War & Peace in Christianity and Islam

Welcome and Event Introduction

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 longstanding 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. And the second role 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'll be 15 minutes of dialogue and discussion between both of them.

Five minutes for each speaker to then summarize their presentation. And then there'll 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. Andalusi talks a lot about Islamic issues and has opinions from classical scholars and Islamic schools of thoughts. 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. And 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.

And the topic for this evening's debate is war and peace in Christianity and Islam.

War, Violence, and the Old Testament Texts

And 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. And yes, I do have more than one bow tie and 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. Abdul 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 gonna 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 Abdul 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 Abdul is going to present 20 minutes where he is going to discuss texts in the Quran.

We're gonna 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 gonna point the finger towards someone else, there's always three pointing back toward you. And so if we're gonna be consistent, we need to recognize that there are texts in the Bible that require an understanding.

For example, in Deuteronomy chapter two, 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 the spoil 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 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 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.

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 that 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 and 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 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've 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's 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 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 has clothed 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 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 Quran, 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, one 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'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I'll 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 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 in 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, 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, 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.

I'll 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. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. 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 post has said a bit of a debate, but I agree with James. I want to have a bit of a kind of a 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 or? That's fine. Okay, can we open it up? 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 raised thinking that the budding of the fig tree meant that Christ had returned 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 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, 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 there's 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 rather?

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

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 gonna 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. In 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'd probably be able to recognize. There were people going through a Muslim neighborhood carrying crosses but engaging in swearing wars with the people that they were, while they were carrying the crosses.

That was Britain First, yeah. Which makes me go, oh, there's some inconsistency. And I tried to point out the fact that this was a tremendously disrespectful thing to the cross of Jesus Christ to be carrying it while using foul language in that fashion.

But obviously, 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.

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 gonna 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? Five minutes.

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, we see 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 other 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, interesting to 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.