Wheaton College Suspends Professor for Wearing Hijab

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Professor Larycia Hawkins was suspended from teaching at Wheaton College for wearing a cloth head covering. In an attempt to justify this decision, the College stated:

“While Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic, we believe there are fundamental differences between the two faiths, including what they teach about God’s revelation to humanity, the nature of God, the path to salvation and the life of prayer,” Wheaton College said in a statement.

“Wheaton College faculty and staff make a commitment to accept and model our institution’s faith foundations with integrity, compassion and theological clarity,” the college said in a statement. “As they participate in various causes, it is essential that faculty and staff engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the college’s evangelical Statement of Faith.” – Chicago Tribune.

This is quite a peculiar statement. What part of Christian theology, prevents women from wearing a cloth covering on their heads? There is no part of Christian theology which specifically states that women cannot wear a head covering. To the contrary, there is an edict where women are supposed to wear a head covering or veil:

That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. – 1 Corinthians 11:10.

Explicating upon this passage, Matthew Henry’s commentary states:

It was the common usage of the churches, for women to appear in public assemblies, and join in public worship, veiled; and it was right that they should do so.

Gill’s Exposition of the Bible says about this verse:

The Greek word more properly signifies the power she had of putting on and off her covering as she pleased, according as times, places, and persons; made it necessary…

Women have the power, as given to them by God, to put on or take off a hawkinsveil according to the aforementioned commentary. Thus, it is quite damning that a Christian College would find it necessary to condemn, reproach and suspend a Christian woman because she wore a veil, a piece of cloth on her head. The question needs to be asked, if educated Christians from a Christian College  are so insecure about a woman’s wearing of a piece of cloth on her head, does this reaction from the College indicate the level of prejudice and xenophobia Christians hold towards Muslims?

and God knows best.

Missionary Mishap: Jonathan McLatchie’s Honesty

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People make mistakes, I’ve made mistakes, however if you accept your mistakes and take responsibility for them, you can make amends. There are some people though, where the issue of honesty is not so black and white. In this case, it quite literally is black, there’s no denying it. So, here we are again with another infamous Missionary Mishap! In August of 2015, Jonathan McLatchie unleashed a xenophobic tirade, describing Muslims in Europe as a cancer. At that point in time, he was unable to clear his name, since video evidence was widely available. He never apologized or recanted his xenophobic views. Recently, Jonathan once again unleashed another xenophobic tirade, denigrating Caucasian converts to Islam.

The Muslim community continues to forgive Jonathan for his xenophobic views, and we do not ascribe his extremism to his faith. We do not hold Christianity responsible for Jonathan’s views. However, Jonathan seems to have found himself in another controversy. In his video denigrating Caucasian converts to Islam, he erroneously claimed that Khalid Yasin, the African American convert to Islam, was a white (caucasian) man. After repeated attempts at correcting him, Jonathan insists that Khalid Yasin is a white man. He even went so far as to claim he met Khalid Yasin to prove that he was a white man. This incident is indicative of Jonathan’s inability to correct himself when wrong. Jonathan refuses to acknowledge that he made a mistake.

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I’ve got news for Jonathan. Khalid Yasin is an African American man. He is not white, as is noted by the photo above. To assess Jonathan’s ability to correct himself, he was contacted via Twitter and he continued to affirm that he had not made a mistake, Khalid Yasin was a white man, and the proof was that Jonathan met him.

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In response to that, I too also met Khalid Yasin several years ago when he visited Trinidad at the IBN TV8 studios. I can assure Jonathan that Mr. Yasin, is indeed, not a white man. As proof, I also offer any image or video of the man himself. No one in the Muslim community can make sense of Jonathan’s inability to correct himself in the face of obvious and glaring mistakes. Even when the issue is as simple as the difference between black and white, Jonathan is unable to be honest or correct himself. If he cannot be honest for such simple matters, should he be trusted when it comes to theology? The answer is clearly no.

Should Jonathan correct himself, I will edit this post to reflect this. However, that is as likely as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

and God knows best.

Jonathan McLatchie Confuses Christians About the Trinity

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In what can be described as completely embarrassing, Christians are once again cringing at Jonathan McLatchie’s views on the Trinity. On the anti-immigrant blog hosted by the previously institutionalized David Wood, Jonathan recently posted a video of himself ‘explaining the Trinity’. In the comment section, one Christian absolutely condemns McLatchie as making the Trinity, ‘as clear as mud’.

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What makes it worse is that while Jonathan has been copy-pasting articles about Islam from Wood and Shamoun, and attempting to present them as his own research, the moment he touches on the subject of Christianity he finds himself being mocked and ridiculed by his fellow Christians (about his understanding of his own faith). It is thus, quite ironic that McLatchie in attempting to promote himself as a ‘Christian apologist’, but cannot even express or defend the Trinity, to the point that other Christians are ridiculing him for it. Peculiarly, Jonathan chose to ignore this criticism and to post other plagiarized articles from Wood and Shamoun, and failed to address this Christian’s criticism of his ignorance about Christianity.

This explains why he is focusing on Islam. Jonathan does not understand his own religion, and when it comes to Islam he is reduced to copying decades old arguments from Shamoun and Wood. He is unable to present his own ideas and research, he is left to plagiarise the works of others, and claim them as his own. This is a new low for Christian apologetics. It almost seems as if they are scraping the bottom of the barrel in some attempt to appease donors to Wood’s website. No new arguments, no new research, and the best they can do is to get an unqualified Christian xenophobe and polemicist to repost old articles while failing to get the Trinity right.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel indeed.

and God knows best.

Jesus and the Prostitute

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Question:

I have heard that the story of Jesus and the prostitute in John 8:7 is false, Christians claim that it does not affect their beliefs, can you explain this?

Answer:

This section of the Gospel attributed to John is commonly known as the pericope adulterae, it is absent from the best and earliest manuscripts: 66, 75, א, B, L, N, T, W, Δ, Θ, Ψ, 0141, 0211, 33, 565, 1241, 1424*, 2768. It should also be noted that it is calculated to be absent from the lacunae of codices A and C. In other words, it is a fabrication, inserted into Christian scripture. While missionaries may claim that this fabrication does not affect their beliefs, they would be greatly mistaken. There are many ways that this affects their beliefs, and we shall take a look at these reasons now.

To begin with, it shows the fallibility of their ‘scripture’. It demonstrates to us, that their scripture has been corrupted, and that it has the potential to include further corrupted statements. Thus, this directly affects their belief in the sanctity and preservation of their scripture. Some may claim that they were able to find this interpolation and identify it as a fabrication, thus the threat of corruption has been removed. However, this ‘identification’ took some 1500 to 1800 years to occur, clearly the Holy Spirit was sleeping during this time, as the larger world of Christendom believed in and used this passage to the point it became one of the most popular and well known passages of the Bible.

The passages about the adultress bring forward even greater problems. Let’s take a look at it:

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” – John 8:7.

Allegedly, Jesus argues that he without sin should stone her. Christians believe that Jesus was without sin, so why didn’t Jesus stone her? Either Jesus disobeyed the law of Moses (which he himself/ his father) revealed to the Israelites, or he was with sin and thus failed to meet his own criteria. Either way, this incident raises several disastrous points for the Christian faith. Jesus failed to fulfill the law, he clearly identifies himself as a sinner due to his inaction and it demonstrates to us his ignorance of the law he gave to Moses, as it was never a condition to be sinless for anyone to carry out the punishments stipulated in the Torah.

What’s worse, is that Jesus never once condemned the woman for her adultery (or as some believe, prostituting). She was clearly caught in the act, witnesses were available, and Jesus failed to condemn her infidelity. The only time Jesus condemns sexual immorality is in Matthew 5 when speaking about divorce. Thus, it is quite strange that when confronted with a clear case of sexual immorality, Jesus fails to condemn the woman. Rather, he chooses to dispute with religious law, the very law he (if he is a god) gave to the Israelites. Thus, it can be deduced that according to this passage, it was more important to argue about the law than it was to condemn a case of wanton sexual immorality. The Christian concept of Jesus, absolutely fails to address the woman’s gross sin, he is silent about it, he fails to condemn her sin.

In conclusion, this passage is perhaps one of the best gifts to mankind, as it gives us the opportunity to teach Christians about the fallibility of their religion.

and God knows best.

Jonathan McLatchie Attacks White Converts to Islam

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yahyasnow's avatarYahya Snow's Blog

Jonathan McLatchie, who appears to be writing for numerous blogs/websites nowadays, made some interesting comments on ‘white converts’ to Islam recently – he was  arguing the majority of white converts from Christianity to Islam are ignorant of Christian doctrine (he based this conclusion on two ‘white’ converts and a black convert who he mistakenly thought was white. I’m not too sure why there was such a focus on the white demographic but it became quite apparent that McLatchie had not bothered to even research the ‘white’ converts he was attacking. Or perhaps his research uncovered Khalid Yasin used to be white:)

Having said that his criticism was not consistent as Jonathan McLatchie openly admits the majority of church-goers are ignorant of the Trinity concept – thus it seems redundant for him to bash ‘white’ converts, from Christianity to Islam, for having a knowledge base on par with the average Christian…

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Is David Wood an ISIS Apologist?

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An apologist is one who presents a ‘reasoned defense’ of something, whether that be a faith, an ideology, an argument, a belief, etc. David Wood of the anti-immigrant, right-wing blog Answering Muslims, is a self-professed ISIS apologist (he defends ISIS’ beliefs), supporter (supports their theological beliefs as the ‘true Islam’) and recruiter (condemns Muslims who do not ‘truly follow their Islam’).

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David Wood 

For many years, David has repeatedly sought to defend and promote ISIS’ violent beliefs. He’s shared many of their common beliefs about the Qur’an and Islam. In a video published last year, David Wood sought to legitimize ISIS’ medieval and violent interpretation of the Qur’an by arguing that the terrorist group’s approach to the Qur’an was not only valid, but the most appropriate and most valid means of understanding the Islamic scripture. He further argued in the video, that ISIS’ version and brand of violent Islam, was the ‘truest form of Islam’, that ‘correctly represented the teachings of the Islamic Prophet’.

As can be seen in the above video, David, who is a career apologist in the interfaith community, attempted to justify and qualify ISIS’ actions and beliefs by appealing to the Islamic scripture. The video which has garnered over 250, 000 views is one of the very few ISIS videos used to defend and legitimize the terrorist group’s brand of Islam. ISIS supporters have traditionally attempted to legitimize their violent actions by re-interpreting the Qur’an and Prophetic Sunnah to suit their violent message. David’s video sought to legitimize ISIS’ actions by presenting a select few passages of the Qur’an and by providing his own interpretation of those passages within a violent context.

This ISIS recruitment video, which has been shared on YouTube, seeks to encourage Western Muslims to believe that ISIS’ faith is the correct faith to follow. David argues that Muslims who do not follow these violent interpretations of the Qur’an are actually failing to practise Islam properly. As an ISIS supporter, David rejects the notion of a true Islam, outside of ISIS’ teachings (in a debate with anti-ISIS Muslim Osama Abdallah, David argues that ISIS is the true Islam that Muslims must follow). Similarly, as an ISIS recruiter, David is against Muslim migration to Europe and the Americas. He shares the terrorist group’s belief that Muslims must stay in the newly created ‘Khilafa’, and that they must be rejected from entering Western nations, adhering to the belief that Western nations are Dar al Harb.

In an attempt to further legitimize and promote ISIS’ ideology, David justified the Paris attack by ISIS as a ‘true Jihad’. This however, should have been expected, as David had previously released a video teaching the ‘three stages of Jihad’, at one point in his video lesson he proclaims that the third and final stage is to practise terrorism against non-Muslims. These two videos are part of ISIS’ attempt to recruit Muslims who are following other forms of Islam, the traditional forms of Sunni Islam. David’s videos are ISIS tutorials on their approach to, and understanding of the Islamic scriptures and beliefs. As an ISIS apologist, legitimizer, and recruiter, David has perhaps the largest audience of them all. In a Twitter post dated December 4th 2015, David Wood posted another tweet endorsing and teaching the belief that Muslims must, ‘fight those who do not believe in Allah’.

It remains whether to be seen why David, despite his popularity as an ISIS recruiter, who openly teaches and shares video lessons about their doctrine, is being allowed to remain actively spreading ISIS’ message on social media. His video lessons about following the true teachings of ISIS’ brand of Islam are also being funded through donations. As recently as a few months ago, David openly called for donations to fund equipment for his recruitment videos. In one post he claims to have received over $1999 (USD), to purchase cameras to use in his debates, one of which he argued that ‘Muslims should be violent because the Qur’an teaches them to be so’ (see his debate, is the Qur’an a book of peace?).

As a Muslim who opposes the message, teachings and actions of ISIS, I am appalled at David Wood’s public legitimizing and defending of ISIS’ beliefs. I reject ISIS’ beliefs and consider them to be heretical, whereas David Wood considers their beliefs to be authentic and the ‘true Islam’.

and God knows best.

Donald Trump Wants Ban on Muslims

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Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential front runner recently proposed that Muslims should be banned from entering the United States of America:

“Without looking at the various  polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine,” Trump said in a statement. “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.” – CNN.

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Donald Trump

However, we do know at least one of the major motivating factors. Former Senator Warren Rudman who served on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1997 to 2000, and who co-chaired a bipartisan commission on national security, in an interview with PBS stated:

“These are fundamentally very, very sick people, who believe it is all right to take thousands of lives because they believe that their basic beliefs and geopolitical views are not being observed by the United States government.” – PBS.

“Are you telling me there are people who disagree totally with our foreign policy? You bet there are. You bet there are. And is it a potential contributor to this problem? You bet it is. Question: What do we do about it?” – PBS.

Former CIA intelligence officer Michael Scheuer, stated that events on September 11th occurred due to America’s “horrid” foreign policy strategies.

Special Supervisor with the FBI, Agent James Fitzgerald, stated:

“At the 12th and final public hearing of the 9/11 commission on 16 June, 2004, in Washington DC, a phalanx of senior law-enforcement and intelligence officials from the US government arrived to offer their testimonies. “You’ve looked [at] and examined the lives of these people as closely as anybody … What have you found out about why these men did what they did?” asked Lee Hamilton, the former congressman and vice-chair of the commission. “What motivated them to do it?” The answers to these questions were provided by supervisory special agent James Fitzgerald of the FBI. “I believe they feel a sense of outrage against the United States”, he said. “They identify with the Palestinian problem, they identify with people who oppose repressive regimes and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States.” – NY Times, The Guardian.

A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research further states that, “civilian casualties in Afghanistan at the hands of foreign troops creates enemies and causes people to become radicalised“. As the report itself states, “In Afghanistan we find strong evidence that local exposure to civilian casualties caused by international forces leads to increased insurgent violence over the long-run, what we term the ‘revenge’ effect.”

Therefore, it’s not a case of “we” having to determine and understand this problem, we already know what the problems are. The research indicates to us what the problems are. As a Muslim, while I myself reject and denounce the barbaric killing of innocents, there is a mountain worth of data available for anyone willing to understand why these attacks occur. His proposal therefore, is unadulterated rhetoric meant to pander to his audience. It has nothing to do with preventing terrorism, or with trying to remedy the issues that contribute to terrorism. His ignorance of the data, does not excuse him from his responsibility to make statements based on rational and informed thinking.

and God knows best.

Sam Shamoun Demonizes Dr. James White

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In light of a recent video being circulated regarding Dr. James White’s views on terrorism and Islam, and another video using Dr. White’s video by Br. Yahya Snow, Sam Shamoun has taken it upon himself to vilify Dr. White:

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Whether or not Sam deletes this post, or removes his insulting comments, his claim against Dr. White has nothing to do with the contents of White’s latest video on terrorism and Islam. Apparently Sam has been holding a vitriolic view of Dr. White for sometime, going as far back as maligning another Christian scholar Craig (not sure if WLC – bad Trinity analogy?, Evans or otherwise).

After encouraging his ‘fan base’ to attack Dr. White, it remains to be seen whether Sam will apologize for breaking some tenets of his faith:

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

1) A proud look,
2) a lying tongue, and
3) hands that shed innocent blood,
4) An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations,
5) feet that be swift in running to mischief,
6) A false witness that speaketh lies, and
7) he that soweth discord among brethren.

– Proverbs 6:16-19 (Sourced by Francis Turretin).

and God knows best.

Are there Chains of Transmissions for Early Patristic Witnesses?

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Question:

A Christian polemicist who previously compared Muslims to a cancer in Europe, and who denied that God inscribed the 10 commandments on tablets to Moses, has claimed that there is a chain of transmission linking the apostles of Jesus to the early Church Fathers. Is this true? How, do we respond to this?

Answer:

There is nothing to respond to. The author of the aforementioned article does not seem to understand the basics of hadith criticism, and reduces the science of hadith criticism to merely throwing some names together and linking them through obscurity. It should be noted that in reading that poor article, the author depends solely on one disciple and solely on one Patristic, with two extremely obscure quotes whose works we no longer have the autographs (originals) for. After several hundred words, the author could not sum his evidences to provide a basis for a single da’eef (weak) chain of transmission. Under hadith criticism, especially that of mustalah or rijal, the hadith sciences would have no other option to regard that claim of a “chain”, as nothing more than hearsay.

Regarding his quotes, Papias and Polycarp are said to have been contemporaries of each other. Eusebius in the 4th century, corrects Papias in his assertion that he knew John the apostle. It is disputed which John that Papias knew. If Papias and Polycarp were contemporaries, and the Christians of the 4th century couldn’t identify which of the four Johns he knew (John the apostle, John the elder, John of Patmos or a John with a combination of any of the previous identities), how can someone 2000 years later claim to make that identification for Papias’ contemporary, Polycarp? Furthermore, it should be noted that Polycarp himself not once quotes or references John the apostle in any of his extant writings, and Iraeneus who in the late second century recorded the claim that Polycarp knew John, heard this in his childhood. There are literally no other sources which can corroborate something that Iraeneus writing in the late second century, claims to have heard in his childhood, much less so from any of the extant writings of Polycarp himself.

The author of the aforementioned article, in a case of pure desperation attempts to quote Ignatius’ work to qualify the claim of early Trinitarian beliefs, whereas it should be known that Ignatius’ works are only survived through Eusebius in the 4th century, with absolutely no verifiable chain of transmission between the two. In other words, it has been demonstrated that the author himself is unfamiliar with the hadith sciences to the point he could not offer a single chain of transmission or the chain’s grading, or a jarh of any of the names mentioned in the overly lengthy article. His sole reliance on one obscure quote without any other witness or comment by Iraeneus himself, demonstrates the desperation of the author to forcibly create an instance of a chain of transmission. In my debate earlier this year, I consulted with a New Testament Professor and a scholar of the hadith sciences to examine the chains of transmission in the early Church. A basic summary of the results of our labour can be found in that debate:

It is clear that the author of the article was not attempting to present a studied argument. Due to the nature of the blog he posted the article to, it can thus be deduced that he was pandering to lay-Christians with no scholastic interest in either Christianity or Islam. I forwarded his article to both the New Testament Professor and hadith scholar I worked with on examining Patristic chains of transmission, and both of them replied quite negatively. Another brother, who discussed this topic with a prominent Christian New Testament scholar and historian, also replied negatively to the claims in the article (not to the article itself). I have not sought permission from any of these persons to reproduce their comments on this website. Should the case arise for me to do so, I will, with great pleasure. However, it is saddening that the Christian author has chosen to align himself with an anti-immigrant polemicist, whose venom Dr. James White in a recent video attempted to dissuade Christians from endorsing. It would then seem, that the author is more interested in pandering to a racist crowd, that conforms to his views, than to do objective, intelligent and honest academic research.

In this article, using a single criteria from the hadith sciences, I demonstrated that the New Testament does not meet the criteria of a da’eef (weak) narration.

In this article, using a single criteria from the hadith sciences, I demonstrated that none of the New Testament literature, can be validated or verified as being from Jesus ‘alayhi as salaam or his apostles, since none of the alleged transmitters can stand up to rijal al hadith.

and Allah knows best.

 

 

Does Isaiah 9:6 Ascribe Divinity to Jesus?

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Question:

Missionaries claim that Isaiah 9:6 refers to Jesus. They state that this proves he is God. How do we respond to this?

Answer:

Let’s begin by quoting Isaiah 9:6 –

For a child has been born for us;
a son has been given to us.
And the dominion will be on his shoulder,
and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Missionaries tend to focus on one aspect of the text, the terms “son” and “Mighty God”. However, a quick look at the text proves that this passage does not refer to Jesus. The child has already been born, the verb is in the past tense, “has been born”. Since Jesus had not yet been born, then this disqualifies him from being the subject in the passage. Furthermore, it is said that the child would be called, “everlasting Father”. Since Jesus is the Son, and not the Father, then this passage most certainly does not refer to him.

The missionary might claim that the term, “everlasting Father” is just a description of divine attributes, not meant to be taken literally. In that case, we need to ask, how can that be when you have already interpreted the title “Mighty God”, literally? Either you accept the text as is and interpret all the names figuratively, or you interpret all of them literally. Thus, this verse is not a proof text for the divinity of Jesus. It is a proof text against the divinity of Jesus and most Christians do not read this passage carefully or sensibly.

and Allah knows best.

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