Islamophobia? Really? A Response to MuslimByChoice

Islamophobia. Islamophobia. What does that mean?

I mean, we first start hearing terms like this with homophobia.

The irrational fear of, well, your own sex. Well, okay, an irrational fear of homosexuals.

We all know that homophobia has become a term that has absolutely no meaning, because when people abuse a term to make it apply to any level of disagreement, it's irrelevant.

It loses all meaning. And so we know today, as soon as someone starts saying, you're a homophobe, you're a homophobe, what that means is the person using the term is utterly irrational, has no ability to formulate an argument, and is doing nothing more than than wasting air.

We recognize that. Islamophobia. Well, I've been accused of being an

Islamophobe. And in a video we're gonna watch, it was just posted by Muslim by Choice on YouTube, it starts off,

James White caught lying. Must see. Must watch. Caught lying.

Oh, there I go again. And then you watch it. It's all in a minute and 21 seconds.

It's one of these, catch something, throw some text in, don't fire up a camera, take a shot at somebody type videos.

Very common, unfortunately, the most common Muslim videos out there right now, sadly. But it's a, it's a minute and 21 seconds out of,

I think, around four hours of lecture on Islam.

Wow, if I can get three hours, 58 minutes right,

I'm doing pretty good. I've never heard a Muslim go that long on Christianity and get anywhere near to being accurate.

Interesting thought, isn't it? Anyway, but it starts off, James White teaches his audience

Islamophobic propaganda. Oh, wow, man, here

I go again. I just, I keep getting caught doing this. It's terrible. But what was it?

Well, as you're gonna see, what it is, is I was describing for a

Christian audience, something about Islamic history, and something about the fact that you need to read the

Qur 'an and recognize it's not in chronological order. I often tell the stories in my lectures about how after 9 -11 you had reporters running around buying the

Qur 'an from Barnes and Noble or something like that, and they're leafing through it trying to find something to say.

And you know, when you approach the Qur 'an that way, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And in fact, if you try reading, starting at Surah Al -Fatihah and then

Al -Baqarah and all the way through to the end, it can be rather mystifying for most

Christians to try to read the book that way, because as you Muslims know, the

Qur 'an is not written in a chronological order. In fact, even within some surahs, you bounce back and forth between different periods of Muhammad's life.

And for us, who do not believe that the Qur 'an was written in Arabic in eternity past, and examine it as a written document, written 600 years after the time of Christ, and examine it for internal consistency and historical consistency and logical consistency, because it talks about the

Torah and the Injil, and does it accurately represent us, and so on and so forth. As we look at it, we recognize that, well, it needs to, you know, pass certain tests.

And when you look at it, we see development. And when Muhammad is a minority prophet, and I noticed that there was some confusion on the part of many of the

Muslims who were commenting, nasty comments, that's why comment boxes are irrelevant.

It's just where plays that people demonstrate that they can't control their tongues, and are just, well, frequently just really just nasty, just insulting for absolutely no reason, as if they had some idea what my motivations are, what my heart is, or anything like that.

It's a sad spectacle to observe, but there were people that were going, he wasn't a minority prophet, he wrote an entire book of scripture.

I didn't say a minor prophet. A minority prophet means that from 610 to 622 in Mecca, he represented a minority in Mecca.

That's why he was being persecuted by the majority, okay? That's what a minority prophet is.

He was the monotheist, preaching against the polytheism of the day, represented the idols in the Kaaba.

This is not argumentable stuff. This is not Islamophobia. This is, this is factual stuff.

This is just plain history. Nothing, nothing to dispute about here. But, here's where I made my great mistake, which, even if it was a mistake, and I don't think that it was, but I could have said it more accurately.

It's not a lie, because there was no intention behind it, and to call it

Islamophobia is to make the word meaningless, just like homophobia has become meaningless.

See, what I said was, 610 to 622, minority prophet, then you have the Hijra, and now he's in Medina, and now

Muhammad's the head of an army, and you've got the material about, and then

I used the phrase, no compulsion religion. Well, that's from Surah Al -Baqarah, which is an early

Medinan Surah. I know that you can find lectures on the internet, maybe even on YouTube someplace, or some other church event, where I've mentioned that, but it's an early

Medinan Surah, and the whole lie, and the Islamophobia is, oh see, he didn't say anything about Surah 2, but he quoted from it, and it's a

Medinan Surah, not a Meccan Surah, so he's an Islamophobe. Really?

Okay, so if I said, the material where Muhammad is talking about religious freedom, and no compulsion religion, is primarily from when he's a minority prophet, and prior to the battles of Badr and Uhud, or something along those lines, prior to the point where he becomes the prophet at the head of an ever -expanding army.

How's that? Doesn't change a word that I said. None of it would amount to Islamophobia by any stretch of the imagination.

Here, take a look at the video itself. So from 610, when the event in the cave takes place, 610

AD to 622 is called the Meccan period, and Muhammad is a minority prophet in Mecca.

He is frequently reviled. He is persecuted. His followers are persecuted as well, beaten.

Some are killed. And his message is fairly straightforward. There is one

God, creator of heaven and earth. Very similar to what you would have in the prophets, constantly warning the people of Israel, the

Baals are no true gods. There's only one God who created the heavens and the earth. There are a number of passages that use very similar language in these sections of the

Quran. And, of course, since he's a minority prophet at this time, this is also where you get the stuff about, well, there should be no compulsion in religion, there should be freedom of religion in that sense, because, well, when you're the minority prophet, you want to have freedom of religion.

Now, let's talk about real Islamophobia for a moment. It does exist.

There are Christians who do suffer from Islamophobia. There are people who think that every

Muslim on the planet is hiding in AK -47 behind their back, and at the first shout of Allahu Akbar, they're going to open fire.

There are Christians who really do believe that. And I do what

I can to try to communicate the fact that just as we want them to differentiate between us,

I don't want to be painted with the same broad brush that someone would look at a Fred Phelps with, so we have to make the effort.

Despite the fact that the loudest voices in Islam tend to be radical, and they've got a lot of money behind them, and a lot of the people on YouTube who are posting stuff don't tend to be the most mainstream, shall we say.

They tend to be Salafi, Wahhabi, you know, that kind of stuff. Still, there are

Islamophobes out there. These look familiar if you travel. I have a little collection of them here.

I just grabbed a few of them. These are TSA notice of baggage inspection cards.

I seem to collect a lot of them. Of course, I travel a lot, and I have electronics and stuff like that, and so I'll have cables and things, and so my bags get inspected a lot.

However, twice on two separate occasions at different times,

I found one of those cards in this.

Inside a book in my baggage. And what is the book?

It's the Arabic Quran. Yeah, this is my Arabic Quran. It's the one

I carry, and frequently I'll, if you've attended any of my conferences or lectures,

I'll frequently pass it around through the audience so they get a chance to look at it. I'm trying to familiarize

Christians with Islam, and the Arabic Quran would seem to be something that would be good to use for that, right?

Twice, I have found one of these in here. Now, you think somebody was trying to give me a message?

I think so. I mean, if I were a Christian in a majority

Muslim country, and I found something like that in my Bible in my luggage,

I would certainly get that feeling. There is no reason to put it there, other than to say, we're watching.

So you see, I try to recognize what it's like to be a

Muslim in the situation Muslims are in in our nation, and I recognize that there are forces out there that are unfair in their analysis and criticism of Islam.

That it's always the negative, there's no recognition that there's anybody who says anything else. I recognize that.

But I don't see anybody, almost anybody on your side, Muslim by choice, that even tries to make the effort that I do to see things accurately from your perspective.

One clear example, this is easy. Muslim by choice, here's a challenge for you. Get out from behind your keyboard, fire up the camera, and do what

I did in New Orleans, from which you took that clip, and you give a lecture.

Lecture for three hours on the history and theology of Christianity, and then take questions for an hour, and then let me see if I can find any inaccuracies.

I don't see very many Muslims doing that kind of thing. In fact, for some reason, it's a small, tiny minority that I can count on one hand with a few fingers missing, who recognize any benefit to doing that at all.

In fact, I'll be perfectly honest with you, there is a massive amount of, well, intellectual arrogance on the part of many

Muslims who engage in dawah. They figure they need to know we believe, hey, the

Quran tells us enough, as if the Quran actually accurately represents Christianity. So, when you use these terms, like Islamophobia, when the homosexuals use homophobia, and they just, any disagreement, it's, oh, it's homophobia, oh, it's homophobia, it makes the word worthless, and it removes it from being relevant to when it might accurately describe something.

So, when you, Muslim by choice, accuse me of lying, and putting forth

Islamophobic propaganda, when all

I'm doing is talking about the fact that, well, we need to examine the

Quran, and there were different periods in Muhammad's life, and I'm just doing my best to explain to Christians the history of Islam, you may not like an analysis of what seems to be the development in the

Quran. But if you don't like that, then state your case.

Try to provide some kind of meaningful defense for the idea that the Quran's been written for all eternity on the tablet in heaven, in Arabic, for crying out loud.

Language didn't even exist. At least try to give a defense for it. Don't just assume that, and then if someone contradicts that, well, you're an

Islamophobe. That would be like me responding to Bart Ehrman, just saying, oh, you just, you just hate

God, or you're a Christophobe. But you know what,

Muslim by choice, I think you are a good example of Christophobia.

The real Christophobia. Because you see, if you actually did things the way

I think even the Quran suggests, remember it talks about, you know, beautiful words or beautiful arguments, you know, argue with them with beautiful words, this isn't what the

Quran's talking about. Don't think so. And it seems that if you really had a meaningful argument, if you really had some, something behind you, you wouldn't have to produce one minute and 21 second long text -based cheap shots where you poison the atmosphere, you poison the well with caught lying,

Islamophobia, propaganda. You'd actually have something meaningful to say. Maybe that is

Christophobia. I would suggest to you that you really need to reconsider your approach.

Because who are you trying to convince? I mean, your cheerleaders don't need any convincing.

They don't care what I believe. They don't, they have no concern for truth whatsoever.

I mean, they'll believe anything. Anything you say, they'll believe. Are those the only people you're producing videos for?

Is the already convinced mindlessly so? There's lots of people like that on both sides.

I don't produce material for the people on my side that are willing to believe anything about someone that's different than themselves, whether it's true or not.

You see, as Christians, we have a standard. And that standard precludes our using a lot of the kinds of arguments that, unfortunately, our enemies use against us.

And that standard goes back to Jesus, who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now, I've said many, many times,

I would think that you would have morally the responsibility to use the same standard.

Because, no one's ever said I was wrong about this, I think one of the 99 beautiful names is Al -Haq, yes?

The truth? And so, it would seem that you would have the same standard as well.

Maybe not as embodied as a Christian would, because the one to whom we are united by faith, identified himself as the truth.

But still, who are you producing your videos for? Who are you seeking to call, with beautiful words, to Islam?

If you're not using, may I suggest to you, illogical, irrational, emotionally -laden arguments, those are not beautiful words.

They are not beautiful words, because they are not in accordance with truth. I hope you'll think about it, and maybe step up your game, and maybe actually recognize that there are people who disagree with you, and they do so honestly and with integrity.

It doesn't mean that they're right. Get that thinking out of your head, and you'll be able to realize that there is a spiritual dimension to truth.

And I can recognize that there are people who disagree with me, and they're absolutely convinced that what they're saying is true.

You see, my great joy, as a Christian apologist, is that I recognize the spiritual dimension, and I can trust the

Spirit of God to open hearts and minds to see the truth that the natural mind will not see.

That's the difference. So I call you to a higher standard. Stop this rhetoric, this

Christophobic propaganda. You want Christophobic propaganda? There it is. Stop that.

Focus upon what's meaningful and real, and it will help the dialogue a lot.