August 8, 2023 Show with Raymond Ibrahim on “Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam” (Part 2)

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of Founding Father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this eighth day of August, 2023.

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And I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest for part two of a discussion that we began last

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Tuesday on August 1st, part two of Defenders of the West, the

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Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, and that is the title of the latest book by Raymond Ibrahim, who is a translator, author, columnist, widely published expert on the

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Middle East and Islam. He is the Distinguished Senior Shulman Fellow at the

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Gatestone Institute and the Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Raymond Ibrahim.

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Hello, Chris, very good to be with you again. I look forward to our part two conversation. Yes, and I will give our listeners our email address right now if they have a question.

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It is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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And just as I did last time, I want to give a caveat in the beginning of the program that my guest and I have significant theological differences.

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He is from an Eastern Orthodox background, and I am from a Reformed Protestant background, although I was raised

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Roman Catholic. I abandoned Roman Catholicism in my 20s and embraced the gospel that I believe to be the true biblical gospel and the true biblical

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Christ and so on. So this is a different kind of a program where we're focusing on a very significant series of wars from history.

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And one of the reasons I thought this would be a valuable program and even have two parts is because there is even debate amongst

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Protestants and even my fellow Reformed Protestants on whether or not we are to view the

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Crusades as a positive or negative thing. And of course, there is always the possibility that many will believe that there is a combination of both, as with most things on this earth.

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But I just wanted to let you know that I am still on a journey into understanding the

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Crusades in a deeper way, so I'm not even 100 percent sure where I stand yet on this issue. And let's just at least summarize what we took care of in our discussion last time.

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The Crusades, if you could remind our listeners, the period of time in history where these wars were taking place, where the

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Roman Catholic Church was basically protecting Western Europe from invading

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Islamic armies, if I'm not mistaken, but you could pick it up from there. Sure, Chris.

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So the Crusades really begin in 1095 A .D. That's when they were called for, and I'll get to that.

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But I think the most important aspect, and to recap, as you said, is to really present the

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Crusades not in a vacuum, which is often what happens, but to sort of give you the history, the backdrop of how we got to the

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Crusades. So after the Prophet Muhammad dies and basically a caliphate rises to power and essentially declares what's known as jihad on the

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Christian world. So at the time, Christianity was understood to be spread all over North Africa, the

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Middle East. All these, of course, is where, you know, the Middle East is where Christianity was born, obviously. So that makes sense.

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And in parts of Europe, southwest of the Danube and the Rhine, meaning not in Germany, not really in Scandinavia, I'm talking about the 7th century.

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At any rate, if you look at a map of what was Christian then during this jihad that was declared, three quarters of it was conquered.

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So all of North Africa, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Spain, into France.

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We know the famous Battle of Tours in 732. And then later on in the east, you get the

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Turks. They become Muslim. They declare jihad. They embrace the jihadist ideology.

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They quote the same Koran verses and so forth. And they enter and conquer Eastern Europe, the

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Balkans specifically. And as late as 1683, they reached Vienna. So now the Crusades, where do they fit?

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So basically after the initial conquest of North Africa and the Middle East, and Europe was really the word, the

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West, when we use it and we refer originally to Europe, what that really meant was the westernmost bastion of Christianity that did not get swallowed up in this

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Islamic revolution that overwhelmed the Christian world. So it was continuously harried in warfare and so forth, as I mentioned.

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But right before the Crusades, right around 1070, the Turks, as I was mentioning, they went into the Balkans. But before that, they started going to the

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Balkans in the 1300s and so forth. Before that, in 1070, they started conquering what's known as the

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Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire. And a big chunk of it was in Asia Minor, what we call today

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Turkey. And during those wars, literally the sources talk of Christian peoples,

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Eastern Orthodox Christians being by the thousands and tens of thousands being massacred, enslaved, burned alive, everything you can imagine.

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Their churches, thousands of churches. Most of them were actually Armenians, but also Greeks. And this is ironic because when people speak of the

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Armenian Genocide at the hands of Turks, they often are talking about the early 20th century and late 19th century.

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But actually, you go back a thousand years ago, as I am, in the mid -11th century, and it was the same sort of horrific tale.

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At any rate, the Eastern Roman Emperor Alexius called for Western aid to stem this tide of this renewed jihad which was swallowing up new lands of the

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Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor. And that was what brought about the Crusades. So the

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Franks, that's what they're called in the sources, basically the

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European knights, the Franks, mostly centered in Francia, modern -day France, but also German nations and northern

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European nations, all basically heard the call in Clermont. Pope Urban basically said what

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I've been saying, and he gave many anecdotes and examples of what the Turks were then doing to Christians in the

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East and to churches. And they were also doing the same thing in Jerusalem, which was a place of pilgrimage for Europeans.

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And they were attacking the Europeans and killing them and raping them and enslaving them and all sorts of things. So that was the origin.

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That's what made the Catholic Church call for the Crusades.

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It was understood in the concept of just war theory, meaning that the aggressors were the

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Muslims or the pagans, as they're known in the sources, and it is incumbent on Christians, and they often would quote the church father

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Augustine, it's incumbent on Christians to fight them back because they're the aggressors, innocents are being killed, and if we just stand by or turn the other cheek, then that's a bad thing because the aggressors live on and the innocents die.

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So that's actually what propelled so many Europeans to give up everything in Europe and go on this horrific trek into the

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Middle East, where even before they reached the Holy Land, they were dying of starvation and thirst and battles with Turks and other

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Muslim groups and plagues and so forth. But to them it was worth it because they were fulfilling

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Christ's command to love your fellow man as love God with all your heart, which they understood in that sense dealt with Jerusalem.

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That's the land. Premodern Christians had a very deep rootedness to the sense of land and regions and places.

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So for Muslims to be doing that in Jerusalem, where Christ lived, died, and was resurrected, was a travesty.

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So that also propelled them. But anyway, that's in a nutshell. And I think what

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I just said is very different from how the Crusades are usually presented. Usually, like I said, they're presented in a vacuum and people don't tell you.

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I've read historians, they'll make it sound as if Islam and Muslims were peaceful with Christians and they did nothing for centuries, and then all of a sudden the

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Catholic Church decided to go and cause mayhem. But in fact, it was a response, a belated response, as Bernard Lewis, the historian famously said, to four centuries of nonstop jihad and basically swallowing up Christian territory and slaughtering

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Christians. So this was a war of defense that the Church of Rome had waged.

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Yeah. It was seen as a just war, which would mean a war of defense. The Christians did not see themselves as initiating the conflict.

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It was seen as a rebuttal, a response to what the Muslims had been doing for the reasons that I had given.

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And earlier I identified my guest, Raymond Ibrahim, as Eastern Orthodox.

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More specifically, he is a Coptic Christian or from that background, and they are sometimes called

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Oriental Orthodox. But I learned from my guest that the Coptics do not like that label.

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Am I right? Yeah. I mean, it's because it's sort of redundant.

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Oriental means Eastern, and then you have the Eastern Orthodox. So it's sort of a semantic distinction,

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I suppose, but itself it's kind of a meaningless word. You could just as well say Eastern, right?

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Right. And this book, as you have informed me, to remind our audience or to tell them for the first time if they missed

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Part 1, it is not any kind of defense of Roman Catholic theology other than the just war theory.

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You are not a Roman Catholic yourself, so neither you or I, myself being a

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Reformed Protestant, had a dog in this fight or should I say our specific people, although there is a much more close harmony between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism, there are also stark differences that remain today.

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Yeah, absolutely. I'm not Catholic, never have been, never plan on being, and I'm approaching it with a historian's lens.

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And in fact, yeah, the Catholic Church and the Coptic Church actually have been at odds as well. So I have no reason to be standing up for Catholicism.

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I'm essentially approaching it from a historical perspective. But having said all that, I can also say that if it wasn't for the essentially

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Catholic defense of Europe, there's a good chance that Europe could have turned Islamic all those centuries ago because it was the

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Catholic. It's ironic to me when I look at Pope Francis, and he's so open to Islam, so tolerant.

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I mean, he gives talks in areas that have Muslims and covers up the cross and does all sorts of things, says bring down the walls, and it's ironic to me because he's the exact opposite of what his forebearers, the original

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Catholic popes were. They were actually the most militant and called for defense against Islamic incursions.

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So if it wasn't for that, there's a good chance if it wasn't... And remember, when I say Catholic, I don't mean...

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It's sad because when you say the word Catholic, it brings this whole connotation, but I'm just talking about pre -modern

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Christians who in a sense weren't even really called Catholics. The whole Catholic term comes up in juxtaposition to Protestantism, so you understand the distinction.

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But they just, when you look at the sources, they call themselves, they describe themselves as Christians. Their motivations, often a lot of these crusaders who

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I chronicle in my books are very altruistic. They'll talk about they're willing to die for Christ, etc.,

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etc. So it doesn't necessarily ring a Catholic bell in the stereotypical sense that I think we have today.

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Yes, and I'd like to also remind our listeners or inform them for the first time if they didn't hear part one that this book has been highly praised by one of my favorite political commentators on Fox News, Victor Davis Hanson.

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He stands far above, in my opinion, the vast majority of political experts on Fox News or anywhere else for that matter.

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And he was very frequently on Tucker Carlson, who I miss greatly. I didn't always agree with Tucker Carlson.

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I have my questions about his understanding of Christianity and theology, but he is definitely a superb political talk host.

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And I know that Victor Davis Hanson was just as upset, if not more, as I was when

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Tucker was forced out of there. But that's just to give you kudos that somebody as highly respected as Victor Davis Hanson also wrote the foreword to this book.

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So that's something to seriously consider and was definitely a part of the reason that I gave this book more serious attention and wanted to interview you.

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Now, as you already have said, and as I brought up last time, the majority of people, and I would say including

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Roman Catholics, today have a knee -jerk reaction to the

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Crusades and will automatically identify it as a horrible, wicked blight on the history of Christendom.

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And I think, if I'm not mistaken, I'm almost certain that the last three popes, John Paul II, Benedict, and Francis, have all apologized and asked for forgiveness from the

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Muslims for the Crusades. I don't recall anybody from the papacy apologizing for the torture and murder of Protestants, but they did,

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I'm nearly certain, ask for forgiveness of the Muslims for the Crusades. Did you ever share that opinion?

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Was this something that you grew to understand as being not only a positive thing, but a necessary thing for the survival of Christianity in the

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West? And was this journey of understanding the situation more deeply brought about while you were writing the book, or did you already have a settled opinion before the book?

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Well, in my earliest youth, as a teenager, and in my early years in college, I just assumed the

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Crusades were what they were presented, which was basically a hostile Catholic church that just went and committed atrocities against peaceful Muslims.

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That was already sort of in the air. It's not as bad as today, of course, in the so -called woke culture.

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But as I studied in college, I majored in history, including the medieval era, and you mentioned

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Victor Davis Hanser. He was my professor, actually, and so that was definitely a blessing.

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But I learned a whole lot, because one of the things I learned to do quickly was to really rely on primary sources.

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And I also read Arabic, and so I could read European primary sources, I could read Arabic -Islamic primary sources, and they just were a complete different story from how the

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Crusades were being represented by so -called secondary histories, meaning modern -day historians of today who supposedly have accessed, looked at, analyzed the primary sources, and now they're telling us what it was all about.

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Well, the way they represented it is not how the primary sources represent it.

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And the primary sources represented it the way I just mentioned it, including the Muslim ones. So the Muslim sources are very clear that they conquered

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Christian lands, that Christianity is an abomination, that the cross must be broken, that Christians must be subjugated, etc.,

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etc. And the Koran also has very... teaches that, essentially, calls them infidels,

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Christians. It says they must be warred on until they are subjugated, etc., etc. And the

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European sources were also the same and unequivocal about all the damage that occurred all throughout

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Europe in the beginning of the Muslim conquests, for example, in Spain as well, and the

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Mediterranean islands, and then, of course, the time right before the Crusades. So I learned quickly that it was very much, and I believe intentionally, being misrepresented, the

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Crusades, and from what they were. Again, and I'm not...

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I don't have a dog in the doctrinal or theological argument between Protestants and Catholics.

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The only theological concern I would have is did it conform to just war theory, and it did.

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So in and of itself, that's the main point, and it did conform to it, so I could call it a

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Christian crusade in that sense, because it was part and parcel of just war theory. But, yeah,

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I've also come to learn that so much of history, the more you dig into it, the more you find out it's very much being misrepresented.

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The totality of Islam's relations with the Western world and non -Muslims in general is very, very skewed.

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If you go to... And I've taken courses in elite colleges, including places like Georgetown University, and if you study the history of Islam, it almost invariably begins with the colonial era.

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And the reason for that is because after a thousand years of warfare, and finally the

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Europeans actually managed to turn the tide, and they actually entered the Middle East and Africa and India and so forth, and began to colonize.

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So you can see them as the aggressors in that sense. But history begins just with that, without telling you how they had been at war for a millennium, and the colonialist powers actually understood that war, and entering into those lands was partially motivated by trying to defang the innate violence that Islam had, including by bringing them up to speed with progress and civilization and so forth.

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And one thing that I did not ask you last time, I don't know if you have an opinion on this, but there are people that I know, and a couple whom

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I have interviewed, who are Christian apologists who engage

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Muslims in debate and dialogue, and a couple of them have said one of the greatest errors of the

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United States in regard to the use of our military and being involved in wars overseas that do not directly affect the

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United States, some of these men, or at least a couple of them, these Christian apologists, have said that it is a grave mistake to topple a dictator who is a more nominal or secular

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Muslim, because even though we may be dismayed and repulsed and infuriated and disgusted by some of their behavior or much of their behavior, at the same time they have kept the militant, chronically faithful, those who are faithful to the

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Hadith and so on, Muslims at bay, who are in reality a greater threat, especially to Christians.

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And so these apologists have totally opposed before and after the toppling of, let's just say,

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Muammar Gaddafi, for instance, even though he was a tyrant, he was a more secular

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Muslim. Would you agree with that ideology or worldview?

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Yeah, I absolutely agree with that and I've actually written much in agreement with it.

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And it's a basic simple fact. The older generations of Muslims were more progressive, if you like to use that word, or less radical.

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And this is a whole different topic of why radical Islam so -called has made such an ascendancy in recent decades.

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But these earlier ones were definitely more secular and they were the main stalwarts against their own people, the radicals amongst them.

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It includes Saddam Hussein, it includes Muammar Gaddafi, it includes Assad and his father before them in Syria.

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And the proof of it is if you look wherever you look and these dictators get ousted, it gets so much worse.

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And one of the ways it gets worse is for Christians. And so that's a litmus test itself, you can see.

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So, for example, in Iraq, I never heard about Christians really being persecuted there. I mean, once Saddam was toppled and then you saw in Syria where they also almost toppled

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Assad but they took parts, that's where you got ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

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That's where they came to power. Same thing in Libya, you know, some of the worst Islamic... You know, the 21

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Coptic Christians who were beheaded on the beach in Libya, that was after Muammar was toppled.

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And oftentimes, sadly, it's the US and other Western powers that aid these

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Islamic terrorists, but then they're called freedom fighters. And this was, of course, the same story with Al -Qaeda.

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When we were fighting with Russia or in the Cold War in Afghanistan, we funded and supported

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Al -Qaeda, but they were called freedom fighters. And we saw how that ended up. So it's the same thing.

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Western elements continue funding and sponsoring Islamic terrorists and then they present them to the

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West as freedom fighters against dictators. But what they are is

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Sharia fighters, really, and they really take their countries down a very dark hole, much worse than their dictators.

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And like you said, the dictators aren't that great either, but at least in this sense, we're on the same page in that they too don't want the radical

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Muslims around or definitely not in charge. Right. Well, we are going to go to our first commercial break, and when we return, we're going to immediately delve into some of the specific heroes by name of which my guest

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Raymond Ibrahim has written in Defenders of the West, the

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Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam. We didn't get too much involved in identifying specific individuals last time.

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And as soon as we were over on part one, during the phone conversation

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I had with Raymond off the air after the show was over, he said, we didn't even really get to identify some of the

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Christian heroes specifically. So I wanted to give him an opportunity to do that. That's one of the main reasons we have part two today.

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So you'll be hearing that. And we invite you to send in your questions to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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We'll be right back after these messages. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023,

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. That's royaldiadem .com. We're now back with our guest today, Raymond Ibrahim, and we are discussing

34:55

Part 2 of a discussion that we began last Tuesday on August 1st, Defenders of the

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West, the Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, and our email address is chrisorenzen at gmail .com

35:08

if you have a question, chrisorenzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least.

35:14

City and state and country of residence only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter like the one

35:20

I am about to read. Before you get into the specific identities of these

35:25

Christian heroes who stood against Islam, I think this would be a great question to get a response from before we get into that.

35:35

We have an anonymous listener who says, I'm remaining anonymous because I am in a church who is another one of those churches that views the

35:44

Crusades only in a negative light. And I was wondering, being a

35:49

Protestant myself, are you aware of what any of the Reformers had to say about the

35:56

Crusades since the Crusades ended centuries before the Reformation? Yeah.

36:05

I think what happened is, during the time of Martin Luther and the earliest

36:10

Reformers, it was strategic to bring up anything negative about the

36:18

Catholic Church, including the legitimate complaints to make the case against the

36:23

Catholic Church. So obviously there were the legitimate complaints, but I think it got to the point where anything from history was immediately also turned around and twisted in a way to attack the

36:34

Catholic Church, amongst them the Crusades. And what's that?

36:40

I was just going to say, do you know for a fact that was all of them, like not only Luther but Calvin? No, I don't. No, I can't.

36:46

I just know from my gleamings of readings that various early Protestants would say this or that, usually negative things, about the

36:55

Crusades. But no, I can't really speak to any one specifically. Well, that is actually a catalyst for me to delve into that myself, to see what

37:05

Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, John Knox, and others may have said in their opinion about the

37:13

Crusades. Because they, being from Western Europe, might be honest enough to realize that they might have been under Islamic rule and that would have possibly been a much greater hindrance to the

37:30

Reformation than the tyranny of Rome. Right. I would think there were early

37:37

Reformers who would appreciate the Crusades vis -à -vis Islam, but like I said, everything

37:44

Catholic became seen through a jaundiced lens, including the Crusades, so it got lumped in with all the sins of the

37:51

Church, basically. Right. And a listener last time, I thought, brought up a good analogy.

37:57

For those of my Protestant friends and brothers and sisters who have their ire raised and they are, without investigating the facts of this, getting upset that I would allow somebody to defend wars waged by the

38:17

Roman Catholic Church, in which we have already said were wars of defense, keep in mind our own wars, if you want to bring it much closer to modern history, not only the

38:29

War of Independence that we had with England, but World War I and World War II, for instance.

38:36

Do you see value in those wars? And were these predominantly Christian people, regenerate people,

38:43

I'm not talking about nominal Christians, but were these, in the majority, regenerate people who were the political leaders and military leaders who were at the forefront of these wars?

38:57

I think that you would probably find a tiny minority were actually born -again regenerate people.

39:03

George S. Patton, who many people view as a military hero of the United States, he was certainly not a

39:09

Christian. He actually had very bizarre pagan ideas of his own.

39:16

He invented his own religion, and he believed in reincarnation and so on.

39:22

That's just something to lessen the hostility that you may have if you contemplate that kind of analogy.

39:30

Can I add something to what you just said? Oh, yeah, sure. It's actually a quote from another historian.

39:36

He's a Crusades historian. You've probably heard of him, Thomas Madden. He's written many books. Yeah, and he writes something that very much compliments what you just said.

39:45

I'm going to read it right now. It's a quote, and here's the quote. It is easy enough for modern people to dismiss the

39:51

Crusades as morally repugnant or cynically evil. Such judgments, however, tell us more about the observer than the observed.

39:59

They are based on uniquely modern and therefore Western values. If, from the safety of our modern world, we are quick to condemn the medieval

40:07

Crusader, we should be mindful that he would be just as quick to condemn us.

40:12

Our infinitely more destructive wars, waged for the sake of political and social ideologies, would, in his opinion, be lamentable wastes of human life.

40:21

In both societies, the medieval and the modern, people fight for what is most dear to them. That is a fact of human nature that is not so changeable.

40:28

Amen. That's a great quote. Yeah. Well, if you'd like to... Oh, by the way, I have to tell our anonymous listener, please give us your full name and mailing address.

40:38

Of course, this will be done through email, so I'm not going to identify you. Send me an email with your full name and address because you have won a free copy of Defenders of the

40:48

West, the Christian heroes who stood against Islam, compliments of Bombardier Books, which is an imprint of Post Hill Press, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

41:03

who will ship that book out to you at no cost to you or Iron Trip and Zion Radio. If you are a first -time questioner, let us know that as well, because you will also receive a brand -new

41:14

New American Standard Bible in addition to Raymond Ibrahim's book. But if you could now get into these specific heroes that you wanted to highlight.

41:24

Sure. So I basically chronicle the lives of eight different men. And like I think

41:29

I might have said this earlier in our first interview or not, but I have another book before this. It's called Sword and Scimitar, 14

41:35

Centuries of War Between Islam and the West. And what I did in that book is in eight chapters, I looked at the eight most decisive battles between the

41:44

West or Europe and the Islamic world and what came out of those battles and how they really changed the map often.

41:53

But what I wanted to do, what I did with this book, Defenders of the West, is I basically looked at the warfares between Islam and Europe and Christians through the lens and the lives of eight men, eight men who identify as being especially impressive in their battles with Islam.

42:14

One of the ones that I like and a lot of people like is actually the first chapter, and I'll give you a brief summary of his life.

42:22

And he's actually a crusader. He's of the first crusade. So I think that's pretty apropos to discuss him.

42:28

His name is Godfrey de Bouillon, and he basically hailed from what we today would be modern -day

42:33

Belgium. So he was basically seen as a Germanic fighter, also seen as a

42:39

Frank. He was some kind of descendant of Charlemagne, the emperor of Francia.

42:45

And even his father was in the Battle of Hastings, the Norman Conquest in 1066 of England. So he had a pretty impressive lineage at the time, and he was rich, and he had lots of lands, and he was a duke, essentially.

42:58

And after, as I mentioned, once the West got the call from the East of what was happening at that time, what the

43:06

Turks were doing, he was one of the first to respond. And he did it by selling so much of his land to fund his crusade, and he actually became very impoverished.

43:19

And just to give you, we're lucky to have, and I did a lot of searching, but we're lucky to have a lot of good quotes about him from contemporary sources, in fact, people who knew him.

43:28

So the first is not someone who knew him, but it's someone who is actually the opposite, the cynical

43:34

Edward Gibbon, the historian, who basically is a paragon of the Enlightenment, and also had very love for the early

43:41

Catholic Church. He still had to give credit to God for it, and he wrote, quote,

43:47

His piety, though blind, was sincere. He reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ, and his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals.

43:57

In the mind of Godfrey, every human consideration was subordinate to the glory of God. Now, so that's

44:03

Edward Gibbon, and he's talking six centuries later, but here's what William of Tyre, who actually was a young man or a young boy in Godfrey's lifetime, he wrote of him, quote,

44:16

He was a man of deep religious character, devout and God -fearing, merciful and just. Excuse me.

44:23

He scorned the vanity of the world, a trait which was rare at his time of life, meaning when he was young, and especially in one belonging to the military profession.

44:32

He was constant in prayer, assiduous in good works, and noted for his generous liberality to the poor.

44:38

In the use of arms and in the practice of military tactics, he was in the judgment of all without a peer.

44:44

And it goes on and on. Other people, another one, another biographer who knew Godfrey writes, quote,

44:49

Charity that he was he was known for many virtues, including charity to the poor, mercy to wrongdoers, humility, clemency, sobriety, justice, and chastity.

44:59

Another one writes, and this is interesting. He gave the impression of being a monk rather than a soldier.

45:05

However, when he realized that the enemy was at hand and battle imminent, he feared the attack of no man.

45:10

What breastplate or shield could withstand the thrust of his sword? And that's an interesting quote, because there's actually an anecdote where he supposedly sliced the

45:18

Turkish jihadist in half with a sword swing and terrified the Muslims during the Battle of Antioch.

45:24

At any rate, so that's a little background of who Godfrey was and what motivated him.

45:29

He sold everything, traveled, and he was one of the main leaders of the First Crusade. He went through countless adventures, got sick, almost died.

45:37

He was mauled by a bear that actually attacked another pilgrim, as they call themselves.

45:42

And he came in the pilgrim's defense and fought the bear and barely killed it, but almost died as well.

45:50

So definitely a lot of exciting stories. And he was also, right before one of the major battles, and again, to go back to just war logic, he and other leaders sent a delegation to talk to a

46:03

Turk who was besieging them after they had taken Antioch. And in their message, the

46:10

Christian messenger said to them, said to the Muslims, you are guilty of invading

46:15

Christian lands with unbridled covetousness and killing everyone. If you had any kind of rule of law and wanted to act fairly towards us, we would negotiate with you, reserving the rights of honor and demonstrate to you with incontrovertible arguments what ought to belong to Christians.

46:31

And here they're referring to what I was talking about earlier about how the Middle East was Christian, but it was conquered and subjugated and taken violently by Muslims.

46:41

And that's what called for the First Crusade. At any rate, another interesting thing about Godfrey, and I don't want to give too much,

46:48

I don't want to be a spoiler for anyone who wants to read it, but he was actually also elected to be the first king of Jerusalem after they had liberated it from Islamic control.

46:58

And he refused to be called the king, and he eventually became known as basically the defender of Jerusalem.

47:06

And the reason he wouldn't take it, and the quote attributed to him is he said, I will not wear a crown of gold in the city where my lord wore a crown of thorns.

47:15

So that gives you a little bit of background of some of these crusaders who you might otherwise have thought of in a very cynical way as just being impious and just trying to go and destroy and kill

47:30

Muslims for fun. His life is very different. As a final anecdote,

47:36

I spoke to someone recently who had read the book and I asked him who was your favorite, and he said

47:41

Godfrey to the point that... So Godfrey is known in the sources as the duke. I mentioned earlier he was a duke of various kingdoms.

47:49

And this man told me his wife is pregnant with a child and they're going to name him duke just because of this.

47:59

Well, why don't you move on to the next one before we go to our midway break? Sure, there are so many of them, and it's probably more instructive.

48:06

Like I said, I don't want to give too many spoilers, but to give you how the book's divided around these characters, so there's really three main theaters of war that I focus on.

48:15

One is the Crusades, and I look at three different characters, one of which we spoke about, Godfrey. The other is

48:21

King Richard, Richard the Lionheart, and his life is also equally fascinating.

48:27

I mean, any one of these lives really could make for a blockbuster movie, and they would not even be fake.

48:32

They would be based on historical primary sources, but they would be too pro -Christian,

48:38

I assume, and too anti -Muslim, so that's why you'll never see that. But Richard is another one of those characters that's often, again, depicted in a very negative light, sort of a reckless brute, and he certainly was fierce, and he was actually a giant.

48:53

Apparently they managed to measure him, and he was something like 6 '6'' in height at that era.

49:01

And even Muslim sources, there's so many Muslim sources I document that quote their fear of Richard whenever he showed up.

49:10

So he's another one. And the third crusader I mentioned is Louis IX of France, also known as Saint Louis, and he's actually interesting because he had...

49:22

One of his crusades was an abysmal failure. Excuse me. But what's interesting about him is, again, you get a very interesting and paragon of Christian humility.

49:33

His whole life, when you read about it, I mean, whether... If one rises above the

49:39

Catholic -Protestant divide, and you don't even know what he is, you just think he's really a saint. I mean, pure altruism.

49:46

He would feed beggars and take them behind his castle and feed them with his own hand, and he helped women who were living lives of prostitution, and he gave so much money away to Christians in the

49:57

Middle East who were suffering. He stayed in prison in Egypt, even though they allowed him to go because his own men were imprisoned, and other

50:04

Christians. So his life is, again, very, very altruistic, and that's,

50:10

I guess, why he became a saint in the Catholic Church. But he was not very effective at the crusade, so that's also interesting.

50:18

The other two fields that I focus on is the Reconquista, which is the reconquest of Spain from Islam.

50:25

As I mentioned earlier, Spain was conquered by Muslims in the 8th century, and it took many centuries, almost a millennium, actually, to get the final vestiges of Islam scratched out in Granada.

50:37

And there I look at El Cid. We mentioned this before, Charlton Heston. That's how most people know him.

50:44

But his life, too, is very fascinating. We have very good records that I quoted from, and also

50:50

Ferdinand III, who was a king of Spain. And he was actually a cousin of St.

50:57

Louis, a first cousin. And he had the same adamant stand against Islamic aggression.

51:05

And, again, very fascinating stories when you see what these people went through at the hands of Islam, including in European territory, because now we're talking about Spain, and what they had to do to expel it.

51:18

And then the final theater of war I look at is the Balkans. And there we got three characters.

51:25

One is John Hunyadi. He was a Hungarian nobleman. And the other is John Castrioti, better known as Skanderbeg.

51:32

And he was an Albanian noble. And the final one is Count Dracula, Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the

51:38

Impaler. And he's a Romanian noble. And all of them have very similar stories against the

51:44

Turks. The Turks invaded their lands. They enslaved them. Both Skanderbeg and Vlad were actually hostages of the

51:52

Turks for many years in their youth. One of them actually was sexually abused by the sultans.

51:58

Another one's brother was sexually abused and turned into basically a catamite. What is that?

52:05

What's a catamite? A catamite is basically a sex slave. Male sex slave.

52:11

Like a concubine, but a male. Usually in the context of pederasty.

52:17

Just like what occurs amongst extremist Muslims in Afghanistan.

52:25

Yeah, there's a whole tradition about that in Afghanistan. You're right. I forget what it's called.

52:31

Baki Bazaar has a strange name. There's a movie, I may have won an

52:36

Academy Award, but it was an excellent movie called The Kite Runner. Right. I was just actually reading today in Austria, Muslim migrants molesting little boys and then saying, because it's normal in our culture.

52:49

By the way, could you pick up where you left off, and don't forget where you left off, because we have to go to our midway break. Please keep in mind, folks, that the midway break is longer than the other breaks, because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

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53:13

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And send in your emails to Raymond Ibrahim, to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. We'll be right back after these messages. Don't go away. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents

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That's liyfc .org Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

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That's one book that you can pick up at solid -ground -books .com and also a book by my very dear friend of many years going back to 1995,

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01:10:40

today and mention Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Before I return to my guest today,

01:10:46

Raymond Ibrahim and our discussion of his book, Defenders of the

01:10:52

West, the Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam. This is part two of a discussion that we began last

01:10:57

Tuesday and before we return to that discussion we just have a couple of important announcements.

01:11:04

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01:11:28

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01:13:09

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click to donate now. I also want to remind you of the three -day conference that's coming up September 15th, 16th, and 17th, that's a

01:13:21

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, which is Lancaster County.

01:13:27

My dear friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries is among a number of speakers at the

01:13:32

Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society's Future of Christendom Conference. The Gospel at War is the theme, and during that three -day conference, there will be a debate that Dr.

01:13:44

James R. White is having with a professing homosexual, Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity.

01:13:55

Dr. White will be opposing the thesis, Is Gay Christian a

01:14:00

Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? Obviously, Dr. Coles will be affirming that thesis.

01:14:08

So, if you would like to attend this three -day conference and the debate, the debate, by the way, is

01:14:14

Saturday, September 16th at 3 .30 p .m., go to futureofchristendom .org,

01:14:20

futureofchristendom .org. Go there quickly because they are going to be raising the rates on your registration fee if you don't go there very soon.

01:14:30

That's futureofchristendom .org. Lastly, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful,

01:14:35

Christ -honoring, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church, no matter where on the planet Earth you live,

01:14:41

I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience all over the world find churches, sometimes within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

01:14:52

That may be you, too, if you are without a biblically faithful church home. So send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:14:58

and put I need a church in the subject line. chrisarnson at gmail .com I need a church in the subject line.

01:15:05

That's also the email address to send in a question to Raymond Ibrahim on his book

01:15:13

Defenders of the West, The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:15:19

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. We have

01:15:28

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, how much negative feedback have you got from either

01:15:36

Christians or Muslims, and has any of that negative feedback been extremely intense and even life threatening, especially when it comes to Muslims?

01:15:48

Yeah, I've gotten negative feedback in that sense and life threats. Really? Yeah, from Muslims, sure.

01:15:57

Many years ago, before Google had removed me basically out of its search engines, a lot of my articles and videos got around quite a bit.

01:16:07

I remember one had something like 800 ,000 likes on Facebook, and at that time,

01:16:14

I did get various emails and other things which I won't get into, but yeah, it's kind of happily toned down because I'm very hard to find on the internet.

01:16:27

You have to use one of these other different search engines to actually even see my stuff, and I think that's something obviously that affects a lot of people who are called on what they call the right, this basically censorship, but in a way, it's also kind of taken me out of the hostile circle as well, because people don't really see or read my stuff much anymore, but as far as Christians, not really.

01:16:54

I know for a fact that a lot of institutions would want nothing to do with me, Christian institutions, because I'm seen as an

01:17:00

Islamophobe or whatever the case may be, and a lot of just general institutions, we spoke last time about the

01:17:06

U .S. Army War College. Which is right five minutes away from me. Right. Exactly. And how that unfolded, again, by Muslim pressure and activist pressure from CARE and so forth, but on the whole,

01:17:19

I'd say the response has been good, so I'm blessed with that. Well, Susan Margaret, you have won a free copy of Defenders of the

01:17:25

West. Make sure we have your full mailing address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and we once again want to thank

01:17:30

Bombardier Books and Post Hill Press and Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for making this gift to you possible.

01:17:39

That's cvbbs .com Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be shipping that book out to you.

01:17:47

We have, let's see, Timothy in Boise, Idaho.

01:17:53

Timothy says, have you persuaded with your book those who were initially adamantly opposed to the thesis of the book who have come on your side wholeheartedly?

01:18:06

I would think so, and I get a lot of emails on my website and people telling me basically that.

01:18:14

That they thought, especially from a Christian point of view, that they thought they need to be basically passive, turn the other cheek, and that when they saw this history of people,

01:18:27

Europeans fighting in the name of Christianity and defensive warfare, basically, like I said, all in accordance with just war theory, that it's given them a different perspective on things.

01:18:39

And I think that's one of the most important lessons, I think, of the book. Earlier we were talking about the different characters, but I think the fundamental lesson is that in the

01:18:48

West, especially any Christian denomination, whether it's Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, if it's

01:18:54

Western, it seems to be tainted with this sort of pacifism, almost paralysis of doing anything or being seen as an aggressor, even verbally.

01:19:04

And it just wasn't always like that for millennia, including amongst Protestants, I would argue.

01:19:10

So I think it's refreshing for people to see that that's the case. It wasn't always that you have to be this obligatory doormat to any kind of evil and just give in because you're supposed to turn the other cheek.

01:19:22

I think we discussed a little bit about even Jesus himself implicitly was okay with this.

01:19:27

He had a centurion come to him, and not only did he oblige him and heal his servant, he never told him what he told everyone else, which is, repent.

01:19:35

He could have told him, leave the military, you're killing people, etc., etc. He didn't. So I think from the start, even with Jesus himself, there's an understanding and a place for what would be considered state -sanctioned violence, basically, in protection, not aggressive violence.

01:19:55

I'm talking about defending, punishing criminals and so forth. Yes, and self -defense.

01:20:01

He told his disciples to buy a sword if they didn't have it. So, obviously, there was a reason for that that wasn't just for cutting up fish.

01:20:12

Let's see here. We have an anonymous listener who says, just like a previous anonymous listener,

01:20:22

I am having a bit of conflict with Christians in my own congregation over this issue who are adamantly opposed to ever putting a seal of approval on the

01:20:34

Crusades. Have you ever considered, or perhaps even participated in a public debate, just like Chris Arms and the host of this show has orchestrated many times on different subjects?

01:20:48

I've given a lot of lectures and I've been invited to a lot of places, but it's rare that I get into a debate even though I heartily welcome one.

01:20:57

In fact, going back to the War College incident, when they pressured the War College to basically back out and cancel my events, and like I said in the end, it was reinstated about a year later, but one of the things, their point was that everything

01:21:12

I was saying was just fabricated, even though my book, it was a previous book that I was invited to talk about,

01:21:18

Sword and Scimitar, has over a thousand footnotes to authenticate its sources, but they were basically trying to say

01:21:25

I'm making it up. And so I offered to the War College and said, well, why don't we have a debate? Have CARE or whoever bring up their best, most qualified historian and have him debate me, and they wouldn't do it.

01:21:39

And so I don't get into debates even though I welcome them because I think those who would be on the other side know that they're going to be made mincemeat of.

01:21:47

Well, I, as everybody who listens to this show regularly knows, I am a passionate lover of debates.

01:21:54

In fact, I just advertised one that I orchestrated for the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society, coming up with Dr.

01:22:01

James R. White and a individual, Dr. Gregory Coles, who identifies himself as a gay

01:22:08

Christian, and I have been doing this since 1996, was my first public debate, and have done, orchestrated many of them.

01:22:21

So I think that it is always a good idea to have debates when you have qualified people on both sides, and it's a moderated, strictly timed debate, so you don't have arguments, you don't have filibustering and all that kind of thing that can go on.

01:22:39

You have a moderator who will stop people when they start hurling ad hominem remarks, that sort of thing.

01:22:46

So, you know, if you're not going to do a debate on important topics between people who oppose one another, you wind up just having both sides of this issue.

01:22:56

The advocates of both sides of this issue just wind up talking about each other behind their back.

01:23:02

You know, so, to me, that's a serious sin, and where you get involved in hyperbole and slander and all kinds of things, when you're saying things and believing things that are not challenged by a person who is a knowledgeable expert on that issue.

01:23:22

So I am all for the debates. And, in fact, if anybody listening knows of somebody who would like to debate my guest,

01:23:30

Raymond Ibrahim, on this topic, I would love to even have a debate on my show about this.

01:23:40

Now, what do you think is some information,

01:23:45

I know you've already given us a wealth of information, but key points that the general public is totally ignorant of, that basically keeps them yoked to a negative understanding of the

01:24:03

Crusades, where it is nothing but something that should be categorized as an atrocity committed by one group of humans toward another, when both claim to believe in God, and so on.

01:24:18

You know, I've spoken to a lot of professional Crusades historians, and there's a lot of good ones who get it, who will actually basically make the same argument

01:24:26

I would, which is that Islam was the aggressor for centuries, the Crusades were a rebuttal, a response to ongoing violence, and so forth, but unfortunately, the dominant strain, it's almost like with Hollywood, you know, you have

01:24:40

Christians who make good movies, and so forth, like that recent one that was made about child abduction, or child sex slavery, and then you have the actual, the main, you know, the dominant voice suppressing it and shutting them down, and just kind of putting out their own stuff, their own filth.

01:24:57

So it's the same with academia. The voices that get heard are those historians who make the argument that people want to hear, which is that the

01:25:05

Crusades are bad, that they're a reflection of, you know, violent Christians, that Christians can never pay back and apologize enough to Muslims.

01:25:15

I remember a few years back in Germany, some sort of pilgrimage was begun by hundreds of Christians, and they wore shirts with Arabic, it said,

01:25:24

I apologize, and they marched supposedly to Jerusalem, apologizing to every

01:25:29

Muslim they met on the street. You know, again, it just belies a tremendous amount of ignorance of what really happened and who the aggressor was, but it's not their fault when they read books or watch documentaries that make it sound like everything was fine between Muslims.

01:25:47

John Esposito, he's a professor from Georgetown University, I quote him somewhere in a book, and he wrote something to paraphrase, but it's almost an actual verbatim quote, something like, four centuries of peace elapsed between the

01:26:02

Muslim and Christian worlds before a, you know, conniving, vicious papal play created the

01:26:09

Crusades, and basically since then, everything's been bad between Muslims and the West, and the

01:26:14

Muslims are still waiting. So even when Muslims engage in terrorism today, it's because they have a grievance against the

01:26:20

Crusades. And this is just pure bunk, and I'm not the first one to say this. A lot of historians will tell you this is absolute nonsense, but it's a question of who gets a platform to speak and who doesn't, and it's, as with everything else we're seeing, it's the other side, the so -called left, that has a platform to spew out what amounts to unadulterated lies, whereas those who have the truth are basically sidelined, suppressed, censored, including on Google and social media, etc.

01:26:49

You know, I forgot to ask you if you had finished what you were saying before the final, or the midway break,

01:26:59

I should say. Before the midway break, we were discussing the atrocities committed even by the

01:27:09

Quranic, the Quranically faithful and Hadith committed

01:27:17

Muslim extremists who, although they will execute a homosexual, they are involved in pederasty and homosexual acts towards boys.

01:27:27

And this even goes on now in Afghanistan, and we were talking about, or I mentioned the

01:27:33

Kite Runner, and by the way, a listener said to me, I don't believe that the Kite Runner won any academy awards, but it was a 2008 nominee for the

01:27:44

Critics' Choice Award for Best Picture and Best Young Actor, and the 2008

01:27:52

Golden Globe Awards nominees for Best Original Score and Best Foreign Language Film.

01:28:02

So, winner of Critics' Choice Awards and nominee for Golden Globe Awards. Did you have anything further you wanted to say about that?

01:28:12

Because I kind of cut you off. No, I think I basically got the gist out of it, but thanks for asking.

01:28:19

Alrighty, and by the way, thank you listener who sent me that correction in about the awards that the

01:28:25

Kite Runner film has won, and we're going to send you, or I should say,

01:28:30

CVBBS .com is going to send you a copy of Defenders of the West. Thanks for making that correction for my statement.

01:28:41

The, this is the kind of thing that people really have to investigate before forming an instantaneous opinion just because of what you heard the majority in modern culture say.

01:29:00

And this goes with really anything in life, and before we go to a final break in a few minutes,

01:29:11

I want you to really pitch some of the things perhaps that you haven't said yet to convince people who are total skeptics to the point that they don't even want to open up your book.

01:29:24

Convince them that you should be delving into this and why. Yeah, well,

01:29:30

I understand that sentiment. You know, if there's something that you're adamantly opposed to, you might not want to explore it, and you don't want to have your beliefs challenged or your conviction concerning whatever topic we're discussing, in this case, let's say, the crusades.

01:29:45

I would argue anyone who really is interested should consult that book because most of the words are not even my own.

01:29:51

It's constant quotes from both European and Muslim sources, and it really, I try to position it, and that's why people like Victor Davis Hanson endorse it and other historians because it's an objective inquiry, basically.

01:30:07

But, you know, if someone is adamant about not believing or even giving the time of day to consider a counter -argument, there's nothing you can do.

01:30:19

That's just how it is. They're going to stick with it. But I think it's important, especially for Christians of any denomination, to be cognizant of that history because it'll really open your eyes to,

01:30:31

A, the threats that Christians experienced all throughout history, especially vis -a -vis

01:30:37

Islam, which is a very major topic. Islam is, even though it's not brought up, but Islam, especially in Europe, you know, in 2050, according to Pew, Islam is said to be the dominant religion in most

01:30:48

European nations. That's not far off 2050. And wherever Islam is today, especially in countries like the

01:30:56

UK, Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, you have constant violence, rape, crime, attacks on Christian churches and symbols.

01:31:06

And then there was an interesting study that came out. If you look at the countries that don't have Islam, like Poland, pure peace.

01:31:13

Nothing. So I think it's very instructive. And then a final important point, I guess, is and maybe this will go into the next break, we can talk about the continuity of Islamic intolerance vis -a -vis

01:31:25

Christians because today, again, most people, including Christians in the West, are completely oblivious to the fact that Christians all around the world especially in the

01:31:34

Muslim world, and we're talking hundreds of millions of Christians, are being persecuted in a very dramatic and savage way.

01:31:42

We only get the tip of the iceberg. But so much stuff goes on and it's in keeping with Islamic teaching and culture and nobody's even hearing about it.

01:31:51

And this sort of thing will, in time, be spreading to the West and it already is in different manifestations.

01:31:58

You know, sort of legal warfare on Christian expression. But the violence that's in the

01:32:03

Muslim world and other countries including India, and there's a resurgent Hindu nationalism there that's targeting

01:32:10

Christians. All of that, I think, is left unchecked, is going to metastasize. We'll take one more question before the break that actually leads us into our current day.

01:32:20

We have Terrence from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York who asks and he also says,

01:32:28

President Trump was well known for saying that he destroyed ISIS. Although they appear to be laying low, have they really been destroyed?

01:32:39

Yeah, well, yes and no. And this is a good question which I've discussed in different mediums.

01:32:46

But basically the problem is we always think of these Islamic terror groups as finite organizations.

01:32:52

We think of Al -Qaeda, we think of ISIS, and the list goes on and on, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.

01:32:59

And yeah, you can defeat them but the problem is the ideology continues and it permeates all segments of Islamic society and that's why these groups, and even not groups, sometimes the worst acts of terrorism are not from a

01:33:14

Muslim who's part of any formal group. He's just a regular lone wolf quote -unquote Muslim who's again exercising his jihadist imperative against Christians or whatever, non -Muslims in general, and engaging in acts of terrorism.

01:33:28

So, you know, it's the chicken or the egg which came first. And it's not the Islamic terror group, it's the Islamic teachings which are central to the

01:33:35

Quran and the broader scriptural literature tradition of Islam, the Hadith and the Seerah and so forth, that create a constant supply of these terrorists.

01:33:44

Now, which in your opinion posed a greater threat to humanity?

01:33:50

ISIS or the Taliban? The Taliban, from what I understand, is still in existence and is a part of those militant

01:33:58

Muslims that we were mentioning earlier, that rise in power when the

01:34:04

United States and other armies destroy the dictatorships of less radical

01:34:12

Muslims. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. Basically, both groups are equally dangerous, and both of them follow the same exact teaching.

01:34:22

So, there's nothing really unique about them other than their own specific geographical singularity.

01:34:29

But, as you said, both of them really came in to the vacuum after the

01:34:34

United States got rid of secular forces. So, ISIS, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, came into Iraq, because of Saddam, and came into Syria during the civil war with Assad.

01:34:47

And the same thing, the Taliban, I still marvel that after declaring war on them in September 2001, or after that, because of the attacks of September 1, over 20 years later, the

01:34:58

Taliban, after facing supposedly the full might of the United States Army in military and economic might, 20 years later, they're in power again, and all we have to show for it is the

01:35:09

Biden administration just left billions of dollars worth of weapons. And now, they're also treating with them as an actual political entity, even though this is the

01:35:20

Taliban, these are the guys who gave sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden, who masterminded the attacks that killed over 3 ,000

01:35:26

Americans. So, all of that, 20 years of billions of dollars wasted, and nothing's changed.

01:35:32

If anything, the Taliban is in a better position. Well, we're going to our final break. If you have a question, please send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:35:40

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state and country of residence. Don't go away.

01:35:46

We'll be right back with Raymond Ibrahim. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023

01:35:53

The Gospel at War September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania featuring

01:35:59

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

01:36:06

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic.

01:36:17

Is gay Christian a biblically acceptable identity for a member of Christ's Church? So come join us for the 6th

01:36:22

Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

01:36:29

Saturday with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reform Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with a theme of the

01:36:38

Gospel at War in many areas of our culture including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

01:36:46

Head to futureofchristendom .org Music James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

01:37:04

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

01:37:12

G3 National Conference that's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

01:37:25

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

01:37:35

Music And there's more great news. Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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01:37:59

Chris Arnzen and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the

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G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God. Make sure you stop by the

01:38:10

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Exhibitor Booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

01:38:15

Go to g3 min .org and enter promo code G3 I S I R for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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Joining Chris Armisen's family of advertisers to keep Iron and Sharpen's Iron radio on the air.

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Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We're devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Every Christian who's serious about the Reformed faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

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It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

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Dr. Moorcraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

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For details on the eight -volume commentary go to westminstercommentary .com westminstercommentary .com

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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing sixth grade.

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Please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Hi, this is John Sampson, Pastor of Kings Church in Peoria, Arizona.

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Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider

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Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

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Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the internet where folk won't be led astray.

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

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Chris up for just such a time, and knowing this it's up to us as members of the Body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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where you can click support. That's ironsharpensironradio .com Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

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or call 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 and I'm turning the other cheek because I'm a good

01:54:10

Christian, when in reality they just don't want to be inconvenienced. So I think it's inspiring to see what so many otherwise wealthy and powerful

01:54:18

Christians sacrificed simply in the name of trying to go and right all the injustices or wrongs that were being committed against fellow

01:54:28

Christians. And finally, and not just, not so much, this isn't to inspire someone to go to war, but to help reconcile the idea that the

01:54:36

Christian faith is not opposed to the state basically defending itself through arms and so forth and righting wrongs and protecting the innocent.

01:54:49

So I think, like I said, all Christian denominations today in the West are very much paralyzed by this sort of idea that I have to be a doormat or I'm not a good

01:54:58

Christian. That's not how it was. That's not how the scriptures, including Jesus, spoke about it.

01:55:04

And the early church fathers, Augustine and so forth, just war theory. So I think that needs to be sort of brought back into the conversation a little more assertiveness when it comes to Christians dealing with the manifold attacks on their faith that are unfolding today.

01:55:22

Well, we have time for one more listener who also wants to remain anonymous. He says, you are beginning to convince me of the position you hold in favor of the

01:55:33

Crusades. But I was wondering if you were willing to concede that there were indeed atrocities that occurred by the hands of the

01:55:42

Roman Catholic Church during the Crusades. You even brought that up last time. Yeah, I assume the question is basically did the

01:55:52

Crusaders commit atrocities in the Crusades basically against Muslims?

01:55:58

And my response would be that, yeah, if by our definition of atrocity, certainly that occurred and you're right, we spoke about it a little before.

01:56:07

But again, it has to be understood in the context of what the Muslims were doing. So whatever atrocity you can think of that a

01:56:14

Christian committed, I can show you several that Muslims committed that were sometimes much worse and much more horrific.

01:56:21

The problem is if you only hear of one side, OK, if you only hear of the Christians doing X, Y and Z and never hear what the

01:56:27

Muslims are doing, certainly it looks a lot worse. But if you see it in balance, then it's just it's as they say, warfare.

01:56:35

What are you going to do? It's ugly. It's brutal. It's savage. And even if you want to look at America's civil war or as my southern friends call it, the war of northern aggression, the majority of Americans, I believe today, even southerners believe that the north was on the right side, the

01:56:56

Union Army. This is known as the war that ended slavery. But there were atrocities, gruesome, grotesque, barbaric atrocities committed by some

01:57:06

Union soldiers. So we have to remember that in most wars, unfortunately, since you don't have exclusively regenerate faithful Christians on the battlefields,

01:57:20

I'm talking about the majority. There are definitely some and many, perhaps, especially when we're talking about the

01:57:26

Civil War. But there were some evil men that performed some very barbaric terrorist attacks and even against women and children.

01:57:37

So these things happen. But I want to direct our listeners to a couple of websites.

01:57:46

First of all, go to Raymond Ibrahim dot com, the website of my guest.

01:57:52

Ibrahim is spelled I -B -R -A -H -I -M dot com.

01:57:58

And the first name is Raymond. And you can find out more about him and his writing and how to contact him for speaking engagements and so on.

01:58:10

And if you want to also look up the publisher,

01:58:16

Post Hill Press, which is also under the name Bombardier Books, which is an imprint of Post Hill Press, go to Post Hill Press dot com,

01:58:25

Post Hill Press dot com. And I also want to remind our listeners, you've been hearing the commercials for the

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01:59:01

Please make sure that you mention Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and make sure that whoever answers the phone tells

01:59:08

Dan Benifuco this very important fact. I want to thank my guest, Raymond Ibrahim, for being such a delightful guest and informative and fascinating guest.

01:59:18

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you are a sinner.