Answering Islam, Pt. 3 || Cultish W/@TheAlMaidahInitiative

Hello, everyone. This is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here at Kultish. I want to give you a heartfelt thanks for those of you who have generously given and supported our ministry the last few months.

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So all that being said, enjoy this next podcast. All right.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Kultish. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. We're down to three people for the final segment.

We are back here with Andrew in your super -secret headquarters somewhere up in Utah.

We'll just leave it at that. James, good to have you back. Good to be back. Because we have covered a lot when it comes to the history,

Muslim culture, understanding the distinctions between theology, between Islam, Christianity.

In the final segment, we're going to talk about, OK, now it's like the so what. How do you take all that plethora of firehose of information?

What does this actually look like with engaging our Muslim friends and neighbors? So I'm just going to leave the ball in your court.

What's the best starting point in this final part of this discussion? So I think, you know, first of all, we just got to think as Christians, is what our duty is to non -believers in general.

And I think a lot of Muslims who hear about the work I'm doing ask the question, why are you so focused on Islam?

What about, you know, atheist agnostics and, you know, Mormons or whatever? And, you know, my answer to that question is,

I love all of that. I want to see all of those people meet Jesus and become

Christians. But I think there's a particular deficiency between Christianity and the

Muslim world, and Islam is the largest non -Christian worldview on the planet. So Muslims need the gospel, not because Muslims are uniquely bad, but because they're just like everyone else.

They're image bearers of God and they are sinners, just like you am, just like you are, just like I am.

Hey, we've been recording all day. You get a pass. Yeah. In England, we say it that way. Ah. And so we should, you know, we should have this.

We have this duty as Christians to accurately communicate what we believe in a way that makes sense to Muslims.

And, you know, and understanding Islam, understanding the worldview we're speaking to is something that's important because the

Bible does that. When the New Testament came, it came in Koine Greek, the language of the common people, so people could understand it.

So we need, we can be, you know, speaking clearly enough. But if we're not speaking the language someone actually understands, then we're not going to be effective.

Of course, God can still show up. God doesn't need us to communicate clearly to speak through our words.

But we should be aiming to speak clearly because that's what God wants from us. First of all, right?

That's kind of the first starting point there. And then, you know, secondly, we should have expectations.

If you look at Psalm 72, it talks about the reign of the Messiah and it says, may he have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

May all kings bow down before him and all nations serve him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts.

May desert tribes bow down before him. May the, you know, the coastlands of Tarshish render him tribute.

So the picture of the world the Psalms are painting is a picture where the nations that are currently

Muslim are one day serving Jesus as King, right?

And we might get to have a part to play in what God is doing in the world. Yeah. And that's, what's exciting about this to me.

I believe God's going to do things in the Muslim world. And I want to be part of the magic, quite frankly.

And I think you should too, because it's really interesting and it's much more fun than you realize. No, I would agree.

I think that, um, you know, you're, you're seeing it's very easy, man. And it's just like, I feel like I'm sort of going back and sort of like my own story and journey, like being introduced to like Islam by way of like fear and terror, because literally it was like 9 -11 and the war in terror and being a fan of that.

And then having, then going into, uh, the Middle East on a mission trip, just a few years later, having all sort of my confirmation biases by Western media and having to kind of really rip those sort of off of me to really truly engage and like love them as people who just needed the gospel to serve and to love them.

And I think that's the biggest thing, you know, and I think, you know, one of my favorite passages in first John, when it says, you know, perfect love, cast out fear for the one who fears has not been perfected in love.

And I think that's, and this is not just Islam. This is the case with any category, any group where you don't argue in the flesh, but you have to truly love them because if, if salvation is truly of grace, if it's truly an act of grace and we didn't do anything to obtain it, that should give us humility, grace, and compassion to be able to reach out to those who see differently and understand that if it wasn't for the grace of God, I'd be on the other side of the conversation.

So, um, so yeah, I'm very intrigued by this. So really in your dialogues, and I feel like it's one of those things too, that probably evolves, you know, when you get into, you get into like the first conversation with someone, it's like, okay, what just happened?

I feel like I have this ring rest and you're overthinking stuff. And then you kind of go back, you go more, you get like confident the next time, like when you first started, like what was your starting point and was there any, what did you end up evolving or changing?

What did you learn from your very first experiences? Yeah. So basically my starting point after I listened through Sahih al -Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the two main sort of, you know,

Hadith collections, um, I decided to crash the Muslim student association at the university of Washington.

I was like college age, but I didn't go to college. My wife was a UW student. Um, so I use that as an excuse to just kind of, you know, walk in.

And I, I walked in like super awkwardly partway through one of the meetings and everybody saw me come in.

So, you know, everybody therefore, you know, asked me why I was there, but one guy, you know, offered me a seat, invited me back, um, and then he kept inviting me back and I just kind of kept going.

And I ended up going for six years, became the longest standing member of the MSA at the university of Washington as neither a

Muslim or a student. And I never hid the fact that I was Christian and I was received, um, very warmly, um, and, and my goal in that was not to kind of like go stir up trouble in the meetings, but to go like, listen to learn things and then make one -on -one, uh, friendships and see where those conversations went in a one -on -one.

You know, setting. And I think early on my kind of, my habit was just kind of kind of want to argue about the sources to some, you know, to some extent and I kind of like, you would skip over the individual sometime in exchange for kind of like, you know, conversations about the sources.

But as I started to realize that most Muslims aren't getting their information from, you know, the sources, but rather they're, they're leaders, what

I was trying to do more than that was just kind of draw out how the person I was talking to really thought about the world.

And what I realized is that Christians spend a lot of time trying to answer questions that Muslims are not asking.

But there are questions Muslims are asking that the Bible has answers to.

And by not talking about those types of things, then, you know, we're not, you know, engaging with Muslims very well.

Yeah. Andrew, you, we, you've got a couple more minutes here. You may have to bounce that early on this episode.

We've been here all day. I'm going to kind of let you sort of segue that, like run the ship the last 15 minutes or so that you have, what, what comes to mind when it comes to dialogue and with everything that James is talking about so far in the segment?

Yeah. Like when you're talking about Psalm 72, it makes me almost think about like the sovereignty of God. Like we're getting a picture of the future in a sense.

And you're saying if I'm trusting in God and not leaning in my own understanding what I should see is people that are made in the image of God that need a savior, and I need to just be faithful in the proclamation of the gospel to these people.

I, they, I shouldn't see them as a people group that I fear because one day. As God words, God's word says they're going to be worshiping the king and I can play a part in that.

And I think that's such a beautiful way to think about evangelism in general. And that's great, man.

I love that. So in terms of, you know, speaking with Muslims and getting on that individual basis with them how do you break through kind of the

Muslim barrier or the shell, because even in Mormon evangelism, you can kind of get into scripted conversations, but there's a way to kind of break through that and ask the person probing questions in order to try to find out what they're truly thinking and to get on that one -on -one level with them.

Like how, how, how do you get through that? Yeah. So it's mostly time for the most part, but the more you, the more they can kind of tell you actually understand what they're talking about, the easier it is to kind of, you know, build trust with people.

And, and so, and that's all I'm really trying to do is I'm trying to build, you know, meaningful, trust -filled relationships with people where I'm honest about what

I believe. So, you know, the wrong way to do kind of, you know, friendship evangelism is you're kind of sneaky about it, right?

So you're really nice to somebody and you kind of wait for them to have some sort of existential crisis. Right. Um, I'm, I try and start all my relationships is kind of on the nose as possible about, oh,

I'm interested in what you believe because I'm, you know, I take religion seriously as well. Um, and that's part of my life.

How is it part of your life kind of thing? Right. So you want to be upfront about, you know, who you are and what you believe in and not trying to kind of like earn the right to, you know, say something important later, but don't be honest, don't be on a script yourself.

Right. Don't be trying to kind of get to certain conversation points. Um, be prepared to follow the conversation wherever it goes and take them seriously as an individual.

And usually it's these kinds of like conversations that go to like 3am where you start to learn what people like actually think, because there's this.

There's, there's this general, there's a general sense of what they think they're supposed to say to you when everyone's watching, you know, what they think they're supposed to say to you when no one's watching and then what they actually want to say to you later on.

Almost like a Nicodemus conversation. He meets with Jesus at night because he didn't want to see anyone else with him. Yes, exactly.

And that's exactly, that's exactly it. Um, so it's very, because everything, all their information and all their, um, all the kind of like social structure happens around this massive kind of nebulous mob of people that everyone loves and doesn't trust at the same time.

Um, you gotta be able to build a one -on -one relationship with people, um, to the point that they trust you and, you know, you trust them to some extent.

Yeah. Um, and that's where you can kind of really get to the bottom of what people, uh, you know, are dealing with.

And then when you have the opportunity to speak what the Bible says into those situations, you know, you, you, you speak that.

Also, let me ask you this as well, too. I mean, we're also talking about a couple of dues. I think there's also a couple of don'ts.

This would apply. And I'll give you a couple of examples of Mormonism. I think when you're doing like Mormon evangelism and Andrew, you could attest to this, there are a lot, a lot of rabbit, rabbit trails.

You can go down. Uh, you can start talking about polygamy. You can start talking about the Mormon undergarments.

You can talk about what's going on in the temple. You can talk about, oh, well, Joseph Smith and Carthage jail. He didn't die as a martyr.

He died in a gunfight shooting back. Like there's a lot of things that you could like throw out there that would just be a powder keg that, yeah, you're going, you're going to get a reaction.

But is that really where you want to leave them? Like, no, like in that case, you stay focused on the essential.

Who is God? Who is Jesus? Even like talking about in our last episode. Right. So are there, are there any like dangers or like pet falls or rabbit trails you could go down, which might be counterproductive or is that kind of vary depending on the person you're talking to?

It depends on the person. Um, what I would say is try and let them dictate the rabbit trails. Um, because for, for example, right.

Um, if you're talking to, you know, a Muslim about polygamy, for example, right, um, just like with Mormonism, polygamy is a thing in Islam.

And if you talk to somebody who has never known anybody who's practiced polygamy and you say, yeah, the

Quran teaches polygamy that's so backwards. Um, then they're just going to get defensive because you don't understand what you're talking about.

You've never met my family. You're misrepresenting what we believe. That's not really what we're focused on. There's a time and place for that for a specific reason.

That's not happening now. Right. It is happening now, but it's not like crazy widespread.

Um, so if you're going to get onto that rabbit trail, um, that's a rabbit trail in one circumstance, whereas somebody who grew up in a polygamous family and is hurt by that, that might be what they actually want to talk about.

And so you're trying to see what the person you're talking to is actually dealing with and you apply the gospel there, right?

You're not trying to answer the questions. They're not asking, answer the questions they are asking.

And those questions that they are asking always lead to Jesus because all roads lead to Jesus. Could you give the example, um, maybe

I want to give some examples that people could see like case studies when we're on the phone, I think it's on the phone initially, you're talking about a story of a, of a

Muslim woman and she, you had engagement, but like you had knowledge of like her cultural or her, her culture, her, like where she came from.

And that led to a catalyst to, to listen to you further. Do you know what I'm referring to? I could be, there could be a few things.

Um, but let me, let me think of some, let me kind of give you a couple of examples. So, um, so for example, um, we,

I knew a Saudi, a woman, um, who was, um, in the

Seattle area. And, um, this woman had, you know, children and she was like, um, talking to us about the difficulties of being a parent and she, and in her mindset, you know, the fitra everyone's born pure.

So what the heck am I doing wrong? That all my children are sinners and a bit in misbehaving in all these different ways.

So from there, we'll be, we're able to say, show, you know, Mark chapter seven, where Jesus says evil comes out from within a person's heart.

And then she says, yes, this is, this is true. I know this is true because all my kids have been raised the same way, yet they're all different.

What Jesus is saying here is right. And then that opens the door for her to ask us more things about that she's curious about.

Like, you know, does Christianity allow for polygamy? And then the answer is, you know, no, it doesn't allow for polygamy.

And this is why that the marriage is supposed to be, you know, one man and one woman for life as a representation of God's love and loyalty to his people, um, that's exclusive and unique.

Um, and so things like that just kind of keep coming up. And eventually it comes to the point where she asks, okay, every time somebody, we see people leaving the mosque, they look miserable.

And every time I see them leaving the church, they look happy.

So what's the difference? Why is, you know, why are things like this?

So, um, you know, we get to get to explain that, you know, while Islam teaches that Allah is merciful, um, you don't know for sure if you're going to receive that mercy, right?

There's ambiguity about the day of judgment and you're scared of the day of judgment. So, you know, religion, there's always this kind of burden you're carrying.

And so she says, um, and whereas first John, you know, four says perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment and someone who fears has not been perfected in love.

Um, so as Christians, we believe that Jesus died for us, that we don't have to be afraid of judgment day because all our sins are taken care of.

And then she says, you know, I was always told by my parents that I should believe that God loves me and not worry about going to hell, but I'm afraid to, um, you know,

I'm afraid to read the Quran more because what have I find out that I haven't done enough? What have I find out that I'm going to be judged and then

I have to live the rest of my life in fear. And at that point I'm able to say to her, look, um, you know, you're right.

Your dad's right, but he's wrong about why he's right. Um, so he's striving his way towards this sort of unknown

God, which he kind of hopes exists within Islam, but does not. And what you believe as unknown, this is what

I proclaim to you. And this is what the word of God is. And then she basically says, oh, this is a lot.

Let me take a Bible back with me, um, to Saudi Arabia. And then she then, you know, is kind of, is kind of reading this over there.

And she connects with one of her old friends who she thinks is maybe more open -minded than other friends. And she asked,

Hey, I've been having a hard time with Islam, but when I read the Bible, it's starting to make sense to me, what do you think?

And this friend says, don't tell anyone this, but I've secretly been Christian for, you know, five years now and you should be too, um, and so it was just starting with this conversation about parenting that led from one thing to another, another, that allowed her to ask more questions and no point are we being pushy or manipulative or trying to do that.

We're just trying to apply the Bible to her life and show how those dots connect. And eventually that leads to her with, you know, divine intervention meeting, meeting

Jesus for real. Wow. Uh, Andrew, uh, we're in the last segment here and I, I'm seeing you.

What's on your mind or you're kind of in the last segment here before you got to take off. What, what comes to mind for you, man? Well, I'm praise

God. That's awesome. Uh, so how do you get into the situations to be able to meet these people?

Right. It's like, do we need to do what you did and go to like a college, even if we don't attend that college and you just sit in a

Muslim associated association meetings or something like that? Like how, how do we get into that position?

Cause it sounds like, uh, I'm sure it's possible to get into like public evangelism or street evangelism with Muslims, but it sounds like the context with a

Muslim person might be a little bit different than the context of when I go out to, to BYU and Mormons want to talk to me about these things.

It sounds like Muslims are just a little bit more different. Right, right, right. How do we get. So the first thing

I would say is ask God for open eyes and opportunities. Um, and you know, be, and just, you know, wherever you go, right.

So you can go to like events, right. You could go to, um, you could go to a Muslim event for sure.

Um, one of the best things you can do is kind of find like cultural events. Like, you know, sometimes like, for example, the

Seattle Arab festival is a great place to make friends. Um, standup comedy is a good way to go meet people.

Sometimes you have Muslim comedians or, you know, somebody with a Middle Eastern name, it's a great way to connect with people.

So in restaurants that serve halal food or hookah lounges, you know, you know, switch the type of tobacco you're inhaling to a different type and you suddenly have the opportunity to meet people, um, and just kind of be in the places where people are and just going to say hi to people and, you know, ask them how they're doing.

Like just on my way to Apologia yesterday, I stopped at a cartel coffee.

And just as I was waiting for my friend to go to the bathroom, I see three

Middle Eastern looking guys and I'm like, Hey, are you guys Saudi? And they're like, no, no, we're from Oman.

And we, you know, we have a conversation there and I, you know, kind of say, how's your time in America been so far?

How do you like Arizona? We love it. It's the same weather as our home country. You know, I didn't really lead to want to think there and then, and lots of my conversations don't go anywhere and that's fine, right?

All you're doing is putting yourself out there, taking an interest in people and let the conversations and just be in a position to use you that way,

God, you can use you to speak into people's lives. Yeah. Um, so just be prepared to walk through the doors that God opens.

Right. So that might be, you know, it might be, Hey, I have, we have this event that's coming up, or it might be,

Hey, a bunch of us are having a barbecue. Do you want to come? Or, Hey, um, I've been learning a little bit about the

Muslim world recently. I don't know any Muslims here in Salt Lake city. Um, could I get coffee and ask you some questions about, you know, what you believe, cause

I'm really curious. And generally Muslims are much more open to having these conversations than the average secular, you know,

American would be at this point. So is it, you just be friendly and honest and curious and, you know, on, on the lookout for people you could talk to.

And, um, I really believe that if you go in with that attitude, God will send you people. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot of good coffee shops and even the coffee, the coffee shops don't have to have a dramatic, uh, origin story is like being a by -product of a giant war.

Right. Right, right, right. And Hey, you could utilize that story as a catalyst to even like, Hey, do you know the story of like how this one war happened?

This coffee shop started. No. Okay. So one thing that create crazy, one thing I did on that note, actually,

I was in an ice cream store in Portland and there were two, you know, Muslim ladies, sort of Arab ladies behind me.

One was in her fifties. One was in her twenties. And, um, I, they found out

I was in town for Christian conference. So I made small talk. I just like, Hey, are you guys local? What do you recommend from this place?

Yeah, just, yeah. Again, no, no, no. That's going to go anywhere. Then when they find out that I'm in town for Christian conference,

I really feel the need to make a good impression at that point. So when we got to the counter, I bought that ice cream for them and they said,

Oh, that's so nice. When did you, why did you do this? So I said, firstly, as a Christian, I want to make sure

Muslims in the country I live in are treated well and feel like they have a good home here.

Um, secondly, the Islamic golden age gave us ice cream. So this is my thank you for that. Then they both laughed.

Oh, then five minutes later, the daughter came out and said to me, thank you so much for what you did.

I didn't say this in front of my mom because it's still a sore subject, but I became a Christian a year ago. Um, and what you did helps me in my relationship with my mom.

Wow. Whoa. So it's just like, just by having open eyes for this stuff and trusting that God will actually show up when you put yourself out there.

I've had so many crazy things happen. Like, um, like one of, like one of my closest friends now, um, who's, uh, was a

Muslim who lost his faith while living in Saudi Arabia, was super serious about it too. Um, and then just, you know, happened to meet a kind of Christian Uber driver and sort of, you know, express that he had some curiosity and questions about Christianity.

And then, you know, the Uber driver connected us. Um, and now he's one of the most, you know, valuable friends and ministry partners that I have.

So just, you know, I can't tell you how to make that happen because I can't make that happen.

I didn't make this happen for myself. What I have done is trust that God can show up, put myself out there, prayed for opportunities and been prepared to faithfully do what

I think God wants me to do in those situations. And when I say God, what God wants me to do,

I'm not talking about some like magical voice. I'm talking about things the Bible tells us to do. Love your neighbor. Um, show hospitality to strangers, invest in people, disciple people, be, be a friend to people.

Right. That's what the Bible asks for us. And if we're prepared and speak the truth to people, and if we do all that and we're faithful with what

God wants us to do, we'll see amazing things happen. Yeah. Hmm. Wow. That's, that's good.

I'm trying to think of like the next question to sort of ask. I mean, I think a lot, well, let me ask this.

So again, a lot, a lot of people are looking at, um, ways to like bridge the gap, you know, with their friend who's

Muslim. And so, I mean, a lot of things are, you know, relational and things like that. Um, and like I said, the example in the coffee shop is just, that's awesome.

And that's just something you're going to have to figure out, you know, with where you are and how are you relatable? Like, how do you, how do you create small talk with someone?

Like, how do you just kind of, how do you like, how do you socialize? Like just utilize that, like, but be yourself, you know?

Um, but I think from like a theological standpoint too, when it comes to like, when you kind of break that ice and the conversation comes up about, you know,

Christianity and, and that stuff, you know, obviously you want to have the conversation be organic. Like, have you seen, have you seen like where it kind of, is there a tendency where it gravitates one way or the other?

Like in last episode, we were talking about, you know, Jesus, God, corruption of the Bible, or is it, does it kind of just vary off the conversation?

It varies a lot. Um, I find myself having a lot of conversations about human nature. Cause that just kind of impacts everything.

So, you know, so closely. Um, but, but basically how I think about this, imagine a

Venn diagram. You've got two, you've got two circles or maybe even three of you are committed to this first is your knowledge of the whole council of God in the

Bible, right? Then it's your knowledge of them as an individual. And maybe you have a knowledge of Islam as well.

And as your knowledge of the Bible grows and as your knowledge of the individual grows, your, those circles will start to overlap more and more, and you'll have more to talk about with that person.

And then if you have, if you add the sort of knowledge of Islam to that as well, which again, you don't need, but it can be helpful.

You have even more ways you can, you know, talk about this sort of stuff. Yeah. Right. Without, again, without having to look for, okay,

I'm waiting for my moment to do this, you're being a genuine friend to that person and a genuine disciple of Jesus.

And as, as you grow in both those things, inevitably you will have points of conversation, but human nature has been especially great because it's just an easy thing that we kind of disagree on that affects everything.

Yeah. So, so for example, right, I was a few years ago and in the beginning of 2020,

I'd run out of coffee at home. So I decided to go to Starbucks and all my kids wanted to come with me.

And only in the end, only my four -year -old daughter came. And we're sitting in, we're in the line and my daughter says, daddy, let's sit down.

I'm like, okay, fine. Um, go get us a table. So she goes and gets the one table that has one chair.

And there's a woman on the table next to us, uh, in a hoodie with headphones. And I say, excuse me, is this chair free?

Yeah, go ahead. So I sit down with my four -year -old daughter and she says, daddy, make friends.

So I'm like, all right, fine. Uh, what are you studying? English. Oh, great. Where are you from? Saudi Arabia. Oh, great.

Intimid Saudi. And she's like, how do you know Arabic? I said, I run a nonprofit that facilitates friendship and worldview conversations between Christians and Muslims.

Um, and she says, is that the Almida initiative? I've heard of that. I'm like, yes. Um, so she said,

I actually have a bunch of questions for you. When can we talk? Um, so we got coffee the next week and she asked me, so my question is this.

Are you trying to help people make friends or are you trying to change people's religion? I said, yes. And she says,

I don't know why you do that because all religions teach the same thing, basically. And so I said, okay,

I can see why you'd say that. Well, let me explain why that's not true. Um, if, uh, you know, so in Islam, you believe in the fitra, right?

That's the people were all born pure. And she said, yeah, I believe that. Whereas in, um, in the

Bible, Mark seven says evil comes out from within a person's heart. Yeah. And, and so, um, and, and so she, and so I said, okay, this is why it's important.

Imagine for a moment, um, that what Jesus is saying is true, but you grew up in a society where you, where you're taught that everyone's born good.

What would that do to you? You'd look at everyone else around you and think they have their lives together. Um, and then, but then you'd, um, um, but then you'd, you know, look at yourself and think that you, that you have a darkness in you that you can't explain.

Yeah. And you'd think that you're broken in a way that not everyone else is. And she says, you've just described my entire life.

So if my heart is the problem, what's the solution. Wow. Right. So the human nature is the window in, and it is like very consistently.

Um, recently my favorite window in has honestly been like Israel and Gaza. I was just going to,

I was just going to ask you about that. Um, can I say something? I mean, this is, I remember like I, I, the company

I work for, it's, uh, they sell like a tactical gear and stuff like that. So we go, so when Israel happened, it was just nuts.

Like we went from like, just, you know, like a one week lead time to like five or six weeks, um, just because if everyone saw what was going on in the news, like, ah, we got to buy this gear.

But, um, like it would just was amazing to see. Um, everyone would just react just like that.

You had a lot of Christians, uh, who, you know, have a lot of, you know, an eschatology that would favor be more favorable towards Israel.

Um, and, uh, but I feel like, and it was, you know, they can do that, but I just, it felt like I was watching,

I had like this flood of memories of just like a lot of what I believed in early, in the early two thousands of, and I was like,

I see, I was seeing this like regurgitating that nothing new under the sun. Uh, my question would be for that. And you talk about the opportunity.

How did the friends that you're in proximity to, uh, and then these dialogues, what was their initial reaction to like Israel Palestine?

And, and how did you, how did you, how did you facilitate that or respond to that or, or navigate those dialogues?

Yeah. So everyone kind of lost their minds. Um, just pure irrationality

I saw was, was crazy. Oh yeah. Now I don't like, obviously if you're a

Palestinian, you're going to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Yeah. Right. Um, but yeah, the amount of things that people just like straight up deny happened, um, is just, is just crazy.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, as, as a result of that, right.

My initial reaction in a lot of ways is just kind of a gag reflex of like, I just don't want to be around this right now.

I just kind of want to retreat to my cave and ignore everybody because everybody's gross. Yeah. Which, um, is easy for us to do.

Right. That's the kind of conservative reaction in some ways is, you know, retreat back behind our walls and, you know, lock the gates and like,

Oh no, thank you. Right. Um, but in order to be who

God wants us to be in that moment, we have to overcome that gag reflex and see the image bearer of God, you know, underneath that.

So when you have a problem like Gaza, um, there are real problems there, right?

It's not, you know, it's not, um, like a one -sided Palestinians good,

Israel bad. And it's not a one -sided Israel good, Palestinians bad. Right. That's not the biblical worldview. Um, and what revolutionaries are good at doing is identifying real problems and then applying bootleg solutions to those problems.

So the type of things that Hamas is, is, is tapping into are real things.

Um, so what I've been, what I, what I try and the conversation I try and have with people to, you know, build this, you know, to kind of build this rapport, um, and to get all kind of off the script, right?

Because the script people want you to go on is Israel good, Palestine bad, or Palestine good,

Israel bad. Right. That's what they want you to do. And I realize there's very much people trying to do to Jesus in his day.

Yeah. So the easiest way to have a conversation about this is to say, Hey, I've been, uh, what's happening right now is, is bad.

And I've noticed that the life of the average Palestinian today is very similar to the life of Jesus.

And actually what you'll hear a lot of Palestinians say is Jesus is Palestinian. Right. And if they say that, you know, the initial kind of gag reaction is no, he's

Jewish. Don't be ridiculous. Right. Right. But if we react like that, we're really missing an opportunity.

Somebody wants to claim Jesus. They can have Jesus, but they need to understand him properly first.

So what I'll say is, look, there's a lot of parallels between the life of Jesus and the average Palestinian living today.

Um, because Jesus lived in a, you know, in a, in a, in his homeland, his ancestral homeland, where his people didn't have sovereignty and you had the

Roman army kind of occasionally, you know, setting up checkpoints and Roman officials deciding pregnant woman, you move from this location to this location because we need to count you properly.

Um, you had occasional heavy handed crackdowns and, um, they had access to their holy place.

Um, but they didn't, they were worried they were going to lose that. And everywhere in the air all the time is this worry about the revolt and the corresponding response to it from the

Roman government and meaning. So when Jesus is in that environment, he talking about Jerusalem, but he's in, you know,

Luke, I think it's 19. And he says, um, the day is coming when, um, when your enemies will come and build a barricade around you and hem you in from every side and break you down to the ground, you and your children within you, they will not leave one stone upon another all because you did not know the day of your visitation.

Yeah. I read that to any Palestinian and they're going to say, that's Gaza. All right.

So, so we kind of, we kind of get them on the stage. We get them on the stage of, Hey, the Bible recognizes your pain and circumstances.

This is not an alien book to you. Right. So then, but then the opportunity comes to get a little bit more controversial.

So then if Jesus, who you believe is a prophet, lived in a circumstance similar to yours, you should be asking yourself the question, how did

Jesus live in light of this? Um, and it's in, and Jesus is somebody who, um, is perfectly willing to criticize his friends and praise his enemies.

Right. He says about the Roman centurion, um, I've not found anyone in Israel with faith like this.

That would be like a Palestinian saying this IDF colonel is the most righteous man I've ever met.

Right. That's, that's how like spicy the things Jesus is saying are. Right. Um, because Jesus is on the side of truth.

Um, and he, and so it was in that circumstances, right? You've got one side that believes they have a divine right from God to rule the world.

Um, and the other, or it'll be from heaven, at least all the gods and the other side believes they have the divine mandate to push the occupies into the sea.

And everybody wants to co -op Jesus for their side. They were the Jews want to make him

King. So he will do what they want and kick the Romans out. Um, and Jesus refuses to be put into that.

Why? Because this isn't an issue that everybody wants God to be on their side. But the question

Jesus wants us to address is how do you be a person that's on God's side? And a person who's on God's side loves their enemies and praise for those who persecute them.

Um, somebody who's on God's side removes the plank from your own either feet before you see the speck in someone else's.

Um, and that's why people reacted so strongly to Jesus because he wasn't participating in the things that we're doing and what he was saying was inconvenient for them.

So you Palestinian or Israeli who I'm talking to right now, and I've talked to both about this.

My challenge to you is this. If you want to be someone who's on God's side, pick someone in Israel or pick someone in Gaza and be praying for that person's wellbeing as an individual.

And the response, the response I've got consistently from Palestinians in this time is what you're saying is true and beautiful.

And it's really good. And I know it's really good, but there's no way I can do that because my heart is full of so much grief and anger right now.

And I don't understand how I could love my enemies. So then, then now, now we're onto it, right?

How do you, how does your heart transform in a way that you can actually do that and live that way?

And that only happens through the gospel. So by jumping into a messy political situation, not from the

Fox news perspective or the MSNBC perspective, but from a biblical perspective. And listen, um, you can, you can have your sides in the conflict.

You can believe in a specific vision of the world, but you cannot let that get in, in the way of your relationship with the individual in front of you.

So it's like, people want me to sort of, you know, argue about, you know, Israeli foreign policy. And it's like, my response is okay, let me know.

And I'll call Benjamin Netanyahu and tell him you have his number. No. Then why, why am I concerned about this?

Right. And so I have a, that's the illusion of the world we're living in right now.

That it wants us to think the most important thing is our political perspective. Right. And I have a political perspective, but, but if I meet somebody, if I meet a

Palestinian man who finds out his father has been arrested in Israel.

Um, a question I might have is, okay, who's your dad? Does he, was he, you know, did he deserve to be arrested?

Or, you know, was, you know, or was it, is it an unjust imprisonment? But it doesn't matter in that moment, because right now the man in front of me is sad that his dad's in jail.

Right. And I care about the image bearer in front of me and my conversation with him. So if we focus in on what's right in front of us, doesn't mean we can't have political opinions, but we can't get distracted by them.

No, that's really good. Um, yeah, I mean that, this is, this is such a good point, especially, you know, we're releasing the series and we're in the, by the time we release this, we're in the middle of 2024 and, and what's sure to be, if it isn't already, you know, another polarizing, you know, political season.

And it's very intuitive. And this, this goes outside of just like Muslim dialogues and, uh, what we're talking about just about not keeping the main thing, the main thing, and understanding that, you know, when you look at the different political, different people in the political sphere, even look at like the world of like the woke people, or even like libs of tech talk.

And all these people who are just spouting up nonsense that on so many different levels, it's like, well, you need to see them as like image bearers of God first, that people who need the gospel, not just as a piece of like, you know, laughing stock or like manufacturing outrage, like you need, there's ways.

And I'm guilty of that too, like ways in which you need to like care for these people and find out ways to bridge the gap and to be able to talk with them.

Um, yeah. Like what, what would be any, any other examples that come to mind of this? I mean, that, that's so, that's so good.

Cause I, again, what happened with Israel Palestine just a couple of months ago, it's something that people emotionally like knee jerk react, but instead of, you know, mirroring what everyone else is doing, it's like, okay, how can

I actually use this as an opportunity to create relationships, create dialogue, and actually bring the gospel into that conversation.

That's, that's so admirable. So, um, another, you know, example of this is, um, you know, in, in Seattle and a lot of other places, we've got a lot of Afghan refugees, for example.

And I know there's a bunch here in Arizona, we have about 50 ,000 in the Seattle area now.

Um, and again, I understand why people would have, um, concerns about, you know, mass migration and the border crisis and would have an opinion about that.

Yeah. But when you have somebody who's an Afghan asylum seeker in front of you, um, your concern should not be the

Southern border or even America. Your soul should be, your concern should be the soul of the person in front of you. Right. Um, and you can understand, and so immigration is kind of inevitable and it can become a curse according to Deuteronomy, but we're not going to be destroyed by immigrants.

We're going to be destroyed by our own abandonment of the gospel and the truth of God. Right. And if we're holding fast to the truth of God, we don't have anything to be afraid of.

So Deuteronomy, you know, 28 talks about, you know, if you disobey God, the foreigner among you will become higher and higher.

He'll become the head. You'll become the tail. Um, but then in Deuteronomy, I think it's 31, maybe 31 or 33.

Um, it talks about every three years, get the men together, um, you and the sojourner, the foreigner that's with you.

So, and read aloud the word of the God to his children who have not known will learn and fear the

Lord. So we, you know, if we have immigrants coming here, sure,

I don't have any problem with you voting for stricter border policies and trying to get in and solve those issues.

I think we should be involved in trying to solve those issues, but you can't lose the human beings in front of you. And so the

Afghan, you know, to a certain extent, having a 50 ,000 Afghan population freaks me out because sometimes when you have a population of people come in like a big block like that, there's some shifty things that they bring with them, um, at times.

And I've encountered some of those things in the Afghan community and had to help some Afghans escape from things like forced marriages or, you know, manipulative, you know, abusive, you know, men in, in the culture.

Um, but you have a lot of people who are hungry and are feeling lost, um, and lost in a way that the

Bible provides answers to them. So you want to guess my favorite Bible passage to go to with Afghans?

Hmm. Lamentations one, which starts with how lonely sits the city that was full of people.

She who was a princess among the nations is now desolate. All her friends have deserted her.

All her allies have abandoned her. And now her people were exiled among the nations. Yeah. And I read that to any

Afghan and they're like, wow, that's Kabul. So if, so, so, so then immediately you bought the scripture to bear on their life in a way that, you know, lamentations one is not the gospel, but it's a part of the

Bible that deeply resonates with their experience and lamentations one, it will eventually kind of take you to Jeremiah 29, to the exiles.

You know, I know the plans I have for you, um, plans for a future and a hope to do good and not evil.

Yeah. What are those plans in context? Well, that's talking about the coming Messiah. He's going to, um, you know, save, save the people.

Right. So, um, Jesus, um, claimed to be that Messiah who was coming.

And actually Jesus lived a life that shares some of your experience. He had to run when he was a baby for men who was seeking his life and was a refugee in Egypt.

Yeah. And then, and then, you know, came in and came back. Everybody who Jesus is speaking to is going to have to leave their homes at one point, either through persecution or because the

Romans will destroy them. Um, and you know, Jesus knows exactly what your experience is and touches on that experience.

And that's how he can say, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest for your souls.

And so by talking about that stuff, we can apply the gospel in the, in the, in the, in the problems that these people are, are feeling.

And, um, you know, I was talking to an Afghan woman on the phone one time and she'd kind of, you know, come, she called me with some, you know, asking how to get her family out of Afghanistan.

And then, cause she got, she got one, a green card and came to San Diego and she, and she said, um, oh, and I've been going to a church for the last month.

Would it be okay if I asked the elders of the church for help? And I said, of course it would. Why wouldn't it be?

She said, yeah, but I'm, I'm there cause I want to learn. I'm not there cause I want free stuff, but I'm afraid if I ask for stuff, they'll think that I'm just there for free stuff.

Yeah. And I said, okay, here's what you do. You tell them everything you told me. And if they give you trouble for that,

I'll fly to San Diego and fight them for you. Then she burst into tears and says, why are all of you people so nice to me?

No one from my own country, no one from my own religion has been taking care of me, but all the Christians I've met have been so kind, have been so loving.

Hmm. What's going on? Yeah. And I say, well, what you were starting to experience here is that this isn't just a slight different set of branding or rules.

There's a real presence here and you're starting to, you know, you're starting to meet him. And so that becomes the trigger.

We're able to start talking about the Bible. I send her a Bible and diary, you know, and she's been a

Christian for, you know, several years now and, you know, shares her faith with people. So just by, you know, being there and that started with a conversation about, hey, can you get my relatives out of Afghanistan?

And the answer to that is no, I can't. But let me talk to my friends who might know and see how

I can find anything. And, you know, just kind of one thing, you know, leads to another. And I'm not faking my concern about, you know, her circumstances and her parents.

Like I'm not pretending to care about those things so I can tell her about the gospel. I care about her body, her life, and her soul.

Yeah. And God uses that relationship to reveal himself to her. Oh, no, that's good, man.

And I think that this is just, yeah, I'm trying to think of like the right words to say.

I mean, I just reciprocate that and it inspires me to like, want to go and be a lot more conscientious of those who are around me and figure out how

I can love people and serve people and to be able to deal with that in that regard.

It's very, it's very inspiring in honesty. It's just, it's just cool to see because scripture talks about so much about these things, but then like to see you like act in faith and do those things and see like the promises that God says when you act in faith, reach out to people like fulfilled, like right in front of you.

I mean, that's even like motivation for me to like go and find out and go out of my way, you know, to reach out to people and meet them where they are.

That's what Jesus did for us. You know, he, like he, like he became like, yeah, he became a man.

Like you look at Philippians two all the way through and, and he humbled himself and, you know, and even, even to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And like seeing, seeing that like played out is just, it's amazing. It's just amazing to see.

That's why I think like, especially like looking at like Muslim testimonies, like they're so, they're such wonderful people.

They're such wonderful people. And I think, you know, there's times where I've walked into coffee shops now where it just, I've had so much relatability with him and I feel like when

I'm walking away again, it's just, it just really is a level of least confidence of being able to approach and just love these people like in the midst of, you know, uncertain political times, like this, this upcoming year is going to be crazy, but there's going to be 2025 is going to have its own issues.

And so is 2026 and so is 2027 and so forth and so on. The question is like, at least for me, what do you do to utilize what the, the, where the world's being directed and use it to bring people to Jesus and introduce

Jesus for him to them? Yeah, absolutely. And again, again, you can have political beliefs.

Yeah. You can even want Trump to be president. You can, you can have all this and it doesn't have to put you at odds with the people around you, you know, unnecessarily, as long as you focus on like, what's, what's most true, right?

So, you know, you can believe Trump would be the best president. You can't believe he's the Messiah. You can't believe he's

King. Jesus is King. And we have to, you know, focus on that and focus on the things that are right in front of us because the world will not get, because again, going back to the sort of Islam, secularism and Christianity thing, right?

The secular liberal idea, which, you know, translates into sort of Marx as well. And the Islamic idea is that the kind of key to fixing the world to some extent is by fixing the system.

You have the right person on top of that system, then everything will start to, you know, flow better.

And that's not the Christian approach. The Christian approach is you start with you, then the people around you, and then, you know, maybe you get some people around, around after that.

And then that can have a ripple effect that transforms the entire world. And so when we are in this mindset, the most important thing is who is elected this election cycle, then we are buying into an un -Christian worldview.

This, you know, the worldview of empire and revolution that is anti -biblical.

No, that's good, man. Well, I feel like this is a perfect way to wrap up and just real quickly, and I'll give you some closing thoughts.

Give the location, we'll have links in the description. It's probably good we've mentioned a couple of times because it's about to spread out.

Tell everyone, again, home base where they can reach you. Yeah. So you can find us at almida .org.

You can find us on YouTube. We post basically all of our content there. We post stuff on TikTok as well, but don't watch that, please.

I hate that I'm on TikTok, but I am because that's where the Utes are. Yes. And we post regular content.

We have a couple of different podcast formats. One, we have something called Almida Academy, which is kind of like, you know, our 201 class on Islam and Christianity and how they relate to each other.

That covers things like the key differences with kind of proper citations. You know, most of this has kind of been casual and off the cuff.

There, you'll find the proper citations or everything we've talked about. It talks about kind of some apologetic stuff. It talks about how to, you know, how we talk about the corruption of the

Bible and why we know it's well -preserved. And we talk, we have a Christian biography of Muhammad if you want to delve deep into that.

Again, sourced and referenced there, much more formal. We have Ask Almida, which are questions Muslims ask us.

A former Muslim and I work on kind of putting out answers for. We have a couple of different podcasts.

One is the Almida Initiative podcast. Again, all this on the same channel, which is me talking directly to Muslims and having conversations about a number of different things.

And then there's something called Christ and Caliphate, which is I was, Sophia and I, just sort of discussing issues going on in the

Muslim world from a Christian perspective, just to kind of get people in the habit of thinking about that. And then if your church is interested in engaging your

Muslim neighbors, what we tend to do is we do trainings with churches and help them put on events and host dinners where they can meet their

Muslim neighbors. And we're happy to do that all over the country. So please reach out to us if you're interested and we'll do whatever we can to help you engage your

Muslim neighbors. And we hope to get to see you have magical adventures of your own. Excellent.

And any last and final thoughts? And we've covered a lot today. And now this is like six parts.

So this is weekly. People have been following this extended. Any final thoughts as we kind of wrap up here?

Yeah, my encouragement to you, whatever, if even if Islam is not your thing, if you're interested in studying these things like worldview, don't just let it be an academic exercise to you.

The world is so much more beautiful outside of your ivory tower. And I really believe you're going to see amazing things happen and God show up in some amazing ways.

So I'd encourage you to jump in, be all in, make

Muslim friends, study Islam or whatever it is that you want to study, whether that's Hinduism. Like I got into this ministry partly because I was inspired by Apologia's interaction with Mormons.

And I thought someone needs to be doing that for Islam. So I went and did that. And I hope that I have people who are listening to me being like, yeah,

I love what he's doing, but I'm at my heart is for, you know, Hindus or Baha 'i or Zoroastrians.

And they want to jump in and go in with open eyes and learn about the world and apply the

Bible to it. And if you do that, I'm excited for you. It's going to be so much fun.

There's going to be some headaches too. Yeah. It's not a world free of suffering. Ministry is hard sometimes, but it's so worth it.

So, and if you're a Muslim listening to this, I know we've been talking about you today. Um, I wouldn't, you know, don't take my word for anything.

And if you're a Christian, don't take my word for anything, right? Go and look into this yourself. Keep the conversation going. This, you don't know everything yet.

Please keep digging in. Please keep looking at where information is coming from. Grow in your own thinking.

And, um, that's the way to interact in the world properly. All right. Excellent.

That's a perfect way to wrap up. So if you all have enjoyed this extended series, definitely let us know what you thought.

Check out the links and descriptions for, uh, James ministry. All that being said, uh, we will talk to you all next week on cultish.