Today, as usual, I visited Speakers Corner. I bumped into my old friend (cough, cough) Lizzie, one of Jay Smith’s most devoted disciples. I asked what she and Jay would be talking about: Manchester and the Trinity. I immediately invited her to debate me there and then on the core Christian doctrine of the Trinitarian God. I could tell she was not keen, and said she would think about it (ie no!).

This brush off gave me an idea: I asked a brother with a camera to follow me around Speakers Corner to film me as I asked the Christian speakers for a debate. I approached Jay Smith who had just arrived. Would he debate me on the Trinity? No, he said. But why? He never debates the Trinity, he said. But you are a paid Christian missionary and you will not defend the central doctrine of Christianity in debate with a Muslim, I replied. Then he said twice: “Who are you?” “who are you?” implying I am a nobody and therefore why should he debate me?  (That was not an issue for the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, when he and I had a dialogue at the University of Cambridge on the person of Jesus).

So on I went with my cameraman in tow..

I approached several other known associates of Jay Smith but they all said no. Lastly I spoke to the diminutive figure of Hatun, one of the most fanatical Stormtroopers from Jay Smith’s Pfander ministry. She agreed! We had 3 minutes each. I started, and presented various proofs from the Bible that made it impossible to believe that Jesus was God (he denied he was God in Mark 10 for example).

Hatun’s argument? She spoke about Muhammad, his “sex life” and verses in the Qur’an. She mentioned the terror attack in Manchester. She did not mention the Trinity.

I hope my fruitless search for a debate with a Christian at Speakers Corner will be uploaded shortly. I’ll post it here when it is inshallah.

Categories: Christianity, Debates, London, Missionaries, Speakers Corner