Category Archives: Islam

Miroslav Volf on The Paul Edwards Program

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Miroslav Volf was grew up in Communist Yugoslavia the son of a Christian pastor. He is Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

He joined me for an extended conversation about his new book, Allah: A Christian Response in  which he makes several (seemingly) controversial assertions:

    • What the Qur’an denies about God as the Holy Trinity has been denied by every great teacher of the church in the past and ought to be denied by Christians today.
    • A person can be both a practicing Muslim and 100 percent Christian without denying core convictions of belief and practice.
    • How two faiths, worshipping the same God, can work toward the common good under a single government.

The audio of my interview with Dr. Volf is linked here:

volf_040511.mp3

 

Is Miroslav Volf the next big controversy in evangelicalism?

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Miroslav Volf is a respected theologian and scholar at Yale Divinity School. HarperOne has just published Volf’s Allah: A Christian Response.

If you thought HarperOne set evangelicalism on fire with Rob Bell’s Love Wins, note this from their website promoting Volf’s book:

Writing from a Christian perspective, and in dialogue with leading Muslim scholars and leaders from around the world, Volf reveals surprising points of intersection and overlap between these two faith traditions:

    • What the Qur’an denies about God as the Holy Trinity has been denied by every great teacher of the church in the past and ought to be denied by Christians today.
    • A person can be both a practicing Muslim and 100 percent Christian without denying core convictions of belief and practice.
    • How two faiths, worshipping the same God, can work toward the common good under a single government.

Miroslav Volf is my guest today at 5:15pm ET.

Free Speech wins in battle over bus ads in MI

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From the Thomas More Law Center Press Release: A Michigan Federal Judge yesterday ordered a Detroit-area transportation authority to display an anti-Jihad advertisement on its buses. Judge Denise Page Hood granted an injunction request filed by the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) to reverse the bus authority’s refusal to display the ads, which state, “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you?  Leaving Islam?  Got questions? Get Answers!”

. . . . . . . . . .

In the past, SMART had no problem running an anti-religion ad sponsored by an atheist organization that stated, “Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.”

Full story here

(HT: Religion Clause Blog)

Religion Writer slams Patriots, defends Islamists

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UPDATE: Mark Steyn is my guest today at 4:00 pm ET to discuss this post.

Bob Smietana is a free-lance religion writer. The Tennessean recently ran his hit-piece on conservative organizations who dare to expose the connection between Imams and their mosques in America and radical jihadist organizations like Hezbollah.

Smietana targets not only pro-American organizations who are leading the charge against radical Islam, but he also slams conservative Christians, implying that both “portray themselves as patriots,” but in reality its just about money.

Steven Emerson has 3,390,000 reasons to fear Muslims.That’s how many dollars Emerson’s for-profit company — Washington-based SAE Productions — collected in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The payment came from the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, a nonprofit charity Emerson also founded, which solicits money by telling donors they’re in imminent danger from Muslims.

Emerson is a leading member of a multimillion-dollar industry of self-proclaimed experts who spread hate toward Muslims in books and movies, on websites and through speaking appearances

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

While large organizations like [Steven] Emerson’s aren’t the norm, other local and national entrepreneurs cash in on spreading hate and fear about Islam.

What is shocking about the piece is Smietana defining these organizations as nonprofits acting as “front organizations.” While there is overwhelming evidence that many Mosques in America are indeed front organizations for terrorism, Smietana  believes we have more to fear from patriotic Americans than we do the real enemy who flew planes into our buildings on 9/11.

Pew Poll: Americans say lawmakers should be religious

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According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 61% of Americans say it is important that members of Congress have strong religious beliefs. 51% of Americans also say that churches should keep out of politics, though 43% indicated the church has an obligation to express its views on social and political questions.

The survey also reflects that President Obama’s “Muslim Problem” still persists, with 18% of Americans stating they believe the president is a practicing Muslim. Only 34% of Americans believe the president is a practicing Christian, down 14 points from March 2010. Wow.