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- [00:00]
A
Thank you to our 1517 podcast listeners and viewers for your tremendous support of our June podcast fundraiser. We have officially met and surpassed our $150,000 goal for the month of June, and we couldn't have done it without you. Many of you signed up for monthly recurring gifts 21517 to support this ministry in our ongoing mission to proclaim and defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ through all sorts of materials. But in the month of June, specifically focusing on our podcasting efforts at 1517, we've been podcasting for a long time. It's one of the strengths of 1517 is our diverse network of podcasts that cover things from the Old and New Testament to Christian history and doctrine and everything in between. And we're very thankful for the supportive listening base that we have who continues to share these shows with family, friends and other church members who but also to financially back them and make it possible for us to produce, host and share these episodes with people every single week. A big thank you from me, the podcast director here at 15:17 and from everybody else involved in these projects. Thank you for supporting what we do and we hope that we continue to produce excellent resources that are of value to you, your friends and your family.
- [01:41]
B
Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows Podcast. My name is Caleb Keith. Today I am joined by Adam Francisco and Bruce Hillman. The Thinky Fellows is part of the 15:17 podcast network of shows. Go to 15:17.org there you can see all of our resources, which include articles, we have video, we have conferences, we have this podcast and of course many others. If you go to the homepage, that content rotates out for the latest thing that we are doing every day, so you can go check that out. Among the many things we do is publish books and today we are talking about a book written by our very own Adam Francisco about Luther and the Turk. The Turk is at the door, Adam, and your book is about sort of the fate, I think you have it in your subtitle here, the fate of Christendom. And I think this is an interesting topic for people because the Turk seems ever more present at the door in modern politics and religion as well. And the sort of intertwined fate of Christianity and Islam vying for position in the world is, I don't know, interesting and concerning and worrying to people. So have you maybe describe the book for people, what material it covers, what it's about, and then we can start asking some questions about Luther and Islam and then I'm hoping why this like matters today beyond historical intrigue?
- [03:19]
C
Well, the book Actually is sort of a popular take of historical intrigue. Interestingly, really what it is is a popular. Which meant it was very uncomfortable for me to write, even had to use, what do you call it, the developmental editor. Because I've just written academic stuff when it comes to something this length for 20 plus years. But it's a popular account that of what I covered in my dissertation 20 years ago. In the book Martin Luther and Islam. Though it's much more of a narrative and it's not the same as the dissertation, but anyway, it tells the story of how Luther responded almost in stages to the ever growing challenge or threat to the Ottoman Turks, moving deeper and deeper towards Germany in the first half of the 16th century. The title of the book, you know, the major title is the Turk at the Door. Subtitle Luther, Islam and the Fate of Christendom in the 16th century. And that might seem kind of hyperbolic or apocalyptic, but for Luther it was apocalyptic. For Luther, the rise of the Ottoman Turks was a fulfillment of the, you know, Daniel chapter seven. And he thought that the world was winding down. So much so that there's, I'm pretty sure, if memory serves me correctly, it's just in a table talk. But Luther one time told his friends around the table that he didn't think the world was going to last till 1600. So it's all wrapped up in how or the book is about how Luther interprets the rise of the Turks is move from being a little wary when he's asked early on whether or not Christians in his, you know, sphere of influence should join imperial and Catholic forces in resisting the Turks militarily. It also tells a story of his growing interest in Islam from early on as he's trying to figure out what the religion of the Turks, as he oftentimes called Islam, was. And then it also has a chapter, actually two chapters on his polemics and apologetics directed at Islam proper. So a little bit of everything. It's a short book. I don't remember the page count, but I sat down after I received my hard copies, my advanced copies, and read it in I think just about two hours. So, you know that I'm a quick reader, but it's, it's, it's a short read and quick dip into one aspect of Reformation history that oftentimes gets overlooked.
- [06:04]
B
Why, why do you think that's so? Because it seems like the prefaces to like dozens of important documents are concerned with this, you know, this threat of Muslim invasion. We're recording this right before the anniversary of the giving of the Augsburg Confession at the die of Augsburg by the Evangelicals. They had been in Augsburg for months at this point and would stay for other several months, mostly because the Emperor wanted some sort of peace worked out so that there was a united front against, you know, potential Muslim invasion and conflict.
- [06:51]
C
Yeah, well, yeah, that's interesting because I asked myself that or used to ask myself that question a lot because, you know, it was back in the 1990s when I was at, you know, university with your dad as an, like, I think it was my last year as an undergraduate, so that would have been 99 and then, then I went into graduate work there at Concordia Irvine, that I noticed that there were a few little references to the Turks and your major histories of the Reformation. But it was sort of a passing reference. Then I started looking more closely at it, especially with regard to Luther and with, you know, their found that he wrote a whole bunch of stuff on it. But it still wasn't like a major player in, in the historians retelling of the story of the Reformation. I think one of the reasons why is at least earlier generations of historians, church historians, they were interested in doctrine and theological trends and so on. So it was more of a, like a what we'd call intellectual history or history of ideas, with especially focused on theology. That's a fine approach to history, so long as you acknowledge that that's just like one little aspect of the story of history. Or maybe it's not so little, you know, but so a lot of those histories that take stock of the Reformation, they're interested in telling the story of Luther and his excommunication from Rome and the rise of John Calvin and Zwingli and others. But as you alluded to, Caleb, there's a whole bunch of documents and things like the Imperial Diet at Augsburg in, I guess it would be May and June of 1530, that you can't make sense of what led to those things unless you're aware of the threat that's looming in the East. So like the first or second sentence in the preface of the Augsburg Confession mentions like, why the Diet was even called because of the. The desire for Christian unity as it faces the, as the Augsburg Confession puts it, the most hereditary and ancient enemy of Christendom, that is the Turks. So now what's interesting in the last 30 years in Reformation historiography, or like early modern or 16th century historiography, is the story of the rise of the Turks. It doesn't loom large, but it's a major part of the story. So people are becoming increasingly aware of it. So I think it's just interest of historians is why you didn't have it earlier on. Like they were focused on the theology rather than what's going on politically, socially and otherwise.
- [09:29]
B
I find that the interesting intersection with theology is that the threat was like, if we kind of take the broader history of Augsburg and you go into the accounts of like what Melanchthon and Jonas and you know, Elector John were experiencing there, because sometimes we have this kind of, at least I've had this kind of vision. They show up, you know, take a couple weeks, revise articles that they had put together in various places with Luther and you know, that they had compiled in Torgau and then they come and, and give a final version or something like that. But what I think seems to happen at Augsburg is that they were forced, like there was a stress to get this done and to give up on many points because a greater threat was looming and to sort of stop the theological squabbling, stop the nitpicking. The evangelicals were basically there to get bullied, to give up like one last time. And so the threat of Islam, at least at that time in a way that maybe sometimes comes up today too, but is slightly different in a pluralistic and sort of democratic freedom of religion world, is that the threat of Islam wasn't concerned with the theology of Islam at all or like the anti Christian apologetics of, of Islam, like the Holy Roman Emperor isn't like we need Christian unity because people are going to be converted to Islam. It was, we need Christian unity, I.e. the evangelicals, to knock it off, because we need soldiers who are going to listen to orders.
- [11:22]
C
Yeah, I mean, that's right. From the get go of Luther's engagement with. It is the, I mean, very early days, you know, 15 teens. Luther's asked by his prince what he thought with respect to the Pope's request or the, I should say the Emperor's request, but behind him is the Pope for soldiers and whether or not he should support that. And Luther's initial response is, you know, if we have to deal with the Turk as sort of a metaphor for unbelief and political violence and so on, we should deal with the Turkish, our own Turk first. And what he meant by that, of course, is that the papacy and the tyranny of. Though Luther's not, wouldn't. I don't know that he ever calls Charles V a tyrant, but you know, example or there certainly were examples of tyranny. So it's interesting. One thing that's oftentimes. Another thing that's oftentimes overlooked with regard to The Turks in 16th century history is that we oftentimes think that the Crusades in the Holy Land come to an end in 1291. And indeed they do. But crusades against, or calls for crusade against Islamic forces last all the way. I mean, Pope Leo X revives this brotherhood of the Holy Crusade in an effort to fight the Turks under the guise of a crusade. And that's typically the approach the church, you know, the medieval church had taken when it comes to this. But if you look closely, though, there are missionary sort of attempts to convert Muslims and there's a lot of polemical and apologetic, evangelistic, if you will, literature produced. But it's with Luther also, early on that becomes an interest of his, at least rhetorically. Like early on he says, I wish I wasn't such an old man because if I was younger, I would go off and preach the gospel to the Turks myself. And in. By the time you get to say, like Augsburg, just before Augsburg, what really prompted augsburg is the 1529 assault on, on Vienna, where the Turks, had they not been delayed in getting to Vienna because of just inclement weather as they're marching up the Danube river basin through Hungary, they probably would have taken Vienna. Had they taken Vienna, it's hard to know or say, but it seems that then, then they would have a staging point for the rest of Europe. So in that whole context, Luther thinks about the second of his focused work on the Turk, what that might mean then for Christians who are caught behind enemy lines. And there you find Luther, who's very much interested in the Christians maintaining their faith under an Islamic regime, but also Christians serving their new Turkish masters well, so that they might speak the gospel to the Turk and even offers apologetic advice for Christians living under Islam. So Luther's approach is quite comprehensive. And, you know, it's, it has its shortcomings as anything in the 16th century would when we think about, like, how to think about and address Islam today. The comprehensive outlook he has in that he recognizes that this is a theological challenge, a political challenge, a social challenge. And the rest of it is kind of unique for a Christian thinker on Islam up until that point. And you find, and you'll find in the book that's, I mean, Luther's has a take on everything when it comes to Islam.
- [15:01]
D
You kind of mentioned it earlier, Adam, but how familiar was Luther with Islam as far as, like, the theology of Islam and the practices of Islam. Did he have good sources or did he have a mix of good stuff and superstition or rumor or, you know, like. I'm sure it was also on a spectrum over time.
- [15:23]
C
But yeah, really good question. Another really interesting thing with Luther, especially if you think about how rhetorically, how quick he is to just lambast other Christians who disagree with him on points of doctrine. Right. He very quick he rushes to judgment. I don't. That's like a. Just a description. That's not a critique or anything. I mean, because some of those other Christians deserved it roundly and soundly. Right? Or if you think about his. His view and advice on do what to do with the. The Jews of Saxony, what's really interesting is from an early. His first dedicated work on the issue of the Turks is called On War against the Turk. He started writing it in 1528. In a letter of his, I think, to Melanchthon, or maybe it's Jus Eustace Jonas, he explains how he almost got done with the book, but then he lost the manuscript somewhere, so he had to rewrite it. It'd be great if somebody could find that lost manuscript, but in that work he's merely addressing the question of whether Germans, North Germans could go in good conscience and fight against the Turk. But he has this little section right in the middle where he says something to the effect of. And while I'm addressing the Turkish problem, here's what I know about what the Turks believe. And I know it from little excerpts of the Quran I've read. And so in my long ago, when I was doing all the nitty gritty research on this, at that point in Luther's life, he had read only medieval kind of polemical literature addressed to Islam, but from really good sources. One of his primary sources was a Dominican who had spent 10 years in Baghdad learning Arabic and Islamic theology. And it was like the superstar of Christian scholars on Islam in the whole medieval era, a guy named Ricoto de Monte de Croicia. Luther called him Brother Richard. So in there, yeah, there are large, large excerpts from the Quran. So Luther is very restrained in his critique of Islam in a way, like he doesn't want to say too much because he doesn't know. He even says, I don't want to say too much because I know there's probably some good parts in Muhammad's Quran, which is really kind of interesting. But if you look at the critique, his first critique is pretty comprehensive. He launches an assessment and critique of Islam from the viewpoint of his two or three estates doctrine, the political, domestic and theological. He says towards the end of that work also he says, I will say more about the religion of the Turks if I can get my hands on the Quran. And, and I think this is a fascinating story. In the 1540s, early 1540s, Luther finally gets receives a Latin translation of the Quran that had been put together way back in 1142 down in Spain under the patronage of the famous Peter of Clooney or Peter the Venerable. And I'm sure he's famous in your guys mind too. I don't know if you've ever heard of Peter the Venerable.
- [18:28]
B
I mean like I think about him every night.
- [18:31]
C
Yeah, like the Roman Empire. There's the Roman Empire, then there's Peter the Venerable. It's my next tattoo.
- [18:37]
B
Yeah.
- [18:39]
C
So he gets a Latin translation of the Quran and then that's when he feels free and that's when he starts addressing Islam in very like precise theological terms. And that's going to change his mind about whether or not for example brother Richard had accurately addressed Islam and his critique. And so Luther will even translate out of Latin into his more like rough and even coarse German, so that soldiers going off to fight the Turks might have an apologetic source in case they get stuck in a prisoner of war camp so they could address Islamic challenges. But also one more thing in that whole story is Luther gets wind in the early 1540s that there was a man in Switzerland, a successor to Zwingli, Theodore Bibiander, who had edited and put together this massive manuscript of Latin translations of Islamic source material from the Quran to Hadith and then histories of Islam and Muhammad as well as a bunch of medieval Christian literature on Islam. And his printer, a guy named John or Johannes Aperinus, sets the type and begins printing it. And when the city council hears of it in Basel, Switzerland they quickly move in, shut down the project and even in prison the publisher, because he with quotes, you know, dared to print a heretical and obviously heretical book. And Luther gets word of it because you know, letters are sent out by Bibliander and others involved in the project to John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Luther, Martin Bucer and you know, a handful of other humanist scholars that had some influence in Reformation Europe. And they all write letters in support of it, except for John Calvin. He doesn't, we don't have any record that he wrote a letter back. But the council refuses to let Operinus go and print. Then they get a letter from. This would be well, Luther in the Last couple of years of his life when he's a bit more cantankerous than normal. And Luther says to them, basically says to them, you need to publish this. We're, you know, the world is becoming Mohammedan, as he put it in his preface to the Book of Daniel. The second preface to the Book of Daniel, it's becoming Muhammadan. We've got to figure out teachers and clergy of the Christian church need to be aware of the religion of Muhammad so that we might address it. And then he says, so that common Christians could be lionhearts in the defense of the gospel, you need to publish this. And if you don't want to publish it, he says, just send the manuscripts to Wittenberg and we'll publish it here. But you might as well publish it there because you can make some money on it. Then Luther goes, and when the city council, because of the authority of the Reformation, Martin Luther says, do this, Luther quickly pens a preface to the Quran and sends it to Theodore, Bid, Leander and Aparinos to put in the first edition of what some scholars have described as the first encyclopedia of Islam. So in many ways this is hyperbole a bit, but in many ways Luther is very much at the forefront of the discipline we might call Islamic Studies in Early Modern Europe.
- [21:52]
B
Okay, so now I have some kind of follow up questions that I think would be interesting for people today that then mix in with Luther's writings here. So you talked about the Crusades and the sort of ongoing calls for crusades that continue forward. And I know that in the book you talk about that Luther is not the most positive on the Crusades. He's got critiques about the Crusades and today it's becoming more and more, I don't know, popular, especially among younger men to sort of see the Crusades as purely positive or purely defensive of Christianity in the church or something like that. But what is sort of Luther's position on the Crusades? And from that can we extract a consistent sort of Lutheran view that is then consistent with Lutheran theology? Like, does Luther's view of the Crusades go beyond his political speculation about Rome and his own position as an enemy or an object of the crusade of Rome against heresy? Or is there a theological principle that carries through from Lutheranism to Luther's perspective on the Crusades?
- [23:16]
C
Interesting and good question. So I should say it's Luther and Erasmus, interestingly, who are the first pretty comprehensive critics of the Crusade in the early modern period. When you can find some criticism of the Crusades in the medieval Period. But it's usually pretty mild. Just drawing attention to the fact that while the Pope might put his mouth behind military response to Islam, and that's apropos, but it would be better if he also had part of his program in venturing into the Muslim majority world, some sort of missionary endeavors. Right. That's kind of the, the most comprehensive of the Crusade criticism of the Crusades in the Middle Ages. You get to Lutheran, Erasmus. Luther actually outdoes Erasmus on this. And Luther, here's how he puts it in on war against the Turk. He says, of course, as a matter of defending your Christian neighbor, not only can you, but you must fight the Turkish, you know, stab, slay the Turk, burn down every village that the Turk might get a hold of, you know, kind of a scorch earth policy, you know, as a matter of self defense. He even goes so far as to say it's not just men who should do this. If, if women are sort of caught in the middle of this and children, they should fight the Turk as well as they're. They're able. So he's, you know, we've, we, I think we had an episode on just war or something here some time ago. But Luther is very much in favor of a just defensive type of war when it comes to a war
- [24:51]
B
seen
- [24:52]
C
as somehow holy in a Crusade sense of the term. That if you like. For Luther, he's living in a day and age. Indulgences are a big thing. I don't know for sure, but he most likely knows that the origin of the selling of indulgences with the promise that you'll get a plenary remission of sin is anchored in the First Crusade sermon in the 11th century. So it's not just this idea of a war, a holy war, but all that's wrapped up in it. That is like the greatest work you can do. Because if you die en route to fighting or in the midst of fighting, you get a sort of pass through purgatory and directly to eternal life. So Luther, here's what Luther says. He goes as he's encouraging Germans to take up arms and resist the Turks for the sake of their neighbor. He says, but if you're out there in the field fighting the Turk and you see a bishop holding a stand or flag that has a crucifix on it, it says run from it as if it's the devil. So I mean, that's his view of the Crusades demonic.
- [25:58]
B
So he makes a distinction that, like, I think people miss out on today, which is A difference between a just war and a holy war. Like, you could have a war that's just. And it doesn't make it holy. That is not a divine work that advances the gospel.
- [26:15]
C
Correct.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Yeah. But he can also. He can call, like, the soldier's vocation. He can call the act of slaying the enemy as a Christian act of love. Right. And what he means by that simply is because you're defending your neighbor, you know, so the language, especially in the English translations, can get a little confusing. And I should add, I'm no apologist for the Crusades, but for Luther, his knowledge of the. He didn't have a full knowledge of all the Crusades and like all the intricacies in politics. If you look at Crusade history, I think a lot of this sort of renewed interest in the Crusade by evangelical Christians or what have you is like, focused on, for example, the First Crusade, which was. It wasn't defensive in that. That you have armies standing, thwarting the Seljuk Turks, in that case, in the 11th and early 12th century from entering into Europe. You have Christians vent. Entering into the Holy Land. But they're there because they've gotten word that Christians there are being rabidly persecuted. You know, we have. They're more redactions than direct eyewitness testimony, but redactions of eyewitness testimony that describe Christians being sort of cut open and their intestines tied to stakes and they're being sort of whipped. So they're running around as their intestines are piling out, people getting crucified, pregnant women having their. Their wombs cut open and, you know, their children taken out and. And dashed on rocks and things like that. So like that first. What we call historians call the First Crusade, in a way, is kind of a. A war of liberation, if you will. It's just the rhetoric starts ratcheting up. And then when you get to subsequent Crusades, it gets really theologically, it just. It's a big. To use the technical term, honkin mess.
- [28:04]
D
The Children's Crusade was fun.
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B
This seems like, to me, like a classic. I mean, I guess like in the idea of a continuous thought that's available in other places in Lutheranism as well. That is the distinction between the Gospel and vocation. That vocation really is an object in a matter of the law in this world that you have that various people have demands to care for their neighbor in various ways, and that that happens at different levels. The political ruler, prince, pope, whatever, has a different vocation when it comes to the defense or the protection of people, but that the spread of the Gospel doesn't happen by the law, which also means it doesn't happen by warfare in this particular way. Or that killing an enemy out of Christian vocation is not the same as even preaching the law to them for repentance or something like this. Right. It's. So the idea that is to keep those two things distinct, I suppose.
- [29:11]
C
Yeah. And Luther will even talk a bit about that. How one of the fallacies of the Crusades is that buried in the psyche of the Pope and the crusaders after that first Crusade is this idea that you can coerce people into the Gospel and there makes that very, you know, critiques that notion upwards and downwards and sideways that that's just simply fallacious. You can't.
- [29:37]
B
It seems like the most dangerous part of a war like that, that, you know, may be justified and may even be done out of proper Christian vocation, but that the, the worst potential outcome is that in this defense of Christians and in the national political sphere or the multinational political sphere, that it would then transform into a relationship with the Gospel. Yeah, that means making Christians by political means.
- [30:08]
C
Yeah, yeah. Which if you think of it is just like if the Christian faith is a. And I don't like putting it this way, a matter of the heart and the mind, you know, how would you even know? You know, like you might get all the external trappings, right, but you'd never know anyway.
- [30:24]
B
So that's kind of the story of the Old Testament. Funny enough, right, that like how much of Israel of these people are unbelieving all the time turning to idols immediately? Does making the nation state of Israel, even when God is the one to make it to use judges and kings and prophets, even Moses in deliverance, does that result in just like the endless faithfulness of this nation? No.
- [30:53]
D
Can I switch gears just for a sec? So Adam, like who, who did you write this book for and what do you want people to get from the book? Like if people are listening and wondering if they should get the book, like who do you have in mind and what do you want them to take?
- [31:07]
C
I have you in mind, Bruce. The whole time just had you in my head.
- [31:13]
D
Thank you. Your Turk gift is beautiful, you know,
- [31:16]
C
for Caleb knows and probably behind my back makes fun of me for it. But boy, what are we in 2026? So over 25 years I've been lecturing not just in like formal classrooms, but to church groups and conferences and so on, on the challenge of Islam and in, in a lot of my talks, like a little episode on. On the Reformation, especially if I'm talking to a Lutheran group just to sort of anchor it in the. Their tradition and would mention or their, you know, people became aware of this dissertation. Then they go on, like, quite literally, Bruce, people. If you go onto Amazon, I don't know what it is today, and type in Martin, Lutheran, Islam. It's probably in the 2002, and it's a very academic book with Latin, German, Arabic. I think there's even a couple Turkish, some Turkish language in there. People aren't going to buy that. But people kept asking me, not you, though, because you don't care, apparently. But people kept asking me, I care.
- [32:22]
D
It's $235.
- [32:26]
C
Would you, you know, people kept asking, would you rewrite this as like a paperback? And I was like, well, I can't rewrite it, or I can't publish it that way because of copyright and so on. But I thought I would like to retell the story in a way that's more friendly and not concerned with all the academic nuance and so on. So in my head, I didn't actually have you in my mind, Bruce, but I did have in mind people like my mother. You know, people who are readers who are generally interested in church history, Luther, Muslim, Christian stuff, politics. That's who I had in mind. You know, you're not just your. The person who graces the pew, but somebody who, like, goes to Bible class, who actually has a curiosity about the past, especially in the case of Lutherans, because it's. It's sort of part of their. The story of the Reformation. So I'm hoping. I don't know. I really genuinely don't know. When every time I read it, I go, adam, this is not you. Because it's. There's no footnotes in the book.
- [33:29]
B
Oh, wow.
- [33:29]
C
There are lots of pictures of your preface. The preface, I said, if you want to know where all these quotes come from and all the academic debates, here's the book you got to get, you know, but.
- [33:39]
B
So you're selling. This is like the gateway drug.
- [33:41]
C
No, no, I don't expect people to buy the dissertation or the Brill book
- [33:45]
D
at all just to promote it. It's only 12.95 compared to the, you know, $200 Mercedes. So you get.
- [33:54]
C
Get some nice connection out of the way. Caleb, just to ease your academic knobbery at the end, there is a bibliography of all the stuff you want to do the work yourself and read Luther's stuff. And with the exception of one I think it is. All the stuff is available in English, so one can go and verify what I'm saying is true, not just making it up like I do everything else.
- [34:20]
B
You are a podcaster, after all. That's the job, right? I know you've been banging the Islam drum for nearly as long as I've been alive, but the.
- [34:35]
C
That's true.
- [34:36]
B
Yeah, that is true. I was probably, what, like 4 or 5 years old when these ideas started to form for you in the dorms at Irvine. But the very real thing that's funny for me is I haven't done nearly as much apologetic speaking or things at church as you. But one of the times I did, the first thing that happened to me was later that afternoon was a teenager who was in the room, even though my talk had nothing to do with Islam, had nothing but questions for me about Islam and its challenges to Christianity and its sort of rendering of Christian doctrine as problematic. And this was because he had a best friend who, growing up, was Muslim. And now, as teenagers, that was becoming troublesome for him in two fronts, both from his own Christian perspective, that this person was outside of God's salvation because they were Muslim, even though he seemed and acted like a decent person who cared for him and loved him. And so he was, this young man was being confronted, I think, for the first time with the idea that there are good people who aren't saved. And then second, because his friend's telling of Islam then made it seem, you know, funny enough, more loving than Christianity, because Islam had room for his friend and his Christianity didn't have room for the Muslim. So it is a very real challenge. And one of the things that happens today that I think is obviously different from the Luther situation is that we in the United States and in the west are living amongst more and more Muslims. And so the challenges are now theological and direct. They can be coworkers, they can be friends. They can be friends of your children, not just at school, but maybe through soccer practice or various sports or things like that. And so knowing nothing is going to put you at a real disadvantage, I think, today. And one of the important aspects of apologetics is certainly the service of proclaiming the gospel and keeping you prepared and giving you the ability to proclaim to people in different opposition in different context, but is also the protection of your own ears from these ideas in many ways, sort of taking up the defensive sword against Islam, not just as a political opponent, but to protect your own hearing of. Of the gospel. As this becomes more and more prevalent in the west today.
- [37:30]
C
Yeah, for sure.
- [37:32]
B
So 1299, that means it's not very long either, is it?
- [37:36]
C
Yeah, 120 pages, maybe. I don't know.
- [37:40]
B
That sounds like a really good deal. Honestly, it's a great deal.
- [37:43]
C
Great.
- [37:43]
B
Our listeners should probably just be ordering this. This is at shop 1517. Yeah, 120 pages, 12.99.
- [37:50]
D
That's on Amazon too, for pre order. I'm looking at it on Amazon, so.
- [37:55]
B
Okay, I'll put the links to both the pre order through the 15:17 shop on Amazon and 15:17. You can order it in either location if you're able and willing. Ordering through our store is helpful and useful to 1517. We get a little more information about who buys books there. We also obviously have slightly better margins than when we go through Amazon and things like that. And you know, we don't do publishing because it's the most profitable thing. In fact, it's not very profitable. Profitable at all for us. It's a. It's a service and a part of our mission, a thing that we do out of love for the game. And so you can go to shop.1517.org and pre order that as of this podcast, you also go to Amazon. Com. Sounds like a really good deal. Easy way to inform yourself and maybe even like I said as this confrontation with Islam or experience that people will have more and more with it, something on the shelf for yourself or even to give away at 1299. So we thank you for listening to this episode. Thank you, Adam, for giving an account of that book and a perspective on Luther and Islam. And we will catch you next time. Bye,
- [39:17]
C
Sam.