Tag: Abdu Murray

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/14/2018: Abdu Murray

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

If we went back a few decades, we would find many debates still, though not as common likely, and all of those debates would still have each side thinking there is an objective truth and it is worth knowing even if we can’t know it for whatever reason. Today, it’s not the same. We live in a world where truth is seen as just a matter of personal opinion. Feelings determine what you believe more and more.

Go on social media and you will often see people sharing stories. These stories are not even checked for accuracy. Many of them have been hoaxes. Some of our government officials have even shared such stories before thinking that they were true. People have had to ask if the Onion or the Babylon Bee can be fact-checked.

This has also come over into the realm of sexuality. Sex has been reduced to something that is more feeling-oriented instead of having a real purpose in society. We have reached the stage where people think they can mutilate their bodies and do whatever to them to match the true identity that they feel.

I don’t know how many times I have seen the story of a person who is married with kids and then leaves it all and proclaims himself a homosexual. Stories suddenly come about saying that this person has found their true self. It’s strange that those stories never work in the reverse when a person goes from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

How do we handle this? To discuss this, I’m having on Abdu Murray. He has written a book recently called Saving Truth. He will be my guest as we discuss it and what can be done to restore the concept of truth.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Abdu is the North American Director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and is the author of three books, including his latest book, the bestseller, Saving Truth – Finding Meaning and Clarity in a Post-Truth World.  For most of his life, Abdu was a proud Muslim who studied the Qur’an and Islam.  After a nine year investigation into the historical, philosophical, and scientific underpinnings of the major world religions and views, Abdu discovered that the historic Christian faith alone can answer the questions of the mind and the longings of the heart.

Abdu has spoken to diverse international audiences and has participated in debates and dialogues across the globe.  He has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and televisions programs all over the world and hosts the podcast Embrace The Truth with Abdu Murray.

Abdu holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School.  As an attorney, Abdu was named several times in Best Lawyers in America and Michigan Super Lawyer.  Abdu is the Scholar in Residence of Christian Thought and Apologetics at the Josh McDowell Institute of Oklahoma Wesleyan University.  

Abdu lives in the Detroit, Michigan area with his wife and their three children.

I hope you’ll be listening for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. Please also consider going on iTunes and leaving a positive review. I really enjoy seeing them! Thanks for being fans of the Deeper Waters Podcast!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Saving Truth

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

Murray is writing about a situation that I have thought for a long time has plagued the church. It is that we live in a post-truth society. Nowadays, the truth doesn’t even matter. How someone feels about a claim matters or how well it serves an end-game is what matters.

This isn’t the fault of the world alone. The church is also to blame. The church determines truths based on feelings just as much as the world does. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard about doing something as you “feel led.”

There’s also the fact that Christians can just as easily spread false information. Last night, I had to deal with a family member who shared a news story that I could tell in less than a minute was false. Going further, I found that the website also held to the idea that 9-11 is an inside job. Yep. Real reliable source there.

I get greatly bothered when I see something like this happen. We have the job of trying to convince people that Jesus rose from the dead, a fact that they cannot check the veracity of immediately, but we will so easily share stories that can be easily seen as fake? Doesn’t that damage our witness of the Gospel?

Murray also writes about our misunderstanding of freedom. We think by freedom that there is a certain something that has no hold on us. That is true to an extent, but it like saying being literate means that you can decipher symbols in an alphabet. Yes, you can, but you need to able to do more. You read so you can learn much more that there is to learn. You read so that you can be a better person.

In the same way, you are free not to pursue whatever you want to do, but you are free so that you can pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful. You are free to live for something greater than yourself. Freedom is not about you get to do whatever you want, but you are free to do as you should.

Murray also talks about issues of human dignity, what does it mean to be a human? Do we treat human beings as objects more in this day and age? What about issues of abortion?

Issues of sex and gender are definitely on the stage. Murray begins this chapter with a question a woman asked in an open forum about Christianity and homosexuality. It dominates the landscape in this chapter as Murray keeps thinking about it. Murray deals with the purpose of sexuality and questions relating to transgenderism as well. What does it mean to be a man or a woman?

Murray also deals with questions of science and of pluralism. Both of these are issues that strike our epistemology. Science is seen today as the only way to truth. Pluralism is seen as rude and exclusive.

There are many issues discussed in Murray’s book. Each of them in itself is worthy of a book-length work. Murray’s book is a good look at these topics and often shared from the perspective of an ex-Muslim who had to realize that truth mattered more than anything else.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Reclaim America And Bad Research

How should we look at claims about our enemies? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Politically, I am a conservative. I have always been one. Despite that, I have also tried to be as honest as I could. My own father had a problem in the past of sending out an email blast to a bunch of people or sharing something on Facebook about Obama and I would do five minutes of checking and find out that it wasn’t true. My stance was always we should aim to defeat our political opponents, but we must always do so in truth. This thread is not about politics though.

What I am doing I would hope anyone would do. If you are a Trump supporter for instance, do what I do and check claims on people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and also check positive stuff about Trump before sharing it. If you are of the liberal persuasion. Check the reverse. Make sure that negative story about Trump is true.

I find this interesting also in light of going through Abdu Murray’s Saving Truth now where he talks about a post-truth society. In this society, we will share something even if it isn’t true and even if we know it isn’t true because it goes against our opponents. For those of us who are Christians, this should never be the case.

So there is a page called Reclaim America on Facebook. Sadly, I have written about them before with bad research. I wasn’t surprised to see that there was more of the same. The about of the Facebook page says this about them.

“Our mission is to speak truth to the lies of the Progressive Liberal Agenda! This page is kept current with information by the team of administrators that run it. God Bless the USA & those that seek to defend her!”

Fair enough. If you think liberals are spreading lies, then you should want to combat them. However, if you think lying is a problem, shouldn’t you make sure what you share is true?

So yesterday, I am surfing Facebook and I see this picture. I want to say upfront that I do not like profanity and the only reason I share this is because I want to be as accurate as I can. Anyway, this is what was shared.

Now immediately, several people are posting about what an awful woman Hillary is. As a conservative, I am no fan of Hillary and I do understand some things. First off, Hillary does have a reputation of being foul-mouthed, including around the Secret Service from when she was in the White House. Second, we do know that there were leaked emails. On the face of it, this could be plausible then.

But darn it, I have this tendency. I want to check up on things. There’s a date to this email and there’s a specific quote. It should be easy to find.

Except it isn’t. In fact, I find an incident from September 7 that matches it. This is one where Hillary said the exact same thing out loud at a Matt Lauer interview.

There is also another source out there that is doing the same thing. I found this video doing my search. For them, they had an email from someone with a Comcast email address. The original page I linked to about the incident had an NBC associate producer as the source. None of this is backed by anyone else. No specific names are given. Nothing.

So we have a claim with different dates and different sources and different forums. It leads me to think that this whole thing is bogus. Now keep in mind, a lack of evidence does not mean that it is necessarily false. Perhaps something like this did happen and no one reported it except a few isolated individuals, but I’m skeptical.

Even if it’s not necessarily false, there’s still no positive evidence that it is true. Now someone did point out emails went through Bleach Bit. Okay, but if that’s true, then how did we get those emails so we can know what is in them? Furthermore, if you point a specific date and no one can find an email on this date that has this, what are we to think?

Now if Reclaim America or anyone else can find this email, I will gladly retract this and issue an apology. Until then, I am skeptical of this whole thing. For those of us wanting to be people of truth, it doesn’t help our cause if we spread things so easily that anyone can see is not necessarily true.

As a conservative, this bothers me, but as a Christian, it does so even more. If you have no reason to believe something I share based on five minutes of checking, why should you believe it when I tell you that the Son of God came and rose from the dead which will take much more time to research and study? I have already damaged my witness by that.

It’s my hope that not only Reclaim America but anyone involved in debate will learn even more to check claims. Whatever side we want to serve in a debate, let’s try to serve it truthfully. If we don’t want false claims shared about our side or unprovable claims to be shared, let’s make sure we do the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 6/7/2014: Abdu Murray

What’s coming up on the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Worldviews are one of the most important aspects of who we are and few of us ever take the time to think about ours. What is your worldview? What does it mean to have one? It’s simply the lens through which you view reality. The question that you need to ask yourself is if your worldview is really capable of answering the hard questions.

Or maybe if your worldview can even answer one Grand Central Question.

Grand Central Question. That sounds familiar. Why yes! That’s the name of the book that’s by my guest on this next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. His name is Abdu Murray. (For those wondering about last week’s, it is recorded but we’re working on getting it online. Want it to come from the studio so you can hear immediately and also call in? Well we need the donations to keep that going.)

So who is Abdu Murray?

Abdu Edited 3

According to the bio Abdu sent me:

“Abdu is the President and co-founder of Embrace the Truth, an apologetics ministry dedicated to engaging non-Christians with the credibility of the Gospel in ways that touch the heart and the mind and equipping Christians to do the same.
For most of his life, Abdu was a proud Muslim who studied the Qur’an and
Islam. After a years-long investigation into the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the major world religions and views, Abdu discovered that only the evidence for the historic Christian faith could withstand the toughest challenges.

The results of Abdu’s intense search, coupled with the Lord’s
drawing of his heart, led him to put his faith in Jesus as the one and only Savior.

Abdu has spoken in numerous venues both in the United States and
internationally, including universities, churches, training centers, and
conventions. He hosts Embrace The Truth with Abdu Murray, a radio show heard on WLQV AM 1500 in Detroit and worldwide on the internet and podcast.

Abdu is an Adjunct Apologist with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and is the Visiting Professor of Christian Thought and Apologetics at the Josh McDowell Institute of Oklahoma Wesleyan University.

Abdu lives in the Detroit, Michigan area with his wife and their three children.”

His book is looking at the question of materialism, pantheism, and then why Christian theism. The best part is the look at Islam. My review of the book that he wrote can be found here. If you ever engage with Muslims who are disparaging Christianity, the information that is found in this part of the book is going to be incredibly helpful.

I hope you’ll be interested in hearing what is going to be going on in this podcast. It will be a revealing interview from someone who left the Muslim faith and came to the Christian faith. I am pleased to count Abdu Murray as a friend and I am happy to be able to spread the word about his book. Please be sure to listen when the podcast becomes available.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Grand Central Question

What do I think of Abdu Murray’s book? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Murray has written an interesting apologetics work coming at it as an attorney and as a former Muslim. That brings a unique combination as Murray knows how to argue and handle evidence. He in fact often starts by presenting the case that the other side has given and then responds to how that side is lacking in what it states. All of this goes around the idea of the Grand Central Question. The theme is that each worldview claims to answer such a question and that overall, the Gospel does a better job of answering the claims.

The first position that he goes after is secular humanism. With this one, the question is asking if there is a purpose to life, which also gets to questions of morality. Murray agrees with a view that I’ve had about atheism in that too often, it looks like atheists have moral worldviews that are just floating in the air. I do however disagree with Murray’s response to the Euthyphro dilemma. When we say that God is the good, it ends up still providing no content to what goodness is. If God = good, how does that tell me what goodness itself is? It’s just saying “God is good” but not explaining what is meant by that. Does that mean the same as saying that the pizza I had for lunch is good or that my wife is a good woman or the book I’m reading is a good book?

Still, that would be the main criticism that I have which means the rest of the material in this section is quite good. I would say with this and other sections that Murray’s work is just a start, but it turns out to be a good start.

The next worldview is the pantheistic worldview. In this, he deals with Hinduism, Buddhism, scientology, and various proponents of New Age thought like Eckhart Tolle. The question to ask is about the question of suffering. What is the solution? The pantheist solution that Murray sees is to say that suffering is an illusion and we need to realize our own divinity and overcome the illusion of suffering. Yet Murray is certainly right in that this answer rings hollow, particularly in the face of those who have suffered severe loss, such as the loss of a child.

It is when we get to the final part that in fact, Murray shines the brightest and this is in contrasting Islam and Christianity. Murray comes at this from the position of someone who was a devout Muslim who used to argue against Christians using the classic arguments such as the idea that the Bible is corrupt and has been changed. What was most shocking to him is that in studying the Koran, he found that the interpretation he had of the Koran could not allow that possibility. The more he compared the Koran to the Bible, the more he found the Bible to be reliable.

The question then to ask is “Whose God is greater?” Now I don’t hold to the idea of Greatest Possible Being theology, although I certainly hold that God is the greatest being, but it is an important question to ask with a Muslim who bases their whole life on God being the greatest. Murray argues that if they want to hold to a God who is great, it would be better for them to recognize who Jesus is and to learn about the greatness of a God who exists in Trinity. In my opinion, this response to Islam is the best part of the book as Murray uses his own experience and research directly.

Murray’s book is a good start. One won’t find all the answers here, but for an earnest seeker, one will find the answers to some of their questions.

In Christ,
Nick Peters