Lizzie of DCCI Ministries is writing about apostasy and Islam. I skimmed through her latest blog and it was ominously a “part 1”. Really hate multi-part blogs. Get all done and dusted in one go!
Anyways, I didn’t read it all. It was basically about some Saudi Arabian guy who has been sentenced to death for apostasy…in Saudi Arabia.
Who cares, we are in the West. Everybody reading Liz’s blog will be from the West. Saudis have the right to self-autonomy. If a bunch of them get together and agree upon a rule for the collective is it really a big problem?
After all, John Calvin’s Geneva had something similar in place, right? He was up for killing those deemed heretics. That was a Christian state.
There was another nation which insisted on the death penalty for apostates too — Israel.
Now, somebody (a Westernised non-thinking Christian) can get all up in arms and yell but that has nothing to do with Jesus or Christianity. Mate, the Trinitarians believe Jesus gave the rules in the Old Testament concerning apostates.
In fact the Saudis are being less violent than what Christians believe Jesus ordered. Trinitarian Christians believe Jesus (as the second person of their triune Godhead doctrine) ordered the killing and destruction of whole towns if some people amongst them called to the worship of other gods:
12“When you begin living in the towns the LORD your God is giving you, you may hear 13that scoundrels among you are leading their fellow citizens astray by saying, ‘Let us go worship other gods’ — gods you have not known before. 14In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find that the report is true and such a detestable act has been committed among you, 15you must attack that town and completely destroyb all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. 16Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the open square and burn it. Burn the entire town as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. 17Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a large nation, just as he swore to your ancestors. [Deut 13]
Lizzie winds up doing propaganda, Jay Smith type of propaganda, which is not fair. She conflates the killing of somebody in Germany, allegedly for apostasy, with Islamic apostasy laws.
Apostasy is a serious crime investigated by the state — it’s not a vigilante rule. There’s no Islamic state here so that law cannot be enacted. Listen to Dr Yasir Qadhi on this.
Lizzie Schofield also seems to be culturally unaware too. Recently, I heard Will Storr drawing a dichotomy between Eastern and Western mindsets with relation to the community and the individual. For us in the West an apostasy law contradicts that personal, individual freedom that our lives are centred around. But for the Easterner it’s not the same — the group is central. The research experiment he spoke about was quite interesting. They recorded the reaction (eye movements) of Westerners and Easterners to a fish tank. The Westerners foccussed primarily on an unusual fish and were fascinated by that individual fish while the Easterners were looking around in the whole of the tank at other fish more.
This would partly explain why we see more restrictive sets of laws in the Eastern countries with their respective Easterners generally in favour of laws which would contravene typical rights of the self in the West. China for example.
Look I’ve got to get a wash and jump on that train. In summary:
1. She conflated an alleged apostasy killing in Germany (a vigilante killing which is not allowed in Islam) with what the Saudi state does. There’s a big difference.
2. Theocracies of the past have had apostasy for theological divergence. We mentioned Christian Geneva and Jewish Israel, both basing their laws on the Bible, the book Lizzie believes to be from Jesus…
3. Lizzie is being more than a tad inconsistent. She believes Jesus allowed the killing of apostates in the Bible. She also believes Jesus will come back with a SWORD to terrorise and kill Muslims.
So that Saudi man on death row for apostasy really doesn’t matter in Lizzie’s mind because in her mind, if Jesus came back tomorrow Jesus would kill him…and all the Saudis…and me!
Another example of inconsistency below. Off to catch that train!
Notes from Sean Finnegan's interview with Patrick Navas: Is the Trinity Biblical
