Category: World Religions

Book Plunge: Jesus and the Jihadis

What do I think of Craig Evans and Jeremiah Johnston’s book published by Destiny Image? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

ISIS. Go back in time a few years ago and the most any of us would think of would likely be that Isis was the name of that Egyptian deity. Now ISIS is a household name, but we’re not thinking about an Egyptian deity. We’re thinking about an Islamic one. ISIS represents the Islamic State declaring war on the rest of the world with the desire to turn the world over to Islam. They are ready to die for Islam and not only that, but they are ready to see to it that you die for Islam as well. They are a group bent on your destruction and the sad reality is you probably don’t really realize how much of a threat they are.

Is this just a radical offshoot of Islam out of step with historical Islam? According to Evans and Johnston, no. In fact, if Muhammad were alive today, he would not only join ISIS, but he would in fact lead it. To show this, the authors go back in time and give a brief history of the origins of Judaism and Christianity and then compare that to Islam. On this journey, you will learn a good deal about the historical Jesus and especially the way that archaeology has impacted our understanding of the New Testament. This is important because the constant contrast in the book will be the person of Jesus with that of Muhammad and then the contrast of YHWH and Allah, the Bible and the Koran, etc.

The writers also give plenty of frightening statistics about the way that ISIS is growing. These people have a lot of money and they know how to use social media well. You no longer have to leave the comfort of your own home for ISIS to train you. Nope. You can live a normal life here in America and be training secretly in the comfort of your own home to be a Jihadist. This makes it extremely difficult to find out who is and who isn’t a threat to our security in America. Jihadists show no signs of stopping and indeed, they won’t stop until all the world is converted to Islam and as many of us have seen on the news, they don’t have any hesitation to kill you if they think you stand in their way.

This book has a fitting section also about Luther’s Koran at the end. Martin Luther in fact supported the man who wanted to print a copy of the Koran in the Latin of the people because Luther thought that every Christian needed to learn the Koran so they could know how to answer Islam. Luther said this even though he himself had never encountered a Muslim. If it was needed then, it is needed all the more today. One of the reasons Islam is spreading so much is that Muslims are more than willing to die for their faith. If only the day will come when Christians are as willing to live for Jesus as Muslims are willing to die for Allah.

I found this book to be extremely eye-opening and I hesitate to say more because you quite frankly need to read it yourself. We live in a culture where Christians are at war and most of us are walking around like it’s 9/10/2001.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Addendum: I was given a free copy of this book by Jeremiah Johnston for the purposes of review.

Book Plunge: Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.

What do I think of Nabeel Qureshi’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Imagine growing up a Muslim all your life and being taught Muslim beliefs all your life and having that thoroughly interwoven with your family life. Your family wants you to grow up to be a good Muslim and one who will share the perceived truth of Islam. This was Nabeel Qureshi’s life until he went on a trip once and met a friend who happened to be reading the Bible and for the first time, he encountered someone who actually could give some pushback to what he said. Nabeel began a quest to show his friend the truth of Islam. Instead, as the book title shows, he ended up bowing his knee to Jesus Christ.

I wish to give a disclaimer at the start. While I do seek to avoid bias in a work, I know many of the people involved in this book. I consider Nabeel a friend of mine. I know David Wood as well and consider him a friend and I know his wife too. (I know Nabeel’s wife too, but she isn’t mentioned much in the book as his wedding is more part of an epilogue, but she is a wonderful woman.) Nabeel also shares about his time that he spent with Mike Licona and Gary Habermas. Licona I am related to by marriage and Habermas is a friend of ours as well having introduced me to Mike’s daughter and then having married us. I ask the reader to know I am striving to go by content.

Nabeel’s book is just a fascinating book to read as it is full of good information, but it is also written in an exciting story fashion. Nabeel draws you into his family life and how he grew up and he explains Muslim terminology along the way. Nabeel grew up in a family that had great respect for religion and at the same time, they were a family that many of us would not mind having as neighbors. They were grieved by the actions of 9/11 and often were just trying to raise up their children in the Islamic faith out of their great devotion to it, including Nabeel’s Dad going with him to a church play when a friend invited him and joining him for a dialogue with Licona and Habermas. The family was one with great love for Nabeel.

Nabeel then goes on a trip and meets a friend there who his mother can tell is a good young man Nabeel should spend time with. That friend turns out to be David Wood and that is where the story really kicks off. When the two friends got to their hotel room, Nabeel saw David reading the Bible. Nabeel was quite stunned seeing as he’d never seen someone read the Bible as it were, for fun. (How many of our lives could be different if some people saw us reading the Bible?) This led to Nabeel going to his evangelism to try to convince David that the Bible had been changed. The problem for Nabeel was that this time, it didn’t work. David had his answers ready asking Nabeel where he heard that claim before and if he could give examples.

Still despite their religious disagreements, the two managed to maintain a strong friendship. Nabeel saw this as absolutely essential for his conversion. It was the kindness that David showed him in powerfully, yet gently, answering his questions and asking good ones of his own that got him thinking. David eventually invited Nabeel to join him to meet Mike Licona and Gary Habermas for a dream team meeting to discuss the historical Jesus. Nabeel brought his dad for the first one he went to and his dad presented the swoon theory. Nabeel saw his Dad as one of the most powerful debaters he knew.

And his star fell that night.

This started Nabeel looking at the data for Christianity and he had to admit it was convincing. The evidence for the resurrection is especially powerful, but Nabeel is not convinced as he tells David. Islam has much better evidence. David’s up for the challenge and says there’s another meeting of minds at Mike’s house before too long and it’s not just Christians, but seekers of all paths that are there. Why not come? In fact, Nabeel can come and give a case for Islam. Nabeel is thrilled with this and goes to give his presentation only to find out that his case doesn’t really stand up with Mike asking Nabeel how he knows the stories about Muhammad are accurate.

So Nabeel goes back to his studies again and this time decides to study Muhammad. He does not like what he sees and this from Muslim sources! When he looks at modern sources, they ignore these problematic passages and looking online doesn’t provide him much comfort either. Maybe the Koran can stand up better. Turns out for Nabeel, it didn’t. This left him in a tailspin wondering what exactly he should do.

That’s when he prays for God to show him what to do and as commonly happens in the Muslim world, Nabeel gets dreams. These dreams are incredibly convincing and end up with Nabeel finally converting.

You might think I’ve told you everything. I really haven’t. The content of the book and watching how the dialogues take place are everything. This is a book that is one that you do not want to put down. The chapters are brief enough that you could read one in a small sitting and then save another one for later. You will also not get bogged down by a lot of complex terminology. There is also a lot of good humor thrown in. I read some of the book in a very public place and as it turns out, started laughing out loud at a number of parts.

Most importantly, Nabeel ends with a real look at grace and what it means for evangelism and this is something I know he lives out. He also shows the pain that this had on his family to which we should all seek to pray for Nabeel’s family that they might come to see that God has revealed Himself in Jesus. Knowing Nabeel personally, I know that he prays for those who are outside the fold, including people in ISIS, and there can be no doubt that his family is on that list. Reading the book in the end will give you a greater wonder and appreciation of the grace of God, which I’m sure would please Nabeel.

In the end, there are also several smaller chapters written by people like Mike, David, Gary, and others. These give the reader a little bit more information and insight into Nabeel.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is an excellent, enjoyable, and informative read. Why not pick it up from our Estore today?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/19/2015: Rob Bowman

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s a nice Saturday morning and you’re sitting at home when you hear the doorbell ring. You go and open the door to find two men dressed in nice black pants and white shirts and with black name badges saying that they are elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Who are these people? They are awfully nice to most of us, but are they really Christians? They’re normally known as Mormons and much of their history has had an air of mystery all around it.

Some of that mystery has recently been unveiled. The Mormon church has released photos of the seer stone used by Joseph Smith in supposedly translating the Book of Mormon. What does this mean for Mormonism today? What do Christians need to know about it? What do Christians need to know about Mormons overall? While I have had an interest in Mormonism before, being in Charlotte and being regularly visited by them and debating them on TheologyWeb, it’s not the area I focus on, so why not bring on someone who knows more about Mormons? That someone is someone who was on the show early on and is coming back for his second visit. That is Rob Bowman.

So who is Rob Bowman?

Rob Bowman

And according to his bio:

Robert M. Bowman Jr. is the executive director at the Institute for Religious Research in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The organization’s website is IRR.org. Rob has lectured on biblical studies, religion, and apologetics at Biola University, Cornerstone University, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of about over sixty articles and the author or co-author of thirteen books including Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ and Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending the Christian Faith. He holds the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in biblical studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and South African Theological Seminary.

The story of the stone is really big news coming from the Mormon church and this gives us a good chance to discuss this movement. We will talk about the history of Mormonism from this point. We could get into discussions on the nature of the golden plates. After all, many critics of Christianity say that the golden plates were seen by eyewitnesses just like the risen Christ was said to do and these eyewitnesses supposedly did not recant their testimony. Is that accurate? What are the likely ramifications of the Mormon church for this? What do we see happening in the future of Mormonism and how can Christians best answer and prepare to answer the Mormons who come to their door?

I hope you’ll be tuning in to this episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast as we talk about Mormonism and what the latest news means for Christians and for Mormons alike. Rob Bowman is a highly diligent researcher in every topic he discusses and you won’t be disappointed hearing him.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Rediscovering Jesus

What do I think about the new book from Rodney Reeves, Randy Richards, and David Capes published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Rediscovering Jesus by Capes, Reeves, and Richards is a surprising read. Now I had read this book shortly after reading Rediscovering Paul so I was expecting something like that, but that isn’t exactly what I got. At the start, I was kind of disappointed hoping to find more about the culture of Jesus and especially looking at Jesus from an honor and shame perspective. That disappointment was only initial. As I got further into the book, I found myself quite intrigued and fascinated by what I was reading in the book and I found the idea for consideration a fascinating one.

This idea is to look at Jesus in isolation from the major sources that we have, such as the Gospel writers individually, the Pauline epistles, Hebrews, the general epistles, and Revelation. What would it be like if each source was the only source we had on Jesus? We usually take a composite of all we have on Jesus and then put that together and say this is the real Jesus. There is no fault in this, but looking at each case in isolation can be an interesting case study. Imagine how different our worldview would be if the only source we had on Jesus was the book of Revelation?

While these are fascinating, there is also a second section where we look at Jesus from other sources. What about the Gnostic Jesus such as popularized in works like The Da Vinci Code? What about the Jesus of Muslims who never died on the cross? What about the historical Jesus of modern historians who do not hold to the reality of miracles? What about the Mormon Jesus that looks like a Jesus made just for America? Speaking of that, what about the American Jesus as here in America, Jesus is used to promote and sell just about anything. Every side in every debate usually wants to try to claim Jesus. Finally, what about the Cinematic Jesus? Many of us have seen Hollywood movies about Jesus. Some are good. Some are not. How would we view Jesus if all we had were those movies to watch? (And since so few people read any more, this could become an increasingly common occurrence.)

For me, honestly the most fascinating section was the one on the American Jesus. This dealt with so much I see in my culture. It’s interesting we don’t talk about the French Jesus or the Japanese Jesus or the Italian Jesus. It’s more the American one. This one changes so much to being the super manly Jesus who takes the world like a man or the Prince Charming Jesus that every girl sings about as her boyfriend. This can be the pragmatic Jesus who is there to help us promote our culture, or it can be the Superman Jesus who rescues us when we’re in need, but then disappears. I do have to admit I am a Superman fan so I could see the parallels very easily and while I do think there are valid parallels, we do not want to see Jesus as identical with Superman. If there’s any chapter in the book I keep coming back to mentally, it’s this one. I will certainly be watching my culture much more.

I find this book to be one of the most eye-opening ones I have read in that sense. I do not think I ever paused to consider what it would mean if all I had to tell me about Jesus was just one particular source or one kind of source. How much richer off we are for having all these other sources! We can also be thankful for the non-Christian sources as well because these can highlight aspects of the Biblical Jesus that we might have lost sight of or they could show that the Jesus of the Bible is so much greater by contrast. If an outside source says something true about Jesus, we are the better for it. If it says something false, this can contrast with the true and we are the better.

I recommend the work wholeheartedly. It fortunately also comes with questions at the end that make it ideal for small group discussion.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/8/2015: Win Corduan

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We all know the story of civilization. That ages ago savages lived in fear of animistic gods. Slowly these gods became more and more dignified and powerful in the eyes of the people with the traditions evolving as it were. Then we get to a polytheistic system like the Greeks and Romans had. After that, society reaches the peak in deities and goes to monotheism. Of course, some think that this goes a step further when the people realize that there is no need for even the monotheistic deity and move straight to atheism. This is the story of the history of mankind that we all know.

Or do we?

According to Winfried Corduan, we have it wrong. Who is he?

Win Corduan

Dr. Corduan was born in 1949 in Hamburg, Germany. In 1963 he moved to the U.S. and in 1970 got a B.S. in Zoology at the University of Maryland. He went on to earn a Master’s in philosophy of religion at Trinity Evangelical Divinity school and got a Ph.D. in Religious Studies at Rice University. From 1977-2008 he was the professor of Philosophy and Religion at Taylor University, and retired on disability in 2008 as Emeritus professor of Philosophy and Religion. He is the writer of books like Neighboring Faiths, No Doubt About it, and In The Beginning God.

The last book is the book that we will be discussing on the show. Corduan contends that when we get back to the earliest traditions of primitive man, that we find that they did believe in one monotheistic deity. Now of course, they could have other beings out there that were non-human entities, like Christians, Jews, and Muslims believing in angels, but only one has the right to be called “God formally and that is the supreme being of these religious systems.

The book is a thorough and entertaining look at the subject and as you can imagine, I have reviewed it here. The reader will not get lost in highly technical details too much and will find that this is a quite interesting area and in many ways, one that we do not really discuss too much in apologetics circles but one that is certainly worth discussing.

I will be asking Dr. Corduan about the history of this kind of research. If we are Christians today, why does it matter how we start out as long as we know that today there is one God? Were the leading pioneers in this area arguing for an original monotheism simply Christians just letting their bias dictate their research? How is it that we can even do so research to get back to what people believed thousands of years ago? Wouldn’t it have changed over the years?

These are all questions on a topic that as I said, we don’t really talk about much, but maybe we should. That will be for you to judge after you hear the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast when I interview Dr. Winfried Corduan. I hope you’ll be watching your ITunes feed.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: In The Beginning God

What do I think of Dr. Winfried Corduan’s book published by B&H Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“In The Beginning God”. Most of us upon hearing that think “Created the Heavens and the Earth. Yeah. We know. Can we move on?” Dr. Corduan’s book doesn’t want to move on. It wants to stay right there in the beginning, but what beginning? This time not the beginning of the universe, but the beginning of religion. Today, much of the world is monotheistic, but how did we get to that point? Did religion just evolve from a primitive state of animism all the way up to the point where eventually one God came out to be supreme and now many of us today are monotheistic? Or, did religion start out as monotheistic and men moved away from that until later on, we returned to it?

Of course, when we say that religious systems have evolved, it must be clear that this is not saying anything about the scientific theory. For the sake of argument, it could be that scientific evolution of non-life to life in a sort of theistic evolutionary sense could be true and Dr. Corduan’s argument in this book is entirely correct as well. The truth of Corduan’s argument does not rely on that. However, he does want us to realize that evolution being true in one field does not mean that it will necessarily apply in every other field. (In fact, it would seem a whole plethora of gods would be much more complex than one major deity.)

For the research of this book, it will involve looking at the traditions of tribal peoples around the world and seeing what they believed. We will also look at those who have been impacted by Christian missionaries to see if missionaries might have changed any of the beliefs of these people on these major areas. We will also see if the evidence is being allowed to change the ideas, or if the ideas are changing how the evidence is viewed. Corduan will contend that too often the latter is happening. For this, Corduan will rely especially on the work of two in the field, one a Christian and one not. The Christian is Wilhelm Schmidt and the non-Christian is Andrew Lang, though Lang was open to something that would be called “supernatural.” (Regular readers of my writings know that I do not like to use that term.)

Corduan contends in fact that when Lang and Schmidt did the work to show an original monotheism, that their work was for the most part ignored. Of course, it could be for Schmidt that since he wrote around 11,000 pages that few people took the time to read. Corduan also shows that it would be wrong to think that missionaries showed up and changed a central core belief of the people and that the people then left everything else intact. What happens more often is that sometimes other gods can get added later on or other spirits in an animistic sense (Monotheistic religions do believe in other spiritual beings after all like angels and demons), that when you start talking about the one supreme God, that they know who you’re talking about.

Corduan’s book is highly accessible and entertaining. I do wish to thank him also for sending a personal review copy. I had read a recently re-released work of Schmidt’s, but I must say it’s easy to get lost in the jargon of Schmidt and Schmidt wrote as if everyone was familiar with the people in the field. That’s understandable, but it makes it difficult for those of us who do not know the names in the field. Corduan’s work gives you a history of the field and introduces you to the major names. It also ends with the importance that this can have for Christian apologetics with some cautions as well on what we can and cannot say.

I found the work to be highly interesting. If anything, I would have liked to have seen more on what other cultures believed that we don’t hear about regularly, but I know that wasn’t the purpose of the book and probably would have expanded it greatly to an unnecessary degree. For those curious about this kind of area, this is a work that you can enjoy. It’s got good information in it, but you won’t likely get lost in technicalities save for perhaps a few areas.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Closing of the Muslim Mind

Is there any way to penetrate it? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Recently, a friend of Deeper Waters got a new Kindle and sent me his old one. In it, I found some books he’d already included, with some being on Islam. One book on the list was “The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created The Modern Islamist Crisis.”

In my years of apologetics, I have debated several kinds of people. I have debated Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, Christians on disagreeing issues, and no doubt several others. Yet I have been constantly dumbfounded by what I see coming from Muslim debaters.

Is it because their arguments are so good?

No. It is because generally, they are consistently so terrible.

This is not to say that there aren’t intelligent Muslims out there who can make arguments. There are. It is to say that there is a general trend in this area. The reasoning, or lack thereof that I see, is just simply stunning. It is difficult to get a Muslim to follow an argument, to see how to analyze claims, and quite often a Muslim has taken the most simplistic arguments, claimed the opponents were unable to refute them, and then gone off crying victory.

An example of this is debates I’ve had lately on textual criticism. 1 John 5:7 is trotted out as not being authentic (Which I agree with) and therefore, the text is corrupt and there’s no argument for the Trinity at all. Now it could be the Trinity is wrong for the sake of argument. It could be for the sake of argument that the text is corrupt. A simplistic argument like this does not show it. In fact, when I tried to debate my opponent on this one I asked him if he knew what a gloss was only to get the answer “gloss?” In other words, we have people arguing on the basis of textual criticism and it is clear, they have no idea what it is. Instead of seeing arguments, I consistently see just YouTube videos. The only people cited as sources are people like Deedat and Naik.

Keep in mind also, Islam is a faith that denies that Jesus Christ was crucified. The crucifixion of Jesus is one of the surest facts of history. If you go to NT scholars and deny that Jesus was crucified, you will not be treated seriously. You will be seen as a joke amongst them.

Yet in the past in history, there were Muslims like Avicenna and Averroes. These were giants of intellectualism who should be seen as the people that Muslim apologists would want to emulate today. The sad part is few if any have probably heard of them and those who have would most likely consider them heretics.

Reilly’s contention in the book is that this is a result of a war between the Ash’ari school of Islam and the Mu’tazila school. The former held that the Koran was uncreated. The latter held that it was created. The former school is the school that won out with such writings as “The Incoherence of the Philosophers.”

What happens as a result? There is a bifurcation in Islam between faith and reason. Allah becomes a will. Occasionalism reigns, which means that Allah becomes the direct cause of everything. There can be no natural law because that would imply that humans can reason to truth apart from the Koran. There can be no science because that would lower Allah and make him work through intermediary causes. The reason things work is because it is the will of Allah. The reason for a moral law is that it is the will of Allah.

And we wonder why it is so hard to spread Democracy to a Muslim country.

Furthermore, if reason will not work, then what is left? Violence. You cannot use peace. You must use the sword. Reilly gives several quotations that explain this. It is an in-depth look at the history of Islam and the way it is today. Reilly wants to know why Muslim countries aren’t flourishing. Why are we not seeing profound science, literature, and economic developments in Muslim countries? It is because of the theology at the heart. Note he does not say it is because of the Koran. He does not say it is because of Allah. He does not say it is because of Muhammad. He says it is because of a certain understanding of Islam.

Now in saying all of this, I 100% agree that Islam is a false faith. I do not think Muhammad was a prophet for a second. Still, I do not worry about what Jews will do in the future. I do not worry about Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses or Buddhists or Hindus. I do about Muslims. Why? Because of what I see going on today with the rampant violence, and this book does a great deal to explain it. I have great concerns over a position where reason is not used. (I also have great concerns when Christians take the same mindset)

Hopefully, as Reilly argues at the end, we can see some reform in the Islamic faith so that they will return to a way of reason. Perhaps they will still hold to the Koran. I would love to see them come to Christ instead, but if they hold to the Koran, at least there will be reasoning about it and not a total commitment to violence. Perhaps. There are some lights in the Islamic world wanting to lead the way. Let’s hope they are not snuffed out.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Robert Reilly’s book can be found here