Archive for category: Islam

   On Thursday’s Dividing Line, Dr. White made an important point that I would like to briefly underscore. He mentioned the fact that there are those who might fear witnessing to Muslims because they seem so set in their religion, and often appear to be very militant about their views. Islam is often portrayed as a “hard” religion to evangelize, and

   In the previous blog, we looked at what the Qur’an and the Hadith teach with regard to the doctrine of Predestination (Qadar), and we saw that the notion of God’s absolute sovereignty is, indeed, supported there. Further, we saw that Islam teaches that God’s decree extends to all creation and all that happens, even down to the final destination of

   Don’t forget to make your plans to be in Seattle October 19th for the debate with Shabir Ally! For those who have been asking for a more details, here is the official website for the debate. I will be playing clips from Shabir on the topic today on the DL.    Well, maybe… This is what my radar program on my

   One of the major beliefs about God held by the majority of Muslims is that of His absolute sovereignty. This concept is unavoidable for Muslims since it is explicitly taught in the Qur’an. For example: To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth: When he decreeth a matter, He saith to it: “Be,” and

   Make your question short, succinct, direct. Make sure it is a relevant question. We give instructions to the audience every time we have audience questions with an open microphone. Thankfully, we have pretty well stopped doing that (we ask for written questions now), but when folks insist upon having that format, it is always interesting.    Nowhere was this more true

   What is the result of the decades of popularity of the lectures of Ahmed Deedat? Well, he has legions of followers to this day who repeat his questions almost verbatim. Here’s an example from the Malik debate. And in case you are confused, it is “fig tree.”    DVD available here (#585).

   Tony Costa has confirmed to me that the story of Pastor Harding being sentenced to “Islamic Re-education” is factually accurate. I am at a loss for words at the hypocrisy of Canadian jurisprudence that allows Muslims to deny the heart of the Christian faith while criminalizing Christian apologetics! The Canadian press seems a willing accomplice. I was referred to one

   Sometimes just having a small number of specific vocabularly terms mastered will help you feel more at home in a conversation or discussion. This is especially the case when it comes to Islam. For regular readers of this blog, you have undoubtedly heard me make reference to the “Uthmanic Revision.” It is best to give you the direct statement from

   Last week we mentioned that we were working on a major addition to our October class and cruise, The Cross: Historicity and Theology, but at the time, we could not give details. But now we are happy to announce that Islamic apologist Shabir Ally will be debating me on the topic of the crucifixion on Friday night, October 19th at

   See, silly eschatology is catching. (ht: TC)

   In light of Colin’s article on the Qur’an and Christmas, the following is quite interesting. David Ould dropped me a note about a conversation over on the White Horse Inn site about a toy set for sale. Here’s the cover.    Notice anything…odd? Out of place? Look at the skyline of Bethlehem. What’s that? Yeah, a minaret. A minaret in first

   As a rule, while Muslims revere Jesus as a prophet, they do not celebrate Christmas, mostly because they recognize it is a distinctly Christian festival espousing a particularly Christian belief (the Incarnation) that is blasphemy to Muslims. While some Muslims might put up lights and Christmas trees in response to the cultural celebration, even this is regarded as dangerous since

   Our brothers and sisters, so often persecuted in Islamic lands, are supposed to be protected by Islamic authorities due to their status as dhimmis. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2003), Dhimmi Non-Musilm under the protection of Muslim law. A covenant of protection was made with conquered “Peoples of the Book,” which included Jews, Christians, Sabaeans, and sometimes Zoroastrians

   The Pope is making sure everyone knows he deeply respects Islam. Of course, his theology sort of demands such statements, since Rome teaches in her official documents that we “adore” the same God. Of course, I reject that statement outright. I do not adore the same God with those who reject the Incarnation, reject the cross, reject the resurrection, reject

   In an amazing display of utter hypocrisy leaders in the Islamic world are demanding an apology from Pope Benedict XVI. What did the Pontiff do? He dared read a quotation from a conversation that took place in the fourteenth century. And what was the horridly offensive statement? He quoted, not as his own words, but accurately, the words of Emperor

   The laughter you hear is coming from all the Islamic totalitarian governments busily persecuting Christians while Australia does this. I am well aware of the fact that merely stating the factual teachings of the Qur’an, as I did, for example, in California last weekend, would be illegal now in a number of Western cultures. Does the phrase “self-destructive” suggest itself

   You cannot always respond to everything that is said in a debate, especially in closing comments. Shabir Ally made some comments regarding the New Testament’s testimony to inspiration in his closing statements, and Sam Shamoun has taken the time to thoroughly respond to his comments here. I appreciate Sam’s diligence in providing such thorough replies in written form.

   OK, so we have more than a staff of two can handle at one time. Yeah, we bit off way more than we could chew on the move, and are paying the price months later. Well, we do our best. In any case, while we wanted to do our own editing, graphics, and the like, for the Shabir Ally debate,

   Pheme Perkins is a Harvard trained Roman Catholic scholar from Boston College. Her special interests, like so many today, include all things gnostic. Under current research projects is included, “Gnostic revealers and their discourses as evidence for emergence of Johannine traditions.” To say Dr. Perkins represents the left side of the theological and scholarly spectrum is to engage in a

   Once again I wish to thank all the faithful believers who prayed for last night’s event at Biola University in Los Angeles. It was truly a wonderful time. The staff did a great job setting up the event, and I am very thankful to Beau Boyd and the “El Torrito Gang” for all they did to make this happen. I

The British Daily Mail today featured an entire page of photos from around the Muslim world documenting the Shia holy day of Ashura. Devotees self-flagellate with whips, chains, and knives, seeking to cover themselves in their own blood, an act called tatbir. This year’s observance has been greatly increased in fervor by the “Muhammad Cartoon” farce (note that there are

As I head out this morning for my flight to Heathrow I caught a segment on the Today show on NBC regarding The Da Vinci Code. I couldn’t help but compare and contrast the response Christians have had to this deeply blasphemous attack upon the very heart of their faith and a dozen small cartoons featuring Mohammed and the response

I have mentioned the on-going process over the past few months, but I can now confirm the following: Is the New Testament We Possess Today Inspired? James White Affirms Shabir Ally Denies Saturday, May 6th, Biola University Gymnasium Los Angeles, California Of course, it is my hope that this will be the first of a number of debates with Mr.

Are these Muslims burning an embassy merely “radicals” or is there something about the very core and heart of Islam that gives rise to this kind of behavior? What kind of spirit leads people to wish to behead someone for drawing a caricature that, let’s be honest, is significantly less insightful than say, the picture of the father carrying his

The pictures do speak for themselves. Where is the counter demonstration from the “majority of peaceful Muslims”?           And I see the State Department of the United States has also condemned the cartoons…could someone link me to where they condemn the blasting of Christianity, the Bible, Jesus Christ, etc., that takes place daily in almost all of our newspapers?

We close out this brief series–one I have found particularly interesting personally, especially in light of the uncritical use of scholarship by the wide spectrum of Islamic apologists–with a discussion of the final element of the “argument” borrowed from Bart Ehrman by Abdullah, cited last week, that regarding Theodore of Mopsuestia. Citations of early Christian writers are notoriously popular on

In our last installment we quoted the source used (uncritically) by Islamic apologists, Bart Ehrman, regarding John 20:28. It needs to be understood (as evidently it is not by those citing him) that Ehrman is not foolish enough to try to argue that the original reading of John 20:28 is anything other than what we have in our texts today,

Let’s briefly refute the assertions made by Deedat and Abdullah noted in the first post in this series. Note that Deedat repeated these errors ad nauseum: as far as I can tell, he never accepted correction on these issues, but repeated the same errors throughout his entire life.    1) “The context of the verse talks about an unbelieving Thomas being

Let’s inject just a little truth into the discussion of John 20:28 before looking at the amazing claims of Islam’s apologists and then trace them back to their source in Bart Ehrman. The meaning of this text has been clearly understood from the start. Only a tremendous prejudice and bias could cause any person to miss the intention of John,

Just a quick note about an amazing graphic I stumbled across in Misha’al ibn Abdullah’s book, What Did Jesus Really Say? Here it is: Let’s look at the claims. First we are told that at the Council of Nicea “The Trinitarians gain the backing of the pagan Romans.” I suppose that is the really accurate way of saying “The vast

I have been shocked over the past few weeks to realize that the best Mecca has to offer apologetically, particularly in reference to their attacks upon the Deity of Christ, fall far short of even that presented by our home-grown “Christian cults” like Jehovah’s Witnesses. This has been particularly clearly demonstrated in the comments I have been hearing and reading