A Christian missionary called Lizzie was talking about the Pakistani Valentines Day ban which has been reported in British news outlets recently.
She seems to be encouraging Pakistanis to celebrate Valentines Day. Lizzie begins by writing:
Don’t you love 14th February? The cheesy commercialism, the overpriced meals, the vast teddy bears exchanged by teenagers and re-patriated to the charity shop by the end of the week? I know, I’m such a romantic! In my house, you might get a homemade card and a nice gesture, like taking the rubbish out. Here’s the thing though: if you want to buy a dozen red roses and waste helium on a heart balloon, be my guest. You’re not prohibited from doing so. Unless… you live in Islamabad.
What else are these boys and girls buying aside from teddies and roses? Condoms. Condom sales increase around Valentines Day. Why do you think that is, Lizzie? You don’t get a prize for guessing correctly, and nope, they aren’t buying them because the balloons have sold out!
For those unaware, the modern phenomenon of Valentines Day is not some harmless, fun day where teenagers exchange cuddly toys.
It’s a day where society effectively encourages lust (well in the UK it is at least!). It encourages people to forget about sexual purity. To forget about the Islamic principle of modesty and lowering one’s gaze. To forget about the Matthew 5’s teaching of it being adultery to look at a woman lustfully.
Lizzie, the Christian missionary, goes on to encourage Pakistanis and others to get involved in Valentines Day (maybe she runs a stall selling Valentine Day cards or something!):
.. to all my readers, but especially in Islamabad – if I have any, I’d love to hear from you – Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope that this ban is widely ignored, and that you stay safe if you choose to defy it. And if you’re not in Islamabad – let’s not take our freedom to celebrate days like these for granted, however fluffy and pointless they might seem to us.
The question here is why is a British Christian woman promoting Valentines Day? She surely knows, through experiencing life in the UK, that Valentines Day comes rife with elements that are antithetical to religious values.
Well, considering the ban has popular support amongst the natives over there in Pakistan it seems even more strange for Lizzie to be encouraging the flaunting of the ban – over 80% of those polled agreed with Islamabad’s High Court ban on Valentines Day.
Why would a Christian missionary want to see societies that are purer sexually than ours become marred with the same problems that come with Valentines Day? Does the Bible not matter to these people anymore, is it more about cultural imperialism than religious values?
Has Lizzie, the Christian missionary forgot this verse is in the New Testament:
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
But there’s more. More in elephantine proportions. The elephant in the room.
Why do you think people in other cultures are against Valentines Day? It’s because they are against the enticement to have sex-before-marriage. That’s the unpleasant baggage that comes with a society celebrating VD on mass. This Hindu spokesman for a group in India opposing Valentines Day says it as it is – premarital relations are the issue:
“If you are in love, you should get married,” said Ashok Sharma, vice president of Hindu Mahasabha, a conservative Hindu religious organization with branches across the country. “Roaming around in public without marriage does not fit in Indian culture. If we find such young couples, we will get them married off.” [Source]
Saudi Arabia, India and Indonesia (all countries which have been in the press for opposition to Valentines Day) have the lowest rates of children born out of wedlock (1% or less).
Now compare that to the Britain where it was reported in 2013 that over 50% of all babies will be born out of wedlock in less than 5 years time. That’s the “Christian” country of Britain. Yet you have British Christians telling Pakistanis that they should be celebrating Valentines Day in their country. Weird!
It gets odder still. The countries with the highest rates of children born out of wedlock are historically Christian countries:
The highest rates of non-marital childbearing occur in Latin America (55–74 percent). The only other countries to share these high rates are South Africa (59 percent) and Sweden (55 percent). The range within Europe is huge: from 18 percent (Italy) to 55 percent (Sweden). Those in North America and Oceania are also high and rising, though New Zealand (47 percent) and the United States (41 percent) stand out, with more than four out of ten births outside of marriage in these two countries. [Source]
Notice which countries have the highest rates of children born out wedlock? “CHRISTIAN” countries!.
I’d seriously encourage Hindus and Muslims in the East to carry on with the pushback against Valentines Day regardless of criticism from Christians and the press in the West. The fact is, they all know your societies are sexually purer and we are living in guilt and sin as our society has downgraded marriage and mocks sexual purity. We’re all suffering the consequences of our society’s failings and our weaknesses.
And let’s talk about abortion. Inevitably all this sex outside marriage is going to have an impact on the abortion figures. I’m not going to be simplistic or insensitive here (Christian missionaries take note!), there are a number of reasons why women choose to have abortions however a lady is 17% more likely to have an abortion if she is not married.
We see some evangelical Christians posting memes on Facebook about abortion but if you really want to make inroads on the fight against abortion you should preach against sex-before-marriage.
Every year 200,000 Bible-believing Christian women have abortions. There’s going to be a number of reasons for these women making the decisions they do but if about 20% of these ladies are having abortions because they aren’t married then that is about 40,000 American Christian women annually having abortions simply because of the sexually impure culture we live in in the West.
Given the total number of abortions each year in the US is over a million that means the figure of ladies simply aborting their child due to them getting pregnant out of wedlock is 200,000. 200,000 American babies aborted simply because of sex outside of marriage!
In England and Wales, based on the 2014 figure of 185,824 abortions, that would mean more than 30,000 babies are aborted simply because of sex outside of marriage every year.
Now you do the maths for every “Christian” country in the West and its abortion figures based simply on getting pregnant outside of marriage.
Christian missionaries can try to mix Western cultural imperialism with evangelicalism but smart people will be able to spot it a mile off.
Western Christian missionaries really need to stop wasting their lives preaching what would be deemed immorality to people in sexually purer societies on the other side of the world. Lizzie, and other evangelicals, should be inviting those Pakistanis, Saudis, Indonesians and Indians over here to help improve “Christian” society!
Christians believe they have the Holy Spirit working on Christians.The theological problem for Lizzie and her Christian missionary colleagues who try to convert Muslims and others to the ideology of Trinitarian Christianity is that these statistics prove to be a demonstration of the fact the Christians don’t have the Holy Spirit guiding their societies. Why is it that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and pretty much every other religious community can behave better sexually than Christians who claim to have the Holy Spirit?
And considering a growing number of evangelical Christians are taking to the anti-Muslim propaganda game why is it that Muslims having the least sex outside of marriage according to this survey?
Categories: Islam
Blogging Theology 
Apologies for the formatting issues. Have edited it. I think I’ve managed to make it a lot more readable now. Transferring text over from Blogspot isn’t liked by WordPress evidently.
Here’s Lizzie’s post in full. Her comments on Britain being a “Christian” country and her championing of a separation of state and faith is all quite standard fare nowadays amongst Christians but more recent stats on the UK’s religious makeup indicates Christians aren’t in the majority (the Nones are). As for the idea of separating state and faith, it hasn;t worked for Christian countries considering the decline in numbers of churches and the declined in sexual morality highlighted in this post so Lizzie is championing a facet of “Christianity” that is contributing to the downfall of Christians morally and Christianity as an influence on society.
Not entirely sure why Christians can’t see this.
Here’s Lizzie’s blog:
Don’t you love 14th February? The cheesy commercialism, the overpriced meals, the vast teddy bears exchanged by teenagers and re-patriated to the charity shop by the end of the week? I know, I’m such a romantic! In my house, you might get a homemade card and a nice gesture, like taking the rubbish out.
Here’s the thing though: if you want to buy a dozen red roses and waste helium on a heart balloon, be my guest. You’re not prohibited from doing so. Unless… you live in Islamabad.
Following a private petition from religious conservatives, the High Court in Islamabad has banned all Valentine’s Day festivities in public spaces with immediate effect. “Valentine’s Day has no connection with our culture,” said Prime Minister Mamnoon Hussain, who urged young people to “always maintain their religious and national identity.” Jamaat-e-Islami, one of Pakistan’s biggest Islamist parties, is calling on people to celebrate “Modest Day” instead, seeing Valentine’s Day as a Christian import promoting sexual immorality.
I live in a historically Christian country, with a practising Christian Queen. A majority of people – 59.3% according to the 2011 census – describe themselves as ‘Christian’ with ‘no religion’ coming second at 25%. Do we have a duty to protect our ‘religious and national [Christian] identity’? Should Teresa May be banning public celebrations of Eid or Diwali or Chinese New Year to protect the sensibilities of Christians? Of course not.
Why? Because in Matthew 22 when Jesus says “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” he separates church and state. Nor did Jesus start a political party with the aim of overthrowing the tyrannical Roman occupiers. Instead he tells Pilate that his kingdom was “not of this world” (John 18:33). He points repeatedly to the “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven”, rather than an earthly kingdom.
In its history, Christianity has never been bound by borders or confined to one political system. Nor is it dependent on a Christian government or a majority Christian populace for its survival; if anything, it thrives under persecution. Just look at the church in Iran. Jesus’ disciples were also a community of the willing; he never coerced anyone into following Him. Hence why so many historically Christian countries have so many freedoms.
What does the Qur’an teach about Islam and the State? In Islam, religion and the establishment of a political state are intertwined. Sura 24:55 is often referred to as the caliphate verse:
“God has promised those of you who have attained to faith and do righteous deeds that, of a certainty, He will make them Khulifa on earth, even as He caused [some of] those who lived before them to become Khulifa; and that, of a certainty, He will firmly establish for them the religion which He has been pleased to bestow on them; and that, of a certainty, He will cause their erstwhile state of fear to be replaced by a sense of security [seeing that] they worship Me [alone], not ascribing divine powers to aught beside Me. But all who, after [having understood] this, choose to deny the truth – it is they, they who are truly iniquitous!”
Khulifa is translated variously as “successors” and “those who accede to power.” But notice where Allah will bring the caliphate – on earth. It will be a place of ‘security’ for those of ‘faith’ [Muslims] who ‘do righteous deeds.’ Not only that, but Allah will ensure that “they worship Me, not ascribing divine powers to aught beside Me.” So according to the Qur’an, any unIslamic celebration isn’t just an exercise of individual choice, but idolatry which hinders Allah’s kingdom on earth. This is why Pakistan’s religious conservatives are angered. Even though its constitution guarantees freedom of religion, Khawaja Nazimuddin, the 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan, stated:
“I do not agree that religion is a private affair of the individual nor do I agree that in an Islamic state every citizen has identical rights, no matter what his caste, creed or faith be.”
In other words, Islam must dominate. In Pakistan, religious minorities are routinely discriminated against.
In its defence, at least you can publicly celebrate Christmas and Easter in Pakistan. Which other Islamic countries allow the public celebration of non-Islamic festivals? Not Afghanistan, Somalia, Brunei, Tajikistan or Saudi Arabia anyway.
So, to all my readers, but especially in Islamabad – if I have any, I’d love to hear from you – Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope that this ban is widely ignored, and that you stay safe if you choose to defy it. And if you’re not in Islamabad – let’s not take our freedom to celebrate days like these for granted, however fluffy and pointless they might seem to us.
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In today’s world,if you don’t party,drink alcohol,have sex outside of wedlock,dress half naked,you are called backwards and narrow minded.
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Christians are evil!!!
Arab Christians should not have any future. They are a foreign body in Muslim lands.
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And you Rider are a total nutter. Any more comments like this will be deleted on sight.
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That’s a bit like calling the Sioux a foreign body on North America’s Great Plains… exactly which drugs are you on (or have you forgotten to take)?
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Abu Talhah, I am talking about today’s Middle-Eastern Christians. They are a foreign body because they identify with Western ideologies and ways of life that have nothing to do with Christianity. Their thinking goes like this: Westerners are Christians. We are Christians. So we will do exactly what the Westerners do since this must be Christian.
These people have nothing to do with the traditional Oriental Christians who were tolerated over the last centuries under Muslim rule.
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Where is Lizzy’s blog and where does it say she is a missionary? All your links to other things written by other people other than Lizzy.
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Oh, ok, I googled her, and I see that she debates Muslims at Speaker’s corner in England. I had not payed attention before to those. She may be an evangelist, but she is not a missionary. A missionary, in the more technical sense is someone who is sent out to another culture and learns another language and culture in their lands to be with the people and talk to them. Usually we distinguish between “evangelist” and “missionary” as “evangelist” for one’s own culture/land and “missionary” as those sent out by a church to another land and culture.
A lot of your points are true about how secular and promiscuous western cultures have become, but there is a difference between a culture that was once generally Christian that has drifted from its Christian roots and ethics vs. a truly born again individual. There are lots of churches today that are false churches and do not even hold to the faith anymore. There is a lot of apostasy and nominalism in the west.
The meme is not accurate since it is comparing the individual vs. the corporate culture. Some in the church have committed those sins, yes; but the whole culture has changed more because more and more are not truly born again and there is lots of apostasy and nominalism – a lot of that has its roots in the liberal theology, higher criticism, and Darwinian Evolution that has destroyed the faith of many in the last 100 + years. Paul Williams likes the higher criticism and liberal theology – they are destructive to faith. But true believers need not be afraid of it. But I do have a friend who went off and studied under Bart Ehrman and it destroyed his faith. But he struggled with orthodox doctrines before that, so the cracks were already there.
But all of those problems are problems in the west that unfortunately, comes with both freedom and nominalism and apostasy.
“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith . . . ”
1 Timothy 4:1
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Ken use Google. They block Muslims and never link to Muslim material. I normally link to material I am responding to unless there’s a specific reason. In the case of Pfander Films they are all about censorship on social media so they can hide responses and refutations that scupper their polemics or hinder their PR. That’s not an attack on Lizzie who probably has no say in the way Pfander Centre for Apologetics operates – Lizzie seems like she’s more willing to to acknowledge responses than the Smith and Grove.
She is a missionary in the sense that she goes out to try and convert people into believing in a Trinitarian view of Jesus (the view that teaches Jesus ordered the killing of babies and allowed slave women to be beaten amongst other things). She’s not a missionary like you who goes out abroad. BTW from my research I’ve come to learn, an open secret in Christian evangelical circles, Christian men aren’t interested in missionary work so I would ask you why you chose that as your career?
She works for Jay Smith’s and Beth Grove’s Pfander Centre. Not entirely sure if she is a paid member of staff or simply a volunteer. She does what Beth Grove used to do a year or two ago . That’s finding Muslims in Hyde Park (Speakers Corner) willing to entertain an argument with her whilst she rattles off the polemics Smith or whoever preached to her in the morning at their private pre-Speakers Corners get together. They all seem to say the same things and speak in the same condescending and rude manner to Muslims as well. Smith’s Pfander seems quite cult-like.
I’m confident the majority of people not linked to Smith’s group see their polemics and approach as embarrassing. An American pensioner and 4 middle aged women all making a spectacle out of themselves in front of tourists and day trippers.
What were we saying about Christian blokes not being interested in becoming missionaries? I think your average Christian guy will look at that and just think no thanks. I am confident if I showed some of the footage on the net of Smith and his cohorts to guys at the church local to me they’d be embarrassed. Embarrassed by them and for them.
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I agree with your points on nominalism. I think their are a number of churches that aren’t sincere and a number of “evangelical” folks who are preaching rhetoric and slogans that aren’t Bibilca I think Smith is what a Bible believing Christian would call a false teacher, his premises are secular. From what I’ve seen of Smith’s cult is essentially secularism with a call to believe a Middle Eastern man died for their sins. Making racket about Muslims and Islam brings in more money than going out and preaching to everybody anybody trying to get them to believe in the Bible and Christianity as a whole.
However, regardless of insincere churches, nominalism and false teachers in the West surely you find it theologically troublesome to see countries where Christians are the majority yet they happen to be the worst behaved sexually. Other faith countries will have nominalism with respect to their faith be it Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism or Islam yet all these other countries are better behaved sexually than Christian countries.
The stats don’t lie. i appreciate the fact you admit this.
But think about why is it that you as a Christian struggle more than Non Christians to avoid sin despite your belief the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you. Couple that with all the other people of different faiths who are clearly doing a better job than Christians at avoiding sexual sin. They are doing it without the Holy Spirit according to your ideology.
Is your belief concerning the Holy Spirit a false teaching?
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Another problem in the western Christian culture over the last 100-50 years or so, was and is the revivalism or “easy believe-ism” or “altar calls” or “by coming forward or raising your hand and repeating the sinner’s prayer, that makes you a Christian or causes you to be born again”. Doing those things does not cause the new birth. Also, many Christian groups believe that getting baptized as a baby causes the new birth. (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and many in liberal and nominal Protestant churches like most Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans also get the idea that baptism causes one to be born again.) This is wrong.
Only God can actually cause the new birth on the inside, by His sovereign grace, as one hears and understands the gospel, and if one repents and trusts in Christ, the repentance and faith are evidences that the Lord has opened the heart and broken through and has taken away the heart of stone and given a new heart. (Acts 16:14, John 6:44; Ezekiel 36:26-27)
Even Billy Graham admitted that only about 10% (or maybe it was 20%, I cannot remember) of those who “came forward and made a decision for Christ” at his evangelistic preaching events, only about 10% (or 20 %) continue to grow and persevere and are in a healthy church and growing in their spiritual life.
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Ken, yeah I read RC Sproul saying the same thing. Something like 90% of those who “convert” at events at mega-churches leave the church.
I’m wondering if you can recommend a book, lecture or an article on this “easy believe-ism” ( I like that term – really captures what I’m seeing in a lot of evangelical theories including that of Jay Smith’s).
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Few Christians become missionaries because it is hard work – one has to surrender all to go to another culture, learn another language and be with the people and stay in it long enough to really understand and speak their heart language in order to communicate well, in a loving way. (and we have seen here the examples of those who do not seem to have love in their hearts, but do have a lot of sinful pride and sinful anger – a very bad witness; and the opposite of what Christ commands.)
One also needs to be truly called by God to do such a thing, and confirmed and approved of and sent out by a local church – see Acts 13:1-4. That means accountability to a local church with elders/overseers/pastors. It takes a lot of time and surrender; and trusting in God to provide.
Bottom line is that Christ commanded missionary work. (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:8; Romans 15:20-21) But not all are called to do it.
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Ken, if you don’t mind but why do Christians travel to other countries and go through the process of learning the language etc. Just to preach Christianity when they could train up native Christians.
So why not let the Taiwanese, Indonesian, Ghanaian and Egyptian Christians preach to their fellow countrymen. Why send foreigners from the West? I’m really trying to understand he workings and the mentality of missionary orgs so if you have some thoughts on this I’d be interested.
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On the analysis of the “easy believe-ism” movement, I recommend 2 books by John MacArthur:
1. The Gospel According to Jesus
2. The Gospel According to the apostles
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Thank you Ken. I follow john MacArthur. He is a sincere Christian. I have learnt a lot about Christian theology from his colleague RC.
I know MacArthur has students in London who have set up a church.
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You are welcome. Keep reading R.C. Sproul also – good material.
http://www.ligonier.org/
Those are 3 good examples – John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, and John Piper.
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I really appreciate your comments here. I am curious, what are the qualities that John MacArthur displays that demonstrate to you that he is a sincere Christian? I think I know, but I would love to see you express them out in written form. It would also be a good lesson for other Christians who come here and debate.
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Since John MacArthur belongs to the literal inerrancy camp i disagree with him as far as that is concerned.
However as a preacher and teacher of evangelical theology he is without a doubt one of the best out there. Just like Yahya i too have learned so much about how evangelicals understand certain passages and doctrines of christianity.
I too agree he is a very sincere christian. It is clear he has passion for God and Jesus’s teachings. Very humble also.
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This is also a good article on the issue by John Piper:
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/letter-to-a-friend-concerning-the-so-called-lordship-salvation
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So why not let the Taiwanese, Indonesian, Ghanaian and Egyptian Christians preach to their fellow countrymen. Why send foreigners from the West? I’m really trying to understand he workings and the mentality of missionary orgs so if you have some thoughts on this I’d be interested.
True churches in those areas/ cultures are already doing that. And a lot of that kind of training also exists. It is not “either-or” but “both-and”. Sometimes, there are some areas that have no one in that culture or people group that is already a believer, and many times, there are no believers among some people groups or areas, and no others willing to go into the hard areas where no one is doing the work (see Romans 15:20-21) and they places were there are not yet any believers; and then other times, training nationals in the west many times takes them out of their culture and they get tempted to become western and have a living standard a lot higher than if they staying in their culture. And other times, the churches in persecuted areas do have the resources to send out missionaries.
But, both kinds of missionary work exist. Many Koreans and Latino Evangelicals are missionaries today, and many organizations are training Latin American Evangelicals, etc. to go to other cultures. Indians and Filipinos also doing that in their own culture; but few are going to a totally new unreached culture.
I went to Egypt in 1986 (just for 2 weeks) and met some of the Evangelical Christians (whose ancestors were from the Orthodox Coptic Church) who were doing good work. But they were persecuted by the Muslim majority – they are considered Dhimmis (even if not official, it is still a historical mind-set for centuries in the Muslim world that does not allow evangelism or conversion – you know that – the law of apostasy applies even if not official – people loose their jobs, family, and ability to go to college or even buy food in some areas when it is suspected they have become Christians) and not allowed to do evangelism to Muslims, but they do it anyway in small humble ways of friendships and discussions.
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oops typo.
And other times, the churches in persecuted areas do NOT have the resources to send out missionaries.
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However, regardless of insincere churches, nominalism and false teachers in the West surely you find it theologically troublesome to see countries where Christians are the majority yet they happen to be the worst behaved sexually. Other faith countries will have nominalism with respect to their faith be it Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism or Islam yet all these other countries are better behaved sexually than Christian countries.
Sexual sins in the west are more out in the open and in the public media, billboards, hollywood movies, cable TV, etc. because for the past 60 years or so, there has been a breaking down of shame for those things. At least in the other cultures you name, even if they are nominal, they are still shameful things (like homosexuality, pre-marital sex, promiscuous dressing, adultery). Unfortunately, in the west, there is a lack of shame for those sins and so they are more publicly talked about. Those sins are going on all the time in secret in those other societies, but they are kept secret because of shame.
The stats don’t lie. i appreciate the fact you admit this.
Promiscuity, immodest dress, adulteries, homosexuality, etc. – it is more out in the open in the west. We Christians are ashamed of these aspects of our over-all culture.
But think about why is it that you as a Christian struggle more than Non Christians to avoid sin despite your belief the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you. Couple that with all the other people of different faiths who are clearly doing a better job than Christians at avoiding sexual sin. They are doing it without the Holy Spirit according to your ideology.
Is your belief concerning the Holy Spirit a false teaching?
No; not at all. If the next generation of people grow up not knowing the Lord, and the nominalism, secularism, atheism, higher critical / liberal theology that Paul Williams loves, if all that keeps growing in the west, that means those folks do not have the Holy Spirit within them.
There is a lot of secret sin going on in those cultures that you don’t know about. The difference is the concept of public shame.
The evidence of the Holy Spirit is a changed life. If someone’s life is not changed, it means they don’t have the Holy Spirit.
I just checked John MacArthur’s web-site,
http://www.gty.org
and he is right now teaching on this issue that it is possible to claim one is a Christian and think they are a Christian, but not really be one – From Matthew 7:21-23 – the sermon is entitled “Empty Words”.
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Yahya Snow – are you an Englishman / Brit, who converted to Islam, like Paul Williams?
If so, you should already know a lot of these things about the west and the last 60 years or so and the sexual revolution, rock and roll, etc.
John and Yoko Lennon were a big watershed moment when they did their “bed in” (peace and make love, not war, and held press conferences in their bed; and posed full frontal naked on one of their albums ( “Two Virgins” – 1968 or 1969).
Very bad and shameful and everything’s been getting worse since then. Without the fame and popularity and money that Lennon already built up with the Beatles, he would not have been able to do that.
But these things were going on in secret ever since Adam and Eve, (see Genesis 6:5), they are just more out in the open now in the west. Unfortunately.
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“is essentially secularism with a call to believe a Middle Eastern man died for their sins”
It should be written by the golden water as we say in Arabic.
I mean Jay said openly that the bible is not the word of god in his last debate with Dr. Shabir Ally.
I can’t feel that he is a truthful man. I feel that he just wants to harass muslims.
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Jay Smith’s statement about the Bible “not being The Word of God, but is a word of God” (in that last debate with Shabir Ally) was confusing and weird, but I think there is also a lot of mis-understanding on what he actually meant; and a lot of lack of accuracy, etc. and deep theological training on his part. He is a Mennonite, so there are probably lots of things that we disagree on.
I think he meant the paper and ink of his specific Bible and Bibles are copies/ records of the Word of God, but the Word of God exists as the content and message that has been put into writing many times and in many languages.
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As I recall he said “the bible is not the word of god, but we have Jesus”
Even I remember that Dr Ally was wondering what left to debate about after that statement ?!
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@Ken
I’m sorry about the late response. I got busy with video-work and other stuff. I wanted to do a long response to your question on why I feel John MacArthur is more sincere than the type of Christians Muslims are encountering online and in places like Speakers Corner.
As I write, I’m waiting for a video to save. Busy with editing and then out in couple of hours.
In brief, I feel JM:
1. Would not use inconsistent arguments or slogans when talking with Muslim. They will not be inconsistent with his own faith. Many Christians, as you know, argue like “Oh Prophet Muhammad can’t be a Prophet because he had more than one wife or was in wars etc”. I am confident JM knows this line of argument backfires against the Bible and a true Bible-believer who knows his/her Bible would not argue like that.
2. I think JM would not fall into the stench of political propaganda evangelism. I’m not sure if you folks have a term for it but it’s basically how Christians like David Wood misuse current affairs and attack Islam and Muslims. So some crazy Muslim shoots up a bar and Wood is on it like a flash not caring about the victims (actually misusing their suffering for his own cause). The agenda is a mix of political and evangelical work – it feeds the “patriots” who are right wing and don’t really care about faith but are more into race and nationalism and it also feeds the right wing evangelicals who need a bogeyman to feed their persecution and siege mentality. It’s an appeal tothe lowest common denominator. A lot of Muslims find this particularly vexing and probably have never tried to articulate it in words but I’m pretty sure many Muslims will understand where I’m coming from – others will be able to put it much more succinctly than my rushed rambling job.
3. I think JM will seriously try to avoid becoming the central finger in the dialogue. He will try to make his faith and the Bible what the Muslim should look at rather than this vulgar look at me, I want attention stuff folks like Wood, Shamoun and Smith do. You’ve seen their antics. How can anybody look beyond Shamoun;s wild insults and obnoxious behaviour? How can anybody look beyond Wood’s dress and his mockery? And Smith’s loud condescending attitude like he’s speaking to some 5 yr old? Trust me, nobody is looking at Christianity when those folks like that are abound. They make themselves the centre piece. As a result of this many Muslims become increasingly polemical against Christianity. Just look at YouTube, FB and other platforms and see the number of young Muslims opening up platforms to get stuck in. I’d imagine a number of Christians have given up their faith and/or become weaker in their faith as a result of this.
4. JM would not use secular premises in his arguments. He would use Biblical premises.
5. JM would call out Christians who are, in his eyes, obstacles to people becoming Muslims. I can tell you it took decades for a public Christian figure to rebuke Shamoun. This public rebuke only came after Shamoun started attacking that Christian’s minsitry and trying to close it down. That to me smacks of insincerity to varying degress on the part of all the Christians out there – it’s a hint that for these folks it’s not about their faith but about them.Sure some may have said something privately but hey, if you say the same thing for decades in private why wasn’t it said in public sooner as clearly Shamun was in no mood to listen.
6. JM is not a Westernised Christian. A baby, wimpy “oh Jesus loves eveyone” type of guy. Dr Joseph Shaw talks about feminisation of young males in churches as they get emasculated. I bet that doesn’t happen to any guy at his Grace Community Church.
I could rattle a few others off in this rambling session. I’m in a rush. I hope this helps.
Have a good weekend.
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