Pathway to Mercy channel
It starts off with Hashim standing his ground (rightly and commendably so!) fending off a suggestion that a 2-2 minute format should be operated. The explanation for this format here is a worry that Lizzie won't get a word in. I don't get this at all. Hashim's asking questions a good number of his co-religionists will have of Trinitarian Church beliefs and scriptures. You'd think somebody who seriously believes they are an "evangelist" and wants to do the Church's bidding would be up for this. Not Lizzie!
Remember he's asking questions of a Church representative who is meant to believe she's got the Holy Spirit (which the Trinitarian church believes to be God) in-dwelling her and she is taught by an anonymous New Testament author (whom the Church believes was inspired by the same Spirit) to be ready to give an answer:
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect [1 Peter 3:15]
Isn't her job, according to the Church, then, to just sit back, elicit the questions and answer them? Instead, based on her track record, she seems to be led by the spirit of Islamophobia and the spirit of the age (Western culturalism) where she seeks out opportunities to bash the Muslim's religion and in the process bashes the wider Muslim community in the form of stereotyping and propaganda. There’s a sizeable overlap with the Far Right and Lizzie’s “Christian” companions when talking about Islam – something which needs to be reflected and discussed more.
If a Christianophobe was to do the same he’d be linking the Bible’s relatively low age of consent (age puberty) with the Church child grooming scandals which are in the news far and wide. The Christianophobe counterpart to Lizzie Schofield may also link the biblical orders believed, by the Church (presumably by St Nicholas Church too), to be from the person of Jesus to kill children and women as a reason why so many child abuse scandals are hitting CJ Davis’ Church of England; these people see Jesus as their role model and they believe Jesus did not care about the children in 1 Samuel 15, Numbers 31, Joshua thus they abuse children because their role model did not care about them in their minds. Likewise for why they never protest against wars and bombings of Middle Eastern and other Muslim countries where countless children are killed as collateral damage during (“Christian”) military action, in the accompanying economic warfare prior to “Christian” military action and in the maelstrom of power struggles (including economic shock therapies – re Naomi Klein) in the aftermath of “Christian” bombings and invasions.
Sermons promoting anti war protests?
I’d personally love to know if CJ Davis has ever, ever, done a sermon criticising our government or an American administration for their decisions to opt for bombs and wars in an effort to move his congregation to be politically active in campaigning against wars and ultimately attempting to save the lives of young foreign children. Alas, St Nicholas Church are hiding his archived sermons now so there’s no way of telling whether he had the moral aptitude and fortitude to speak out or whether he just continually persists with sermons which make the hyper-individualist “Christian” feel good for the day (and donate for the current church building maintenance drive). I get the feeling this is your average Cof E sermon, a reverend who is out of touch just churning out sermons which sing to the whims of the congregation in this climate of hyper-individualism, does Jeremiah 5 come to mind a little?
The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. [Jeremiah 5]
But hey, the counterpart to Lizzie, may just say CJ Davis’ role model is the Trinitarian Church version of Jesus - a person who is believed to have ordered to the killing of non virgin women (wives/mothers) [1 Samuel 15] – therefore they expect CJ Davis not to ever speak out and be genuinely active in trying to help those poor women and kids who are the victims of Western (“Christian”) imperial campaigns.
Perhaps that Christianophobe is out there: Islamophobia breeds Christianophobia and vice versa. People who are representing mosques or churches should recognise this and be guarded and responsible in what they say. Judging from the behaviour and comments coming from Elizabeth Schofield and her colleagues, I’d reckon St Nicholas Church members are not being taught this – that is a failing on CJ Davis’ part. When’s he due to retire...
Muslims need to wisen up to the dichotomy within evangelicalism
That was quite a tangent! Where was I? Ah yeah, I was rambling on about the Christian lady not answering questions. Come on, answer the questions the bloke has. If you don't know how the Church wants you to answer why are you even there? Hop over to Oxford Street and splash some cash - charge it to Rob Schofield's credit card if he lets you! Enjoy your day out. And whilst we are at it, why aren’t CJ Davis and Robert Schofield there? They represent a local church, Robert is a preacher and CJ is a member of the clergy nearing retirement. I assume they know more about Trinitarian church beliefs than Elizabeth given that they are allowed to (frigidly) preach at St Nicholas Church and she’s not.
Come on, let’s start seeing serious church guys having conversation with Muslims. The Christians bring polite and educated (some are very accomplished academically I must say) folks to talk to Atheists yet when it’s a case of talking to Muslims they send out rabble-rouser types. You know the sort when you hear them a number of descriptive words come into mind: unsophisticated, unhinged unwashed, uncaring, uninformed, uncoordinated, uneducated, uncouth and ultimately easily undone! Just think about the number of obnoxious types on the internet where you just go away and think “what a moron” after reading or listening to their “evangelical” efforts.
Of course, there’s a reason for this. And Muslims need to smarten up to this, it will hurt one’s pride but this is true. The Christians subconsciously see the Atheists and other secularists as their intellectual and cultural superiors as well as being of their own kin and kith; when they see the LGBTQi peeps, uber secular humanists or New Age Atheists they see their family, their role models, their celebrities, their teachers (possibly their church leaders given some of them are secret Atheists too!), their cultural icons and their own culture. That’s an internal and in-house thing for them. When they see some Muslim at Speakers Corner (or wherever) preaching Islam, they see Johnny foreigner. A foreign culture. Subconscious xenophobia kicks in and they leave the uncooked types in the Church to dialogue with Muslims, why should a smart and classy gentleman be resourced on talking to a bunch of Muslims when the metaphorical red-carpet can be rolled out for what the Reformation ultimately helped to spawn as the evolved cultural specimen of the age, the secular humanist?
Xenophobia?
I suspect there is a latent sense of xenophobia in the reason why there is such a gulf in class between the two sets of “evangelists”. If you can’t see this just look at the Christian evangelists and apologists advocating Theism and compare them to those who are concentrated on trying to bring Muslims into the Trinitarian Church. And I don’t mean take Speakers’ Corner Christians as an example as I think it’s pretty well observed that Christians turn up there half-way normal and become buffoonish in many cases for a few hours before going home to act half-way normal again for the rest of the week – that’s sadly rinsed and repeated for the rest of the year. Take Speakers Corner out of the equation, you’ll still notice what I’m getting at.
We haven’t even got into any apologetics yet. This is going to be a toil. Moving on whilst having some more prune juice...
"The Bible is infallible because of the Quran" - Elizabeth Schofield
I want to post more on this type of cognitive laziness and let's be frank, evangelical intellectual obscurantism. She got cut off, rightly so, but it seemed like she was scraping the barrel of low level evangelical slogans with this. Sad.
St Nicholas Church’s Lizzie Schofield has form for spiel like this, did she not try this type of stunt before with 1 Samuel 15:3? She was telling the SAME speaker (Hashim) not to criticise the order to kill women and children (believed by her Trinitarian Church to be from the person of Jesus!) given tin 1 Samuel 15 because it's confirmed in the Quran. It turned out it was not confirmed in the Quran thus whoever gave her that line was making her seem dishonest. Or maybe she just made it up, if so, CJ Davis what are you teaching your congregation in Tooting?
The New Testament is not the Injeel - this is a crucial distinction which is ignored/missed by evangelicals to promote what is ultimately their intellectually dishonest sloganeering.
Muslims need to be firm, clear and polite in making these points. Churches need to be honest in listening to Muslims and finding out what they believe about the NT rather than thinking some missionary pamphlet is trusty.
The NT was never seen nor sanctioned by Jesus. Islam confirms a Message which was given to [emphasising to] Jesus. The Church "gospels" are written by anonymous people without any authority about Jesus which a church (a bunch of anonymous and unauthorised people again) declared to be "inspired".
Let's see folks stop playing dumb here as clearly Islam contradicts aspects of the Church's teachings. What are you saying, the Quran wholly confirms the Church's books but contradicts the Church's teachings? A simple example here would be that of the deifying of a Prophet, Jesus. The Church believes its books and its creeds teach this. Islam rejects this idea. Likewise with the idea of Jesus being murdered for the sins of mankind, the Church believes this is something their New Testament teaches yet Muslims don’t believe this idea. Do you still want to say Islam confirms the New Testament?
Think about what you’re saying, just because some ropey missionary said it before you for decades does not mean it’s true. Christian missionaries say all sorts of stuff, not all of it’s true.
Muslims believe Scripture was given to Abraham - the Quran teaches this. If the Church or any other organisation turns up with texts written in the name of, about or purported to be from Abraham, does that mean Islam confirms these texts? Nope.
We’ve got to encourage better thought!
As far as I can see, Hashim and those who follow his SC dialogues online are too smart to fall for that. And Lizzie should be switched on enough to know how shallow and offensive to the intellect these scrape-the-bottom-of-the-barrel evangelical slogans look. It goes back to what I was saying about the way the non theists are treated; the Church brings out sophisticated people who proffer sophisticated arguments but it’s anything goes when it comes to Muslims (including hypocrisy, misinformation, out-right lies, decontextualised narratives, xenophobia, racist arguments, logical fallacies, strawmen, made up stories or miracles and healings which always take place when the camera is never around, parlour tricks like leg lengthening passed off as miracles, quote mining etc,.). In fact the Church, along with slogans, rolls out the blankets and promises of help with asylum applications to entice Muslim refugees to sign on the dotted line. A number, desperate and broken through poverty and war, do decide to temporarily pretend to become Christians for the Church goodies and support.
He's not interested in the Church
I’m not watching a video of a Christian manipulating a refugee (all that is done behind closed doors) but I’m watching a video of an evangelist representing the Church talking to a Muslim who is clearly not going to be swayed by promises of blankets, cash, asylum or low level evangelical slogans. How many guys like Hashim has the Church got to sign on the dotted line? You can tell this man will never become a Christian and you can tell Lizzie knows this, she’s not even trying to convince him to follow her to St Nicholas Church and get baptised...she’s not even trying to communicate the Church “gospel” with him. He knows too much about the Bible, the Trinity belief and the Church doctrines. Having said that, if there’s never been an attempt by a Christian, to sit him down and try and answer his questions and communicate the Church message to him, you would have to ask why are DCCI Ministries and these other Church characters you see in SC videos ,who have become somewhat cartoonish, aren’t trying to spend time and “save his soul” according to their Church’s ideas. Do they not care about his soul? You’d think these characters would all be rushing off to their respective local churches and calling on their elders to rush down there and try and save the soul of Hashim.
Perhaps they did but their church leaders were preoccupied on the church roof. Building maintenance, the primary concern of all local churches!
For those who want to see a good in-depth break-down of this argument see
http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/response_to_james_white_on_surah_5__ayah_47
Lizzie Schofield: "It's a translational thing" - the reason why the Catholics have more books in their Bible
Nope, Elizabeth. Not according to the Catholics.
CJ Davis, what are you teaching your church mate?
Lizzie Schofield: "It's not a big deal" that other churches have different books in their Bible
Nope Elizabeth.
Not according to St Nicholas Church in Tooting and all those members of the CofE following the Thirty Nine Articles over the centuries as the list of books was deemed important enough to list in the Articles. It's clearly a big deal - especially if you believe Archbishop Cranmer and CofE members over the centuries were indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
What are you saying here Lizzie, it was important for the Holy Spirit to make prominent in the minds of "Christians" centuries ago but nowadays the Holy Spirit does not consider it as important?
And don't you think the spirit inside you wants you to believe it's important which words are attributed to God and which words aren't? When you’ve imbibed the spirit of the age and decided to peddle in islamophobia rather than your Church tradition and Bible you probably don’t think about these points
CJ Davis, care to comment?
Elizabeth Schofield: The differences between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles don't matter because they teach the same thing
Well, if they teach the same thing then why does Robert Schofield, who left the Catholic Church to join the church of Martin Luther and the Puritans, subscribe to the Protestant Bible? And why would he leave Catholicism for Protestantism if it's all the same thing?
Oh, you're saying the overall message in the two faiths are the same? Well, in that case, isn't there an argument for the overall message between Unitarians and the Trinitarian Church being the same? Or the Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses have a similar overall message to St Nicholas Church? CJ Davis, are you going to allow Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and Socinians in your church to preach? Let me know if you are planning to as you’re on the road to letting Muslims lead prayers there.
[As for this by-line that the overall message is the same, of course it's going to be as Luther and company did not radically split from the older church of Rome and make their own religion up.
If say you, Lizzie Schofield, decide to reject the Old Testament and reject the Church theology of the Trinity because you don’t like believing in a Trinitarian Church Version Jesus who is the source of Exodus 21:20-21 or 1 Samuel 15 and 2 Samuel 12
Do you think your church would be OK with you to remain as a member and would the clergy there say you believe the same thing as them?
CJ Davis, would you kick her out of your church if she did this (forget about the amount of cash she may or may not pump into the church coffers)? And don’t give me that nonsense of we don’t kick people out, your Church articles teach ex-communication.
The Bible is reliable enough for the basic message of the Church to be ascertained?
Erm, this oh it's reliable enough (meaning that it's not inerrant) actually contradicts the Bible as it's taught to be flawless perfect (discussed later)
CJ, come on mate, I think you really need to stop these people going to parks and mosques; you need to start entering serious discussions on these matters. When I say serious discussions, I don’t mean masking what you're teaching by hiding your sermons, I mean by inviting to the church people who can conduct clear-minded and informed dialogue to help edify your congregations with respect to what the Bible actually is, its history and the history of doctrines such as the 4th century doctrine of the Trinity. Can we move away from slogans, empty rhetoric and move towards having Muslim folks invited to St Nicholas Church to lovingly discuss these talking points with the church members in a spirit of friendship rather than this adversarial hype Lizzie and the other “robust” “Christians” are on? It can be done without the shouting and the immaturity which Dr James R White (church elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church) has rebuked your church member on. There are Muslims willing to lovingly dialogue with you at St Nicholas Church on any given Sunday. You used to do the hot potato sermons, why not make this proposed interfaith discussion (not scream-fest) a regular thing for a Sunday at your church – perhaps bi-monthly? You’ll have to find a sophisticated and learned Muslim (learned in Islam and Christianity) as your dialogue partner, but that should not be a problem as there are plenty out there. Here’s an idea, to get your program running why don’t you invite the chap Liz was talking to, Hashim, he’s clearly got a load of questions which are going unanswered?
~ 26 The Bible is inspired by God – Lizzie Schofield
Where's Lizzie getting this idea from? The Church! The same Church that invented from whole-cloth the Trinity Doctrine. The same Church which was unsure about certain books. The same Church which basically chose, without any authority whatsoever what is to be considered inspired scripture and ended up with four, yes four (4), gospels. It even debated the book of Revelation, as mentioned elsewhere in the video by the Muslim who does not look remotely interested signing up for the Church, Hashim
Why is Lizzie even taking this fallible organisation as an authority?
If a bunch of church-men got together now and declared the Epistle of Barnabas is canon would she accept it? If not then why not as the church-men of today have as much authority as those involved in the long, protracted canonisation process.
Heretics, barbarians and rancour in the heart
I'd bet many, if not all of them, would have considered Lizzie to be a heretic or a pagan (I waggishly ask, would they have called her a barbarian? Oooh the irony considering evangelical “Christian” propaganda which paints Muslims as barbarians!)
Seriously, Lizzie Schofield, forget about all the banter and the personal animosity (plus pride). You must KNOW deep down that this questioning is subsumed on good points. Will you consider the questions faithfully or will you cling on to your Church’s tradition because it's a Muslim or a critic saying it and you've felt your pride dented by such people responding to you?
And on that note, let's just remember these authors did not believe the words they were writing were "inspired". An obvious example would be the fact that none of them claim such and the gospel authors Luke and Matthew clearly did not believe Mark was "inspired" otherwise they would not have wrote their own based on his work...they would have simply copied his accurately and distributed it if they truly believed his text was "inspired". Likewise for the recipients of Paul's letters, how could they believe his letters were "inspired" if they did not even bother to preserve them - his letter to Laodicea is lost (and who knows which other letters and his current letters are thought to be edited versions).
Again, Lizzie, these are good points worthy of a good deal of mulling over - something which can only be considered by putting pride and rancour for the group, person making said points aside.
I used to watch a fair bit of Speakers Corner stuff and as far as a I would speculate, the Christians (including you) are less likely to take anything on board from their Muslim interlocutors simply because of the cameras, rancour in the heart (basically dislike for that individual Muslim) and pride.
27 Lizzie is Uneasy about inerrancy
“Credibility and inerrancy are two different things”
Not for a Book which you claim is inspired by God. Yep for a newspaper or news station. The BBC is reliable (credible) on the whole but it's not inerrant.
The Bible can't be mostly reliable or credible if you believe it's inspired by God - it's got to be flawless. In fact, that is what the Hebrew Bible teaches about itself according to Christians at Got Questions:
The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is an extremely important one because the truth does matter. This issue reflects on the character of God and is foundational to our understanding of everything the Bible teaches. Here are some reasons why we should absolutely believe in biblical inerrancy:
1. The Bible itself claims to be perfect. “And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). “The law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19:7). “Every word of God is pure” (Proverbs 30:5 KJV). These claims of purity and perfection are absolute statements. Note that it doesn’t say God’s Word is “mostly” pure or scripture is “nearly” perfect. The Bible argues for complete perfection, leaving no room for “partial perfection” theories.
The odd thing here is that Lizzie’s St Nicholas Church believes inerrancy is important, it's one of the doctrines they officially hold to. Why the reticence to sign on the dotted line, Lizzie? She seemingly believes there are minor contradictions in the Bible.
CJ Davis, do you care about any of this or are you just hanging on until retirement day (CofE pension) going through the motions as a preacher preaching what you think the congregation want you to say to make them feel good about themselves (meeting the needs of hyper-individualism in the church)?
"we've got thousands of manuscripts"..."so much mansucript evidence" – Lizzie Schofield
I'm disappointed because I know this lady is simply repeating lazy apologetics dished down by people who should know better.
These manuscripts are largely from the Middle Ages so the number of manuscripts is irrelevant. It's like me pitching up and claiming we know Shakespeare is reliable because we've got a ton of copies printed from the 1960s in bookstores and libraries across the UK. The smart person will just dismiss this because these copies, centuries later, have no categorical say on whether what we have written now is what Shakespeare originally wrote.
The fact is, there's no way to tell if the Church have copied correctly what the original authors of the NT wrote - there were dishonest scribes and there were sloppy scribes so we don’t know whether they added bits or omitted bits
28 Mark took dictation from Peter – Lizzie Schofield
This is just not true. It's not true.
Mark was probably written after Peter passed away. And that may be one of the reasons why they attributed it to Mark.
Does accuracy and truth not matter?
Look, you've got somebody who the Church wants us to believe is filled with the Holy Spirit and is being sanctified by the Holy Spirit yet this person is a constant source of misinformation – she does not come back and publicly correct herself as far as I’m aware either.
Sadly this is a constant theme amongst Christians who just imbibe what they are told and want to believe it because they want to hold on to their Church beliefs
CJ Davis or whoever is handing this material down really needs to be ashamed. YOU are making this poor lady look dishonest/recklessly ignorant. Does truth/accuracy not matter to you? You send her a bunch of untrue talking points on a regular basis melted into her low level and shallow polemics and apologetics. People aren't half-wits and they will see what’s being said is plainly untrue...well most people!
Why don’t you (whoever is misinforming her) turn up and read the crib sheets yourself, why have poor Lizzie do your bidding as a volunteer? I truly feel sorry for her as I know this is a regular theme - a young lady involved in the church who was in David Wood's group left faith (perhaps partly because of my responses which were essentially a watered down version of my responses to Lizzie) and contacted me. I guarantee you, young people (maybe Lizzie too) will leave the Church or have serious doubts if they follow the sound responses/rebukes in videos (either live encounters with smart and switched on folk or the edited variety) and blogs.
Lizzie may carry on subscribing to the Church because of the support services the local church offers and maybe because of all the cash she's pumped into it via donations over the years but younger people making their way into the world aren't as interested in coffee groups, crèches, clubs, social events, connect groups etc.. This is especially true for younger blokes given the atmosphere of emasculation in churches nowadays, young blokes who already have a support group of friends and social life won’t feel they need that crux of the local church. Of course you’ll always get people moving to new cities and jumping on Alpha Courses but that again is more female oriented and is more about emotions and feelings (smells and bells) rather than serious investigation of Church traditions. There's less lure and appeal for the average bloke, especially working class blokes. I guarantee you if there are young people following DCCI Ministries “work” at Speakers Corner and online they are doubting and/or leaving the faith as they can see what everybody else can see. There are more holes in the explanations and arguments advocated by Lizzie and her church colleagues than the Titanic.
"The fact we've got 4 different gospels not one"
This is yarn is all about turning negatives into positives. Lazy evangelists do this a lot.
The fact the Church chose 4 gospels probably means they simply turned into a super church by grafting in various groups of a similar theology, exorcising their "gospel" may have caused a kerfuffle so the easier thing to do was to just include them all as there was a great deal of overlap between them (I’m open to other theories but this theory makes sense to me). Even though two of them were copying from Mark, hardly different converging lines of evidence.
If I and another blogger reported on some fraud in the church (let's say some dude caught with his hand in the church charity box) and we copy from a church news source and make edits, is that three different converging lines of evidence or is it one report which was re-used?
Ditto re the Gospels!
More dishonesty about Islam from DCCI Ministries' teachers
Lizzie of St Nicholas Church and DCCI on Salvery
Advice to Muslims in responding to St Nicholas Church members and Christian Islamophobes
St Nicholas Church Member and the "sex slaves" claim debate analysed
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.