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- [00:00]
A
What would happen if Aslan came bounding out of Narnia and began teaching your confirmation class or Bible study? What if Martin Luther could have traveled from Wittenberg through the wardrobe, all while writing the Small Catechism? Hi, this is Pastor Sam Schuldeis, author of the latest book from 1517, Luther and the A Narnian Catechism. This book weaves together the imagination of C.S. lewis's the lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, and the instruction of Martin Luther's Small Catechism. Two great authors, two classic books, one epic true story of good news for you in Jesus, the true untamed lion of Judah who is full of grace and goodness. You can order your copy today at 1517.org shop.
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B
Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows Podcast. My name is Caleb Keith and the Thinking Fellows is brought to you by the 1517 podcast network of shows. Go to 1517.org. You can see that we have a lot of podcasts there. We have blogs that come out on various topics throughout the week. Those are, you know, almost daily, but Adam is actually editing those right now, so you can check that out. Giving himself a little bit of extra, extra work on the side right now, editing our writing. You can go and check out the preaching resources that we have. We have links to various videos and playlists that we have on YouTube over there. We have conferences and conference tickets available. In fact, we have conference tickets available to our Here We Still Stand conference in October. That's the weekend of October 17th. Let me see what the rest of those dates are real quick here. That would be October. We're going to call that 15th, 16th, 17th. So you can sign up for that. Now we're going to have some special guests there, the big one being Wes Huff. So if you've, if you enjoy apologetics content, you've definitely seen Wes Huff. If you've seen his appearance, what is that over a year and a half ago on the Joe Rogan show and then on various other podcasts doing a popular level apologetics. You know, you can come see him live at Here we Still Stand and live on the Thinking Fellows podcast this fall.
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C
So you can even see Caleb live.
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B
Yeah, you can even see me.
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C
You just set yourself out and sign autographs on something.
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B
Oh, shorts, legs, assurance, legs, ears, ears. We can do that. But yeah, go check all of those resources out now. Today I am joined by Adam Francisco and Bruce Hillman and we're going to talk about a topic that comes up for political reasons. It comes up for, I don't know, dialogue with, I Would say a certain segment of American evangelicals when it comes to conversations about Judaism and Israel, the nation of Israel, but also something I've been seeing lately. Adam, this is my softball layup to you recently, which is that Muslims trying to, like, positively interact with Christians and say things like, oh, we have a lot of respect for Jesus, kind of situations that I've seen that I'm curious what they could gain from. But the topic today is coming from a list that Adam and Bruce put together, and the question is, what are Abrahamic faiths? Or maybe we could say, are there Abrahamic faiths? You know, people might be familiar with. What is it called? The Abraham Accords, which is an attempt at peace in the Middle east to. I don't know how much it has anything to do with any religious thing, but it's at least part of the name, is part of a perception that, hey, peace in the Middle east would maybe be possible if all these Abrahamic religions could stop hating each other so much and things like that. What makes a religion Abrahamic? Is it even a good term? To what degree is Islam, Judaism and Christianity related at all? All right, who wants to go first? Adam, I feel like it's a layup to you.
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C
Yeah, but I've forgotten the question already. Something about Islam.
- [04:32]
B
Well, I asked like five questions. Pick one.
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C
Yeah, yeah, pick the related.
- [04:37]
B
Like, are Christianity, Islam and Judaism actually related? Or is this all just kind of a fairy tale?
- [04:46]
C
Oh, boy. I want to say fairy tale, but it's not really. So if you read any sort of serious Jewish, Christian or Muslim theologian on the topic of that question, they're going to say the term is sort of a term that's used rhetorically to unite, say, like the Abraham Accords, you know, but the orthodox tradition in those three religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, is going to assert that each one is going to assert that they are actually the representative of the Abrahamic faith. Right. If that makes sense. So let's take the last one to appear historically, Islam, the quran, it's chapter three. It's in the verse 60s. I want to say 64 to 68 or somewhere around there. I should just call it up on my computer. But I don't want to do that right now. Says it has Muhammad, or at least maybe it's just Allah speaking, saying, o you people, a book. Let us come to a common word between us and you. And then this is kind of Francisco's paraphrase of the Quran there. It says, why do you, meaning Christians and Jews debate about Abraham? Abraham was A, I forget the ordering of the Arabic Hanifan Muslim or Muslim Hanifan. Abraham was an upright or an orthodox Muslim. Is the Quranic or the Islamic view. That is, in the orthodox Islamic tradition, Muhammad was called to be a prophet to correct the errors of Judaism and Christianity because in the view of Islam, Abraham was a Muslim. He was a prophet of Allah, as was Adam well before him, and Jesus well after him. But Judaism and Christianity have corrupted that message, either the text or the understanding of the text, the Bible. So Islam's the corrector of all that. So, and your Christianity. Think, think Jesus words in John, chapter 8. I want to say it's verse 50, somewhere between like 55 and 58, where Jesus says that when he's speaking to the Jews who are challenging him. Jesus says, abraham rejoiced at the day of my coming. Right. So Christianity, in a way, not in a way, Christianity asserts itself as a fulfillment of Abraham's faith. And of course, Judaism is going to trace its lineage back to Father Abraham. So it's not a fairy tale. But theologically, yes, they're all in some way, rhetorically, they connect themselves to Abraham. Those who would assert that there's like, you know, these Abrahamic faiths that theologically are essentially the same are fooling themselves and fooling those people that they're trying to sell that sort of view of religion on, because nobody, no orthodox representative from either of the three traditions is going to assert that they're basically the same thing. That's a long answer to a short question.
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B
I mean, it's a good answer. I guess the, the appeal is interesting because it almost sounds like they would all make some sort of authoritative appeal to Abraham, maybe Islam, the least kind of saying he's an upright Muslim, that there's some unique relationship God had with Abraham. And being of Abraham or related to Abraham or of the religion of Abraham would mean that you are worshiping or in possession of or in the faith of the one true God, the correct God. But going back to Abraham for that promise, well, is interesting outside of that, in Genesis, God gives Abraham very particular promises. But the Abrahamic religions moniker tends not to really focus on, let's say, the Abrahamic covenant or, you know, the many sons, any sort of salvific thing, and focuses more on trying to figure out what Islam, Christianity and Judaism would have in common. So what is proposed to be in common? Or, I mean, Bruce, you can answer too, but what's the proposition of commonality besides Abraham? So, because if it's everybody's trying to make a claim to the Abrahamic covenant or something like this. What would the idea be? That there's no exclusivity to that or anybody can lay claim to that. Or what is the common thing that Abraham teaches that somebody could go back to and see? See, there it is.
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C
Monotheism is the short answer. I'm sure you could make a case that the idea of Abrahamic faiths emerges with the rise of Islam, perhaps in the seventh century, because you get conversation in Quran 3, but it's not until the 20th century, I want to say the 1980s, if memory serves me correctly. I mean, I was a young lad, so I was not a part of this sort of thing. But having done research on Abrahamic faith's talk, the earliest example that I can find of Christians, Jews and Muslims coming together under the auspices of Abrahamic faith is from an initiative put forth by the American Academy of Religion. And they even produced a book on this called the Trialogue of the Abrahamic Faiths. And they, in addition to monotheism being sort of the thing that holds them all together or that they all have in common, there's also a strong emphasis on ethical kind of endeavors, what you know, like Lutherans might call left hand kingdom kind of endeavors. Fast forward to, boy, I want to say 2007, ish, maybe 2008, there was a movement, it's since kind of fizzled out, called the Common Word between us and you. It was, I'm going to give you a little bit of history, probably more than you want to know. Caleb or Bruce, I'm sure will be interested, but I don't know if our listeners will be interested. But almost 20 years ago there were 138 pretty influential Muslim scholars and leaders, political and otherwise, that gathered together in the country of Jordan. And they put together a letter called A Common Word between us and you. And essentially it's not the longest letter, it's not also like super short or anything, but it basically says to Christians, it's addressed to Christian leaders everywhere. And it says we, you know, Christians and Muslims comprise about a half of the world's population. It would therefore behoove us and remember, this is the days, this is the height of the war on terror. Right. It would behoove us to figure out a way to work together to alleviate, you know, this global tension, to avoid a clash of civilizations and so on. So they sent this letter to the Pope and presidents of church bodies everywhere. And you can go online, I think it's a commonword.org and though some have taken their names off, there were a whole slew of Christian leaders who signed, who agreed to have this sort of common word dialogue. Some wrote letters in response like the Pope did. Others just sort of sign this Christian petition that says, yes, this is. Thank you for extending the olive branch. Let's move forward. Rick Warren, in your neck of the woods, Caleb, and at Saddleback signed it. There were. In my church body or yours? In my church body, Caleb. There were some Missouri Synod missiologists who signed on to it initially. I think some of them took their names off later on.
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B
Were the propositions theological or just political?
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C
Yeah, so the initial propositions in the letter, you know, emphasize monotheism and emphasize that under this sort of monotheism, in this basic assumption that, that not only did God create everything, but he's revealed himself in discrete ways to Christians and Muslims. And then later on the Jews were joined or joined in, in the conversation that they would be able to pursue love for God and love for neighbor together. So, you know, I mean, there were conferences at, like, places like Yale and Cambridge and down at Cambridge and elsewhere where they hashed out all the details. It was. This is going to sound kind of, kind of mean, but it was a fool's errand.
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B
Sure.
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C
Because basically what the Muslims did is gave a modern spin to Quran chapter three. Why do you Jews and Christians argue about Abraham when we all know that Abraham was a Muslim? Right. It was effectively like when the Christians signed on to this, you know, that I knew some Muslims or at that time I was working, just finishing my PhD but still had contact with Muslims at the center for Islamic Studies there in Oxford. And they just sort of smirked because when the Christians signed on to this, they basically, they didn't say it in these words, but they signed on to this what overture that said there is no God but God and at least one of his prophets is Muhammad. So in a way it was kind of a tool of what you might call Dawah, you know, the call to Islam in a very sort of superficial way. As you can tell, I have kind of issues with Abrahamic faith stuff because I think it's a bunch of baloney. In fact, I don't want to look over my shoulder, but I'm gonna.
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A
Anyway.
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C
Actually, I have a book by. I'm trying to remember the name Levinson.
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B
You thought somebody was behind you?
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C
No. Well, I know we're being recorded for YouTube or whatever, so I. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here on camera, but there's a book by the last name is Levinson. It is Inheriting Abraham. He's a Jewish scholar, I want to say he's out of Yale, who makes this very point that the three religions certainly tie themselves theologically, rhetorically, historically to. To Abraham. But the three religions are absolutely distinct. And you cannot paper over those distinctions because in those distinctions are lots of contradictions.
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B
It's very similar to me, to the conversation one would have about Mormonism, Latter Day Saints, whatever, because the question before you get to theological differences, before you argue about soteriology, the, the Christian distinction between the law and the Gospel, the atonement of Jesus Christ, like all of these things that are really important to Christianity that you could see arguing out, right? Like you could argue with a Muslim about salvation and what faith accomplishes the same with a Mormon versus the relationship of justification by faith alone. You could have a theological disagreement. But the first question to answer is, or to ask is who is the God of Christianity and is Abrahamic or monotheistic enough? Do Christians say, like from our side of this pie, do we say anybody who's a monotheist is a hidden Christian of some stripe, certain percentage hidden Christian, and they just have the details wrong? Or is there something more specific? And that seems to be, for instance, the claim of the Latter Day Saints would be, we have Father God. That's the same Father God that you guys have. We just disagree about the way that Jesus relates to him or something like this, or the Muslims and Judaism. Hey, we all have the same big sky dad, you know, who created heaven and earth. And we basically agree about this creation story and that he revealed himself to people through prophecy or through angels or through direct revelation to particular people like Abraham. So we really all have the same God. Christians have been differentiating themselves from this very quickly, though. Like the entire identity of the early church, before Islam even kind of makes its way into the picture, is identifying who is the God of Christianity as distinct from even the way that Judaism will explain who the God of the Old Testament is.
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C
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to hog the mic here, Bruce. Did you have anything to say before I launch into a tirade?
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D
I think there's disagreement on this, on, at least in the scholarly level, over everything I've read over is it the same God or not? And where I've sort of landed myself and my mind can change on this is theologically versus devotionally. So theologically, I think it's pretty clear they're not the same God. I mean, the Christian God Is Triune the son of God? Jesus Christ is God. Judaism can't say that. Islam can't say that. Islam isn't triune. They're. They're. They get super angry at the idea of the Trinity when you talk with them. So I think when you make a theological. If you're trying to make a theological kind of distinction on what each orthodox branch of those three religions actually is saying about God, to me, it's pretty clear they're not the same God. Devotionally. I don't know. I think a case can be made. I've seen Muslim conversion stories where, you know, they've become Christians, but they've said that Allah is the same God. They just didn't know him. He was corrupted by a vision of Islam, but he was the same God that Abraham worshiped. It was just that they were given false information about him. So you can kind of think about it like, we both know Jerry, but one person has heard rumors about Jerry that are untrue, and they believe those to be true, and they don't know the truth about Jerry. Do they still know the same Jerry? Well, they do and they don't. Right. Like, they. They still think they're talking about. Both people think they're talking about the same Jerry, but the attributes of that Jerry are different. But is. Is the conversation focused on the same Jerry? Yeah, it is. It's just very different views. So I think, devotionally, there's some space for apologetics. There's some space for witnessing. This is, again, where I land on that, where you don't need to directly fight a Muslim immediately on being, well, they're not the same God. I mean, but unless you're making a theological conversation and it gets to that point and the claims that are being made about the attributes of the God in question, well, then it's. I think it's pretty clear. But that would be. That's how I think about it. But, Adam, you can now give your tirade, which might include what I just said.
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C
But I'm curious who Jerry is. But I've heard of the elephant. You know, there's the elephant analogy. Right. No, now you just changed it for Jerry.
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B
Brucette. That reminds me of a thing that happened in Big Bear hair. So my wife's name is Erica. We have kids. I like to mountain bike, do things outside. There's another couple in Big Bear, Caleb and Erica. Spelled the exact same way. Husband likes to go outside, mountain bike, those kinds of things. Have a different number of kids, and we have mutual friends, and we didn't know each other. And they were telling stories to each other about Caleb and Erica, and nobody knew that they were talking about different Caleb and Erica's until somebody said something about, yeah, they have five kids. And the other person was like, no, they only have two kids. And they started arguing about how many kids they had. And they realized there's two different sets of Caleb and Erica's in the Valley.
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C
So, yeah, I forgot what I was going to say about all this. I guess I was. Caleb, you made a reference to the early church, and it kind of made me. It just brought to mind some words from Eusebius in the early 300s, where he writes that Abraham, Noah, Abraham. I'm sorry, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob were all Christians, in fact, if not in name meaning, before the incarnation of God's Son. As they're thinking about God's promise going all the way back to Genesis 3:15, the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament have in mind this messianic figure. They don't know all the details, but they're eagerly waiting for the promised Messiah, Jesus, though they didn't have a name for it. And so that's Eusebius's point, that they are. They're faith might be quantitatively different than, say, those who live after, say, Paul, after Jesus, but qualitatively, they're all. The object of their faith is the same. And that is the Christian position. I mean, there's. There's in the. I don't know what volume it is, but there's a sermon Luther wrote in the last, like two or three weeks of his life where he. I mean, he doubles down on this very point. He says to the congregation, I don't think that he was in Wittenberg at the time. Maybe he was in Mansfeld, but it's in the continuation series of Luther's works. And Luther tells the congregation there that you can be absolutely sure that your faith is the same faith as Adam and Enoch and all these patriarchs. And that is the Christian position. So theologically there is no real room. But I do like Bruce's point. I think you described it as devotional, or maybe it's rhetorical or whatever, because not just Jews and Muslims, but all people have some sort of hazy sort of notion that there is something higher, that there is a God. Bruce wants to call him Jerry, but this is basic natural knowledge of God.
- [23:46]
D
It's a tetragramma, is Jerry,
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C
as soon as. I mean, the way natural, our natural knowledge, our sensus divinitatis, you know, as the theologians would call it. As soon as we start putting words to describe that hunch, you know, that there's something higher, we screw it up. If we're doing it on the basis of our opinions or our feelings or a purported revelation, that actually isn't a real revelation from God. So I. That's where the different views of Jerry come from. Even though they're talking about the same Jerry. Right. Luther says something like this in the large catechism. There was a big controversy maybe 20 or 15 years ago. He says that even though Jews and Muslims acknowledge the one true God and what he actually means, there is like, they recognize that there is one. They're monotheists. They don't really know him, he goes on, because they do not recognize his son, Jesus Christ. So. So, like Bruce said, devotionally, I would say rhetorically. Like you mentioned the Abraham Accords earlier, Caleb, when you were introducing the show. I'm like, 98% sure the reason why they called the Abraham Accords the Abraham Accords is to kind of pull on the sense that there is something we have in common. It's a rhetorical thing, and just this is like a political point, not like national politics. But the Abraham Accords has done more for the Middle east, has more promise for the future of the Middle east than any other endeavor, interestingly enough, even though there's only like, what, half a dozen countries at this point who have officially signed on. But it has introduced kind of normalized sort of relations, at least between the Sunni world that has historically been very hostile to Israel, for example, than ever before. So, anyway, that's a side comment, though. You can edit that out, too, if you want.
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B
No, no, that's great. The one wrench in the devotional piece for me, because I don't disagree that there's some sort of striving, but that is difficult that I think people fall into. So I don't. I don't just want to say, like, I'm imagining a problem because I'm trying to be like some edgy Lutheran or something like this, but is it that your devotion towards trying to get to the one true God would count for something? Right. Well, everybody's just trying to find God in their own way. And look at the Muslims, and the Jews got like 80% close. They share most of your book. They want to follow the law. And that then becomes the problem is that you basically jump into this idea that all religions in the world are roughly the same, and especially that if somebody gets to monotheism and the Ten Commandments, that they're the same enough to merit that they were close, or to open up this other apologetic issue that, hey, you worship one God, you worship or you attempt to follow his laws. Be pretty unfair if he damned you over that. You guys are all Abrahamic religions. You all claim this same God and he's only picking one third of you or one third of your religions over some pedantic separation about how the law is fulfilled or something like that. Especially when a lot of Christians, too have a. We poll them and the vast majority of Christians believe that good people go to heaven or that good Christians go to heaven for following the law. So in most people's minds already, you know, I would say that people are. The average Christian in America is already saying, you know, that maybe there is something they're lacking. By going to a mosque instead of a church, you're getting an experience that isn't perfect, but salvation isn't going to be lacking or something like this. So I do think there's a balance between, yeah, there's an apologetic tool here to say something to somebody who is, you know, to a Muslim and say, you know, if you're trying to worship the one true God, would you really want to say things that are lies about him? Right. There's an appeal there to then appeal to Christianity or something like this. But there's also, I think in our society today some danger in this kind of unity language when it comes to religions where Christians who don't engage in it too also sometimes look like the bad guys. Like I was saying at the very beginning of the episode, you know, I've seen some. I feel like it's got to be some type of apologetic strategy with Muslims where they claim, hey, look at our love of Jesus is very high. You know, we both appreciate this amazing teacher, this great teacher Jesus that, you know, some Christians are. Oh, yeah, look at. They are really. They do have a high regard for Jesus. They won't disrespect Jesus or marry or whatever. But that doesn't, you know, how much does that count for? It doesn't really count for much in the theological sense. And in the other sense, there is a certain level of these are people's eternal souls that we're talking about. And that lies about this should, should be upsetting to Christians, Right. That a lie about who God is that is so pernicious that a third of the world's population is worshiping God or a God falsely is bothersome and is difficult. Right. It makes the task of evangelizing difficult. It puts up a barrier and attack against the Gospel that's certainly promised in the scriptures to be there, but I think should be recognized as such that, you know, there is more disunity with these religions than unity. And that especially unity over the law counts for almost nothing because that is actually the worst distraction that a person could have is seeing the unity of the law or obedience to the law or something like that here. Because if you are saved by works or a general heartfelt desire to follow the law, or a good heartfelt attempt to do this, you really do end up with. There's not an important distinction between Christianity, Judaism and Islam or lds or whatever else it may be. And so you might as well let people worship what they're going to worship, live their cultural experience and their family and lived experiences are going to live it and stop proselyzing them. Don't evangelize because you're saved by works and believing in one God anyways. But that combo doesn't save in the sense.
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D
Can I make a distinction? And maybe you guys will disagree with this, but I think what you said, Caleb, is true for those who aren't, or is more true for those who aren't part of those three major faiths. But I might have a disagreement if you're trying to reach people within the other two as a Christian, because I think in those faiths the disagreements are what is known. There's no confusion over the disagreements. Right. So the call to unity isn't because we don't understand the disagreements. The call to unity is all we see as disagreements. And we're trying to find some place to start a conversation so we don't have to just fight and argue with violence, which has traditionally been the way that those faiths have kind of interacted with each other, especially in the Middle East. And I think, you know, like when Paul goes to Athens and stuff, he. He looks for common ground. I think that, you know, Jesus says, seek and you will find. So I think if people are seeking God, like the God of Abraham, just very blankly, that. Whatever that means. I still think that's better than seeking Vishnu, even though qualitatively it's not different like from. From a. From a sort of sterile, outside standpoint, they're both false gods. But I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this. I still think it's better if you start with there's one God and it's the God of Abraham, than Vishnu or Tiamat. I do think just apologetically so.
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B
So you kind of gave the example of Paul just like to play back and forth with this a little bit first, you know, appealing to the Greeks. But I would say in this case it's more like Paul going to the synagogue in which he is not very patient with a lot of these people as it is supposed to be apparent to them from the prophecies and from the lips of their own scriptures that Jesus Christ is God. And he's very willing to go preach that Jesus Christ is a fulfillment of these scriptures and then leave once rejected. Right. Like, and not be happy about it. Obviously in, in Romans and in other places, there's actually quite a bit of la that Israel is rejecting their God in that case. But I think with the Abrahamic religions you would maybe say, you know, that it's not a cultural appeal in a sense that it is saying, I guess if you're going to say, hey, we believe in the same God, you're going to start appealing immediately to prophecies or words from this God to get to the disagreement. So maybe to make your positive case, maybe that's where the unity goes from is actually we don't really have to mess around with like cultural appeal or hey, you know, did you know this God over here is actually Jesus Christ kind of thing. But we can actually go to some sort of scripture or prophecy from this God, like if we're going to claim Abraham. You know, I recently saw an apologist do this with an Islamic Christian apologist. I think it was one Adam recommended. His name was God Logic.
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C
Oh yeah, I love God Logic. I wish I know his real name, but I can't remember off the top of my head now, but he was
- [34:06]
B
sitting down with various Muslims. And one of the ways that he basically won this debate, just off the rip, was by this Islamic scholar saying that Jesus was a Jewish man. And as soon as he said that, Khat logic was like, was he a Muslim or was he Jew? And the guy said it again and he was like, you've now just collapsed your entire view that he is, you know, this Muslim prophet. And the same could be said for Abraham. Especially if we think that Islam isn't going to differentiate itself from Judaism for a long time that Jews and Muslims were, you know, roughly the same people. It becomes difficult. And so I think you could do things like that, like who is fulfilled by Abraham? Why is there silence on, say this Ishmael side of Abraham's lineage until Muhammad is Jesus? Actually questions like this that I think are very effective in what possible group of evidence do you have that Jesus was a Muslim, like there is none. And so those become. I think part of the conversation is, you know, let's. Maybe I'm thankful that a conversation with a Muslim could mean that they respect Jesus at least as a prophet. That might be better, put me in a better position to then not have to do a lot of groundwork, but then start only making the appeals about Jesus Christ is God or uniquely God, or that his death and resurrection is not just the death of a prophet or something like this. So I don't think it puts you at a zero position. But I guess, Bruce, one of the reasons I worry is like, Adam gave the examples of like, you have, like Rick Warren signing these accords that are about pursuing the love of God, which is something maybe all people could agree on. Or I wake up every Monday to my inbox full of AI generated podcast guest appearance requests. I mean, it's insane. There's probably 30 of these in my inbox every morning. And this week, the one I woke up to was like, neurosurgeon travels the world and finds out all religions have more in common than not. You know, and it's like. And he wants to come talk about his book on every podcast on the planet. And so I think there's so many appeals to that and that the world, like, even something like the Abraham Accords envisions that that's how world peace would come. And I also think that Christians should be careful about buying a lie that, like our particular violence, religious violence, has not been justified in the past history. Like, all of that was ridiculous. We just weren't enlightened 2020 1st century people yet who understood the consequences that religion's fake anyways, guys, why would you kill people over it? And then that in reality, if we all just realize we're worshiping the same God, we could have world peace. Like, it's only you Abrahamic religions that kill each other anyways over religious violence. So maybe if you stopped, we'd have world peace, which I think is kind of a political lie and a lie about the nature of religion itself. It's a presupposition that all religions are not worth dying over anyways. Even as a martyr. I mean, I don't think Christianity has a call to war for the sake of its religion, obviously. But even in a martyrdom sense, that death would be an appropriate relationship to the faith, because it's really that important or it's really that true is something that a lot of the world today, even a lot of Christians, I think would reject.
- [37:47]
D
Don't a lot of people, though, see that as exactly the problem? I mean, that's the whole Islam jihad thing that people get. Maybe they don't see it in Christianity, but they do see it in. And that's what leads them to the view, falsely, perhaps or partially true, that religions instill violence because of their inability to find common ground or unwillingness to kind of adhere to what I'll just call the secular project, which is sort of a, you can do your thing, I can do my thing. Let's try not to. You know, everybody can just. That's what we can do. Because if we don't do that, then someone has to win, and that means someone has to lose. And so now we're. All of a sudden, the stakes got much higher just because we framed it that way. But I. This, to me, this goes back to what I would just say is the importance of context. So obviously, if, you know, if there's a surgeon or someone who's like, hey, my goal is to bring about world peace by showing that, you know, religions have more in common than they have against. Okay, well, that's one context, but that's a very different context than, say, a pious Muslim who's been raised in a Muslim country, only knows Islam genuinely and deeply in their hearts, loves their God, but just hasn't been either allowed or hasn't been given the right sort of understanding of Jesus Christ, but would be a fantastic Christian if they had the opportunity to hear the gospel and the Holy Spirit could bring them to life. Like the constitution of their personality and their piousness and their devotion is there. I mean, look, I don't know a ton of Muslims who've converted, but I read a book that was recommended me, recommended to me many years ago by one who did, and it was these two brothers, and they both heard the gospel for the first time, like in their mid-30s. They never heard it before. They were from a Muslim country and they only heard it one time and they converted. And this book was really sad because their whole family, they're very close to their dad, very close, like, best friends with their dad, and their dad had to disown them and couldn't talk to them. And one time in, like 30 years, they kept reaching out to him and he would ignore them even though they knew he loved them. But the dad was so pious that he was not allowed to. Like Adam, you might know what this is called. I don't know what this kind of shunning is officially called, but he was not allowed to they were shirk or whatever. It was like they were done. And so one time, though, they were able to meet their dad at like a conference or something that they knew he was going to be at. And they went to it and all the dad said to them was, I love you. And then he walked away. He couldn't talk to them, couldn't engage with them. It was a really gripping story. And they were just talking about how much you have to give up if you're a Muslim in some of these countries to become a Christian, it's not even that you're going to be martyred. It's the pain that, you know you're causing your family to make your dad, who loves you to death, say, I can't have anything to do with you. I can't talk to you on the phone. I can't see my grandkids. I can't see my. And the book was just kind of a call to be like, there's a lot of Muslims who probably would be interested in hearing more about Christianity, but just can't or won't because the stakes are. Are so high. So my point being, I just think that the context of the context between the level of. Okay, how much do we try to find common ground versus how much do we say, there's not much common ground here. It has to sort of be balanced according to the audience that we're seeking. And to me, that's just good apologetics. That's just understanding who we're trying to give a good account to.
- [41:34]
A
Yeah.
- [41:35]
C
Context is king. I don't know. Was it you, Bruce, who brought up Paul at Mars Hill?
- [41:40]
B
Yeah.
- [41:40]
C
Or let's just say all of Acts 17, when Paul, you know, it opens. What, Paul's in Thessalonica, I believe it is. And Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that Paul, it was his custom to go to the synagogue first. So he goes to the synagogue and reasons with the Jews there from the Old Testament or for the Hebrew Bible, or maybe it was the Septuagint, who knows? And then he gets down to Athens. And to your point about never hearing the Gospel, Luke tells us that he goes to the synagogue first. Then he's in the agora or the marketplace preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. Nobody's ever heard of this before. So the Stoke and Epicureans, you know, bring them out to Mars Hill and give them an opportunity to. To bring this new religion to them. Right. And it's fascinating there how Paul quotes. Like he even quotes a hymn to Zeus. Yep. As if to say, I mean, it's like what, six words, right? Seven words, something like that. But as if to say, hey, he's not saying theologically we have common ground here, but it is like kind of some sort. It's like rhetorical common ground here. Let's talk about this God in whom we live and move and have our being.
- [42:55]
D
There's a truth that already exists that comes through the other side that he wants to connect with so that you don't have to jump over as many hurdles to say this is also plausible and true.
- [43:08]
C
This thing is. So I think that the thing is like with Caleb's concerns with Abrahamic faith and let me know if this is accurate. Caleb, your concerns are theological, doctrinal, right. And confusion and over assuming that doctrines can be doctrine doesn't matter, or something like that.
- [43:30]
B
Or even apologetically that most people are happy to settle that everybody who's relatively good and pursues loving the skydad, even if they get the name or the particular things right, is saved. Jerry, you're talking about Jerry. That everybody who loves Jerry is good to go. Right. And that the details shouldn't really count against them.
- [43:55]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think there is that. And if that's the context, then you avoid confusing things. But you know, you mentioned God logic. There's others out there, Sam Shamoon, David Wood, Jay Smith, who in the context, you know, they do tremendous work in Christian Muslim discourse, like serious polemics and apologetics. And they don't need to appeal to some sort of like Abrahamic thing or anything. You know, they, they. I mean, you. Caleb, I think you mentioned God logic in particular. It's Scripture. Yeah. And it's using like in the case he uses, oftentimes uses, you know, like with they're generally calling the Islamic dilemma now, you know, where they use the Quran itself to point Muslims away from the Quran, so to speak. So.
- [44:41]
B
But he seems to know the text and their, whatever their like fathers are called or rabbis or whatever, whatever names. Yeah. Imams, he seems to know it all. So.
- [44:55]
C
Yeah. Well, you should watch Sam Shamoon. He's a little older than, maybe a lot older than God logic, but he is just a master at working from within the Muslim worldview out, so to speak. Kind of that Francis Schaeffer approach to apologetics, where you're looking for that open window to that worldview and then getting inside and pointing the Muslim away or even in the. Sam I know has debated some Jews, but even does it with Judaism as well. So. But like Bruce said, I think when we're talking apologetics and evangelism. You know, context is going to tell you the best starting point, but it's to your point, Caleb. It's very important that along the way distinctions are made and that truth, you know, honoring the truth, you know, is sort of like a principle that you're, you're guided by. Otherwise you will end up in some sort of sappy thing. But at the same time, these things aren't something that they don't take five minutes. These are like five year long conversations more often than not. So, you know, you just never know where it's going to go.
- [46:03]
B
The takeaway for Christians. So the important thing for Christians in this is that there's always a background question that you need to be able to answer in some capacity. Because it's also like both in the sense of some sort of apologetic, whether or not you're asked and you're called to give a reason or just in the sense of the evangelical nature of this, that is the gospel proclamation of this is who is Jesus Christ and what did he do? Right. So if we're dealing with these religions, the other thing that is known is not just Abraham, like Muslims, Jews, they have a conception, an idea of who Jesus Christ was. And that's the important question in Christianity. Right. The important question today is not whether or not we all agree about the Ten Commandments, especially from the perspective of Christians. That's actually not getting you very far. Look at Paul, like we're saying here in Athens, natural law can get you relatively close to this. The law in your heart can get people relatively close to this. This Neurosurgeon AI book that was pitched, you know, world religions can get you pretty close to this. The question is, who is Jesus Christ? And with Muslims and Jews, and I'm going to toss in Latter Day Saints, various other cults that spin off of Christianity and stuff. That's the dividing factor. And what you're ending up having to do. Anybody who gets praised doing this is proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that ends up where you are. I've seen, as you've shown here, God logic do this. I've seen, I forget the name of the channel, but there's an entire channel dedicated to sort of Jews who became Christian who go and do apologetics in like New York and Israel and high Jewish concentration population areas. And their entire appeal is what do you, I think they ask every time, what do you think about Jesus Christ? That's the first question. And then as soon as they get an answer, they go to the Old Testament and they start extracting Jesus out of the Old Testament and especially prophecies about his death, resurrection, and who that means he is. And so the Christian is put in the position of, in the Abrahamic faiths, quote unquote, of being the ones without just prophecy or prophets. Right? So Islam doesn't have a incarnate God. God has never directly, you know, appeared. He's appeared through angels, voices, miracles, and prophets. And same in Judaism. You have the fathers and the prophets. You have the patriarchs and the prophets. Christianity says God was here, God died and rose for your sins. And so we have a unique appeal in this. It's the gospel. The gospel is really unique from Judaism as it is conceived today, not as the Old Testament fathers believed in Christ, and from Islam as well. And so I think that is where you have to go, is that's where distinctions would be, that's where differences would be. And you have to stop short of any similarities encroaching on the unique nature of the gospel to create faith and to save. Right. And so I'm just cautious too, that obedience to the law under a monotheistic God is satisfactory enough for enough Christians and enough people out there that really the question is, who was Jesus Christ? What did he do? And if we can't answer that, then might as well just collapse everything into Abrahamic faiths. I hope that was an interesting conversation for people. Certainly. I mean, I see this question come up a lot. I don't know, maybe it's just because Adam shares things with me or has told me to search things. I see so much more of this sort of like apologist, a Christian apologist sitting down with Islamic scholar, or, you know, Christian on the street stuff. And so I think obviously people are talking about it and thinking about it, and I think a lot of Christians default position should be challenged on this too. I think a lot of American Christians just kind of want the secular project to win out over the importance of their faith. So definitely stuff to think about and consider. If you liked this show, subscribe to it in your favorite podcasting app or share it with family and friends. If it left you with more questions or answers or stuff like that, you can go to 1517 or you can find things that people have read. Adam has written on some of these issues. He's written on the Middle East. I think just recently, last week, Adam wrote an article on the Middle east too, that certainly deals with some of this. So you can go check that out and check out the show notes for books, links to other projects and things like that. We'll catch you next time. Bye.