, the final triumph over death itself. And, of course, Muslims need to be informed that at the Last Judgment, it is Jesus Christ, not Isa, who will do the judging.

Who is the real Jesus and what is the true account of his life? A Muslim who becomes acquainted with both versions—the Gospel account and the Koranic account—gets to see that Jesus of Nazareth is a far more compelling figure than the Isa of the Koran. What’s more, he is a far more believable person than Isa. As I wrote elsewhere:

In using Jesus for his own ends, Muhammad neglects to give him any personality. The Jesus of the New Testament is a recognizable human being; the Jesus of the Koran is more like a phantom. When did he carry out his ministry? There is not a hint. Where did he live? Again, there is no indication. Where was he born? Under a palm tree. That’s about as specific as it gets in the Koran. In short, Muhammad’s Jesus is a nebulous figure. He seems to exist neither in time nor in space. In the Gospels, you meet Jesus of Nazareth; in the Koran, you meet someone who can best be described as Jesus of Neverland.

In short, the Gospel story has the ring of authenticity. It provides an abundance of geographical and historical detail. It pays close attention to persons, places, and events. When Jesus and his disciples converse, it actually sounds like human conversation rather than (as in the Koran) cryptic voices from the ethersphere. Conversely, the author of the Koran seems to know almost nothing about the life of Jesus—not even the names of his disciples. Set against the Gospel story, the story of the Muslim Jesus rings exceedingly hollow—which may be one reason that there are no Bibles for sale in Saudi Arabia.

There is much more than can be said on the subject of casting doubt among the followers of the prophet. For instance, any theologian worth his salt could have a field day taking apart the idea that seventy-two virgins await the martyr in paradise. But the upshot is that the case for Christianity is considerably stronger than the case for Islam. Theologically, Islam is a house of cards. It can’t stand up to examination, which is why Islam’s guardians go ballistic at the least hint of criticism. Nevertheless, Catholics should start making the case while there is still time—before the questioning of Islam becomes a crime, or before the Islamic world goes ballistic in the literal sense of the term.

Which brings us to the subject of Church diplomacy—a subject which I don’t have space to discuss here. What I’ve outlined above are some theological initiatives that Catholics should be taking. I’ve left aside the whole issue of Vatican diplomacy because it’s a subject unto itself.

In a future column, I plan to address the question of how the Church can apply various types of diplomatic pressure.

_______

William Kilpatrick taught for many years at Boston College. He is the author of several books about cultural and religious issues, including Psychological Seduction; Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong; and Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West. He is also the author of a new book entitled Insecurity. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, Aleteia, Saint Austin Review, Investor’s Business Daily, and FrontPage Magazine. His work is supported in part by the Shillman Foundation.

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Filed Under: Catholic Church, Islamic supremacism Tagged With: Pope Francis


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Comments

  1. Guy Macher says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:11 am

    From the Cathechism of the Catholic Church http://www.kofc.org/un/en/catechism/index.html
    841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

    • john spielman says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 11:14 am

      but the Bible states that ANY “gospel” other then the one that the Bible endorses, ie which the apostle Paul preached, is CURSED, because “Satan masquerades as an angel of light”. There fore islam is a doctrine of demons and muhameed, being fooled by Satan posing as Gabriel an arch angel of God, is a false prophet (and mass murderer thief liar misogynist and pedophile pervert).

      • Guy Macher says

        Jun 5, 2015 at 11:18 am

        than not then

        • john spielman says

          Jun 5, 2015 at 11:42 am

          sorry your are correct it is THAN!

        • Jay Boo says

          Jun 5, 2015 at 12:18 pm

          @Guy Macher
          BTW Catechism not Cathechism

          Your link implies that you wish others to verify the credibility of your (out of context) quote. But your link only goes to a page website header. Hmmmm
          — And you have the nerve to nitpick john spielman about a minor spelling error.
          —————————————————–

          The Church and non-Christians

          “839 “Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.”325 (856, 63, 147)

          The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 “the first to hear the Word of God.”327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”;328 “for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”329

          840 And when one considers the future, God’s People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus. (674, 597)

          841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”330

          842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: (360)

          All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city…. 331”

        • Jay Boo says

          Jun 5, 2015 at 12:20 pm

          —-
          “His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city”

      • Bill says

        Jun 6, 2015 at 10:27 am

        Correct Bro. God bless you. Sola Fide.

    • mortimer says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 12:10 pm

      The quote from the official catechism (http://www.kofc.org/un/en/catechism/index.html) is due for revision. The RCC was naïve and uninformed in writing this. Vatican II tried to reach out, but no one was reaching back.

      Islam is the greatest persecutor of Christians. This quote was an overly optimistic assessment of Islam meant to be a basis for co-existence. However, Islam doesn’t accept co-existence, but demands political supremacism.

      Moreover, the naïve idea of ‘worshipping the same god’ is not true. Jehovah and Allah are actually different gods. It should be noted that the author of the Koran was unacquainted with the eternal name of God given in Exodus 3:15…”God said to Moses, “This is what you must say to the people of Israel: The LORD God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever. This is my title throughout every generation.”

      ‘Jehovah’s title is ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’, rather than ‘the god of Mohammed, Ishmael and Abu Bakr’.

      • Guy Macher says

        Jun 5, 2015 at 12:18 pm

        I agree. It is difficult for a Catholic to argue that Islam is the doctrine of Satan when the Church recognizes Muslims as “believers in Jehovah”.

        • Jay Boo says

          Jun 5, 2015 at 12:25 pm

          You seem to be more fixated on demonizing Catholicism than Islam.
          See above reply to your out of context quote.

        • phil says

          Jun 5, 2015 at 12:55 pm

          Even the demons believe in god, and they tremble. Islam rejects God in Christ.. For it is by faith are you saved, NOT by works. read Titus 3:5. The Catholic Church needs to get back into the Word of God.

        • Mirren10 says

          Jun 6, 2015 at 8:12 am

          ”I agree. It is difficult for a Catholic to argue that Islam is the doctrine of Satan when the Church recognizes Muslims as “believers in Jehovah”.

          It’s not just the RC Church, either. The Church of England supports the same nonsense, as do many Rabbis. Wishful thinking is one of the biggest downfalls of humanity.

    • Thomas Hennigan says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 4:07 pm

      Notice that it only says that they “profess” t maintain the fiath of Abraham, not that they actually profess it. In fact, as far as I can see, the only coincidence between the God of the Bible and Mahommad” moon god is that the latter is considered to be creator of the world. The rest of it is totally twisted and false.

    • Bill says

      Jun 6, 2015 at 10:32 am

      This type of error, as contain in (841) is exactly what disarms uninformed Christians. It is a type of Islamophilia and should be REJECTED. The Council of Trent can condemn innocent and godly PROTESTANTS who believe in Christ, His shed blood, His Cross, The Trinity, The resurrection, and laid the foundation of American liberty, yet proclaim that the worst apostasy the world has ever seen, that is, Islam is some type of authentic representation of faith. HOGWASH THAT KILLS, THAT IS (841) OF THE ROMAN CATECHISM.

  2. Jay Boo says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:48 am

    It is time for Muslims to apologize to us tor the woeful disgrace of Muhammad.

    • Jaladhi says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 11:44 am

      Apology is not enough – they should dump Mo/allah, Quran and Islam and follow whatever religion they want to! Islam should never exist in this universe!!

    • mortimer says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 12:15 pm

      The ‘disgrace of Mohammed’, his personal opportunism and amorality are the greatest liability for Islam…another aspect of Islam’s house of cards.

      Islam’s prophet is a role model for criminals. Most Muslims do not wish to act like Mohammed…they are more moral than their prophet.

      • sinantara says

        Jun 5, 2015 at 11:10 pm

        Here we see endless TV shows like called “The Spiritual Intelligence of the Prophet.” And then an ustadz is talking and always referring to the scriptures itself. So basically the proof that the quran is true is, it is stated in the quran. My thinking friends therefore are very much busy convincing themselves, they need it. Even stories like “Benedict retired after he saw a certain document in the Vatican library that mentioned that Jesus mentioned Mo… So many cardinals have read it and have become Muslim. But because they can not admit openly they are Muslims now, including Benedict, because they fear for their lives… Etc etc, and on youtube you can find out that Stephen Hawkings is a secret convert. Grasping at straws. So if they dream of Jesus they say, at last a sign! A friend of mine had a near death experience and met a shining figure… So he had what he needed to leave Islam. Of course it means he was in doubt all along but had no excuse to justify his apostasy. At least in Javanese society, a revelation is accepted as normal, like among born again Christians. But from him I learned the existence of elaborate sting operations by Muslim organizations to entrap a convert (or a stupid Christian who is not yet Islamophobe enough) to insult Islam. Which then is a counter justification to burn some churches, What is racist in the west is just prudent over here…My point, theological arguments don’t work, the appeal is always emotional. In what state Muslims live in? In a state of denial. And,, in a cozy state of complacence. Why should I want to become a Christian, if my religion allows me that serving me is her religious duty? That I can divorce her if she leaves the house without my permission? Like a American male chauvinist friend once advised me, why would you want to marry a western woman? They are emancipated! They have a headache if you want sex!

  3. Walter Sieruk says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:50 am

    Islamic denies that Jesus is the Son of God. One thing is for sure, that is both Catholics and Protestants have a strong conviction the Jesus is the Sod of God. The reason that Christians really believe that Jesus is the Son of God is not because a Christian cleric said so but because the the doctrine that Jesus of the Son of God is found and upheld in the Bible. As in for example Matthew 3:16,17,16:16. John 3:16,17,36. First John 2:22,23. 4:14,15. 5:12,13. This Bible doctrine as well as other teaching of the Bible are in strong contradiction to the Koran and other written works of Islam only expose the great doctrinal errors Islam teaches about the Nature of Jesus. The Bible is therefore very damaging to the denials ,doctrines and teachings of Islam. This by the way, this is the main reason that the Bible is so very hard to find in Islamic nations.

  4. Reason Apologist says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:57 am

    Muslims and apologists will invariably come back to the 270 million killed in the name of Islam with ‘millions have been killed in the name of Christianity’ which there is no doubt some truth to. How does one respond to that?

    • John spielman says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 11:18 am

      the New Testament of the Bible does NOT allow any violence against anyone. Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as our selves and even love our enemies! (Luke chapter 19 is a parable a made up story referring to the ady of Judgemnnt when

      • JOHN SPIELMAN says

        Jun 5, 2015 at 11:46 am

        sorry, it some how was sent before I was finished. It should read” Luke 19 is a parable- a story used by Jesus to illustrate what will happen on the Day of the Lord when Jesus returns in a cloud of Glory and destroys all evil on this earth”

    • Firebug says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 11:29 am

      Rather easily. It’s called the enlightenment.
      Muslims have nothing of the sort, nor will they.

    • Jaladhi says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 11:41 am

      My question is how do Muslims defend killing of more than 270 million non-Muslims worldwide before they ask any questions about Christians killing millions. They will have their usual lies it never happened.

    • mortimer says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 12:30 pm

      R.A. questions the morality of atrocities perpetrated by Christians. So did Pope John Paul II who made a ‘career’ out of apologizing for the Church’s role (or silence) in supporting them.

      No apology will be given by any Muslim leader for the atrocities of Islam, because jihad and its attendant atrocities are supported by Allah’s and Mohammed’s authority. Islam has no version of the Golden Rule/code of reciprocity. Islam’s atrocities are obedience to Allah, while Christians who do similar things commit mortal sins against charity and become war criminals. The code of chivalry was created to encourage Christians to avoid atrocities. Modern conventions of warfare are the descendants of the code of chivalry.

    • Mirren10 says

      Jun 6, 2015 at 8:22 am

      Reason Apologist says:

      ”Muslims and apologists will invariably come back to the 270 million killed in the name of Islam with ‘millions have been killed in the name of Christianity’ which there is no doubt some truth to. How does one respond to that?”

      In several ways. First and foremost, those who killed in the name of Christ were **going against the tenets of Christianity, and the commandments of Jesus Christ**. Those who kill in the name of islam, are **following the commandments of mohammed and the koran**.

      Further, there are no Christians **today** who are murdering others in the name of Christ, and none have done so since the seventeenth century. Whereas mohammedans, all over the world, **today**, are murdering, raping, torturing and destroying, because they are **following the commandments of their religion**. Sorted.

  5. mortimer says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:25 am

    CHARITY AND JUSTICE…

    That’s the core disagreement between Christians and Muslims. Islam rejects charity and rejects justice based upon reason.

    Kilpatrick’s ‘house of cards’ analogy is particularly useful. All Christians should hold this analogy in their minds when thinking about Islam or speaking with Muslims.

    • Firebug says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 11:42 am

      Technically incorrect Mortimer. ZAKAT (charity) is one of the five pillars of Islam.
      Justice I would deem is also important to them; they’re pretty graphic in what they perceive to be justice.

      Neither of these examples of course are of anything that non-Muslims would respect. The Zakat, although technically charity, is available only to Muslims. They call it charity, I call it terrorist funding personally.

      Similarly with my second example, in enlightened countries we don’t kill criminals summarily. We either let them rot in jail, or we let them rot in jail THEN kill them (in certain U.S. states).

      So as you can see, the Muslim sense of justice and charity IS present. It’s just not enlightened.

      • gravenimage says

        Jun 5, 2015 at 8:41 pm

        Firebug wrote:

        Technically incorrect Mortimer. ZAKAT (charity) is one of the five pillars of Islam…

        The Zakat, although technically charity, is available only to Muslims. They call it charity, I call it terrorist funding personally.
        ……………………….

        Actually, Firebug, it is not Muslims who characterize Zakat as “charity”, but hopeful or ignorant Infidels who do so.

        As you note, Zakat is more likely to be used for funding Jihad terrorism than it is for anything we would recognize as charity. And that is because Zakat is *not* charity—it is funding to further the cause of Islam.

        And this is why most actual charity in the Muslim world is provided *by Infidels*. Most clinics, orphanages, and disaster relief is handled by Christian, Jewish, and secular charities.

        Offering funds for Muslims to go on the Haj is generally about as close to genuine charity as Zakat comes.

        More:

        Justice I would deem is also important to them; they’re pretty graphic in what they perceive to be justice.

        Neither of these examples of course are of anything that non-Muslims would respect.
        ……………………….

        Yes—”justice’ is important to Muslims, but this just means the enforcement of barbaric Shari’ah law, and can include such horrors as amputating the limbs of petty thieves, murdering apostates, and stoning rape victims to death—very little that civilized people would recognize as justice.

        And as you note, this is *nothing* we should respect.

        More:

        Similarly with my second example, in enlightened countries we don’t kill criminals summarily. We either let them rot in jail, or we let them rot in jail THEN kill them (in certain U.S. states).
        ……………………….

        I have my issues with the legal systems of the West and their frequent flaws and errors.

        But anyone who knows the least bit about history and the condition of the rest of the world knows that for all their shortcomings, that justice in the free West is the most advanced and equitable *in human history*.

        Unless you were speaking tongue-in-cheek, describing these enlightened systems of law in terms of “we either let them rot in jail, or we let them rot in jail THEN kill them” is, I’m afraid, just calumny.

        • Wellington says

          Jun 5, 2015 at 9:34 pm

          Solid comment as usual, gravenimage. And yes, definitely preferable that “Firebug” was speaking tongue-in-cheek. If not, then allies like Firebug are really not allies at all.

    • Huck Folder says

      Jun 9, 2015 at 2:29 am

      “Kilpatrick’s ‘house of cards’ analogy…”

      Does that make the schmo the card-sharp of all times?

  6. Jaladhi says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:36 am

    I think the policy should be to expose the truth about Islam and Muslims. Nothing is better than the truth!!

  7. mortimer says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:37 am

    It is charitable for Christians to challenge and dispute the beliefs of Muslims.

    Kilpatrick’s reasons for doing so are reasonable: “…history provides many examples of religions that seem best consigned to the past—for example, the child-sacrificing religion of the Carthaginians and the human-sacrificing religion of the Aztecs.”

    Islam commands the vigilante killing of blasphemers and apostates. This is as unacceptable as Aztec human sacrifice. Beheading is unacceptable. Honor killing is unacceptable. Jihad (holy war) is unacceptable. None of the above may be removed from Islam without destroying Islam.

    Jihad is a contradiction of democracy and a contradiction of charity and justice. Jihad cannot be removed from Islam without destroying Islam. Therefore, Islam is not a tolerable or acceptable faith in a free, democratic society.

  8. Angemon says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:40 am

    Here is the final installment of William Kilpatrick’s important three-part series advocating for a fearless, truth-based, and vigorous Church policy towards Islam

    A worthy conclusion indeed.

  9. vlparker says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:52 am

    I like the plan, but I’m not wild about the implementation. It is a step in the right direction, but his implementation is a baby step in the right direction when what is needed is a giant leap for mankind.

    Educating Catholics and all Christians in what islam is truly all about is crucial. But I don’t see it making headway very fast if it is done by lay people. The only way to educate Christians is to have priests and preachers teaching their flocks every Sunday. And how can they do this if they themselves know next to nothing about islam?

    The priests and bishops have to be educated and that can only happen if the Vatican orders it. Then, when they have been taught about islam they can educate their congregations.

    His concerns about the reaction in the muslim world to the pope getting involved have some validity, but I think the dire circumstances make it crucial that he does get involved, otherwise the process will be way too slow. The Christian world took 300 years to react to the beginning of islamic conquest. History is repeating itself and the number of people who will be murdered and subjugated by islam within the next 300 years will dwarf any initial reaction to papal involvement.

    • Horace Yo says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 8:22 pm

      Absolutely correct. Forming the correct observation of Islam and conveying it to every Christian and every person on earth is the best way to proceed. There is still a problem with that approach: denial. The Pope is not willing to do that. Most local Catholic Bishops are not willing to do that. Mainstream Protestant leaders are not willing to do that. Mainstream jewish leaders are not willing to do that. Buddhist leaders are not willing to do that. Hindu leaders….etc. etc. Governments throughout the world are not willing to do that because of the false idea: ” Not all Muslims are like that” (they know what Islam is like and what it’s doing, including its atrocities and they justify it and stay in it, so they are like that. They are part of it.) Islam has a 13 century death grip on the world and is continuing to try to stamp out all other religions including Christianity and Judaism, with a lot of help from the enemy within- traitors and fools includung Islamophile leftists who have taken over Christian churches,

      • abad says

        Jun 5, 2015 at 9:09 pm

        Where’s Terry Jones when you need him? He should run for president.

    • sinantara says

      Jun 6, 2015 at 2:14 am

      That is what Muslims do, he he. A regular part of the friday sermons is about educating the audience about how wrong other religions are. I once attended a Ied sermon, the imam just spend an hour congratulating the devout on their righteous tawhid since Christians and Hindu’s adore three gods (we are ok they are not ok). The mosque goers grumbled about how the imam was not entertaining enough. Entertaining means ranting and raving. Or at least he should have made more jokes. That they were better than infidels was a given, they had heard this before. Traditional parents become alarmed if they grammar school kids come with stories about other kids they don’t want to play with anymore because they are going to hell being unbelievers. Of course Christians are in a dilemma, PC/MC itself being an offshoot of Christianity and Jesus own attitude towards Samaritans and Romans. So how educated one flock one Islam and keep civilized about it and avoid labeling as hateful too? Not as easy as it sounds, albeit necessary. The best thing to do is to strengthen Christianity itself, which these times has clergy with their hands in their hair. Evangelicals are more successful because they’re more spiritual, they understand that even 21st century Christians (and non Christians) don’t need arguments but spiritual fulfillment, so they are willing to love “The Other” but without surrendering faith in themselves.

  10. William says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 1:08 pm

    Concerning the teaching of Christianity to the Mohammedan world, one should look to Francis of Assisi, a fearless, charismatic and devoted Christian preacher, one who went into the den to preach to the Mohammedans.

  11. Marty says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    There’s a perfectly legitimate policy for Christians to deal with mohammedan aggression.
    It’s called “Crusade”.

  12. swampbubbles says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    Eliminating Islam with mass doses of Christianity like an antidote doesn’t seem realistic. Most problematic for Muslims may be the Trinity doctrine — that God would implant Himself in the womb of a random Jewess and …

    Just sayin’.

    When they say ONE, they mean 1, not 3.

  13. voegelinian says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    ” one must respect mistaken people but not their mistakes. Truth is one, that which contradicts and negates truth is a lie, and respect for a lie is contempt for the truth.

    It is this conviction which the Christian world needs immediately to guide its response to the challenge of Islam.” — Kilpatrick

    I refuse to respect people who behead people burn people alive, disfigure women’s faces with acid, blow up crowds of men, women, and children, rape children, engage in sex slavery, and are waging war on the free world out of their deranged fanaticism. And I refuse to respect all the Muslims of the world who countenance this deadly evil in their co-dependent enablement of their co-religionists.

    It is this inability to condemn Muslims (which is on one level a demand that Muslims be held responsible for their own actions and beliefs) which Kilpatrick is loftily promoting that reveals the PC MC rot at the heart of the Counter-Jihad.

    • gravenimage says

      Jun 5, 2015 at 9:11 pm

      I agree, Voeg.

      While one may debate the Islamic view of Jesus as a “prophet” and whether the concept of “Tawhid” can encompass the Trinity or not, the real question is whether the utter, bloody savagery of Islam can be regarded as nothing worse than an honest “mistake”.

      • voegelinian says

        Jun 6, 2015 at 2:21 pm

        More importantly, we must hold ethically responsible all the Muslims who enable that evil, vile, pernicious, deadly mistake, And the gravity of that mistake means we must condemn them. By and large, the Counter-Jihad remains reluctant in that regard — either out of timidity, anxiously worried that the PC MC mainstream may not like them anymore (yet at the same time trumpeting brave-sounding braggadocio against the “Leftists” of “the media” etc.); or actually believing in a criti9cal mass of innumerable millions of Muslims who do not deserve our condemnation.

        • Angemon says

          Jun 6, 2015 at 2:47 pm

          Nice example of misrepresentation and false dichotomy.

  14. Thomas Hennigan says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 4:15 pm

    I just wish that Pope Francis, Cardinal Dolan and other important bihsops woud read this piece and take it seriously. I would also add the example of Fr. Zacchairas Boutros who runs a program on cable TV beamed at Arabs and in it he explains the real Islam to muslims, with great success. Not surprising that the price on his head is $60 million. He is obviously in hiding. He is an elderly Coptic priest. When he was young, his brother began evangelizing muslims in his neighborhood in Egypt and got himself killed for it. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is directed to all human beings and muslims must not be expluded from hearing it. St. Francis attempted to convert the Sultan in Egypt, and fortunately he was not killed by him.

  15. Larry A. Singleton says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 8:31 pm

    A GREAT book is Slavery, Terrorism and Islam by Peter Hammond. I like to think of myself as pretty well read but this is where I discovered that Livingstone was more than a cartoon character we all saw as a kid: “Dr. Livingstone I presume”.

    Here’s a description from Biography: Henry Stanley was sent to Africa to find Livingstone. Stanley located the physician in Ujiji in late 1871, and upon seeing him, uttered the now-well-known words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

    One of the best chapters in the book is an easy to read and understand “The Sources of Islam” where he breaks down “The Authority of Islam”, “Arabian Sources of the Quran”, “Jewish Sources of the Quran”, “Christian Sources of Islam”, “Zoroastrian Sources of Islam”, How the Quran Was Revealed, interspersed with descriptions and explanations for “The Ka’aba and the Hajj”, Ramadan, Cain and Able, Abraham, Satan’s refusal to worship Adam, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Cave of the seven sleepers and exposes how Bible events are misunderstood in the Quran. It’s got a Glossary of Terms, Who was Mohammad, A Who’s Who in Islam. Charts and maps. And lots, lots more.

    The Haj by Leon Uris is, for me, THE “Primer” and Introduction to the “right of return” issue. If you want someone to understand the “right of return” sham, this is the book you’ll give them.

    Hammonds book should be THE book you give someone as required reading and Beginners Guide for those just starting to learn about Islam and jihad. Really, I can’t say enough about this “handbook”. He’s got another one, a real heartbreaker; “Holocaust in Rwanda” that’s really a booklet of about 60 pages.

    • voegelinian says

      Jun 6, 2015 at 2:26 pm

      Rwanda is a good example of the sociopathic tendencies of the Western PC MCs. Invariably when reading Western pundits, analysts, or civilians about the protracted atrocities of the Rwandan pathology, one gets the distinct sense that somehow, we the West was at fault. There is an eery absence of condemnation for the <i.actual people who went around murdering men, women and children. This inability to condemn people for wanton slaughter is bizarre — and directly related to why the West remains myopic to the problem of Islam (which is a problem of Muslims).

  16. gravenimage says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 9:18 pm

    This article is a good start. William Kilpatrick is quite right that Christians should not feel compelled to respect Islam just because it is regarded as a religion. Very few Christians, alas, have much of an idea of what Islam really teaches.

  17. Larry A. Singleton says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 9:33 pm

    “Kilpatrick’s ‘New Church Policy’ is personified in the life-work of famed Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoev, killed in his church in November 2009 by a Muslim extremist.”

    Fr. Daniel Sysoev: “martyr”.

    When I want to drive the point home about Muslims I think “comparisons”. I like to throw around the statement that “Islam is a disease and Muslims are the symptom”. What other religion can honestly be compared to this cancer, this contagion, that is spreading across the globe like a plague from the Dark Ages? My well worn Websters even gives a perfect description of this contagion: “the passing of disease by contact, a contagious disease, its causative agent and transmission of an influence on the mind or emotion.”

    Compare this to all the other religions of the world or simply use an example like the Hare Krishnas who stand in airports beating tamborines and hand out flowers. Or Christians who simply hand out religious tracts. Or Mormans who pedal around on bikes in their white shirts knocking on people’s doors.

    You can use many descriptions of those above, and virtually every other religion on the face of the planet. But one you CAN’T use is “Death Cult”.

    Here’s another comparison for you:

    This is from the book “the Wisdom of Forgiveness” by His Holiness the Dalai lama and Victor Chan. Pages 47 and 48:

    “Whenever the Dalai lama talks about forgiveness, he likes to use as an example the story of Lopon-la, a Lhasa monk he knew before the Chinese occupation. ‘After I escaped from Tibet, Lopon-la put in prison by Chinese’, the Dalai Lama told me. ‘he stayed there eighteen years. When he finally free, he came to India. For twenty years, I did not see him. But he seemed the same. Of course looked older. But physically OK. His mind still sharp after so many years in prison. He was still same gentle monk. He told me the Chines forced him to denounce his religion. They tortured him many times in prison. I asked him whether he was ever afraid. Lopon-la then told me: ‘Yes, there was one thing I was afraid of. I was afraid I may lose compassion for the Chinese.’”

    I’d like to know, when I look at the pictures of the wild-eyed, frothing at the mouth fanatics in pictures and TV, where is that spirit of love and forgiveness and “compassion” when they’re shouting “alahu-akbar”? I can’t even find it in Taha’s Second Message of Islam. Here’s an exerpt of what I DO find;

    “we may describe it, (jihad), as a surgeon’s lancet and not a butcher’s knife.” Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (I’m sure there are about 200 million dead people that would disagree with him. And this from the guy who’s been called the Mahatma Ghandi of Islam.)

    I’ve got a neat little “poster”; one side is a picture of a bunch of screaming, frothing at the mouth Muslims. And on the panel beside that is a picture of a Jew in a labcoat. The caption below says: “In 2007 Islam and Judaism’s holiest holidays overlapped for 10 days. Muslims racked up 397 dead bodies in 94 terror attacks across 10 countries during this time… ….while Jews worked on their 159th Nobel Prize.”

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2169455/replies?c=8

    http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2007/11/the_difference_between_jews_and_muslims.html

    And lastly:

    Reverend Richard Wurmbrand was a Missionary in Communist Russia. It’s the Wurmbrands, the Sysoevs and the Dr. Stanley Livingstones who teach me the differences and the realities of who the legitimate men of peace are. And exactly what a “religion of peace” IS. A perfect example is the description of the word “martyr” on page eight of Reverend Wurmbrand’s book “Tortured for Christ”:

    “According to the original Greek, “martyr” means “witness”. The writer of Hebrews states that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [martyrs]” (12:1), and Jesus instructs us in Acts 1:8, “You shall be witnesses [martyrs] to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The New Testament martyr not only personally testified to the truth and power of Jesus Christ, but was instructed to take that witness to others, regardless of the cost. Later in the book of Acts, we read about the stoning of Stephen, making him the first to pay the ultimate price for that witness. It is at this time that the word martyr took on a much stronger meaning as one who not only is a witness but as one who is willing to give his life or to be martyred for that cause.”

    In my copy of Tortured For Christ I’ve got the last four words double underlined; like Fr. Daniel Sysoev, Christians are “martyred FOR that “cause” FOR simply spreading the WORD of PEACE.

    I found an article, “Jihad in the Qur’an and Sunnah”, in a Summarized Bukhari I’d ordered online. Sheikh Abdullâh bin Muhammad bin Humaid who wrote this article, uses the word “martyr” eleven times. I’m pretty sure that those martyrs aren’t meant to die without a sword in their hand. Or dynamite and ball bearings wrapped around their waist. Or trying to murder the maximum number of innocent men, women and children as possible.

    When posting this article online I usually follow it up with WHY…

    ….WHY, out of all the articles, out of all the words of pearly Muslim poetry and wisdom the publishers could have put in this, “the most authentic and true among the books of the Prophet”, this article on JIHAD is the one they chose?

    By a beautiful coincidence, I had just finished reading Emmet Fox’s The Sermon on the Mount when this Islamic “holy” book came in the mail. It sits right next to Reliance of the Traveller where you’ll find in chapter O-9.0: Jihad O: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion.”

    The “greater” jihad is mentioned only once here and never seen again in this “Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law”.

    • Sam Hawkins says

      Jun 6, 2015 at 3:25 am

      Long posting, but well worth the read. Thanks!

  18. TJFreedomjihad says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:37 pm

    From the New Testament, the Gospel of Thomas of what Jesus said, and a comment by Shakespeare in Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, most important for all to know, Christians, just as Jews, in many locations in the Bible, are advised on taking responsibility to defend oneself as necessary, as responsible men, in defense of family, and all else, against thieves and all enemies. Take heart, perhaps Lion Heartedly, herein:

    ”BLESSED BE THE LORD, MY ROCK, WHO TRAINS MY HANDS FOR WAR, AND MY FINGERS FOR BATTLE” -Psalm 144:1
    ******
    (21) What Jesus said, as recorded by Thomas
    (1) Mary said to Jesus: “Whom are your disciples like?”
    (5) “That is why I say: When the master of the house learns that the thief is about to come, he will be on guard before he comes (and) will not let him break into his house, his domain, to carry away his possessions.
    (6) (But) you, be on guard against the world!
    (7) Gird your loins with great strength, so that the robbers will not find a way to get to you.”
    via — http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-versions-and-translations/the-gospel-of-thomas-114-sayings-of-jesus/
    *****
    THERE ARE MORE THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, HORATIO,
    THAN ARE DREAMT OF IN OUR PHILOSOPHY. — Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

  19. Kepha says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 10:51 pm

    With all due respect, since Mr. Kilpatrick says there’s no market for a faith that doesn’t have faith in itself, I find some of his statements a bit too liberal.

    Jesus didn’t survive mocking. Your mocking and mine, that of the crowd and Sanhedrin, that of Pilate and the soldiers, that of the thieves crucified on either side of him, sent him to his death on the cross. However, his vindication did not come in his disciples killing and destroying his enemies, but in Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead three days later.

    Perhaps the Bible is not a word-for-word dictation from God. But it is his word, and infallible in what it intends to teach us. It is inspired (breathed by the Holy Spirit) and hence profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and the equipping of the saints (III Tim. 3:16). It is a lamp to our feet. (Ps. 119:105). No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation, but holy men spoke as the Holy spirit moved them (II Peter 1:20-21). If Gen, 3, Mt. 4, and Lk. 4 give us the very words of Satan in the temptation of Eve and in the temptation of Jesus Christ, these words of our enemy are preserved by God for our instruction. As for the “begats”, God the Holy Ghost wants us to know that he is concerned for individual people, and that God calls out his people by name. Indeed, one Christmas, a listener was moved to conversion when the preacher did something different and preached on Matthew One (the “begats”). The hearer understood that the Word of God became flesh in Jesus Christ to save a world of covenant breakers, incestuous fathers-in-law, timid men ready to sell their wives, kings derelict in their duty, and fallen women–in short, the sinless one was not ashamed to name as brethren the sinners like himself whom he came to save.

    C.S. Lewis once said we need to “rebunk” certain things (the opposite of “debunk”, I guess). For example, we shouldn’t be so supine before so called “scientific criticism” of the Scriptural text, itself an ediface built on F. C. Baur’s attempt to account for the Gospels being produced via a long process of Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis and Wellhausen’s barely disguised anti-Semitism in supposing that the Jews couldn’t have written anything worthwhile until civilized by the Babylonians.

    It’s bad enough that a Pope who adheres to liberation theology throws gratuitous comments about supposed moral equivalence between Christian and Muslim “fundamentalists” to win the praise of his cultured despisers (who remain cultured Despisers). Id Jesus himself said “Scripture cannot be broken” (Jn. 10:35), I will remain happy to be counted among the “fundamentalists” and will bear the the insults thrown at me by that pretentious Argentine-cum-Italian-prince.

  20. gfmucci says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:06 pm

    Ralph Sidway, you don’t get it yet, do you…

    “…Fr. Daniel Sysoev, killed in his church in November 2009 by a Muslim extremist.”

    You just need to say he was a Muslim, period. He did was orthodox Islam teaches. He was a devout, dedicated Muslim. He was not extreme in the context of what Islam promotes.

    • voegelinian says

      Jun 6, 2015 at 3:12 pm

      Good catch. These guest essayists on Jihad Watch invariably evince asymptotic tics, reflexes, spasms, coughs, or sniffles like this cacophemism (“Muslim extremist”).

      Glossary

      asymptotic — “the asymptotic analyst is a critic of Islam, but for one reason or another refuses to connect all the dots that would lead him to the logical conclusions of holistic analysis”

      holistic — “the position that affirms that Islam as a whole is the problem, and that all Muslims enable that problem; and that because we cannot sufficiently distinguish the harmless Muslims (who are granted to exist but are not sufficiently identifiable) from the dangerous Muslims, we must treat all Muslims as dangerous”

      the problem — “That Islam is evil, pernicious, and deadly, because it mandates unending and unlimited warfare against all Mankind with the goal of forcing non-Muslims to submit to Muslim rule and/or exterminating all who resist this imperialism. This war Muslims are waging is deployed in myriad ways, involving various forms of tactical violence as well as a parallel track of various forms of taqiyya deception).”

      the problem of the problem — “The West remains myopic to the problem.”

      the problem of the problem of the problem — “The Counter-Jihad remains disorganized, and one important feature of that lack of organization in its platform of ideas (still only implicit because of lack of concerted organization), whose exposition continues to manifest an incoherent tension between a soft asymptotic approach (see “asymptotic” above), on the one hand, and a vague conspiracy theory with apocalyptic overtones, on the other. I.e., the Counter-Jihad continues to chug along as an odd mélange of too soft and too hard, with no coherent, reasonable center – sort of like a frozen dessert that’s all mushy inside: Half-Baked Alaska.

      More on “asymptotic”:

      http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2008/04/our-asymptotic-analysts.html

      • voegelinian says

        Jun 6, 2015 at 3:17 pm

        I lost control of the html codes and went boldly where many men have gone before…

        I also neglected to add one more definition to my Glossary:

        cacophemism — basically the opposite of a “euphemism” — a cacophemism is a term to highlight a deleterious distinction in order to distinguish from a supposedly benign norm: thus the “extremist” in the phrase “Muslim extremist” creates a category safe to condemn — and thus by obvious implication protects all the Muslims Who Just Wanna Have s Sandwich (in Ben Affleck’s immortally asinine words) from any substantive criticism (let alone the condemnation they so richly deserve).

        Further Reading:

        Another asymptotic cacophemism to add to the “-ist” list

        http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-asymptotic-cacophemism-to-add.html

  21. Wellington says

    Jun 5, 2015 at 11:54 pm

    Mohammed is the anti-Jesus. No Christian should respect him. A Christian can respect Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tzu, what can be found in Zoroastrianism courtesy presumably of Zoroaster, certainly what Jewish rabbis have to say about existence and transcendent reality, but for a Christian to respect Mohammed and Islam is dispositive of an ignorance so profound and a foolhardiness so disturbing that such a Christian betrays their own faith. I see no other way here.

  22. Nicolai Sennels says

    Jun 6, 2015 at 10:50 am

    Also see this JW article: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/07/the-sad-sad-lack-of-solidarity-among-christians

  23. Charles Martel says

    Jun 6, 2015 at 1:14 pm

    Another great source is I.Q. Al- Rassooli’s book, “Lifting the Veil”, and the audio version at The Koran Blog-Spot.

    Ex..,” The Quran is Muhammed’s own alter ego”, “Muhammaden Islam is not a religion but only a cult”, “There is not a single new practical precept, concept, thought, or idea in the whole of the Quran that had not been plagiarized, pirated, plundered and perverted from the scriptures of the Jews, the Christians, the Zoroastrians, the pagan Arabs, their traditions and their fetishes.”

    “The only new items in the Quran are the enormous number of hatemongering, war mongering, racist, torture and hellish verses that permeate most of its pages.”

    I think that not only does the Catholic clergy and Christians, in general, have to be made aware of political Islam, but the secular progressives who control the WH, the media and academia need to be educated maybe even more so. It’s hared to believe they can be that clueless, with the rare exception of Bill Maher, (who’d a thunk it?), or are deliberately in the Islamist camp because they are anti-Western and anti-American in their twisted thinking.

  24. Jim Fuscaldo says

    Jun 6, 2015 at 10:02 pm

    What Catholics need today is a Pope similar to Pope Urban II who called for The First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095. Unlike the warring Crusades of history, today’s call should be a call for an intellectual Crusade, where the religious first educate themselves, and then educate their followers and parishioners from the pulpit if necessary, on the socio-politico- religious ideology behind Islamic Supremacism. Islamic supremacism is preached in the Mosques. It must be openly rebutted in all Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. Clergy should begin by reading to their congregations Pope Urban’s “Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095” reprinted at Medieval Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-fulcher.html.

  25. Paul Mugerwa says

    Jun 7, 2015 at 9:51 pm

    I think that the statement devised by Vatican II concerning non-catholics, especially Muslims is true – LG (Lumen Gentium) 839 – 841. 841
    “The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”330

    One has to base his / her argument on the short phrase “these profess to hold the faith of Abraham.” Jews, Christians and Muslims share a similar notion that Abraham is the great grandfather of their faith. So the question should be; who is / was the God of Abraham?

    By linking Abraham to God, all of us profess to worship, the Church was and is trying to establish a common ground to serve as a springboard from which to draw all to God ( in other words to evangelize), through of course Jesus Christ. Basically, if one has to conduct an effective argument or discussion, establishing a common ground is crucial, otherwise the dialogue cannot take off.

    The only lingering obstacle is the fundamental difference the three religious groups hold. That is – the definition of who the real GOD OF ABRAHAM IS. A Trinity or Not?

    Paul

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