War & Peace in Christianity and Islam

Well, welcome everyone. Welcome to Kensington Temple. My name is

Bruce Atkinson. I'm the Associate Minister of Kensington Temple. I'd like to greet you on behalf of our

Senior Minister Colin Dye, who is unable to be with us tonight due to a long -standing international engagement, but he was certainly absolutely delighted to be able to host this evening's event.

I'd also like to welcome all of those from around the world that are joining us live. We are streaming this live on our website, and we would ask you not to use any recording gear here this evening.

We will be making this available for people to see later on as well as making it live tonight.

So welcome to all of you that are joining us right now. We're going to move straight ahead, and I'm going to introduce to you tonight our moderator for this evening, who will take us forward,

Dr Solomon Osagie. Thank you, and good evening, and welcome to you, ladies and gentlemen.

My task this evening is an easy one, and yours is a bigger one than mine, as members of the audience.

Before we proceed, I'd like to share with you some of the rules of this evening's engagement.

If you don't mind, don't heckle or shout at the speakers. You can appreciate them if you want to, but keep it till the end so that you don't eat into their allotted time.

The second rule that you have to play here this evening, ladies and gentlemen, is that as you walked in through the doors, you would have been handed a slip of paper, and if you haven't got one, if you put your hands up now, the stewards walking through the auditorium will hand one of them to you.

At some point during this evening's proceedings, there will be a short interval, and at that time, you'll have the opportunity to hand in questions that you can present to the speakers before we get to the end of the evening's proceedings.

So for this evening's performance, we are relying on the Chatham Rules, which means that the speakers are able to say anything they want in the confidence that it's not going to be held against them, and it's not going to be recorded and used against them at some point.

So if we could bear that in mind. Those are the rules.

I will sort of talk you through how the evening's schedule will proceed. There are, as you see, two speakers there.

They will each have an opportunity to speak for 20 minutes, and then there will be 15 minutes of dialogue and discussion between both of them, five minutes for each speaker to then summarize their presentations, and then there will be an interval for you members of the audience to put your questions through to the speakers.

Those are the things that I need to share with you this evening. It's my pleasure to introduce this evening's speakers.

Standing and sort of sitting there to my left is Professor James White, who is the

Director of Alpha and Omega Ministries. Professor White has taught

Greek and semantic theology. He has authored some 24 books.

He is an accomplished speaker and debater around the world and has preached in a number of churches, including

Kensington Temple here. His opponent is

Abdullah Al -Andalusi, an international speaker, a thinker and an intellectual for Islam and Muslim affairs.

Mr. Al -Andalusi talks a lot about Islamic issues and has opinions from classical scholars and Islamic schools of thought.

He is of Portuguese, French, colonial African descent, which is a bit of a mouthful, but I've managed to say it, and he has delivered talks internationally.

These are your speakers for this evening. So, gentlemen, if you're ready, audience, if you're ready, the debate will commence.

Thank you. James, you have 20 minutes.

The topic for this evening's debate is war and peace in Christianity and Islam. First of all, it is an honor to be with you again here at Kensington Temple this evening.

It was only last May that we were here together. Yes, I do have more than one bow tie.

I actually have an entire collection, and yes, they do make more than just one style of bow tie.

So I am still trying to get the—obviously not doing well in getting this fashion trend going, but I will keep trying my best to do that.

This evening, we have—this evening, if you are here, this evening, if you are here, you have the greatest job to do.

This is not a formal debate like we had last time in the sense that we have a thesis that we're debating.

Abdullah and I have debated in the past, and so if we were debating, say—I just did a debate in South Africa on the crucifixion of Jesus.

Muslims and Christians have different views on that subject, and therefore, we could do a debate. Was Jesus Christ crucified or something along those lines?

Instead, we have a dialogue, and the dialogue means that the weight of the evening is upon you in the audience, because what we're going to do is

I'm going to talk about passages in the Bible that are difficult to understand.

They speak of war, and they speak of violence, and I'm going to address those texts and attempt to present to you a consistent way of understanding them in light of the fact that we believe that Jesus Christ is the

Prince of Peace. So why is it that there are such things as the Battle of Armageddon?

Why is it that we have the destruction of the Amorites? How can we understand these things in a consistent fashion?

And then Abdullah and I are going to have 15 minutes of conversation as to whether I have presented a consistent understanding of these things from the text of Scripture, make some closing comments, and then

Abdullah is going to present 20 minutes where he is going to discuss texts in the

Quran. We're going to have 15 minutes to talk back and forth, and then some closing statements and make some personal applications.

What that means is what we want to have happen this evening is for the conversation to continue amongst you, especially if we have some

Muslim friends with us this evening. It would be wonderful if what would happen is after this evening is over, if the conversation would continue concerning this very, very important issue, because we know, of course, few topics require more in -depth thought and consideration than that of war and peace today in our world.

Even this day, there have been headlines, there have been reports of violence throughout the world, and we always ask ourselves the question, how can this be stopped?

What is the mechanism whereby it can be stopped? Who is bringing this violence into the world?

What are their motivations? And, of course, the issue of religion is very, very central to the issue today.

The violence currently sweeping across the globe requires truly believing Christians and Muslims to discuss these issues honestly and openly.

Now, obviously, there are many people who would say, well, it's almost all Islamic violence.

Well, what does that mean? What does it mean for it to be Islamic violence? Are there not differing viewpoints amongst

Muslims on these things, just as there are differing viewpoints amongst Christians as well? Well, that's what we're here this evening to find out.

I want you to listen carefully to what Abdullah has to say, but my job is first and foremost to talk about some of the texts of Scripture that we have to answer, because very frequently if we're going to point the finger towards someone else, there's always three pointing back toward you.

And so if we're going to be consistent, we need to recognize that there are texts in the Bible that require an understanding.

For example, in Deuteronomy chapter 2, we read these words, Yahweh our God delivered Him over to us, and we defeated

Him with His sons and all His people. So we captured all His cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women, and children of every city.

We left no survivor. We took only the animals as our booty and despoiled the cities which we had captured.

From Aurora, which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon, and from the city which is in the valley even to Gilead, there was no city that was too high for us.

Yahweh our God delivered all over to us. Now, there are many Christians who are embarrassed by texts such as this, that speak of the destructions of cities and, as it says, utterly destroyed the men, women, and children of every city.

And I know some people try to say, well, that's just a form of exaggeration. It just simply means that there was complete victory in those instances.

I don't think that's what the text is saying. God was very clear in the commands that He gave to the people of Israel as they were going into the land as to what they were to do, because if they did not obey what

God said, because they were being used as the instruments of His judgment, then the people left over would become a snare to them and drag them into idolatry.

And oh, yeah, that's what the rest of the Old Testament says actually took place. That's exactly what ended up taking place.

But here is a text that speaks of warfare and violence. In Deuteronomy chapter 20, only in the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your

God has given you as an inheritance you shall not leave alive anything that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the

Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against Yahweh your

God. And so here is a difficult concept for people to understand, that it was so important that this covenant people, this people that God had chosen to be

His people, needed to make sure that they would not be in a situation where they would be drawn into idolatry and the worship of false gods.

And in fact, they were being used as a means of judgment. The Scriptures tell us that when the people of Israel went down into Egypt, that this cryptic statement is made in Genesis chapter 15, that the iniquity of the

Amorites was not yet full. Now, what does that mean? Well, we know from history that what those people were doing as far as religious worship was concerned was gross idolatry, child sacrifice, and horrible things.

And so God does bring judgment upon them. He doesn't do so in a naturalistic sense and fire from heaven or earthquakes or something along those lines.

Instead, He uses His people as the mechanism of bringing judgment upon those sinful nations, and it is a complete judgment here in Deuteronomy chapter 20.

But is that all there is to this? Well, in numbers we read, so Israel made a vow to Yahweh and said, if you will indeed deliver the people in My hand, then

I will utterly destroy their cities. Yahweh heard the voice of Israel and delivered up the Canaanites, then they utterly destroyed them and their cities, thus the name of the place was called

Hormah. And so we have further utter destruction of cities and peoples here recorded in Numbers chapter 21.

In 1 Samuel 15, now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has and do not spare him, but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

This is…this is…even extends beyond the people to the actual animals.

Now, I could at this point take time to say, well, sadly when you look at Canaanite religion, there might have been a biological reason for this, but the issue is utter destruction.

It is removing from the land those individuals who are under the wrath of God, and God is using

His people to do that. Now, normally what happens is when we discuss this, we stay with the

Old Testament. And at this point we can say, well, we can put all of this under the category of God placing

His people in the land, the destruction of the exceedingly evil nations before Him, and then just sort of stop there because we all know the

New Testament is just a wonderful book where there isn't any type of thing we'd have to worry about, right?

Well, not exactly. In one of Jesus' parables, in talking about those who are opposing the king, but these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.

And many would say that this actually represents Jesus. How could that fit with the

Lamb of God, with the one who carries little lambs? That's what we see pictures of it anyways.

That must be what the New Testament teaches, right? And yet here you have this idea of rebels, enemies of mine, that would mean enemies of God who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.

There seems to be the idea that those who rebel against God, just as the Amorites had done, just as the

Canaanites had done in their idolatrous worship, that seems to still be the case in the

New Testament as well. And then in the book of Revelation, the very end of the

New Testament, we read, And I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse. And he who sounded it is called

Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems.

And he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the

Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.

And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Here in judgment, Jesus Christ comes. And in fact, I didn't put it in my… in my presentation, but I cannot help but think of the other text in the book of Revelation, where men call upon the mountains to fall upon them, the rocks to hide them.

From what? From God and from the wrath of the

Lamb. The wrath of the Lamb. That is an amazing phrase, but it does point us toward an understanding,

I think, a consistent understanding of what the Scriptures are saying. Now, we need to keep in mind, the

Bible is more than seven times longer than the Koran, covering 68 times the number of years of human history and cultural development.

That's a long, long time. There is a clear development in the Bible from the formation of the people through whom the

Messiah would come, that is, Israel, to the covenantal constitution of the nation of Israel at Sinai, and the giving of the law, what

I mean by covenantal constitution, the giving of the law, which identifies the covenants going to exist, to the establishment of Israel in the land and the driving out of the nations under God's judgment, to the regular cycle of revival, apathy, apostasy, judgment, restoration, seen from the judges through the monarchy to the period of the prophets.

Jeremiah, however, prophesies of a new covenant that would be established, and this is accomplished through the work of the

Messiah, Jesus. This new covenant that is not like the old.

It does not establish a nation, a theocracy. It establishes the kingdom all over the world.

The biblical message is focused upon the cross as the center point of history.

Everything that came before it points to it. Everything that comes after it points back to it.

From the Christian perspective, the cross is the very center point of history.

By the blood of the cross, Christ establishes the new covenant, and all those who are in that new covenant have peace with God.

As Romans 5 -1 says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. When the prophet prophesied the coming of Christ, how did he describe

Him? He described Him as the Prince of Peace. Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

And so, the point of the biblical narrative is to focus upon the cross.

The blood of the cross that Christ gives voluntarily establishes this new covenant.

The new covenant then encompasses the entirety of God's purpose in the establishment of the kingdom of God, all the way up to Christ's Second Coming.

Now, the new covenant contains no provisions for military conquest, for the growth of the kingdom is spiritual, not physical.

The kingdom exists within the hearts of those that bow the knee in obedience to the

Lordship of Jesus Christ. That's why that kingdom can cross every boundary. That kingdom can exist in every language, in every nation.

That's why we have brothers and sisters this evening. In North Korea, oh, they suffer and we need to pray for them.

But we have brothers and sisters this evening under horrific oppression because it's not the governmental system that can constrain the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is brought about by the work of the Spirit of God, who takes out that heart of stone, gives a heart of flesh, and that work cannot be constrained by any political considerations whatsoever.

The growth of the kingdom is spiritual. Every believer in this room that bows the knee to Jesus Christ is already subject to the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is established among men, not politically or militarily, but through the radical transformation of regeneration prophesied long ago by Ezekiel.

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances,"

Ezekiel chapter 36. And so when the Spirit of God comes, He changes that heart.

That heart of stone, which was in rebellion against God, becomes a heart of flesh, which loves God. And when the

Spirit of God comes, He causes us to walk in His statutes. He… He writes upon our hearts

His law. So instead of it being something that's burdensome and difficult and repulsive, it becomes something we love.

We love to do what God commands us to do because we love Him and He has loved us.

This becomes the motivation of Christian activity. This becomes the motivation of how we are to love one another and how we are to treat our neighbor in such a way that we demonstrate that love to them as well.

The Christian message is focused upon the peace the triune God has established by His own action.

God reconciles, God cures, God heals His creation to His own glory.

Therefore, it needs to be understood, there is no basis in the Christian faith for crusaderism or any form of religious militancy.

Such fundamentally misunderstands the nature of conversion and the nature of the Kingdom of God, which is not eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and joy in the

Holy Spirit, as Paul says in Romans chapter 14. In other words, my friends, the only power that has been given to the

Christian church, and this was God's intention from the beginning. You say, well, how is that related to driving the

Amorites out? Well, that was a demonstration of God's holy wrath against sin.

It established the people and the land from whom the Messiah would come. But God's intention was always to bring that Messiah, was always to establish this way of salvation, and then to bless all the nations.

Go back to Genesis chapter 15, Genesis chapter 12, the promise to Abraham, a blessing to all the nations through His seed, through the promise that would be given to him, and that is through the

Messiah and His work. And so now we see the completion of that. The prophecy was that He would see

His offspring and would rejoice. Well, where is offspring tonight? We're right here. The people of God gathered in this place, far, far away from where these events took place.

This is the clear demonstration that God is accomplishing His purpose. Jesus said He'd build His church.

The Kingdom of God is being established in all of us who follow Him. So the only power that has been given to the church is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the

Spirit of God that makes that to come alive in people's hearts. Now, some people say, wait, preaching the gospel isn't enough.

Well, it depends on whether you believe the gospel is the power of God and the salvation or not. We don't need weapons of mass destruction.

We need weapons of mass instruction, instruction in the gospel of Jesus Christ, because weapons of mass destruction may wipe out physical bodies, but they can never change hearts.

Simply fearing mass destruction will not change a heart. But having that heart changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ changes that person forever.

And so you see, the church needs to have confidence. The church needs to grow in the confidence of the great gift that has been given to her in that powerful gospel.

And that's why we have to be so careful about what the gospel is, about protecting the purity of the gospel, because it is the one power that has been given to God's people.

And so when we talk of these texts of violence, what I'm saying is this. Yes, there was violence.

There was warfare. There was judgment. But all of it was leading to God's purpose in presenting the kingdom of God through the work of the

Messiah. And the message we have now today is if you do not want to experience the wrath of God justly expressed against your sin, there is only one way for that to happen, and that is in and through the person of Jesus Christ.

And so we have a whole narrative. We do not reject the fact that there are texts in the

Old Testament where God did these things. What we say is no person could look at what the

Scriptures say as a whole and say, we need to continue doing that today. We need to have some more…

We need to identify some more people as Amorites and go get them. That would be a fundamental rejection of any meaningful means of interpreting the

Bible, interpreting it as a whole. And that's our issue this evening. Can we present a meaningful message whereby we look, honestly deal, honestly deal with our texts, but can consistently say, we as Christians, you as Muslims, if we have

Muslims with us this evening, are supposed to live in a way that is peaceful, that brings forth peace amongst mankind?

That's the issue this evening. There are our texts of violence. There is an understanding of how they fit in God's purposes.

Next, after our conversation, we'll look at the Quran and we'll ask the same questions there.

Your job this evening is a tough one. Weigh, listen, consider.

I hope you will do so. Thank you for your attention. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, James. That was 20 minutes. And gentlemen, you have 15 minutes to have an interactive discussion between both of you.

So that's 15 minutes. And the floor is yours. So I assume you would probably sort of take the lead in this section because you may have some questions concerning what

I just said. Sure. Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be here. And I'd like to give you a hearty welcome.

May the peace and blessings of God be upon you. Or Pax Fabiscum if you're

Catholic. Or speak Latin. Yes, or speak Latin. So, I mean, today's discussion,

I know the poster said a bit of a debate, but I want to, I agree with James. I want to have a bit of a kind of nuanced discussion and to discuss these issues from perhaps where the roots of the matter is.

And so my questions really are regards to what you, may

I call you James? That's fine. How would you respond to individuals who cite verses of the

Bible in support of their particular, let's say, political projects? So, for example, certain right -leaning lobbies in the

United States of America who support Zionist projects in the obviously the

Levant and support Zionism against, let's say, Palestinians and Palestinian rights to right of return and so on and so forth.

Citing that this land has been given to the people of Israel and so if they have a right to dispossess anyone who's living on that land and take ownership, what kind of argument would you bring against those who cite biblical scriptures?

Well, that's an interesting question. Obviously, there are different understandings amongst Christians as to exactly the relationship of the church to the physical nation of Israel.

And the majority of people in the nation of Israel today are not actually practicing or believing

Jews. There's a minority of strong believing Jews. But that becomes a political issue in regards to whether you support democracy or issues along those lines.

I am concerned when people try to find in the New Testament prophecies of end times events and stuff like that and try to tie them into…

I was… I was raised thinking that the budding of the fig tree meant that Christ had to return before 1988 because it would be one generation after the establishment of Israel and that was 40 years and so 1989 was a bummer.

But anyway… But it is interesting to me at this point, if we're talking about war and violence,

I'm not sure what the relationship there is unless what you're thinking is, well, Israel's using war and violence.

Of course, there's a lot of war and violence going on over there. It goes both directions. There's missiles going both ways. And I… my response to anyone would be the only solution for what's going on in Israel, in what's going on in Syria, which is an even greater humanitarian disaster right now, is what

I just said. Fundamentally in… at the end of the day, the only way that those things can be changed is by changing hearts and the only way to do that that I know of is through the gospel.

And so, as silly as it sounds to the world, I think the Christian response is the gospel, the gospel, and more of the gospel.

That's the only answer I can possibly give to someone. And if they think that it's this political system or that political system, political systems come and go.

The gospel stays the same from generation to generation. So, without a specific as to what type of verse they'd be using, it'd be hard to give me a more specific response than that.

Just that some may justify the dispossession of… oh, sorry. Some may justify the dispossession of Palestinians from their land by citing that God gave the land to the tribes of Israel and people who are living on that land who are not from the tribes of Israel have no right to that land and therefore can be legitimately dispossessed from that land and evicted.

So, some obviously, let's say right -wing, right -leaning groups in the United States have cited these verses in support of dispossessing

Palestinians. So, my point is, because they are citing biblical verses alluding to God granting land to a people and presumably this land hasn't ended, so it's still being granted to them, it's still an eternal grant, what argument could you offer?

Because changing hearts is one thing, but their argument is from the mind and they argue that they have authority over the land.

If the argument was that this is a basis for wanton violence, for doing what was done to the

Amorites, well, that would be… No violence, just injustice. I'm sorry? Just injustice, not necessarily warfare.

Well, that gets you into argumentation as to whether Israel has the right to exist as a nation, what the role of the

UN was, the highly controversial arguments about that. And then there is,

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, a difference amongst Christians as to the role of the physical nation of Israel.

There are those who believe that there are promises that are going to be given to that physical nation. There are others that interpret that as specifically fulfilled in the church and the fact that Paul says we are the true circumcision who worship

Christ Jesus in spirit and truth, so that those are being fulfilled in the church. So there are different perspectives amongst

Christians, and that's a whole major area of argumentation unto itself.

But there's never any basis for the Christian people to view the idea that the kingdom of God can be promoted through the utilization of military force to try to somehow push forward the gospel agenda.

Again, that's why there are Christian missionaries in Israel as well seeking to spread that gospel there.

Okay. I mean, there's some other things. First and foremost, I mentioned a few groups, and I don't believe these groups are religious or Christian and are waking up in the morning and thinking, what does the

Bible tell me to do? But what they do do is, for example, in England we have the

English Defense League who, as I spoke to you earlier on, they put as one of their motto, in hoc signo vincis, in this sign conquer and the sign of the cross, which was...

It goes back to Constantine. Yeah, Constantine. 313, yeah. But Britain First is another group. Again, I don't claim that these people wake up in the morning, read the

Bible, and are acting as what the Bible tells them to do. It's their first priority at all. They seem to be secular nationalists of some kind.

However, when they were condemned by Christian groups in the UK, that what they were doing is being very aggressive, they were being violent, they weren't engendering peace, and their argument was that Jesus claimed or argued that he didn't come to bring peace but the sword, and then they also cited

Jesus whipping the moneylenders using, I think, a cord of whips on someone which is engaging in actual violence.

So they use this to argue their point, and I bring this up not because I think the argument has any merit from a

Christian perspective, but I'm just interested to see what your response, so that maybe Christians can understand how they should respond. I actually did a video,

I don't remember which group it was, you probably will recognize, there were people going through a Muslim neighborhood carrying crosses, but engaging in swearing wars with the people while they were carrying the crosses, which makes me go, oh, there's some inconsistency.

And I tried to point out the fact that this was a tremendous, you know, tremendously disrespectful thing to the cross of Jesus Christ, to be carrying it while using foul language in that fashion.

But obviously, in the text that you were citing, if you're the sinless son of God and you're in the temple fulfilling prophecy, then you can do those things, but they're not the sinless son of God and they're not in the temple, and they don't have the purity of the motivations that he did.

When he cleansed the temple, he was driving people out who had turned the temple into a den of thieves. And so there would be a fundamental reason to do that.

The temple does not exist any longer in that sense. So that wouldn't make any sense. And the other text…

I'm sorry, what was the other text that they… They said that… a quote from New Testament, think not that I have come to bring peace but…

Right, exactly. I'm sorry. That one especially is significant because what

Jesus is talking about is the fact that when his gospel will be presented, it's going to divide families, and there are going to be people in the family who will accept his gospel, people in the family who will not, and so it's going to cause division.

But that's a division based upon truth, not a division based upon engaging in physical violence.

So the war and the peace and the sword and the peace, the sword is the division that takes place in families when one person follows the ways of God and one person does not do so.

So both would be grossly out of context to attempt to connect them to some kind of nationalistic political activity where you just simply put a cross on something and therefore use it.

And that's what offended me the most was the utilization of the cross as a means of offending somebody else. The cross is offensive, but it's offensive because it speaks to us of our sin and the need of a savior.

It shouldn't be offensive for any other reason, especially when it's associated with political things. Okay. I had some other questions, and these ones are actually purely because of my curiosity.

Well, could I ask, did you, in my presentation, did you, does it make sense to you that there is an overarching way of understanding the difference between the old covenant and the people of Israel and what we have in the new covenant, and that there's a fundamental difference between the theocratic nation of Israel and now the kingdom of God that transcends all political borders and the only power we have is the gospel?

Does that make, does it at least sound consistent, knowing what you know of me?

Am I interpreting the Bible in a different way here than when I'm presenting the deity of Christ or something like that?

Is there consistency in your mind at that point? What I'll say is that you have an interpretation.

I quite like, obviously, political philosophy. I was telling you earlier on about that, and I really am fascinated with Christian political philosophy throughout time, including

Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and St. Augustine. And they had some different ideas about how the

Old Testament could be used. So all scripture is God -breathed and useful for teaching acts of righteousness.

In another verse, they would cite it would be be imitators of God. So they would cite

Old Testament verses, not such, and obviously John Calvin's Institutes of Religion, I think book four,

I think was very fascinating by this. The first time I read the page, I read book one. I think James White's making me go through all of John Calvin's books,

Institutes of Religion. Interesting read. But his argument was that he believed in this kind of two -kingdom theology idea, which is that the church should not be controlled by the state and the state should not be controlled by the church, but the state and the church both work together to, as I quote, to establish religion and to protect religion, protect outward forms of doctrine and piety.

And where the church uses persuasion, the state should use coercion. And this was what he viewed as a legitimate interpretation.

Now, he didn't make very clear that Christians are not under the judicial laws of the

Old Testament, but Christians are more under the law of love and the principles contained in the Bible, in all the

Bible, in the Tota Scriptura, that he had an opinion that obviously the church could enforce doctrines and, sorry, not church, sorry, the state could force with force doctrines, persecute heretics to bring them back into the fold.

Which is why I would have been kicked out of Geneva by John Calvin. No, seriously, I would have. I've said that many, many times.

I think one of the difficult things people struggle with is I can still have tremendous respect and benefit from his writings, but recognize that had

I lived in that day and held the commitments that I have, I would have been banished from Geneva because he was a sacralist.

Everybody had been for eleven hundred years. It's all they knew. However, he did lay the groundwork for the destruction of sacralism, that is the church -state union and relationship.

Maybe in the next section we can talk about whether there can be an actual distinction between church and state within Islam in regards to Sharia law and how it's to be established.

But you're exactly right. There was in that day the belief that the state had the requirement, and there still are some

Christians who believe that what we should work toward is the establishment of a state that would establish the just and righteous use of God's law.

As a Baptist, my forefathers have suffered at the hands of Christians who took that perspective.

And so as I look at the overarching teaching of Scripture, I just ask the question, where does the

New Testament present to us the idea of establishing a Christian governmental system?

The apostles lived under the Caesars, and they taught everyone to try to live peacefully and to pray for those who were in leadership so we might have peace to do what?

To live godly lives and preach the gospel. So, I appreciate you do recognize that there have been, look, there's a lot of inconsistency in Christian history, but it all depends on how consistent those

Christians were being as far as their interpretation of the Bible itself is concerned. I know there's only a few seconds left.

I think St. Augustine discussed also dealing with the state as well in a similar fashion to Calvin.

And I suppose the citation of Romans 13 where the leader is an agent of wrath for God and punishes the evildoers, maybe that was an enabling verse for Christianity to go into politics when

Christians became the leaders themselves. Thank you.

Right on cue. And James, five minutes to summarize your thoughts from this segment of this discussion.

Now, if any of you are disappointed that we haven't gone to fisticuffs yet, then…

That's young. That's young, yes. And he's much taller than I am, much longer reach. I'm not even going to try.

This evening, you're starting to get the sense of what it is your responsibility is going to be.

We were just talking about a consistent interpretation of Scripture, and if you know church history, you can find lots of people in history who have not been consistent in their application of Scripture.

Here's what I'm suggesting to you. Every generation is responsible for making the once -for -all delivered -to -the -saints faith your own.

And it's our responsibility as Christians to examine our own theology, our own interpretation, and to ask ourselves the question, do

I use the same method of interpretation when I look at the doctrine of the Trinity, when

I look at the resurrection, when I look at the atonement, when I look at the church, when I look at the relationship of the church and the state, when

I look at those texts of the Old Testament where God's holiness is displayed in His wrath?

Do I use the same method of interpretation for each one of them, or am I adopting different methods to try to keep myself comfortable?

That's the question each one of us has to be asking ourselves, and that can be an uncomfortable question to ask of yourself.

But here's why we need to ask it. My friends, when we engage with our

Muslim friends on this subject and we say, here is the Christian understanding of how we're to have peace, and there are differences between us, if we haven't thought through our own position, we're going to be in no position to actually engage with them or even to offer criticism of what they have to say.

And unfortunately, our two communities rarely talk to each other the way we're talking this evening.

I hope you realize you're in an extremely unique setting this evening. In many

Muslim countries, this would not be allowed. I would not be allowed in Saudi Arabia to do this kind of thing.

In many other countries, it's considered politically incorrect, and sadly that's coming here as well. How long will we be able to do this?

I don't know. I don't know. But as long as we have the opportunity, then we need to take that opportunity and talk to one another and try to understand where each one is coming from.

Now, I want you to understand. You might say, I want more of a head -to -head thing. You need to understand something.

Abdullah and I had lunch today, and one of the things we mentioned, my greatest desire for him is that he come to know

Jesus as his Lord and Savior. His greatest desire for me is that I would say the

Shahada and submit to Islam. Okay? Now, we're not compromising.

We're not saying that we believe the same things, that we can all just get along and hold hands and sing Kumbaya. I've never really liked

Kumbaya all that much anyways. We're not saying that. We're not pretending that.

What we are saying is that we live in a world where there's great evil and there's great violence, and people of goodwill on both sides of this issue need to stand up, and we need to be talking to one another, not ignoring one another.

And the more our communities understand of one another, the better we can move forward in trying to deal with these tremendous issues that are tearing our societies apart.

And so, this evening, when we look at the Scriptures, we dare not deny the reality that there are texts that speak of violence that's taken place in the past, of judgment that's going to be coming in the future.

But you know where the greatest text of violence was that I didn't read? Acts 4, when the church prayed, they were being persecuted.

And they said, speaking of that persecution, that God foreordained the fact that Herod, Pontius Pilate, the

Romans, and the Jews would be gathered together against Jesus, the Son of God, and they would put him to death.

You want the greatest act of violence? The fact that mankind murdered the only sinless man who's ever lived.

Everyone else deserves God's wrath. He took it voluntarily.

That's a message that changes hearts, and from the Christian perspective, that's really the focus of why we do what we do and how we understand those texts in the

Scripture. Thank you very much for your attention. Mr.

Allen, Lucy, you have five minutes to summarize. I'd like to thank

James White for his wonderful discussion, and providing an interpretation from his perspective, and of course, you know, it's his interpretation, and an interpretation which is legitimate within Christian schools of thought.

I was reading, and I've engaged a lot with Mennonite Christians who are complete pacifists in all manners and all things.

In fact, they also are antithetical to government. But I identified there are different streams within Christianity concerning warfare, concerning peace, concerning government, and there are ongoing debates right now.

Generally, the Anabaptists, of which the Mennonites are a branch of, are a minority. The mainstream opinion is, obviously,

Christians believe in, or most Christians believe in a type of just war or limited wars. There are different interpretations of the past where there was from blank check to the ruler to Christians who believe that spreading peace, even via offensive warfare, is legitimate as long as your aim is peace, which was in the opinion of Augustine in his epistle to Boniface.

So there's different opinions, and all I really wanted to show today was, and what I've usually done in such debates when

I've encountered, actually, Mennonite Christians and I do debates with them, all I want to show them is that there are different opinions, and there are opinions which do open the doors to war, and open the doors to theonomy and religious government, and in principle,

I don't really object to religious government. John Calvin has some interesting arguments on theonomy, which

I think are very similar to the Islamic perspective on many, many aspects, so perhaps there's some agreement.

Obviously, between John Calvin, not necessarily with Islam, it's interesting, but that was a very common mentality.

But when I bring up these particular points and these issues, and I first want to illustrate that in today's world, there is and there should be more interaction and cooperation between Muslims and Christians.

We all believe in God, we all love Jesus, and we all affirm that he's the Messiah, which you cannot be a

Muslim unless you affirm those things, and I so affirm that Jesus is the Messiah, and that I love Jesus. So I believe in Jesus, but maybe what the differences are in other aspects, such as whether he is

God or not. But more importantly, you can have debates, and there are increasing debates between Muslims and Christians in the

Muslim world. We can have this debate in Malaysia, in Egypt, although I might want to avoid it because I've criticized

President Sisi, but Lebanon, we have my organization, Muslim Day Initiative, has a branch in Lebanon, so if ever we, both of you, me and you go to Lebanon, we can do a debate over there.

Whether I'll be let back into England or America would be a different question after that, and Turkey too, so there's many places in the

Muslim world, including, I think, Doha as well. There's many places in the Muslim world you can do debates. We had the honor and pleasure of inviting

James to a debate at East London Mosque, which is one of Europe's largest mosques.

We hosted a debate for him, it was very well attended, and it was very amicable, and we were very happy with the outcome.

Now, just to kind of finish up my point, we need

Christians to re -examine the ideas of warfare, because there are many Christians out there who will cite biblical verses, who will go

Old Testament on their political policies, and they will justify many wars around the globe.

People usually cite the Crusades, that was a long, long time ago.

The issues that we see, for example, when the United States spread westward and conquered the

West, they used the concept of manifest destiny and the idea that the native Indians were heathens, and this was a new

Jerusalem, a new Israel, and they cited these doctrines up. And again, many

Christians today, thankfully, would oppose that and condemn it, but we have to get to an understanding as to what is the criteria that Christians can all agree on to condemn these things, to condemn the war in Iraq, to condemn certain groups throughout the world.

For example, in Congo, there's the anti -balaka movement, which demanded that Muslims convert or die to Christianity, so either they convert to Christianity or die.

And I know that's not, they didn't open up the Bible, and the Bible didn't tell them to do that, they're not a serious religious movement.

However, Christians, if you're going to engage in the world affairs and deal with policies around the world, you need to have a solid basis by which you can say, this is against the

Bible, and anyone who says this is not Christian. Thank you for listening. I'd like to reiterate my greetings to everyone here and thank the church for its hospitality and all of you for attending to discuss this topic of war and peace in Islam and Christianity.

Now, I also wanted to thank again my respected interlocutor, James, for attending and giving an edifying discussion on the

Christian perspective. The last platform that me and James spoke on was a debate at Trinity Chapel in London on Trinity Road on the topic of the

Trinity. I don't think you can get any more trinities in that unless you move it to Trinidad, perhaps, which is the

Spanish word for trinity I've heard. I'd also like to reiterate that the example of Muslims and Christians discussing and debating was set by the

Prophet Muhammad when he had a debate with the Christian delegation from an

Arab city in Najran in the Arabian Peninsula where the Christians and Muslims had a debate for three days, two nights, and not continuously, of course, and at the end of this, the

Christians were still unconvinced by the Prophet Muhammad's discussion and what did the Prophet Muhammad do?

He offered them the opportunity to pray the Christian prayers in the mosque before going back home because it was a long journey they had to go back home.

So this was the example of the Prophet Muhammad that Muslims have to adhere to, that Muslims have to follow, and that we hold up to be an exemplar.

Now today, certainly in Europe and also here in the United States, Christians and Muslims face a very common challenge which is from secularism and secular liberalism, and sometimes it's more referred to as militant secularism, and the intolerance and also the strawmanning that secularism or secularists do against religion, portraying religion as a cause of war, as a cause of violence, and secular liberalism as the only solution or pathway towards peace.

Now I'm going to be engaging that as well in this discussion, but I first want to discuss the concept of peace and war in Islam.

Now, before we discuss war, we must first discuss peace and what it looks like.

The Quran illustrates this, and it's a very personal definition. When we believe,

God says in the Quran, those who believe and find, which means peace or assurance or contentment, in the remembrance of God, for without doubt in the remembrance of God, do hearts find peace.

So in remembering God is where you find peace, it's where you find assurance, it's where hearts find contentment.

We also see in another verse, a reassured soul returns to your Lord well -pleased and pleasing to him.

In another verse in the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad is instructed to say, sufficient for me is

God, there is no deity except him, on him I have relied, and he is the Lord of the great throne.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ also taught, true richness is not via much property and belongings, but true richness is self -contentment.

It's this assuredness, this peace in the heart. But we also see that the Quran discusses other kinds of peace.

The peace that you get with your family, with your spouse, the peace that the spouse, the husband and the wife provide to each other.

And at the bottom, we see a Quranic verse talking about the peace of living securely in a land, safe from persecution and safe from oppression.

Now, in order to understand Islam, we must understand Islam's mission to humanity.

So in the Quran, we believe God says, and thus we made you, referring to the Muslims, a just community, that you will be witnesses over the people, and the messenger will be a witness over you.

So as Muslims, we are commanded, we believe by God, to be witnesses to mankind.

We also see in another verse in the Quran, O you who believe, be upholders of justice, bearing witness for God alone, even against yourselves or your parents and relatives, whether they are rich or poor,

God is well able to look after them. Do not follow your own desires and deviate from the truth. If you twist or turn away,

God is aware of what you do. In another verse in the Quran, we believe God says, God commands justice and fair dealing.

We believe that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught, those who are merciful will be shown mercy by the merciful.

Be merciful to the people of the earth, and the one above the heavens will have mercy upon you, which is very reminiscent of verses

I found in the New Testament in the book of James, as well as the parable of the king and the servant who had a debt.

Show mercy and you'll be shown mercy. And we should be merciful to each other. We also see another verse in the

Quran, so another narration of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, which said, the son of Adam, which means all mankind, has no better right than that he would have a house wherein he may live, a piece of clothing whereby he may hide his nakedness, and a piece of bread and some water.

And the reason why I mention this, the son of Adam, the rights of the son of Adam, because Islam believes in universal rights for human beings that all people who are the sons and daughters of Adam deserve around the world, of which

Muslims have to strive to ensure that everyone attains these rights and has their rights secure.

Now, I'm going to go into the Quran to discuss the Quranic concept of war and how we can understand it.

But first of all, I think there should be prerequisites that we all need to have before understanding the Quran from a non -Semitic background.

Anyone who is familiar with Semitic languages will understand the use of idiom, the use of hyperbole at times, of ellipsis.

There's wonderful rhetorical devices and the uses of word. And I think that when we understand the

Quran, we have to understand the Quran not as a literature written in Greek or Latin or written as prose, but as written in the literary genre of what it is.

Now, some people often remark that the Quran is certainly not similar in its narrative style to what the book you call the

Bible, but it's very similar to the narrative, to the style of speaking in the Psalms, where God is directly speaking.

If you want to compare something to the Bible within Islam, we have something which we view as comparable in terms of its style, its narrative style, which we call the

Seerah literature. And Seerah is basically the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, written by biographers.

We don't hold it to be the same standard as the Bible in terms of it being the ineffable or infallible word of God.

However, we do hold it to be a narrative style that informs us of the context and the historical situations that the

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, lived and worked in. Now, people have often remarked about the

Quranic literary style. It's unique in the Arabic language. It doesn't conform to poetry or prose or any known rhymed prose.

But despite this, one of the signs that the Quran advances for itself is that it describes itself as Mubeen.

And Mubeen means a clarity of speech that is like the level of prose, but not like psychobabble.

Because at the time the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, there were people called Kahaneen, who would make very flowery language and very flowery compositions using styles of text, similar rhyming, rhymed prose, and so on and so forth, called

Saja 'a in the Arabic language. But in order to keep this rhymed prose going, they had to make gobbledygook, the text.

They couldn't maintain a text that sounds like prose. It sounded like gobbledygook. It sounded like psychobabble. Just to give you an example of psychobabble, souls must transcend like cranes and ascend on clouds of thought to unite with all dimensions to the oneness of existence.

I actually just made it up. I wrote that, and it means nothing. But it sounds nice. Psychobabble, flowery language.

So the Quran is Mubeen in that it's not psychobabble. It reads like prose in terms of how it conveys information, but its style is not like prose in terms of its literary genre.

But I think very importantly, people have to understand that the Quran uses polysemy.

And I'll give an example of this from a very famous example. The word in the Quran, usually translated as disbelievers,

Kafir, singular, plural, kuffar. Now, in Arabic, the word Kafir or kuffar literally translates as someone who covers.

In Hebrew, it's koffer, and it sounds quite similar to the English cover, in fact. So it literally means someone who covers.

And this exact same word is used throughout the Quran, but it has different meanings depending on where it's used and how it's used.

And I'll give you some very obvious ones. So in surah or Quranic chapter 57 verse 20, it refers to farmers.

Farmers are kuffar. It doesn't mean they are disbelievers who are going to suffer perdition in the hereafter. It means they are coverers of the seeds.

So it's a word that means farmer in that context. In Quran chapter 60 verse 5, it refers to a generic word for people who come from societies who are not believing revelation or non -believers in Islam.

But in other verses, for example, in surah 60 verse 10, it refers to pagans and polytheists.

And even though the word kuffar is used, and it says that we're not allowed to marry people who are not believers in monotheism, kuffar.

But in surah 5, ayah 5, it says we are allowed to marry people of the book,

Christians and Jews. So if Christians are Jews, if the word kuffar is always consistent and always going to be mentioned in the way of disbeliever, then wouldn't the

Quran be convicting itself by saying you can't get married to kuffar, but you can get married to Jews and Christians.

So the Quran uses it in different ways. Also, the Quran used the word kuffar to mean eschatological disbelievers.

And I know it's a bit of a mouthful. What it means is that on the day of judgment, these people will be proven and shown to be those who have rejected the truth.

They have rejected the truth in their hearts. And it's very hard to know who truly is a believer in anything and who truly is a disbeliever in anything.

And on a day of judgment, we'll find out for many things. But here is a verse in the Quran, verily, those who disbelieve, it is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe.

Now, if the word kuffar in this means all non -Muslims, then there's no point inviting people to Islam, because if kuffar in this verse means all non -Muslims, then that means there's no point inviting to Islam because no one would ever accept

Islam. It wouldn't make any sense. But it does make sense if you understand that the Quran is referring to a particular meaning with regards to those who are in their hearts, and God knows who they are.

They are the rejecters of truth. They are insincere individuals. And it also brings me to something very pertinent to this discussion coming up, which we call harbi non -Muslims, those who are at war or physically hostile to Muslims and Islam, physically hostile, those who engage in acts of war, fighting, and persecution.

So we see in surah 66, ayah 9, that it refers to this, and I'm going to quote it in the bottom there, and people usually quote this text out of context thinking it refers to all people who are non -Muslim, but it's not.

It refers to those who are at war with Islam, at war with Muslims, physical war.

The Prophet strive against the kuffar and the hypocrites and be harsh upon them, and their refuge is hell, and wretched is their destination.

If it's referring to all non -Muslims, then again, why would the Prophet Muhammad and Muslims try to invite people who are non -Muslim who are all going to go to hell anyway?

What's the point? Well, it only makes sense if you understand that it's only referring to a particular people and not non -Muslims.

The Quran wouldn't make sense if you try to say that every time it uses a word that has polysemy concepts to it that it's meaning the same meaning in every case.

Now, a very, very brief history of the Prophet Muhammad, it began with revelation when he was 40.

He began open preaching in his city in Mecca. Almost instantly, the Muslims faced persecution.

Muslims were tortured, were killed, rocks were put on them. The first martyr in Islam was Sumayya. She had a spear put right through her belly because she believed in Islam, and there was a lot of heavy persecution by the polytheists.

After a time, the Prophet Muhammad was offered leadership by two tribes of Medina, a neighboring city.

It was called Yathrib at the time, but they offered him leadership, and he left, and he left just as he was going to be caught and executed by the

Qurayshites. Obviously, wars happened between Mecca and Medina.

During this time, the Prophet Muhammad called for a truce and sent emissaries around the region.

One emissary was executed by the Ghassanids, which was a Roman client, and the Romans threatened invasion of Arabia.

The pagans broke their truce and started to kill Muslims, and this is where we see that the

Prophet Muhammad began a campaign to end the pagan tribal domination of Arabia. We must note that during this time,

Jews and the Christians of Najran and the Zoroastrians were not evicted by the Prophet Muhammad from Arabia.

We see that after he passed away, his companions took over as political leadership, and they fought the regional superpowers who were oppressing the regions adjacent to Arabia, the

Persian Empire and the Roman Empire, or the Byzantines, as we anachronistically call them. So what is

Islam's commands to Muslims regarding non -Muslims? Well, all these verses come from Chapter 6, and it begins from Ayah 5, at least this quotation.

Our Lord, so it's referring to Muslims here, Our Lord, make us not objects of torment for the non -believers, and forgive us, our

Lord, Indeed it is you who are exalted in might and wise. We see in a verse that was continuing,

Perhaps God will, between you and those to whom have been your enemies, among them put affection, and God is competent, and God is forgiving and merciful.

God does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of your religion, and do not expel you from your homes, from being righteous towards them and acting justly towards them.

Indeed God loves those who act justly. God only forbids you from those who fight you because of your religion and expel you from your homes and aid in your expulsion, forbids that you make allies of them, and whoever makes allies of them, then it is those who are the wrongdoers.

And I think that expresses it quite succinctly in a surah. Islam rejects coercion, the famous verse that cited there should be no compulsion in religion.

Truth is clear from falsehood. But there's another verse that's more interesting in terms of the bigger picture.

And that is, there's a verse in surah 10, verses 99 to 100. And had your

Lord so willed, all those on earth would have believed, all of them in their entirety. Then would you compel the people in order that they become believers?

It is not for a soul to believe except by the permission of God, and he will place defilement upon those who will not use reason.

And this is very interesting because it's saying to Muslims that God intended that not everyone on this earth will be following all one religion.

The fact that there's different religions is intended by God. So if it's intended by God, who are any of us to compel anyone to change their faith?

It is only by God that people are guided and by God that people are not guided.

Something which I think Calvinists would probably agree with to an extent. But also, we see that the

Prophet Muhammad gave covenants to Christians, for example the community of Najran, and said

Najran and its people enjoy protection from God and the Prophet Muhammad for themselves, their religion, land and wealth.

He also says a commandment to Muslims in how to treat non -Muslim citizens. So whoever oppresses a mu 'ahid, a non -Muslim citizen, or imposes upon him more than he can afford and humiliates him or takes anything from him without his consent,

I will challenge him on the day of judgement. This is the stern warning that the Prophet Muhammad has said to Muslims.

The Prophet Muhammad has also said whoever has harmed a non -Muslim citizen has harmed me. Again, a very stern warning to Muslims not to harm people who do not want to be

Muslim and reside within Muslim lands. We also see a narration at the bottom there where there were non -Muslims who, if they could not afford to be a citizen, usually the males, they couldn't afford to pay the military waiver tax.

Long story, Muslim males are obliged to be reservists. Non -Muslim males are not obliged to be reservists in the army, instead they pay a waiver tax.

If they can't afford it and they are poor or ill, then they are to be given money, they are to be given the

Islamic government's treasury. So Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians are to be given welfare if they are poor, weak or ill and so on.

We also see that in the Quran it says, and fight them until there is no fitna, which is persecution or oppression, until the religion, all of it, is for God and if they cease, then indeed

God is seeing of what they do. This is frequently miscited by many individuals who want to criticise

Islam, but we see from a commentary of this by a classical Islamic scholar, Ibn Kathir, he said in this discussion, he quoted

Ibn Umar saying, we did that during the time of the Messenger of God when Islam was weak and the man would be tried in his religion, either tormented to death or being imprisoned.

When Islam became stronger and widespread, there was no more fitna, there was no more oppression and persecution.

So what the commentators have said is that fight people if they persecute people for their faith until there is no persecution and it is only

God who decides who is guided or not, not people torturing or coercing.

But also in the Quran it says that Islam orders Muslims to fight against militant aggressors, those who fight them, but it also says that those who are fighting you, you are not allowed to transgress against them even if they are fighting you and that imposes a limit by which many narrations by the

Prophet Muhammad have said that civilians cannot be targeted in war even if there is an enemy that is targeting your civilians, you cannot retaliate in like manner.

So just to kind of summarise, there are two general discussions about how

Muslims dealt with pagan Arabs and Romans and we will discuss this in the Q &A, but suffice to say,

Muslims are only commanded to fight when they are being persecuted, to rescue others from oppression and to ensure that the only one who decides whether anyone is guided or not is

God and not the whip or the lash by human hands. Thank you for listening. Gentlemen, 15 minutes and it's again the dialogue between both of you.

Thank you. Alright, now Abdullah you had to skip over the most important part.

We can discuss it here. Yeah, okay, and make sure you get into that microphone so everybody can hear you. Alright, everybody in this audience, let's make sure we cover, if we don't cover this and cover it thoroughly, we're going to be accused of having soft -peddled the whole thing, so we need to dig into this.

The most often cited set of verses in this subject that I'm sure all the

Christians in the audience need to hear from you about, you started to get into the context of Surah 9, you didn't have a chance to do so, you had to skip over it.

Surah 9, 29 and 30. Let me read it, unless you want to have a different translation, but fight against those who do not believe in Allah or in the last day, who do not consider unlawful what

Allah and his messenger have made unlawful, and who do not adopt the religion of truth, that is

Islam. From those who were given the scripture, and I looked at the Arabic and that's the Al -Kitab, this is

Jews and Christians. Fight until they give the jizya willingly, and feel themselves to be humbled.

Now, the thing that concerns me and I need to hear from you on is the very next verse.

I understand that someone can say, well verse 29 was in a particular context, a particular situation in that day that is not repeated today, etc.,

etc., even though if I recall correctly, please correct me, I think Umar ibn Affan used

Surah 9, 29 when he did finally expel Jews and Christians from the

Arabian peninsula. I could be wrong about that, but I think he did. But here's what's concerning to me. The Jews say, and this is the very next verse, the

Jews say Ezra is the son of Allah and the Christians say the Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their statement from their mouths.

They imitate the saying of those who, and the root is kuffar, disbelieve before them.

May Allah destroy them. How are they deluded? So here's my question. I understand that many want to say that 9, 29 is temporarily limited to a particular period of time.

How is 9, 30 related to 9, 29 contextually? Because 9, 30 is a pretty strong verse and it doesn't seem to have a temporal application to it.

Okay. Well, it was a good question and I wanted to get through it in my presentation, but time cut me out.

So you have to understand that up until this point in Islamic history, the

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his companions, they had actually been supporting the Romans against the

Persian Empire, not directly supporting but morally supporting them. So we see a verse in the Quran which mentions Surah 30,

Ayahs 1 to 5, which says the Romans have been defeated in the nearest land, but day after their defeat will overcome within three to nine years to God belongs the command before and after and that day the believers will rejoice.

And that was because the pagan Arabs would say we are going to beat you like the

Persians, our fellow polytheistic kin, beat the monotheistic Christians. And the

Muslims would be morally supporting the Christians, the Romans against the

Persians. So you had the situation, but then when you found that an emissary of the

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was executed by a Roman client, the Ghassanids, and then you had concerns that the

Roman army was advancing into Arabia and the Muslim army went out to meet them in Tabuk, didn't encounter them and then just retreated back because they didn't find any

Roman army invading them. The question that was coming in the minds of Muslims were, why do

Romans hate us? Why wouldn't they not like us? We were morally supporting them, what's going on?

Why aren't they viewing us as something benign? Why are they having this antipathy?

So when you had an emissary who was executed, which you just don't do that in the ancient world or even the medieval world, or even any world, you don't execute emissaries.

And this hostility, we see that the verse says fight those who do not believe in God or the

Last Day. Now, it wouldn't make sense if that was meant in what you might see from a non -Semitic perspective, just say, well, fight those who don't believe in God or the

Last Day, but Christians believe in God or the Last Day and Jews believe in God or the Last Day, so that doesn't make any sense. But whenever we've seen this discussion, fight those who do not believe in God or the

Last Day, it's always been if someone has demonstrated by breaking the commandments of their own religion, by being immoral, that they don't truly believe in God and the

Last Day. And we see this from the narration of the Prophet Muhammad, he uses a refrain, or an imprecation, those people who don't believe in God and the

Last Day, those people who have done this, they clearly don't believe in God and the Last Day. So this is what this first verse is starting and saying.

But let's read beyond the next verse, I know you quote the next verse, let's read beyond this. And it says, and it continues, so may

God destroy them how they are deluded, it does say this. And again, that probably wouldn't be any, well the literal meaning is may

God fight them, and I suppose as a Calvinist you believe that all humans are in a rebellious nature against God, fighting against God, and it's not meaning that humans are fighting them, it's saying

God fights them who do what we consider in Islam to be blasphemous concepts.

And the translation usually the Jews say Ezra, I want to leave it as Uzair because it might not necessarily translate as Ezra, it could be

Enoch, it could be a whole number of different individuals. However, the very next verse it says, they have taken their scholars and monks as lords besides God and also the

Messiah and son of Mary, and they were not commanded except to worship one God, there is no deity except him, exalted is he above whatever they associate with him, they want to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, but God refuses to accept, refuses except to perfect his light, although the disbelievers dislike it, oh you who have believed indeed many of the scholars and the monks, devour the wealth of people unjustly and avert them from the way of God, those who hoard gold and silver and spend it not in the way of God, give them tidings of a painful punishment.

Now this sounds to me like Calvin's Institutes of Religion against the Catholic Church, because this is exactly what he says about the

Catholic Church, they become corrupt, they hoard wealth, they avert people from righteousness, they avert people from knowing the truth, and he doesn't have some pleasant words to say about the

Catholic Church, and in this particular period of time, it was the Eastern Roman Empire that was doing these very corrupt practices, and the reason, to back this up, that it's not general to every single

Christian, I'll bring a narration by the Prophet Muhammad himself. So the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, commanded the

Muslims that when they encounter these empires and they encounter all these issues and their political diplomacy of other nations, he says, leave the

Abyssinians alone, as long as they leave you alone, and leave the Turks alone, as long as they leave you alone, the

Turks are pagans, at this point in time they were pagans, and the Abyssinians were Christians, but what we see from the discussion of the

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, about the Abyssinians were, that they were a just Christian nation, and so they were not,

Muslims were not to have any hostility with Abyssinians, because they were just, and it was affirmed so, and hence this was a prohibition by the

Prophet Muhammad, of which was adhered to for at least one thousand years after the Prophet Muhammad, there was no wars between Muslims and Abyssinians, that only changed because some

Abyssinians converted to Islam and they wanted to have a revolution, that's a long story, but that was still an internal matter, not an external matter, so that's how, that's the context behind that.

Okay, let me put this into a context that is uncomfortable, but necessary. Sure. There is an online magazine published by ISIS, and they utilize this text as a basis for their killing of Christians, and here's the idea, and here's what's uncomfortable, is you say, okay this isn't all

Christians, the putting together in such a close, intimate fashion of specific

Christian statements, the Messiah is the son of Allah, so here you have the idea, all

Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God, that's definitional of what it means to be a Christian, called disbelievers, how are they deluded,

I think that's the same word that's used in surahs four and five, when they say three,

I could be wrong about that, but I think I'm correct about that, and then when it says, they have taken their scholars and monks as lords beside Allah, and also the

Messiah, son of Mary, again the idea of the exaltation of Jesus, immediately followed by, and they were not commanded except to worship one

God, which in all those texts in surahs four and five, where Christianity is specifically in sight, the response to saying three is always what?

There is only one God, Allah. So why is there such a theological element here?

Isis uses this as their very foundation for saying, this is why we've done what we've done to these

Christian people. I know that there are texts where… I know about the delegation from Natron, I get all of that.

Why is the theological beliefs of Christians intimately connected at this point, if the distinction is being made?

That's what we need to understand. Okay. Well, first of all, I call this Godwin's second law.

The first law is that as a debate progresses, the probability of Nantes being used or raised will approach one.

The second clause would be Isis, when it comes to Islamic discussions, the probability approaches one as a discussion progresses.

Not meant to be a gotcha, I just happened to… They put out an article that was one of the most theologically laden articles

I've ever seen. And I want to know, how do you refute that argumentation?

That helps us. Okay. Well, here's the thing. I've engaged Isis supporters on Twitter a lot in Twitter debates and so on.

And I haven't really seen them bring this up as an argument to kill Christians.

What I have seen them bring up, and what they usually bring up, is they usually bring up a very typical argument which

Osama Bin Laden brought up, which is, fight them as they fight you. Whereby, he argues that because the

United States bombs them, that they should be allowed to return that back to the United States in kind.

And because the United States bombed them without regard to civilian life, they should return that in kind. And again, but if they only were to continue reading, but do not transgress the limits of God.

That's what the verse says. That's their argument. But Isis' enemies currently are Kurds in North Syria, other rebels who are

Islamic, the Iraqi forces in Iraq, Turkey.

There's really no Christian states that they are conquering at the moment. So this verse doesn't really apply anywhere.

And even in that verse, it doesn't say, kill Christians who say this. Kill Christians who say whether Jesus is

God or what have you. No, it doesn't say this at all. And in fact, it starts with the premise, fight those who do not believe in God on the last day from amongst the people of the book.

Which wouldn't make any sense if you want to take it absolutely literally, because Christians believe in God on the last day.

So it clearly means that those Christians who don't care about the limits of God and really don't care about God on the last day, ones who are not in their hearts true believers in God on the last day because they commit wanton corruption and they break the laws.

And this is clearly what it's referring to. And even in that circumstance, and even if we want to take the most aggressive interpretation of that verse that you can, it's not, again, it still doesn't say kill them.

It says fight them until, well, they pay Jizya, what, they become citizens? Jizya is basically a citizenship tax akin to Jacques Rousseau's idea of the contract citizen.

So what, fight them until they become citizens? That's not really a blank check to fight people and kill them because of their ideas.

Because Christians are, were tolerated, were accepted during the time of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam and afterwards under Islamic law.

There is no law, no opinion that says that Christians have to be killed because they say that Jesus is

God. The phrase may Allah destroy them after calling them disbelievers who confess that Jesus, the

Messiah, is the son of God. But not humans destroy them. And that is, there is a difference.

And it's only. It's a theological concept. It's a theological, it's clearly a theological concept because whenever we say may

God fight or may God destroy, it can only be God destroys with his punishment in the hereafter.

Or God may ordain a punishment of his own choosing in this life, but he brings about it for his own means, whether floods, earthquakes, or what have you.

Is there any conceivable context in which Surah 9, 29 and 30 and 31,

I guess, the whole section, is there any conceivable context in which that could be made applicable in a modern situation, in your opinion?

Well, the thing is that, again, there is no idea in this verse that Christians should be killed because they, you know, pronounce these beliefs or they have a particular concept or idea.

It doesn't say that at all. In fact, I've often gone on record as talenting with pride the

Islamic history's long precedent of tolerance to Christians, precedent of tolerance to Jews, because we could coexist.

It was about not forcing people to become Muslim but rather presenting them with a choice, presenting them with a message.

And that was the whole point of Islam, is to present the whole world with a choice to become Muslim or not, to embrace

Islam, to see guidance, or choose to turn away from guidance. That's why God gave us free will and it's why

God didn't make the whole world one religion, as other verses in the

Quran say. So what I would say is that I have never actually encountered an

ISIS argument where they've cited that verse as a justification for killing Christians. The only argument they've ever brought is that they say the

Quran allows them to copy United States of America. That's what they argue generally. And it's an argument that's un -Islamic, goes against all classical scholarship because you can't target civilians in warfare.

There is not even any difference of opinion on this matter about targeting civilians with any of 1 ,400 of Islamic scholarship.

ISIS is very much, unfortunately, a very nasty modern phenomena and not a phenomena of Islamic scholarship or texts.

Thank you. Five minutes,

Mr. Andalusi, to summarize your views on this segment of the discussion.

Sure. Now, I'd like to kind of iterate something from a classical scholarship and not myself.

Now, generally, two scholars which, for some reason, were cited by Osama bin

Laden himself, Ibn Taymiyyah, a classical Islamic scholar, and Ibn al -Qayyim. Now, these two scholars were cited by Osama bin

Laden himself in these discussions to justify his wars against America.

But here's the strange thing, and this is the thing that baffles us, it baffles Muslims who know about scholarship, is that these scholars simply do not say anything that supports

Osama bin Laden or ISIS. For example, Ibn Taymiyyah says in his book, Qaeda fil qital al -kuffar, he says,

The Prophet's biography shows that he did not fight whoever made peace with him among the unbelievers.

And the books of biography, prophetic traditions, exegesis, jurisprudence, and history are full of such acts, and this is widely narrated in his biography.

Thus, the Prophet did not initiate fighting with anyone, and had God commanded him to fight every disbeliever, then he would have initiated fighting them.

Ibn al -Qayyim says in his Hidayat al -Hiyarah, he says, The Prophet never forced religion upon anyone, but rather he only fought those who waged war against him and fought him.

As for those who made peace with him or conducted a truce, then he never fought them and he never compelled them to enter his religion.

As his Lord, the Almighty has commanded him, there is no compulsion in religion, for right guidance is distinct from error.

The negation in this verse carries the meaning of prohibition, namely, you may not force your religion on anyone.

So these are what the classical scholars, not me, not any modern -day Muslim scholar, classical medieval

Islamic scholars have said about this matter, but I'd like to apprise you of something you might not realize.

Al -Jazeera had an interview with Assad bin Laden, I think it was 2002 or 2001, and they asked him about his terror campaign against United States of America and his war against American civilians.

And they asked him, you know, how do you justify this? How do you justify this when in Islam it's prohibited to kill civilians?

And you know what he says? He says, you're right, in Islam it is prohibited to kill civilians, it has been related in authentic traditions by the

Prophet Muhammad and by the scholars that you're not allowed to kill women, children, non -combatants. So the Al -Jazeera journalist is completely perplexed and says, well, exactly, so then how do you justify it then?

And here's what Assad bin Laden's response was, well, the law isn't set in stone, he says.

That's his argument. And then he brings a verse in the Qur 'an which says, fight them as they fight you.

And his argument is, if they fight, if they bomb our civilians, we shouldn't be shy to do the same back to them to stop them from bombing our civilians.

And he cites defensive verses in the Qur 'an. He views his war as a defensive war against imperialist aggression.

His entire idea is wrong by his own admission. He himself negates the commands.

He says they're not set in stone. Well, excuse me, as a Muslim, I believe they are set in stone, so to speak, and they don't change depending on convenience.

And instead, his example isn't the Prophet Muhammad, but instead he talks about World War II when they bombed

German cities or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He starts citing these examples as his model to emulate.

He emulates British military history, American military history, but not the Prophet's military history.

So, when people usually ask, what do you say to ISIS about these chronic arguments? They don't bring chronic arguments.

And they are very, not even selective, they just don't bring it. They always argue. Instead, they say, well, look at what

America's done to our civilians. Look at what Britain's done to our civilians. That's their argument. That's the argument

I've only heard from them. And again, the only verse in the Qur 'an is, fight them as they fight you, and they always just cut off that last bit about, but do not transgress the limits of God.

God loves not the transgressors. They quite literally, in 1 ,400 years of Islamic jurisprudence, there is not one single opinion that allows the deliberate targeting of civilians.

And if ISIS say that that's allowable, that that's now suddenly permitted or halal in Arabic, then this makes them worse than heretics in Islam.

But ISIS don't really care about religion, just like the anti -black movement in Congo don't really care about Christianity.

But because it's part of their identity, they cite it, they couch their actions with these narrations and verses in order to make them sound justified to their people because they live in religious environments.

But their motivations do not stem from the Qur 'an, just like the anti -black movement do not stem from the

Bible. Thank you. Many, many years ago,

Augustine gave in to the pressure to utilize military force to suppress a movement called the

Donatists. And one of the verses that was utilized was from a parable where Jesus talked about going out and compelling them to come in to the wedding feast.

And he understood this as substantiating the idea that you could use governmental force to keep people within the

Orthodox faith. We recognize that that was not only a misuse of that text, but unbeknownst to him, what a thousand years later result in something called the

Inquisition. And so we see what can happen with development, we can see what can happen when a text of Scripture is taken out of its context and you do not have a consistent method of exegesis to rein in that error.

Now, I immediately, I hope you saw, went to one of the key texts that you will find if you look at almost anything that's written on the subject of jihad today, on the subject of Islam and warfare,

Surah 9, considered by most to be the last Surah revealed, and hence it would abrogate anything that came before it.

That particular verse is why I focused upon that, because we need to understand how there are differences of understanding amongst

Muslims on this text. And what the classical scholars said,

Islam created a high civilization that could not have existed if there had not been limitations on what jihad could and could not be and what conditions would bring it about.

Here is the question that I as a Christian have. The methodology of interpretation that I presented to you in regards to the

Bible's verses of violence is consistent between the

Old and New Testaments. Given the type of sources, you'll notice that, for example,

Abdullah quoted from two primary sources. He quoted from the Qur 'an, and he quoted a few times from various hadiths, from Sahih al -Bukhari,

Muslim, I think I saw Jamia Termite, I may have seen Sunan Abu Dawud at one point.

Now, here's the question, and here has been my concern for many years now, and some of the

Muslims in the audience that listen to my program know this has been one of my concerns. Are those sources themselves consistent enough for one side to be able to vanquish the other in the debate that is taking place within Islam today?

I remember very clearly a cleric from somewhere in Central Africa, crowing because he had found a hadith that he interpreted as allowing the destruction of innocent people in warfare.

I happened to remember that hadith, having read that collection myself, and I knew that the two preceding or two following hadith specifically prohibited the killing of women and children, and yet he had just chosen the one.

The consistency of interpretation, the methodology of interpretation that is utilized, this is the issue.

Are the sources from which we are drawing these arguments consistent enough to banish the abuse of these texts?

Now, don't get me wrong, I see people abusing the Bible all the time.

I see people misusing the Bible all the time. You cannot stop people from abusing truths.

But the issue that lies before us this evening is those who promote violence in the name of Islam have their argumentation.

I personally wish that I would see more dialogue and debate, not on Twitter, 140 characters is not long enough to get very far, but I'd like to see something similar to this happening between someone who holds the classical position that Abdullah has enunciated and someone who would dare step forward and say,

I will defend the position that is being presented by these groups like Boko Haram or Al -Qaeda or ISIS today.

I'd like to see that kind of exchange taking place. Unfortunately, one side prefers violence to reasoning at that particular point in time.

But the issue for us tonight, the consistency of interpretation between the two sides, the utilization of these texts, hopefully it's been helpful for you to hear how that exchange takes place.

It certainly has been for me. Thank you. It is normally my tradition to give a little something.

It normally has to be a little something because I have to drag it all across the world, but a little something to the person with whom I'm dialoguing.

This is going to be a strange book to give to a Muslim, but I love to listen to Muslims talking to Muslims.

It helps me to understand what you all really believe. And so this is a book that I wrote to Christians.

It's called Pulpit Crimes, The Criminal Mishandling of God's Word, and it's where I'm dealing with issues within our community.

So I thought, you know what? If I find discussions where you all are talking to your community to be enlightening to me, maybe the other direction around, so I'd like to give you this book.

The issue this evening is war and peace are texts that address these particular subjects.

Once again, this isn't an entertaining exchange. This is an exchange that requires you to listen carefully, to weigh, to be willing to learn, to consider new perspectives.

But I do want to suggest this. Fundamentally, peace is something that exists between the

Creator and His creation. Peace is something that we experience individually between ourselves and God.

When I'm at peace with God, I have a foundation for being at peace with those around me. When I am fundamentally at war with my

God, then I cannot have a foundation to be at peace with those around me. We all know how this works within our own personal lives, within marriage.

When I am in rebellion, when I am not doing what is right before God, my relationship with my wife, my children suffers.

When I'm not right with God, my relationship with those around me suffers. And so for me, we can talk about the big picture, but I'm a grandfather now.

I just saw a picture of my darling little four -year -old granddaughter Clementine. I think she lives in princess dresses, personally, which is beautiful.

And when I think about the future, I now think about her. And I want peace in this world.

I want her to be able to grow up and be the mommy she wants to be and to have her children and to have a loving husband and to have a stable home and to have those types of opportunities.

I want to see peace. And so it has become much more important to me to be able to emphasize, to have to emphasize that from the

Christian perspective, fundamentally, God has provided for peace with himself.

And he's done so in amazing fashion, in an amazing way. When we talk about our texts of war and peace, it comes back for me to how

I have peace with God. When I wake up in the morning knowing my own heart, knowing all the duties that I left undone the day before, knowing the sins that I committed the day before of thought and deed, how can

I claim to have peace with God? What kind of arrogance is it for me to think that I have peace with a thrice holy

God, the God who is surrounded by angels who say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty?

Knowing how unclean I am, how can I say I have peace? Well, that's a terrible problem.

But God has provided an amazing solution. I believe that what the world needs to hear is that we can have peace with him because he has taken the initiative.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together have chosen to bring about this thing called the gospel.

My Lord and Savior gave himself voluntarily. His life was not taken from him.

He laid it down of his own accord. He voluntarily laid his life down so that my sins can be imputed to him, his righteousness imputed to me.

So when I stand before a holy God, I do not stand in the good works that I have done because I know that even the good works

I have done are stained with selfishness, ignorance, self -conceit. Instead, I stand robed in the righteousness of another, a perfect righteousness that avails before that thrice holy

God. And that is the only reason I have peace with God, the only reason

I can stand in his presence. This evening, I mentioned at the beginning that Abdullah and I are not trying to hide our differences.

And our fundamental differences have to do with who God is and how we are to have a right relationship with him.

It is my deepest desire that every person on this planet, including every

Muslim, know the peace that I know because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.

I want them to hear my heart. I want them to know that I love them. I care for them. I am thankful for men like Abdullah Al -Andalusi, who are willing to stand up and say, no, that's not what

I believe. This is why I believe what I believe. I stand against that. I am thankful for that. And he knows that my deepest desire for him is that he would understand the peace that I have and share it as well.

That's why we have these dialogues. Thank you very much for being here this evening. Seven minutes to bring your personal perspectives on this discussion.

I'd like to reiterate my humble and sincere thanks to everyone here who turned up to listen to both sides of the discussion, those who opened their ears and opened their hearts to different perspectives and were willing to give latitude to people who they might have disagreements in some areas and agreements in other areas.

You know, I think certainly between Christians and Muslims, I always like to go sometimes

I like to go Old Testament, but not necessarily to any of the verses concerning the nations and the land of Canaan, but to the

Old Testament's discussion on peace, which I think is something that could be a commonality between us.

We see that it says in Leviticus, and you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely, and I will give peace in the land and you shall lie down and none shall make you afraid.

And this was quite interesting, and there's another verse which says if you do this and God so commands, you'll be able to stand the strain and all those people will go home satisfied, be shalom, which is in peace.

I think that's very important. I think that while we have to look inwards and remember

God and come to peace with God in ourselves, we also have to realize and remember that God made us in this life for a purpose, for a reason.

All the evils in the world that we see, all the injustice and the oppression, we should always ask ourselves the question, why do they exist?

Why do they exist? I saw a very interesting line in an article someone wrote where someone said,

I was going to ask God, why did he create all this suffering and persecution and injustice?

Why does he allow it to continue? But I was scared he'd ask me the same question back. And I think this is where we should think about.

Islam didn't just view itself as a personal and private project for justice and peace, but rather it viewed itself as a global project for justice and peace, much like how

Zion is described in the Old Testament as a place where all nations will come and will be at peace and will judge by the justice of Zion.

And I think this is something that we have to strive. You might not believe in Islam, but as Christians you should strive to see justice in this world because only through justice can our hearts be relaxed and we be at peace in the land as we believe the

Old Testament has said. But also, we have to also consider that Muslims and Christians, we might have our differences and we are very open about these differences.

And in fact, we have public debates, me and James have had a few public debates, James had a number of debates with other

Muslims, and it doesn't mean that we have to now hate each other because we differ, it doesn't mean that we have to be unjust to each other because we differ.

But rather, while accepting our differences, we should recognize that we can cooperate in a lot of good against a lot of common challenges.

A lot of the intolerance against religion which is rising in Western countries now, throughout the world, is not only targeting

Christians, it's targeting Muslims too, it's targeting religious Jews, the Jewish community in the

UK has faced issues, a rise in militant secularism. We as Muslims and Christians, we have common cause to protect our values, the right to openly profess our beliefs, to carry crosses in public, to wear hijabs in public.

These are issues that we have to deal with, to not be fired from your employment just because you wear a cross, or because you have a hijab, or because you have a beard or what have you, although people say hipsters obviously,

I've taken that now. They've taken it from us, unfortunately.

So, what I say is this, the Quran says, let us come to a common word between Muslims and Christians, that we should worship none other but the

Lord our God. But I also say this, let us come to a common agreement that we shall both together be witnesses for justice, to help mankind, because God intended we exist in this life, not just so we isolate ourselves and try to make ourselves right with him, but rather we make ourselves right with him by manifesting good deeds, or by doing good deeds, depending on your theological position, we prove our righteousness, we prove that we are right with God by our deeds.

At the very least, we can all commonly agree on that, and I think that we should see more of this discussion, more of this debate where we openly air our differences, but very importantly, we should also openly air how we can work together and how we can create peace, if not between us and God, but also throughout the land.

Thank you. I just have one last thing, as is customary.

I decided to get James White actually a few books, but unfortunately, Amazon has conspired to prevent them being delivered to my address in time.

So, for the time being, I want to present him with a book called The Quran with References to the

Bible, where you have a Quran that has different verses in it, and each verse is cross -referenced with a biblical verse.

You might find this intriguing understanding. I know I did. Thank you, gentlemen.

Just for the next debate, whilst presents have been handed out, let nobody forget the moderator of the debate next time.

We're going to have a question and answer session, and if we would try to keep the answers short.

Thankfully, members of the audience have submitted their questions, and many of the questions are very similar, so we're going to present the questions which seem to be very common from most members of the audience.

You'll have three minutes if the question is directed to you, and one minute to respond after that.

My first question is to Professor White. The question is, is religious freedom a biblical concept?

Is religious freedom a biblical concept? Wow. Well, yes,

I would say, in the sense that Christians should not be involved in seeking to specifically restrict the freedoms of others, but Christianity was birthed under the

Roman Empire, where until 313 AD, Christianity was called a religio illicita, an illicit or illegal religion.

And so they weren't given that kind of freedom until many centuries down the road.

And so Christianity is supposed to be able to exist under any situation. Like I said, we have brothers and sisters in North Korea today, which is an amazing thing to consider.

But it seems that the question may be asking, when Christians are in the majority, should freedom of religion be offered to others?

And obviously, if you believe that the only mechanism whereby a person is actually brought to faith in Christ is through the preaching of the gospel and through the ministration of the

Spirit of God, then how could you restrict someone else's engagement in their own religious beliefs?

There are Christians – you've even used the terminology, Abdullah, of theonomy.

Theonomy is simply the rule of God's law, but there are Christians that believe that you should create a

Christian culture similar to the theocratic nation of Israel. And of course, in Israel, you could not and did not have religious freedom.

You were not allowed to worship other gods or anything like that. And so there are some people who do believe that that should be established within a majority

Christian nation. I'm not sure how that works under the new covenant, and I have some serious problems.

I have a high view of God's law, and I believe every nation should look to God's law for guidance as to what justice is.

But the question becomes, where do you bring in penology? Where do you bring in punishment?

Are you trying to establish a theocracy or something along those lines? I see nothing in the New Testament that says that that's to be our goal.

And – but I have friends who would obviously disagree at that point, and we have our exchanges.

So I see nothing in the New Testament that demands that we establish a particular kind of governmental system that would then restrict the religious beliefs of others.

Thank you. Any views from you? I would just say that it's an interesting question whether there's freedom of religion or the right to profess your belief as you see fit is a construct of any particular religion

One could argue the Roman Empire didn't care, or the Roman Republic rather, didn't care what religion you were as long as you burned a bit of incense to the emperor, and they didn't care what you believed in personally.

And I see – I feel that today's world, the burning of a pinch of incense has been replaced with nationalism perhaps, with being – adhering or minorities having to be forced to adhere to particular national values as viewed as being loyal or not, and Christians were suspected of being disloyal to the

Roman Empire because they refused to burn that pinch of incense. So it's an interesting question.

Some people argue John Locke, who is a Christian, pioneered the idea. Some could say that you had plurality of religions in Islamic lands.

So it's an interesting question. Much more than one minute can cover, but it's something that would be worth investigating to have a look.

I mean, although civilisation in the past had plurality of religions before, it wasn't invented in the

West, at the very least anyway. Thank you, thank you. And Mr. Andalusi, your first question, would you say that countries like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are un -Islamic due to their harsh treatment of Christians and Jewish citizens in those nations?

Okay, so do I say that Malaysia and Indonesia are Islamic governments? Right off the bat, no.

And you can, and it's not just me making the claim, you can see for yourself. Let's take the Qur 'an, for example.

It says the Qur 'an usury is prohibited, and I don't know what the Christian perspective on usury is, or at least particular

Protestant perspectives, but in the Qur 'an, usury or interest banking is prohibited. But, and not only the

Qur 'an says that, but the Qur 'an also, it says take notice of war from God and his messenger to those who deal in usury.

Again, it's a theological threat, not one necessarily that will be carried out by fighting.

But in Saudi Arabia, I was reading just recently, BBC was reporting that Saudi Arabia raised interest rates to control, obviously, their currency value.

And I was thinking, well, that should just by itself tell you whether Saudi Arabia really cares about Islam or not.

The Qur 'an says take notice of war from Allah and his messenger, God and his messenger to those who deal with usury or interest.

And Saudi Arabia has interest banking systems. So does Malaysia, so does Iran, so does Egypt, so does

Turkey, all these countries. And that's just off the bat. Also, you can't have an unlimited leader, a leader that is the supreme sovereign of a government.

God is a supreme sovereign, and any leader is restricted by the sharia, by Islamic law.

So you can't have an unlimited leader. You can't have kingship in Islam, and yet you see it there.

So short answer is Saudi Arabia isn't an Islamic government. However, as Muslims, we are trying to campaign to make

Muslims more aware about what Islamic law says, the rights for non -Muslims, rights for Muslims as well.

It's actually Muslims as well that are being denied their rights in many of these countries. And we're seeing this. I mean, in Malaysia, for example, again, certainly not a perfect country by any measure.

But in certain religious obligations, non -Muslims are exempt. So during the time of Ramadan, obviously,

Christians aren't expected to fast. And they, in so many cases, can even eat publicly, and it's fine.

And these are just a few aspects of Islam. The rest, obviously, is not Islamic law. But as Muslims, we're trying to strive our hardest to revive

Islamic civilization, to reverse it from its post -colonial condition at the moment, where most

Muslims are ignorant about Islamic law. Most Muslims wouldn't know what the Quran said about a number of legal topics.

And so we are striving as Muslims to try to educate Muslims as to what Islamic law even says at the get -go.

And that is where the Muslim work is, is trying to revive civilization. Unfortunately, the opponent to this is not

Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism. It's secular liberalism, which is also spreading through our lands.

The elites in all these countries are notably secular liberal, even Saudi Arabia. Notably, they are secular.

And they are very disdainful of religious law. Thank you very much. I'm going to have to stop you there. I'm going to try to get through as many of these questions as possible.

So, James, if you would take one minute in response. I'll take even less than that. I just simply would really encourage my

Muslim friends to join with us in condemning those incidents, and there are many, where Christians are persecuted in Muslim lands.

We need to hear very loudly our Muslim friends in our country saying that what's happening to Christians in many countries, where they're not only marginalized but are being killed, is wrong even from their perspective.

We want to hear that even more loudly than we have in the past. Thank you. Abdullah, let me come to you with this question.

Separation of church and state has existed for hundreds of years in the Christian world.

Do you think that separation can exist in the Islamic world, the separation of state and religion?

Well, I don't actually think that separation of church and state has actually been consistent throughout Christendom.

Obviously, we can cite the Catholic Church. I don't need to go that far. I can cite modern -day Britain. The head of state is also the head of the church, head of the

Anglican church, which is the queen of England. So technically, this country isn't fully secular.

It's actually a, well, I wouldn't say a theocracy, but I don't think the queen issues fatwas anymore.

But certainly, you have bishops in the House of Lords and so on and so forth. So the idea of separation of church and state is a matter of, let's say, historical

Christian difference of opinion, or ikhtilaf, as we say in Arabic, difference of opinion. And in Islam, we don't have an idea of a church as the

Christians understand the term. I think the best translation for church is usually jama 'a in Arabic, which means a congregation. But the congregation are both the former citizens of a state, and the state, the leaders are from that same congregation.

So therefore, there wouldn't be a separation because the congregation of believers are the people who form the citizens of a state.

And so how could there be a separation? The difference from the, let's say, Christian history is that in Islam, the

Islamic system of caliphate, the caliph doesn't have the right to impose theological opinions upon the populace.

At least precedent showed that. There was a brief stint with some individuals called the Murtazalites who wanted to impose their theological opinions.

But generally, the caliph is not like a pope. He's only a political leader, and he only rules according to the political aspects of Islamic law, but does not mandate positions of theology and enforce those positions of theology upon Muslims.

So our understanding of church and state is completely different because we don't have a church, and state doesn't necessarily interfere with theology, but state is here to apply law.

Thank you. James? I just commented briefly upon that just a few moments ago.

So I would just, it does seem to me that it's, in Islam, it is impossible to separate

Sharia from the faith. So the question would be what kind of law, and that's what Abdullah was talking about earlier.

Obviously, from my perspective, historically, when you look back, one of the greatest blights on the

Christian faith was when the state and the church were one. That was one of the lowest points when it comes to the spirituality and the behavior and the doctrine of what called itself the

Christian church. We need to recognize that the gospel is to transcend all of those boundaries, and unfortunately in history, we haven't always followed that rule.

Thank you. I'm going to try to squeeze in two more questions at least. So let's quickly take this one to you,

Professor White. As a Christian, if I defend myself militarily from an oppressive group, is this wrong?

When you say, as a Christian, if I defend myself militarily? That's what the question says, and it goes on to say because a lot of Christians live and are killed and remain passive even then.

Well, if the question is asking is it wrong to serve in the military in a just war, then no.

I would say that biblically Jesus encountered soldiers, and when they asked what they should do,

He said, only take your pay and do no wrong. So I don't think there's anything wrong in serving in the military.

I think the question is suggesting that if you take up arms to defend yourself in an oppressive regime, what are the consequences?

It sounds like revolution at that point, revolution against an unjust cause or something like that, taking up arms.

That's a whole other issue. Certainly, the United States began in that way.

The question, and there were certainly many Christians who took leadership in that situation. The problem, in my experience, is it's far too easy to create theological reasons for what are actually political reasons, and we need to be very careful as Christians at that point that we don't utilize religion as a cover for our political perspectives.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be just looking at you. You didn't ask the question. Whoever it was, I think clearly that there are situations where you have such an oppressive government that the needs of the people are being trampled underfoot.

Is that a proper situation? There's differences of opinion there because certainly the

Roman Empire was extremely unjust, and during those periods of persecution, should the Christians have risen up in armed rebellion?

They didn't, and they didn't believe that they had the right to do that. I sometimes read in my church history class a letter of Cyprian to the miners, the

Christian miners who were condemned to work in mines, and they almost always died in those contexts. It's amazing.

Look it up sometimes. It's easy to find. They had a tremendous witness because they didn't opt for the military option.

I think it would be the last resort. I really do for a Christian. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to respond to that?

Oh, just very briefly. Again, historically there have been different Christian opinions on this. I think

Thomas Aquinas actually made an argument for if a leader became unjust to a certain point, then the leader had to solve the bonds of leadership from the people, and the people then can rise up against that oppressor.

That's Thomas Aquinas. So I can't really argue from a Christian perspective. From an Islamic perspective, it's not really the argument.

There's a lot of safeties that have to be safe, kind of protocols that have to be met first, which is quite high, and it's generally to the point that if a leader ceases ruling by Islamic law, and this is in a

Muslim society, not in a non -Muslim society, of course, then there could be discussions on that.

Of course, many scholars have said, but if there's a lot of bloodshed that's going to come from this, if it's going to cause a lot of turmoil, then you shouldn't basically undertake that.

So you have to make an assessment of whether it's going to be done quickly, a quick, bloodless coup, or is it going to turn into a long, drawn -out war?

The classical scholars have been difficult on that, and I think you will find similar differences amongst Christians. James?

That was his response to me. One more question. In your view…

Who is it addressed to? This is addressed to you first, but it's a question to both of you. In fact, what is the greatest commandment in Islam and Christianity?

Oh, fascinating. The greatest commandment in Christianity, according to our

Lord and Savior, is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

That's His answer. And obviously, from my perspective, if that's the greatest commandment, we're all in a lot of trouble, because I have never fulfilled that.

I don't have the capacity to fulfill that. Even when I think I've fulfilled it for a while, all of a sudden

I discover that I'm proud of having fulfilled it, which means I didn't love God perfectly. And this is the situation we find ourselves, and this is where there's a difference between us, because we believe that man is in a fallen state.

And in the fallen state, the Bible describes us as being in enmity with God. And according to Romans chapter 8, the mind, sound, and the flesh is not able to do what's pleasing to God.

And that's why I said what I said in my closing statement. My only hope, knowing my heart, is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

I need a mediator. I need His righteousness. I need what only

He can do for me. Three minutes, this time.

Well, again, I would go, I'm going to go Old Testament here, which is the first commandment that the people of Israel were to only worship the

Lord their God and take no idols beside Him, no false deities beside Him, which is reiterated in Islam, that we shall worship only the

Lord our God and not associate partners to Him. And that's very important, because it's not a very simple formula, as you might imagine, because there are all kinds of idols that people take.

People might take their country as an idol, their patriotism rising to the level of idolatry.

They might take their parents or their celebrities or their football teams, celebrities, as idols in a way.

If ever they choose anything other than God in any of their day -to -day decisions, this is, to some extent, choosing other than God, choosing to worship other than God.

And it's very important. So I wouldn't say committing sins means idolatry, but what I would say is that the basis of worshiping one

God exclusively with your heart, body, and soul, your living and your dying, all for the worship of God, as the

Quran says, this is the basis upon which all other pillars are built, all other righteousness are built, and the very purpose of human existence, why