Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Live from Columbia International University: Should We Fear Muslims?:
So we we got together this morning and thought, is there some overarching themes in all of these questions that we could kind of place them into? But as we were doing that, we were both really encouraged by something. And discouraged. I was encouraged by of the of the the situation happened. Well, no.
Before that, of the 90 questions that were asked, all 90 have been addressed in the Truth About Muslims podcast at some point or another. It’s for the 23 episodes, and so we were really encouraged by at least we’re addressing questions that people have in the podcast, but we were a little bit discouraged, and then as we were preparing what we were gonna how we were gonna categorize these 90 questions, something strange and unusual happened at the DRIP this morning. Not unusual for Trevor. Apparently, this kind of stuff happens to Muslims. It really does.
It’s bizarre, But a Muslim interjected into our conversation. So we’re sitting there, we’re having a conversation about a particular edict that Mohammed had supposedly sent out about, a monastery, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, and protection that should be provided for the monks. And so there’s this document. Some say it’s, you know, made up. Some say that it’s true.
But, nevertheless, Mohammed supposedly had written a document saying that Muslims were to protect the monks in Saint Catherine’s Monastery and that, no Christian woman should be forced to marry a Muslim man unless it’s of her own free will. And we were just kinda discussing this document and whether and how we would address that question because it’s a really good question. Because at the end, it says that Muslims should do this until the end of time. And as we’re discussing it Right. So then that we look across and this woman is speaking to us.
And she’s, like, an, you know, like an average, you know, she’s obviously intelligent, maybe, like, thirties or something like that, and she’s, like, can I can I say something? And I’m, like, sure. Like, we just had our own coffee. I had no clue where this lady was going. She literally said, can I join interject into this conversation?
And and my my first my my first thought is, like, well, who are you? You know, like, what what do you know? Right? And so she’s My first thought was this is a lady that’s offended that we’re talking positively about Muslims, and she’s about to tell us what we don’t know about Islam. And and then she says this, like, you know, I I wasn’t really paying attention what she actually said, but she said something intelligent.
It seemed intelligent. It seemed intelligent. Nice. Nice. And then I’m like, do you have a degree in this?
Oh, she asked about the document. She actually said, I could explain that, and she started to explain about a different document. I think she thought we were talking about an edict for, destruction of people in the name of Islam. And so she said, you know, in the same way that Christians have these transitionary periods in which God tells them to do something where it means it’s gonna destroy a group of people. Christians don’t go around doing that today, so whenever you read documents in Islam you need to take it with the same so she totally thought we were saying something negative.
Right. And so Howard’s response is Well, and then I said, well, how do you know all this stuff? Like, do you have a degree in Muslim studies or something like that? And she goes, oh, I’m a Muslim, and I’m not gonna I’m just gonna be honest here because this is a safe place. I was thinking to myself, oh, you’re not a Muslim.
She had, like, sleeveless shirt, low cut. She had a piercing in her lip. Lip, and, like, you know, she was drinking coffee. I don’t know what that has to do with it, but, like, I was like, oh, you’re not you’re you’re not a Muslim. First of all, coffee does come and Muslims do claim that they were the ones that discovered it.
Okay. So I’ll just throw that out there. That’s fine. It comes from Ethiopia and Muslims would say they’re the first ones to create it into coffee. I don’t know.
It’s debatable. But then she started to blow our minds. Actually discovered by a goat who ate the coffee bean, but that’s not not here or there. Go ahead. Sorry.
It was Ethiopian coffee. Alright. Alright. Thank you. So so she says this thing, like, she’s, like, I’m a Muslim, and then we we start talking and chatting more, and she’s, like, I’m a feminist.
I’m like, you’re definitely not a Muslim now. Forget it. It’s over. So so she says, yeah. I’m a Muslim and I’m also a feminist.
And she did her degree. She did her master’s degree in in basically, Islamic feminism, which Howard, I think, at that point was a little bit like, is there such a thing? Right. Strangely enough, you can, I I did my master’s final paper on Islamic feminism using only Islamic sources trying to write a argument for Muslim women to have more rights within Islam, which, of course, was incredibly controversial because it had nothing to do with, quote, unquote, missions Trevor Trevor told this lady that he tried to make both sides mad? Yeah.
So I I offended everybody equally and she said, well so then she sits down with us and she starts having this conversation about Islam and about sort of the narrative right now with the Muslim world and how the world is seeing Islam. And I told Howard after we got in the car because we literally had to cut the conversation short to come here. And so I told Howard, I said, man, wouldn’t it have been great to just bring her along just to hear one more view because her view actually threw us both for a loop because she didn’t fit any sort of category that we had developed even though I think we’ve broadened as much as we possibly can. She is a Muslim feminist and I don’t think Howard and I really were considering her true sort of commitment to Islam until she said one particular thing, and this shows us our own sort of narrative. Right?
She was from Tajikistan. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh, okay. She fits a piece of her narrative. She’s she’s Muslim. You know what I mean?
So it kinda shifted everything for us, and we realized that, man, we still do this. We look at Muslims as being they need to fit a certain category, and she broke all the categories. And her her comment that I think really stirred us the most was, how do you I asked her, how do you feel about the way Muslims are being portrayed here in the United States, and do you ever deal with this? And she said, well, I don’t wear the head covering, so a lot of times people don’t assume I am Muslim. And so I don’t deal with it a lot.
But if I’m carrying, for instance, Islamic books because she studies Islam pretty intensely, and she has been stopped a few times when she’s carrying Islamic books including in airports. She talked a few about that. But she said, her viewpoint was basically, you know, hatred, bigotry, racism, prejudice, these are human issues. It’s not one particular religion. And it’s been Christians.
It’s been Jews. It’s been Chinese. It’s been and she just went down a whole list of people that have been hated because of either what they believed or where they were from or what they looked like. In her perspective, which was kind of lighthearted, actually, she said I’m disturbing a little bit. I’ll just tell my kids, hey.
It’s our turn. And I was like, what? Yeah. It’s our turn to be hated. And I said, that sounds like a book title.
Like, hey, it’s our turn. And she just wanted to outline how people have been hated throughout history and how Muslims are no different and that this is just part of global history. It’s it’s now their turn. So anyway The the the thing that it that, comes to mind whenever we think about that that kind of thing is, like, I don’t want us as the church to be put into that category or we’re just one of those, you know, we’re just following the status quo of human nature because I think we’re beyond that. Right?
And that’s kind of why we do what we do as this podcast to to open up people’s the way people think and see people as human beings and see things more biblical because we I think we naturally fall into that default, just like she was saying. To be afraid of the other. So we we basically broke down the questions into 5 categories. One was this idea of what is ISIS? There were so many questions about, like, explain ISIS.
Right. Specifically. ISIS in a nutshell. And so I have Nabil Jabbour writing an article called ISIS in a nutshell for us so that we can see kind of the the basics. But, basically, if you if you just wanna understand the structure, they want to go back to a 7th century interpretation of Islam.
They think that the main issues that Islam has where they keep getting things wrong is when they try to tie together sort of rationalism and theology. And so if you could think of it in those terms, those are terms of which we can understand. Right? We know that there was a scholastic movement within Christianity. The Muslims that are fighting for ISIS see that as a bad idea.
They wanna go backwards. They wanna avoid modernity. Right? Definitely. They wanna avoid modernity.
They wanna avoid, what they would consider westernized, ideas. And and so you’re talking about 7th you said 7th century interpretation? Right. Okay. So is that, like what is that?
Literal? Like, like A literalist interpretation of the Quran. So if the Quran says, you know, that think of it this way. Somebody could make the case that if your right hand is causing you to steal it, you should chop it off. It’s better to enter into paradise or heaven with one less hand than to spend eternity in hell because your right hand is causing you to sin.
And so somebody could make the case from a literalist interpretation that you should be chopping everybody in here would be chopping a hand off, gouging out a eye, or something like that. And so they’re looking at the literalist interpretation. There’s no nuance and there’s no allegory and there’s no hyperbole and there’s no sort of, toolbox of hermeneutics to pull from. It’s like if the Quran says it, I’m doing it, and that’s it. And they wanna push that on the world?
Well, in in reality, they want to first reform Islamic governments. So if there’s a Muslim country, they want that form of Islam to be represented. They don’t want diversity. They don’t want different sects of Islam. They want one one one representation, and it’s theirs.
And they do that by force. They take over. They can. They can take over by force. They can, force people to convert or be killed.
Strangely enough, ISIS, released, I believe it was 19 of 20, Christians that were captured, and people couldn’t figure out why. And it was because they’ve set up some of their Sharia courts that are now looking at, okay. So how do we do? We got these Christians, what do we do with them? And the question basically is, well, are they fighting against us?
Well, no. Alright. This week’s sponsors. CIU. CIU.
CIU educates people review. Real world review. Keeps it. CIU educates people from a biblical worldview to impact the nations with the message of Christ. The question basically is, well, are they fighting against us?
Well, no. Are they rejecting Islam and trying to set up a Christian kingdom? Well, no. Well, then we can’t hold them. We can’t kill them.
We can’t decapitate them. And so there’s this now looking and I’m I’m assuming there’s gotta be ISIS fighters that are going, what are we doing? We just killed 21, and now we’re releasing 19. Yeah. So what about all the rest of the Christians that they’ve been killing or other groups and Their their goal is to set up this whole religious system under the an interpretation of Sharia that’s gonna be incredibly violent, and Christians, I think, for the most part, will fare well.
Muslims will not fare well under that system because if they don’t convert to that interpretation, they will suffer the consequences, which will be death. That’s why Muslims suffer the most at the hands of ISIS because you have to follow their brand. I mean, this is Okay. They’re very conventional. Is that Sunni Shia?
A lot of people have been asking about that. Is that a Sunni Shia brand kind of thing? If you follow this sect, do you’re part of the ISIS? Or They they would say they’re Sunni. Shia is you know, I actually took a quiz I don’t do the quizzes very often.
My wife likes the quizzes. I don’t do the quizzes, but I saw one this morning that was sent to me by a friend and they said, hey, I just wanna see how much you actually know. So take this quiz. Do you understand Islam? And I got one wrong and I told them the question was wrong.
How’s that for humility? You’re wrong. But the question was do the, which who decide or who has determined that the other Muslims are are no longer Muslim? Sunnis decides Shia are no longer Muslim. Shia decides Sunni are no longer Muslim.
Neither Sunni you know, it was a typical gentry question. Right? I mean, really complicated. All the all the Alright, doctor Gentry. All the questions were kinda right, or all the answers were kinda right, but one of the answers was most right.
And I and I basically answered, well, in 21st century, the the Sunnis, because of the rise in sectarian violence, would say that the Shia, they’re not Muslim. That’s sort of how they do it. But not only are the Shia not Muslim, but that Jordanian Pilate wasn’t Muslim. He’s a Sunni. So why did they burn and not just burn alive?
I haven’t seen it, but I know people that have, and I’ve read the the the process. They burned him alive, and then they crushed him with bulldozer Yeah. And didn’t give him a proper burial. I mean, if there was ever something you could do to to really deface somebody, they did it. So why do that if if this person’s Muslim?
Right. He’s Sunni. He’s not. In their mind, he’s not Muslim. In ISIS’s mind, he is not Muslim.
Because he doesn’t follow the law. He doesn’t follow their brand, and he’s fighting against them. It’s kinda that idea of those who are not with us are against us. Right. Those who are not sowing with us, they’re scattering abroad.
They take that sort of line on everything. So if you’re sort of in the middle, you’re against them. You either have to be for them, with them, doing things with them, or you’re the enemy. And so they’ll take that stand first with Muslims in their own countries. Now you said Christians would fare better, but what about us, like the West?
Oh, yeah. That was a good question. Somebody said, should I be afraid? And I was like, yes. Every time you get in your car, you should be afraid.
Put on your seat belt. Your chances of dying in a car accident are actually pretty pretty bad. Food, fluff, fluff, fluff, sugars. They’ll kill you. Wheat belly.
There’s all kinds of things out there to be afraid of. Belly. Okay. Should you be afraid of radical Islam? I would say no.
I would say no. I don’t think you need to be afraid of radical Islam. I honestly, I don’t tend to take a lot of theological sort of positions on doctrine, and that’s why I don’t teach theology. I always direct people to Golda Mez or or Dixon. Just say, go ask your theology professor.
On on this idea of death, I I probably am more in the the Calvinist camp. Right? I think God has determined the the numbers of of my days, and I don’t need to be afraid of anything, you know, being in a car accident or anything like that. I could give you statistics, but there’s an area where statistics really fail. Do you know what I mean?
Like You mean that they’re lies? No. I they’re they’re real. The statistics are real. For instance, if we talked about, okay, should we be afraid of Muslims joining ISIS in the United States?
Homegrown terrorism. Right. Well, yeah, there are some Muslims joining ISIS. Not a not a ton, but there are some. I think there was 3 guys arrested this week as a matter of fact.
I tend to watch the news only one day a week. That’s all I can handle emotionally. Seriously, I’m not joking. I only watch the news one day a week and I get it all in one week and one day, and then I process in one day and then I’m done. I can’t do the daily news thing.
It it wears me out. So there’s 3 guys arrested this week for wanting to fund ISIS. There was a girl that left the UK to join ISIS. CNN coined her as the bedroom radical. Right.
She wanted to marry an ISIS soldier. Clever. 3 girls left Colorado Springs to join ISIS. So there’s a handful, a dozen or so. Now if you think about the Muslim population in America, anywhere from 1.5 to 3,000,000, those are the that’s literally the gap.
The the highest number of reliable research says 3,000,000. The lowest number is 1,500,000. And you have a handful. I don’t think that that’s a, would you call it, epidemic as as the news says. Right.
There’s this issue that we have to deal with. All these people are converting and leaving to fight with ISIS. There is a handful, but those statistics don’t make you feel any better, and there’s a reason. I I know the statistics. I I actually knew that the statistical probability of me being struck by lightning were really, really low, and so I never ever had an issue with swimming in lightning.
I have surfed in more lightning storms than I could count, and I’ve never once had an issue with fear over lightning because I knew the statistics and they made me feel better. What’s alright. Go ahead. Keep going. You know where I’m going.
Because I was actually there. How was everything? Everybody what happened? Because I was at the too. I was smart.
So this was a this was a 4 day trip on the river, in kayaks. And there was a lightning storm, and everybody’s like, let’s get out of water. And I’m thinking you guys obviously don’t know the statistical probability of being struck by lightning. And so I’m in the water, and 2 other guys are in the water. We’re just hanging out because it’s warmer in the water.
It’s starting to hail and stuff. It’s freezing cold. Out there. Yeah. So I convinced the other 2 guys there, and Howard is Well, I have 2 other Asian guys with me, and we The Asian guys got out.
So, I don’t know. We got Well, what Asian this has to do with it? But, anyway, they got out. A lot. The other 3 of us stayed in.
We were warm, and do you know what happened? The the water actually got struck by lightning. The 2 of us were underwater. We were gathering clams in case we didn’t survive the night. Clams.
We were gathering clams. In the lightning storm. The 3rd guy was standing up because he had just got some clams, and he was putting them on the beach. And all of a sudden lightning strikes right in front of me. He gets a concussion.
The 2 guys under the water, me being one of them, we all just like, we don’t know what’s going on. And all 3 of us, all of a sudden, I look up. I hear ringing, and I’m crawling. I felt like I was in platoon or something, like, crawling for my life on the shore. Slow mo.
Buddy. And I get to the beach, and I’m laying there. I’m just barely breathing. What happened? I look over at the guy, and he’s looking at me, and we’re all 3 looking at each other, and then we’re all at the same time, like, dude, we just got struck by lightning.
And the other guy’s, like, there was this huge explosion, this flash, and we survived, so we were, like, we got struck by lightning. You know, we started high fiving, like We were wait. But then when when we get there, the Asian squad, when we get there, they’re huddled together. They’re not in the water. We were afraid.
They were huddled together, warm and shaking because of, we convinced one of the guys He had lightning poison. He had lightning poison. He did have a We’re like, you need to go to the doctor because you got lightning poison, bro. He did have a concussion. Right.
But we told him he had lightning poisoning, and he did go to the doctor. Don’t don’t don’t say that. But the point is, do you know what I do now when it starts to lightning and I’m in the water? I am the first one off the water. I am not joking.
You can ask any of the guys that I kayak with, swim. I could be in the middle of swimming in the lake, and if I get the sense that there’s lightning, I will wave down a boat, pick me up, put me in your boat, and take me to shore. I do not wanna be anywhere near the water if there’s lightning. I actually have a real fear. Something is happening in my brain when that lightning starts and I’m near the water that I have zero control of.
I can start to tell myself. I’ll use, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy for you psych majors out there. Like, that’s okay. I know the statistics. It’s gonna be fine.
It’s not fine. Something is wrong. By lightning. I’ve been struck by lightning. Now take that same analogy and put it with a a person who’s encountered a violent Muslim.
Maybe they served in the military. Maybe they had a family member, a friend on 911 that died in those towers. Maybe they’ve encountered a Muslim that was a little bit radical. Maybe they watch a lot of news. Then it’s really hard for them.
I don’t care how many statistics you you hear. It doesn’t change what you actually fully somewhat believe and feel internally. And so that’s one of the issues. Somebody said, should I be afraid? Well, no.
Statistically, no. But all it’s gonna take is one Muslim to do something, and suddenly it’s changed everything for you. Right. One one experience. Which that was another question.
Are there radical Muslims in Colombia? Right. Are there? I don’t know. There could be.
Yeah. I mean, the pro and and if there’s not now, the the process of going from being moderate Muslim, you know, playing we with your friends Right. To radical can be as little as 6 weeks. So the show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And this week’s sponsors are Zwammer Center.
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Very nice. The Swimmer Center The the process of going from being moderate Muslim, you know, playing we with your friends Right. To radical can be as little as 6 weeks. Yeah. The bedroom radical, the lady from, the UK, the the the mother and the father, they were so confused because she, like, weeks before, I guess, she’d been reading, like, Harry Potter.
Like, just been, like, an average teenage girl, and then all of a sudden she she gets in her head, she wants to move to Syria. Take the Boston bomber. Right. He’s playing soccer with his friends. He’s smoking weed the following the previous weekend, and then one weekend later, he’s setting off a bomb at a Boston marathon.
Like, what what’s the connection there? We think in terms that we experience. Right? And so we tend to think, well, you need to go to seminary first and then put on this sort of theological lens, go through that whole process, and then you’re theologically motivated for everything that you do. Muslims aren’t doing that.
Some are, but the vast majority of them are just bored. Doctor Nabil Jabbour, he shared with us well, he actually had 25 points why people join ISIS. 25. But he boiled it down to 10 because, we made we made him. These are doctor Jabbour’s 10 reasons people are joining ISIS.
And what you’re gonna find is that they’re actually really compelling. I remember doctor Gentry teaching an apologetics class and he was like, if these world views aren’t compelling, then then, then you’re not gonna be able to to have a real discussion with some of these people that have differing world views. And this is kinda what that reminded me of. Number 1, success. They want to experience some sort of success.
Modern recruitment strategies, they have great propaganda stuff, like on YouTube and I don’t know if I’d say great. That’s kind of a Okay. Weird way of defining it. They have propaganda. Right.
A lot of cool propaganda. Yeah. They did hack the Department of Defense, Twitter feed. They’re they’re skilled with social media. Right?
ISIS. They they they hacked Central Command’s Twitter feed and put I love ISIS. Now it’s you know, maybe they didn’t do it. Maybe someone like anonymous did it. We don’t know.
But Yeah. But they’re kinda skilled on social media. Also something that, we we interviewed somebody from Jordan, a missionary from Jordan and, found out that a lot of people are unemployed in certain areas and they don’t really have anywhere else to turn. And so they want to do something that young, what was it, like 18 to 30? Yep.
The vast majority of the population in Iraq or Jordan. I knew it was Jordan. It was 30% Right. The unemployment rate. Now what’s our unemployment rate that we start to get really worried about?
It’s around 6, and then we start to get a little bit hyperventilating over 6% employment rate. Imagine 30% of 18 to 35 year olds that are highly educated. Right? And then they don’t have jobs. They have nothing to do.
They join and do these sorts of things. Number 4, their hate for Israel, which is interesting. It’s a unifying factor. Yeah. Now Jabbour’s perspective on Israel, we would have to have an entire thing to understand the the context for that.
But if you wanna listen, you can go listen to to Jabbour’s, podcast. He talks a little bit about Israel, but there is sort of a a a sort of overarching view of a a hatred towards Israel in the west because of the injustice, at least perceived injustice, of the Palestinians. And so I would just encourage you to look at what’s happening with the Palestinians and then see how would Muslims view this and how would this be a recruitment strategy Right. For, Muslim rights. Doctor Nabil said that, Muslims don’t want freedom necessarily, they want justice.
Justice. They’re one of their values is justice. Number 5, righteousness or, a fight against immorality. Number 6, Muslims are marginalized especially in Europe. The the woman that we talked to today, she was talking about, like, we’re, like, what’s what’s the feeling in Europe?
Because she went to school in Spain. Right. She did her master’s degree in Spain and she’s, like, oh, well, it’s different because, they’re openly, racist. Yeah. There’s no political correctness or Open the racism.
So they’re just they they just openly hate and they’ll just tell you. And so I was like, well, how’s that? How’s that working? She said, well, I like it better actually because then at least you know where people stand. Right.
Somebody yells, you know, racial slurs or whatever, you know, and, she knows what they, you know, what they think. Number 7, failure to obtain the American dream. So Muslims that come to the states. I’m sure he’s talking about, people that turn to radical Islam Okay. So some of the research shows that there’s a cognitive opening that happens.
Think about recruitments as things like gang violence. Things don’t go the way that you anticipated them going. Think about the Sarnoff brothers, the Boston Bombers. The one guy is hoping to become an Olympic boxer. Right.
His mother is, arrested for stealing. His, he’s arrested for domestic, violence. He loses the opportunity likely to pursue his citizenship. He definitely loses the opportunity to become an Olympic boxer. Everything starts to go wrong.
Right? And then there’s what you call the the cognitive opening right after that cognitive dissonance. Things didn’t work the way that I said they were. I believe they were supposed to work. Now I wanna consider something else.
He gets recruited online, and within a short period of time, sometimes as little as 6 weeks, a person strapping kinda give to kinda give us an idea to unify all of Islam. Right. And those would be the ones that are definitely theologically motivated. They wanna see this new Islamic empire rise up. It would be sort of a representation of what the Ottoman Empire once was with the they’re just looking at some of the dynasties that have existed within Islam.
This is really ironic, actually. Did anybody see the news, I think it was this week that they were destroying some of the, ancient artifacts in Mosul. They were going through and they were they were really destroying, pretty important things in history. And so my wife and I were discussing it, like, why are they doing that? And, of course, in the Muslim mind, these are these are idols.
These are pagan idols, and so they’re just following sort of in step with Mohammed cleansing the Kaaba, going through and getting rid of all of these idols. And of course in our mind, it’s like, man, they’re really taking something from history here, like, we can learn a lot from from history. But they’re they’re the irony, I think, is that here we are in Iraq, and you have these radicals destroying world history. Catch the irony here. Go back to the 8th 9th centuries in the libraries of Baghdad.
Muslims are preserving world history. A lot of people don’t realize that Western civilization owes a great deal to Muslim civilizations of the 8th 9th century. And now here we are in the 21st century, and they’re actually destroying what they were once seeking to preserve. And so that should give you just a little bit of a glimpse of the irony of what Islam is doing. Right?
There are those that are trying to reform. The young woman that we met today in the coffee shop, she has a a heart for Islamic feminism. She wants to reform. Then you have the guys on the news this morning who are literally with sawzalls, ironically. Right?
It’s okay to use the technology, but not the, you know, Western modernization. With sawzalls cutting, sawing these, artifacts in half because they represent pagan idolatry. It just gives you a little bit of a idea of the split. Right. It’s complicated.
Number 9, this one was interesting. Americans don’t have staying power. So, the US soldiers are on the ground, but the the people on the ground know that the American soldiers are gonna leave. And so what what happens then when ISIS swoops back in, after the Americans leave, what choice do they have then? So we have to at least be aware of our own national history, right, areas where we’ve done well and areas where we’ve also failed.
We have to be willing to be critical when things go wrong and that we’re some at least some some part responsible. We have to be willing to accept the fact that the the vacuum that was left in Iraq created the sort of atmosphere for the rising up of ISIS. That, you know, with Saddam Hussein, albeit he was an evil dictator, the removal of Saddam Hussein created the space for someone twice as evil, and that’s because this idea of evil, it just escalates. If we think of Libya, for instance, where these 21 Christians were beheaded, we have to recognize that we had a role in removing Gaddafi who was also an evil dictator, but the removal of these evil dictators and then the rising up of theologically motivated dictators, isn’t necessarily a better thing. And so it’s not to say that we are overly critical of things that happen in the world, but at least be aware be aware of them that we’re not, there’s not like there’s no blood on our hands as Americans.
Like, there have been some things that have gone terribly wrong. Right. Alright. So this show wouldn’t be possible without sponsors. And at this point in the show is where if you wanna partner with us, we would put your ad.
So if you wanna be a part of the show, you wanna partner with us, you like what we’re doing, you wanna be on our team, what have you, bringing this show to the world, then email us and let us know. It’s not like there’s no blood on our hands as Americans. Like, there have been some things that have gone terribly wrong. Right. And the last one, number 10, sectarianism, which we talked about a little bit.
One of the questions is where are the moderates? We well, the drip right now. She’s there. She’s at the drip. They were meeting this week in Saudi Arabia, of all places.
There was a meeting that happened this week for a forum on international terrorism, but I’m guessing that most of you guys probably aren’t gonna see that, forum. You’re not gonna read the notes from the forum. You’re not gonna see the Islamic scholars calling for reform in education or reform in how things are done. They’re they’re fighting their own reform, but they don’t get airtime. I mean, it’s the squeaky wheel gets the re wait.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right. So the radicals get the airtime. The moderates don’t get the airtime, but they’re out there. But this lady that we met this morning, her perspective was, why do I have to speak up against these people that I think are nuts?
Like, that was kind of her viewpoint. Like, no. She have to save her own religion? And I guess the question could be asked of us, like, I mean, I didn’t feel the need to go around and defend Christianity to Anders Breivik who decided to mow down a bunch of people in the Netherlands. I don’t feel the need to defend Christianity when, you know, Christian radicals do things.
But it is a little bit closer to home when somebody that I would consider, a follower of Christ, some of his pastors and things, when they say things, I do feel like, man, there is a responsibility for me to kinda help change the narrative. Muslims are trying. Right. But they don’t get a lot of airtime. There’s a lot there’s a lot of moderates out there.
You just have to look. This is a great question. Good media. So we’re always talking about media and, how it’s skewed. There’s no such thing as good no.
I’m just kidding. So, like, some of you guys actually, multiple people have asked, what’s what’s a good form of media that you could look at, watch, and see, and learn, get your information from? What would you say? I think the best form of media is a multiplicity of medias. Right?
Watch Al Jazeera. Watch our television, the Russian news. If you really wanna get an interesting perspective, watch what Russia is saying about us. Watch what the Middle East is saying about us. Watch the BBC and what the UK is saying about the world.
I mean, you have to get sort of a global perspective. If you only watch the news that’s being produced by the people that you like, well, I’m not sure that that’s really gonna give you a real kind of open, honest perspective on what’s happening in the world. Right. And we have to be careful that we don’t think that our world is is the world. It’s bigger than just us.
Right. And you can listen to our podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Listen to the podcast.
Because we try to bring in a a a bunch of different people, but, alright. Last heavy question. Okay? Because we got we got 2 minutes left. How heavy?
So this is the question. I’m gonna read it because it’s great. It’s like so We just let those connected to radical Islam kill us and be okay with that because we’re Christians. Boom. Trevor, what are you gonna say?
Yeah. Apparently I don’t know what happened last chapel. I think I kinda blacked out. Apparently, you’re past this now. Yeah.
And there was that moment where I I said, I think it would be easier for me in the midst of a battle to kill a fellow Christian than a Muslim because at least I know where their soul is going. Right. The Trevor came to me after and was like, did I say that? Did I actually say that? Yes.
You did. Alright. I had to go back and listen to it to see if I agreed with myself, and I do. I do agree with myself, surprisingly. It wasn’t a schizophrenic moment.
It was actually, something that I think is is something I believe. Right. That’s good. I think that I was looking at it from that perspective of CS Lewis being asked that question of 2 Christians that are fighting on opposite sides of a line when they’re looking at each other in in each other’s scopes. Like, what do they do?
Well, you pull the trigger and you embrace in heaven. I think that just war theory is a struggle for me. I’m just being honest with you guys. It’s a struggle for me because I know what the scripture says about government. K?
According to Romans 13, we can’t deny that God uses government to keep evil at bay. That’s why the government carries the sword. However, in my own life, I I don’t know if I could picture any of the disciples carrying a sword. I just don’t know. I’m just being honest with you.
I don’t know if I could see any of the disciples defending themselves against the persecutions that Jesus said they will most certainly encounter. It would be really tough for me. As a matter of fact, I had a dream after watching American Sniper and interviewing a former Navy SEAL who happens to also be my father-in-law. I had a dream where he and I were, at my house and there was a Muslim shooting at my home. I’ve never had a negative dream about a Muslim in my life, but I think after watching American Sniper and then couple things on Radical Islam, it really impacted me.
So in my dream, this Muslim is mowing down at my house, and my father-in-law’s sitting there. Now I’d much who would you much rather be next to than a former Navy SEAL in that moment? Right? And he says, well, go grab a gun. And I think, at that point, I I wouldn’t grab 2 guns.
I grabbed my hunting rifle, and I handed him a handgun. I put the scope on him and I remember looking to my father-in-law and saying I can’t kill him. And he said, well, we have to do something. I said, well, I’m gonna wait until he drops his hands, and I’m just gonna shoot him in the hand and try and disarm him. And I remember waiting and I had the scope on him and I just pulled the trigger right when his hand dropped down, and it hit his hand and went through his leg.
And so he dropped, and then we ran out. We got the gun from him, and I woke up. And I was terrified. I was really scared. And I remember it at that moment thinking, like, I don’t know what I believe about that situation.
I really don’t. I’d like to say that I believe that if there was a situation where, like, my family was in danger, that if they were feeling very vulnerable and they needed my protection, that I would stand up and then I would defend my family. Now if it was just me, I don’t know. But I also know that regardless of what I say, I’d like to think that I would be the kind of person that faced with persecution that I would testify to my faith in Christ regardless of what the cost would be, but I’d be lying to you if I knew my own heart, if I could say that I knew my own heart. I really don’t.
I don’t know what would happen in that moment because I’ve never been in that situation. And I think anybody that fools themself into thinking that, oh, man, this is what I would do. You need to read Peter because Peter really believed I would never do that. And he did it. Totally denied Christ.
Of all his disciples. Right? I just don’t know what to do in those situations. I know that for me, I know that government is what keeps evil at bay. Romans 13 is clear about that.
I know that Jesus also said that my kingdom was not of this world. If it was of this world, then my disciples would fight. They would’ve fought. And he actually when Peter tries to fight, he tells them, stop. Don’t do that.
And so it’s a really tough situation to be in, and and I was eating with, I won’t say his name, but I was eating with a student yesterday over lunch. And I told him, I said, I just don’t know because he is a soldier. And I said, I would I would probably refer you to talk with my father-in-law, who I have a great respect for, who has served this country for 20 years and is a die hard believer. He loves the Lord, but he’s the one who’s worked through those difficulties. It would be foolish for me to try and tell somebody, well, this is how you should handle military service having never never been in that situation.
The only thing I can say is from my own experience, which is I just don’t know. Right. We are out of time. We’re really sorry. If, you want to learn more, everything that we’ve talked about is on our in our podcast.
So you go there, if you have a hard time finding it on your little iPhone app or if you want to download a podcast app on your Android phone, you can also go on our website, thetruthaboutmuslims.com, and then, write in comments if you want to. Comments at truthaboutmuslims.com, so it’s not hard to find. All of our, all the topics are addressed there. Oh, and those of you that are wondering, the pope this week actually supported the government air strikes against, ISIS, so that’s the pope’s view. Right.
Just know that your your responsibility as a follower of Christ and the government’s responsibility, they aren’t always so, easy to discern. So, Howard, would you pray for us? Yep. Lord Jesus, thank you so much that you are the gracious god, that you are the one that sought after us even when we were yet enemies, That you revealed yourself through, people and, God, I just pray that you would help us to develop that heart. God, to be able to love our enemies, to actually make scripture come true in our faith as we walk it out in real life.
God, help us to, meet Muslims as we go about our days and, to develop relationships with them, to to share the gospel with them, to be an encouragement them, to be a light. God, thank you so much, Lord, for all that you’re doing in our, in our university and, in our community. And so I just pray that you would do all these things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.