In the name of Allah (God),
I have decided to dedicate sincere and honest endeavour in helping to establish the Truth by helping to defend the good name of the last Prophet (pbuh) of Allah as well as refuting many other lies and misconceptions that are being disseminated by the insincere, wicked, deceptive, intellectually and morally bankrupted individuals as well as the ignorant individuals who all share a faulty characteristic; a blatant disregard for the Truth.
I ask Allah to purify my intentions and save me from doing any good action for self-aggrandizement, as all actions are judged by intentions. May Allah Love me, and bless this work. My message to any non-Muslim reading this is thus:
Please give Islam a chance, research it for yourself and allow Muslims and Muslim sources to be your primary resources you refer to when studying Islam rather than basing your views on agenda-motivated Islamophobic sources.
O Allah, You are Al-Wadud (The Loving)...please O Allah love me and bless all those Muslims and non-Muslims who read this.
Ameen
The tweet is in unclear English but it does appear as though the author of this tweet (Hatun Tash?) is suggesting the “dawah team” (I think this is a catchall term anti-Islam Christian “evangelists” are using for any Muslim who they encounter resistance from or whom is preaching Islam) supports grooming gangs – sexual abuse and rape of girls. A nasty and malicious suggestion showing the heart of the author of the tweet. If it is Hatun Tash, it would keep in with her past inflammatory behaviour towards Muslims, she suggested Muslims who helped the Grenfell Tower fire victims were only doing so because of the cameras and she thanked God for the death of a Muslim who used to preach to Christians.
If that’s what he/she is suggesting then that is clearly vile slander. Just because somebody is unwilling to discuss “grooming gangs” with you, specifically you, (an antagonistic anti-Islam Christian) it does not mean that they agree with or support grooming gangs. Quite how somebody can reach that conclusion is beyond me.
Muslims have repeatedly denounced grooming gangs. It’s obvious grooming gangs are not acting according to Islam as alcohol, drugs and rape are all unislamic. To suggest criminals involved in such abuse are acting Islamic is to throw aside common sense for one’s agenda of propaganda.
CJ Davis of St Nicholas Church in Tooting is asked to check whether this tweet comes from one of his church members. By their fruit ye shall know them. Anti-Muslim propaganda, vile slander and deceit are not what one would consider to be good fruit.
Or are the news stories of brown folks with Muslim names in sexual grooming scandals just being used as a stick for evangelical “Christian” propaganda? By their fruit ye shall know them. I think weaponising sexual abuse victims and their pain for evangelical and/or anti-Islam propaganda is a sign of bad fruit, specially in the post-Brexit vote climate we find ourselves in. Like somebody is going to sign on the dotted line and join the CofE or any other church because of such shallow tactics.
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.
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!
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.
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?
I did not watch the second part, personally I’m not in favour of debate titles and topics like this as all religions have fine teachings, Christianity is very similar to Islam in many aspects thus has much good in it.
What does this debate achieve? Does it advance Muslim-Christian dialogue? Does it achieve more heat rather than light? Does it bring the Christian closer to pure Abrahamic monotheism? These are questions for the debaters to think about.
Having said that, let’s go through some of the debate points
Interest based economics
Qasim claims Christianity encourages the exploiting of the poor through the economic system - interest based economics. He puts forward Deut 23:20 to contend the Bible allows the exploitation of foreigners. I guess, this was a bridge for him to talk about how the colonialists in the West treated the Africans and Asians they conquered.
Qasim also believes all the wars of the last two centuries are all related to the (Christian) West.
I don't think Bob the Builder directly addressed these claims in the part I watched (part 1), Bob spoke about Christian charities and a separation of the West and Christianity.
20 You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess. [Deut 23]
Qasim basically railed against a rampant capitalism which he links to Christianity. This idea of modern capitalism being related to Protestant Christianity goes back to Max Werber's theory around the Reformation. His work is a complicated read, you can find it online. Many people reference to it. I don't really think it has much value in Muslim-Christian apologetics.
Qasim highlighted the weakness in the teaching of separating religion from the state, the idea of give to Caesar what is his. He believes this is part of the reason why an immoral capitalism and consumerism is plaguing the West. Qasim says the same applies to pornography production. I suspect a great number of ills in society could be linked to the teaching of giving to Caesar what is his.
I do believe this is a major problem in Christianity, Paul of Tarsus did not envisage his religion spreading and existing as a global religion which would have influence on various lands and countries hence why he nor other writers of the New Testament taught about Christian governance, There was near-sightedness on the part of Paul and the other NT authors, they could never envisage being the dominant culture and religious movement in the Roman Empire and thus taught a subservience to Roman (non Christian) rule. If you truly believe you have a message from God, then why would you not want the teachings of that message to be foremost in the governing of a country?
Bible and alcohol
For Qasim, alcolol is a legalised Christian drug. He feels Christianity encourages poor people to drink alcohol. He suggests the problems of alcohol dependency in aboriginal Australian communities go back to the Bible.
Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. [Proverbs 31:7]
Bob's response was to talk about how alcohol existed prior to Christianity and that it's permissible to drink alcohol but not abuse alcohol. Drinking in moderation is allowed according to Bob the Builder.
The problem here for Bob is that even in moderation, alcohol has been shown to be a risk factor to certain cancers. And if one knows anything about alcohol, you'll know that it's difficult to moderate one's drinking as alcohol by its very nature makes one lose their inhibitions incrementally.
Surely a better teaching would be to forbid alcohol outright.
Lip service or sincerely held beliefs?
In Qasim's mind, the principle of "love your neighbour" is just rhetoric, political lip-service. I don’t reckon this is the case given that many Christians are charitable and many Christians consider helping poor people a Christian teaching. Muslims and Christians are perhaps the most charitable people in the world. For Muslims, we would say this stems back to the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah, Islam has a big emphasis on charity and looking after the poor. I think, likewise, for Christians who involve themselves in efforts of charity, they will say this originates from their Church traditions. Bob the Builder, iirc, listed some Christian charities in the video.
A racist ideology of white supremacy?
Qasim finds the practice of Christians depicting Jesus as a white man problematic to a healthy society. He believes Christianity is a racist ideology which teaches people to worship a white man.
Bob does not really dispute the claim that many Christians (in the West) have made Jesus into a white man but his argument here is that other Christians of other cultures make Jesus into their images; Christians in Japan and Ethiopia make Jesus into a Japanese or East African respectively.
The problem here, for Bob, is that this does not fully counter the various offshoots of Qasim’s claim. If Christianity allows people to make Jesus into their own racial image does this not leave the door open for the most economically and geo-politically advanced Christian group (at this time, Western European Christians) to promote supremacy of their race subconsciously?
It’s an interesting thought. An interesting discussion could spring from what Qasim said as long as it is done in a mature and thoughtful way.
The other problem here, for Bob, is that he’s openly admitted Christians make Jesus (that’s God for Trinitarians) into their own image. So what are these Japanese, East African and Western European Christians doing here? Could it be argued that they are involved in a form of pride and self-worship in portraying God in their own phenotypes?
This seemed to be a touchy subject and Bob lost his sense of respect, charity and decorum (again). Bob the Builder was wildly out of order in accusing the young Muslim, Qasim, of hating “White European” people. This is a hefty allegation and it’s reckless to make such public assertions based on what is no evidence at all. Qasim should seek a public apology from Bob the Builder for slander (perhaps even seek legal counsel if such a retraction is not made as claims like those can lead to one losing standing in society, be it social or economic). Make no bones about it, this was a serious a case of slander, it should not be taken lightly and brushed off as normal behaviour at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park.
Bob the Builder, if he’s a Bible-believing Trinitarian church traditionalist then he may well believe Jesus is calling him (Bob) a “fool”:
“...and whoever utters slander is a fool” [Proverbs 10:18]
Again, this is a shocking statement, one in which fair-minded Christians and Muslims should rebuke Bob for and politely ask Bob to retract this. It sets a very worrying precedent where young people could feel making false charges of racism (and other things) is an unchallenged norm.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour” [Exodus 20:16]
Bob states prohibition of drugs in Islamic countries has not stopped drug use in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. This seems quite a vacuous statement. Prohibition of drink driving, rape, drugs and theft has not prevented such crimes miring societies the world over - there will always be outliers in every society.
He argues that Muslim countries cannot tackle opium abuse problems because Islam creates a shame culture. Every culture has taboo and shame around drugs and other immoral behaviour - including Christian cultures. Bob's polemic is myopic and poorly thought out. It's not Islam that creates shame culture, in fact, if somebody is struggling with an addiction then it would be meritorious for other Muslims to help that person battle his/her addiction. Part of helping people against addictions to alcohol or drugs is to ban alcohol and drugs so it is less widely available.
As Qasim rightly pointed out, Afghanistan’s drug production is linked to the West. I thought the young Muslim did well to outline the politico-historical circumstances around the opium production in Afghanistan (Afghanistan shares borders with Iran and Pakistan so it’s hardly surprising that those neighbouring countries are effected by the lucrative drugs trade leaving many victims of drug abuse and addicts in its wake).
Being superficial on slavery - old polemics
Slavery, Bob’s argument is the usual superficial argument that Christian countries banned slavery before Muslim countries did. When I was researching this subject a while back I noticed the prohibition of slavery coincided with the industrial revolution. It does not take Einstein to figure out that there may well be a correlation here; the Muslim countries were not in a position to dispense with man-power (a large bulk of it was from slaves) whilst Western (Christian) were in that position due to the Industrial Revolution.
We must never downplay, the role the slaves in the Caribbean played in gaining their own freedom, they rebelled. These rebellions were costly, making it less cost-effective to continue slavery. The concern here is to avoid the idea of African slaves being wholly dependent upon the Christian's/West's love for their freedom. Slaves were very much part of helping the push for abolition.
Quite often, Christian apologists/evangelists seemingly make out Christianity was the chief driving force in the abolition movement. This is not true, common sense dictates it is not true as Christianity was around when the slave trade was flourishing (by the efforts of Christians)!
Furthermore, I recall seeing pamphlets from the pro-slavery lobby in the UK which opposed the anti-slavery lobby. Both sides actually used the Bible to support their stances!
Let’s see Christian move beyond simplistic polemics. Smart and informed people can see through them. Christians often complain about an anti-intellectualism amongst their fellow Christians, when you have so many preachers and apologists serving up old, tired and simplistic rhetoric (effectively propaganda harrumphs) which have little academic value, is there any surprise anti-intellectualism is so wide-spread in Christian communities?
“Prophet Muhammad and his followers had slaves"
This was one of Bob’s unfair talking points.
Slavery existed before Islam and it was embedded in the community whilst Islam was being Revealed.
For Bob, the 2nd person of the Trinity idea (later to become Jesus) gave Moses laws on buying and selling slaves in Exodus 21.
Prophet Muhammad promoted the freeing of slaves, so much so that if people, over the years, followed his instructions diligently the slaves of every community would have been freed, thus effectively ending slavery aside from new war captives. In Islam, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade would be considered immoral as going out to kidnap and enslave them is against the ethics Islam. Why not mention that at Speakers Corner, Bob the Builder?
This is one of the basic principles of Islam. When the question is asked: why does Islam permit slavery? We reply emphatically and without shame that slavery is permitted in Islam, but we should examine the matter with fairness and with the aim of seeking the truth, and we should examine the details of the rulings on slavery in Islam, with regard to the sources and reasons for it, and how to deal with the slave and how his rights and duties are equal to those of the free man, and the ways in which he may earn his freedom, of which there are many in sharee’ah, whilst also taking into consideration the new types of slavery in this world which is pretending to be civilized, modern and progressive. When Islam came, there were many causes of slavery, such as warfare, debt (where if the debtor could not pay off his debt, he became a slave), kidnapping and raids, and poverty and need. Slavery did not spread in this appalling manner throughout all continents except by means of kidnapping; rather the main source of slaves in Europe and America in later centuries was this method. The texts of Islam took a strong stance against this. It says in a hadeeth qudsi: “Allaah, may He be exalted, said: ‘There are three whose opponent I will be on the Day of Resurrection, and whomever I oppose, I will defeat … A man who sold a free man and consumed his price.’” Narrated by al-Bukhaari (2227). It is worth pointing out that you do not find any text in the Qur’aan or Sunnah which enjoins taking others as slaves, whereas there are dozens of texts in the Qur’aan and the ahaadeeth of the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) which call for manumitting slaves and freeing them. There were many sources of slaves at the time of the advent of Islam, whereas the means of manumitting them were virtually nil. Islam changed the way in which slavery was dealt with; it created many new ways of liberating slaves, blocked many ways of enslaving people, and established guidelines which blocked these means. [Source https://islamqa.info/en/94840]
Paul of Tarsus, purported to be inspired by God, encouraged slaves to obey their masters in Ephesians 6, Paul did not have an issue with slavery...
Bob the Builder’s Trinitarian Church Version of Jesus, not only allowed slaves in the Old and New Testament, but TCVO Jesus also allowed the severe beating of slaves in Exodus 21, both females (yes female slaves could be beaten severely too!) and males. The Prophet of Islam forbade beating slaves.
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property. [Exodus 21 – Bible]
I’ve noticed this mudslinging around slavery seems to be a common practice amongst anti-Islam evangelicals. I would encourage them to start thinking deeper on the topic and read what Muslim scholars are saying about it.
Again, let’s see Christian folks move away from low level polemic be it in parks or online.
Summary
The young Muslim involved in the dialogue is clearly an intelligent person who is learned in history, current affairs and global politics but I can’t help to wonder how much better he’d come off if he planned the topics of the debate a week in advance and consulted under the tutelage of more experienced Muslims on possible topics to discuss as well as talking points.
I do believe debates on such topics can potentially be unhelpfully divisive (especially when done in a confrontational and prideful way) and ultimately end up pitting Muslims and Christians against each other, offline and online, in mudslinging echo chambers. Perhaps this debate served to ratchet up antagonism against Muslims hence Bob’s slander and some of the racist and threatening anti-Muslim comments on the Christian channel which also uploaded the debate. I would encourage serious minded Christians to make a public condemnation of this type of rhetoric as we have seen it before from online folks who were following Jay Smith's videos. Let's see this toxic element marginalised and rebuked publicly by our Christian friends.
Let’s try our utmost to ensure discussion brings about understanding and good fruit.
Jay Smiths former colleague, Lizzie Schofield, admits she believes the Bible teaches that non Christians (unbelievers) will be put in Hell forever. This was a notable admission because, previously, Lizzie (and Hatun Tash) had been attacking Islam for the belief that unbelievers go to Hell.
This video highlights this inconsistency on their part. Like I say, if this was deliberate, it means Lizzie and Hatun were sinning when attacking Islam as they were being intellectually dishonest.
If it was not deliberate, then it begs the question, why are they preaching Christianity and what did Jay Smith, St Nicholas Church, CJ Davis and Beth Grove teach them if they did not know this about their own faith a few months ago?
Here are my thoughts on what an evangelical Christian lady wrote in response to a click-bait piece on the Independent's websiteby Qasim Rashid entitled “How the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sex scandals.” As a Muslim I was surprised to see such a title - something which I will address later on in this piece once we touch on some of the polemics directed at Qasim Rashid's piece from a "Christian"evangelical lady called Lizzie Schofield. Lizzie Schofield writes: Now theIndie's [sic] really upped its game with its latest piece by Qasim Rachid [Sic] (a regular contributor) entitled “How the teachings of Islam could help us prevent more sex scandals.” Islam will prevent sex scandals? Sex scandals like the systematic rape and grooming of young girls in Rochdale, Rotherham and Newcastle, right?
This is like a Christian saying Christian teachings will prevent murders and genocides and the critic responding flippantly “what like the genocide of the Native Americans”?
There are two problems with this immature approach:
1. It’s childish and it misuses serious crimes and suffering of human beings for one-upmanship.
2. This one-upmanship is a non-sequitar in any case. The perverts in the grooming gangs (which included non Muslims) were in fact going against the teachings of Islam – unless you think alcohol, drugs, deceit and rape are Islamic (see Islam forbids rape). You’ve got to have a low view of your fellow man if you think these things are part of the way of life of a fifth of your cousins on this planet. In fact, Islam teaches men and women against being alone or touching a person of the opposite sex whom you have no relationship with. Lizzie knows this as she has been told about the Jewish teaching of Shomer Negiah and the Muslim equivalent.
She knows how Islam would help against Hollywood director sex scandals. Men have to lower their gaze, so they can’t ogle at the model/actress (in addition Islam’s dress code of modesty would help to lessen the drawing of attention from men of a sensual nature as witnessed in this social experiment). Is that not what led to the Harvey Weinstein’s alleged crimes – the sin of the eyes inciting further lustful thoughts? Secondly, you can’t be alone with the actress as Islam teaches against two unmarried people of the opposite sex being alone with each other (the third is always the devil). Thirdly, sex cannot be carried out outside a relationship. Surely that’s enough to say the precepts of Islam would help prevent such sex scandals and vicitimization of actresses? She then goes into full tilt polemical mode with mindless and inconsistent polemics:
“Tell me how a religion founded by a man who married a nine-year-old girl, plus another 10 women (some forcibly) in addition to his regular sex slaves, will help here. Seriously. I’m all ears.” On marrying young
2. On that theme, the age of marriage in the Bible is puberty as stated by a Christian apologist who cited Ezekiel 16 as his proof text for this claim. Why is this lady not asking why the Bible contains such a “proof text” for puberty as the age of marriage and why it does not follow pre-modern age of consent laws? Does she think Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father did not care about women?
3. We both live in Western Europe, pre-modern Western Europe had similar marriage practices to that of the Arabs a the time of Prophet Muhammad and the Jews at the time of Prophet Jesus. Emma Mason writes, "In the Middle Ages, getting married was easy for Christians living in western Europe...Marriage was the only acceptable place for sex and as a result Christians were allowed to marry from puberty onwards, generally seen at the time as age 12 for women and 14 for men. Parental consent was not required. When this law finally changed in England in the 18th century, the old rules still applied in Scotland." This lady’s ancestors would have been involved in such marriages. Even beyond the Middle Ages, I bet some of Lizzie’s forefathers were involved in such marriages. Just look at the London marriage licenses between 1500 to the 1800s. We’ve got 4 (four) year old George in there, 9 year old Dorthy Panton and 11 year old Anne in there. This lady may want to check up her family tree for any of those names. In reality, there would have been countless marriages like those of Anne and Dorthy during this period across the whole of Britain. Were they all a bunch of women hating paedophiles back then? No of course not...so why the big deal about Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha when the Bible, Jesus and the rest of humanity before pre-modern times would have seen no issue with it? On polygamy
If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. [Exodus 21:10]
And Jesus, according to her Trinitarian beliefs not only allowed polygamy but also gave wives [plural] to David:
8 I gave your master’s house to you,and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. [2 Samuel 12:8]
This is all elementary stuff that anybody who has thought about and looked into the Bible would know of. Why are we seeing a Trinitarian Christian lady talk about polygamy like it’s a bad thing? She’s indirectly insulting her version of Jesus (the Trinitarian Church version). Did Jesus do something wrong in her eyes? Is she more holy than Jesus?
Jesus never married. Jesus never had sex slaves. He never sexually exploited women. The Cross of Christ is justice for the victims of sexual exploitation and mercy for the perpetrators if they turn to him.
OK, Jesus never married, and is that something that makes him a better person than Moses, Muhammad or Abraham? Nope. Marriage is something necessary for procreation and it’s what societies are founded upon. I believe the lady in question is married herself, let's not go into medieval monk mode where sex is seen as something unholy. Sex is part of life and none of us would be here today if it was not part of life.
She claims Jesus never exploited women but she believes Jesus allowed the severe beating of female slaves as long as they got up after a day or two (Exodus 21:20-21). She believes Jesus ordered the killing of non virgin females in 1 Samuel 15:3. Is she not aware of any of this or is this in the back of her mind gnawing away at her so she decides to attack Muslims, Islam and the Prophet of Islam to try and make herself feel a bit better? Is this some sort of self-projection akin to where a gay guy is constantly bashing gays but is found out to be involved in a gay lifestyle! behind closed doors.
She also believes Jesus allowed polygamy (Ex 21:10) and she believes Jesus gave wives to David in 2 Samuel 12:8. Clearly Jesus had no issue with polygamy. If she thinks polygamy is exploitation of women then I’m sure she will criticising the Trinitarian church’s view of Jesus - if she's consistent. In addition, she will be attacking the Bible as the spark for her Protestant church movement, Martin Luther, said there’s nothing in the Bible to forbid polygamy.
As for rape, I’d imagine (if consistent as she is constantly looking for the most negative view of Islamic sources she can find) she would exegete 2 Samuel 12 as Jesus threatening to have David’s wives given to somebody else and slept with as exploitation of women: 11 Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”
Aside from this, we already know that she believes Jesus is not a pacifist and that Jesus used much more violence than Prophet Muhammad. I guess in her mind, Muhammad is more peaceful and more kinder to women than Trinitarian Jesus and the Islamic Jesus is more peaceful and more loving to women than the Trinitarian church version of Jesus. Rape victims and the "cross" She wrote about the cross being some sort of comfort or justice for victims of rape. She does not believe this at all. In her mind, any non Christians raped and not willing to worship Jesus (a man!) will face the wrath of Jesus who will return with a sword for his enemies. She’s on video saying so about Jesus returning with a sword for his "enemies" which she believes to be Muslims (including Muslim women presumably unless she believes Jesus is anti-men and only dislikes non-Christian men). Quite how the idea of Jesus dying for sins on a cross is justice for rape victims is beyond me. Really, what of all those non Christian women raped (many by Christians, think Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, and African slaves) who did not believe a man (Jesus) was God? How exactly do you think the church idea of the cross helps them? Furthermore, she believes the rapists will be forgiven due to the beliefs around the cross...but what if the rape victim does not forgive the rapist? Conclusion The online platform for major newspapers, given the competition online, is a click based market so content providers are incentivised to be as sensational and, a times, inflammatory as possible - "attention whoring" for views. This, in turn, corresponds to online ad revenue. For the Independent's website, it's not much different. For me, the ads that show up on Qasim Rashid's online piece are for BNP PARIBAS and SQUARE SPACE. As a reader of the Independent, I am a little disappointed in the editorial decision to run that article as it does not take a great deal of wisdom to expect an online anti-Muslim backlash. It seems like the Independent were trolling the right wing but I think we have to recognise this goes beyond the Far Right despite the Left's willingness to stand up for minorities (as a Muslim, I appreciate much of this sentiment although I have read Nathan Lean's book on Islamophobia and he does mention there is Left-wing Islamophobia too). Qasim Rashid's article will effectively be used as a recruiting sergeant in pitting the cultural right-wing, anti-Muslim and anti-religion folks against Muslims. It's only going to fuel this narrative of "creeping sharia" and the propaganda of an exaggerated influence of Muslims in the West that Muslims are on the precipice of power in Britain when in actuality Muslims are the , or at least one of the, least influential minority groups in the West: Christians, LGBTQ groups and Jews have way more influence than Muslims. There would have been less of a firestorm if Qasim Rashid had spoken of the way in which EVERY major world religion would help alleviate sex scandals in Hollywood or wherever. He could have then have thrown in a paragraph or two of his own religious tradition alongside relevant teachings from other faiths. The title could have been "How Religion Can Prevent More Sex Scandals in Hollywood". I do fear, the Independent have managed to stoke up further anti-Muslim sentiment whilst seeking out internet clicks. Sure, the evangelical lady who riled against Qasim Rashid's article is anti-Islam but we must start asking ourselves why Christians, who are very similar in moral values to Muslims, are taking aim at Muslims, increasingly so. We've got to start dialoguing with their more reasonable types and start working with each other as opposed to butting heads in this anti-religion climate we live in in the West. In Britain, I've always thought on the ground (in real life) serious Muslims and serious Christians get along well - the biggest allies of Muslims in the West are religious Christians in my view (not the liberal left). This anti-Islam rhetoric which is amplified on the net is not doing serious-minded Christians any favours at all. This lady was using babyish terms like "dawahgandist" and "indimmpendent" - she's an outlier amongst real-on-the-ground Christians in the UK in my view, her behaviour reflects a more American fundamentalist, politically-oriented Christianity. On top of this, through her polemics, the light is well and truly being shone on the Trinitarian view of Jesus who any critic of Prophet Muhammad would criticise with greater vigour and accuse Trinitarian Jesus of all sorts of crimes against men, women and children - if consistent. I wonder if this Christian lady will be consistent.
I'm facing the very real guilt of being partly responsible for a young Christian lady losing faith in Christianity and apparently having no faith in God any longer. She was allegedly on fire for Christianity and was rubbing shoulders with some big name Christian apologists in North America. She was a rising star in evangelical circles - a bit of a celebrity. She was doing the "Muhammad can't be a true Prophet because of polygamy and wars etc." spiel, basically the talking points many Christian polemicists run through, including the Christian lady we are addressed above. I did the, "hey what about the Bible (it allows polygamy) and what about the Bible on violence" response alongside correcting some of her misapprehensions about Islam. Essentially a watered-down version of what I've wrote above. She did email me to expose one of the "Christian" apologists she was rubbing shoulders with who I happened to be refuting and rebuking at the time. I just thought she had gained in maturity, I had no knowledge she left the faith until I was alerted to a social media status from a Christian apologist who had a bit of a crush on her. My advice to Christians is to think about consistency, don't blame people like me for simply pointing out Prophet Muhammad used less violence than Trinitarian Jesus when you try to dishonestly decontextualize his wars and make out the Prophet of Islam was all about violence and don't blame me when I start pointing out what Trinitarians believe about Jesus concerning the treatment of women when you try to engage in negative propaganda against Prophet Muhammad in trying to make him out to be anti-women. Start teaching Christians to be more honest and consistent when talking about Islam, that way you won't be hating me and looking at me with suspicion as a possible reason for your rising young preachers leaving Christianity.
