Browsing: Missionary Deception

As Salaam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,

I recently watched a debate between Shabir Ally and John Gilchrist, which took place in Benoni Town Hall, Benoni, South Africa on the 25th June, 2009. As I was watching, I started to write a comment for the video on YouTube but I quickly ran out of my allotted comment characters. I then open Word to write something up and share on here. It was going to be my thoughts on the entire debate. I had lots to write but parenting got in the way and I abandoned it.

I was disappointed in Shabir’s lack of killer instinct (and a few other things). Niceties are fine but we must also have the courage to speak forcefully. I say this because even though John’s responses were absurd the Christians in the audience were clearly energised. I am assuming that was not the goal of the IPCI (who hosted the event).

In that debate, however, was a lesson for the Muslim wishing to understand the view many Christians have of their own book. Often we Muslims try to project our expectation of perfection on anything that is claimed to be from Allah ta’ala. I think it is a fair expectation to expect a perfect God to produce a perfect book for guidance. Christians have no such expectation, they can’t afford to with such an error ridden book as the Bible.

Christians employ various methods to deal with the problem of an imperfect book. The most common of these methods might be the choice to remain ignorant, which would be the easiest way to deal with it. If you are unaware of a problematic verse then there is no need to reconcile it with your religion. I have been criticised by Christians for reading Christian commentaries of the Bible and that position was justified on this blog by another Christian. The reason for this criticism should be clear. The more you dig, the more problems you uncover. It is essential for the future health of Christianity that the Christian masses remain ignorant.

While ignorance is the most common it is not the only method, by far. It is not my intention to go through each of the methods that I have experienced but it might be a useful discussion to have in the comments area, if anyone feels so inclined. I do wish to write about the method employed by John Gilchrist. I want to discuss it because Shabir Ally made no attempt to refute them and for the Christians it was convincing enough that Shabir Ally’s words appeared to have little to no effect on them. Moreover, his method was extremely devious and indicative of the lengths that Christian leaders go to to cover up the weaknesses of the Bible.

During Shabir’s convincing, yet a bit too academic, opening statements he listed several contradictions in the Bible and then made the familiar claim by Muslim daiees that because these errors, contradictions and absurdities exist within the Bible, the Bible is unreliable as a proof. He then demanded proof that could substantiate the unreliable Biblical claim they were debating. None was forthcoming.

In response John claimed that these were not contradictions but rather contrasts. Each author of the Bible is showing a different aspect of Jesus and so they focus on different things surrounding those same events. It is true that if you read the Gospels in the New Testament you will get a drastically different picture of who Jesus was but how does that explain those things that are seemingly contradictory? Relabelling them contrasts does not absolve them of error. What for example were the last words of Jesus? Was it before or after passover when he was killed? Did he speak or not on the way to his crucifixion? And there are many many more questions we could ask but I hope that these will suffice.

John attempts to answer this problem by relating the story of the Titanic ocean-liner that sank on its maiden voyage. Eyewitness accounts from survivors varied on whether or not the Titanic sank in one piece or two pieces. The majority claimed one and a small minority claimed two. After investigation it was discovered that the Titanic broke into two pieces but because of the way it sank it appear to many to have sunken in one piece. So you can see that neither group of the witnesses were lying and they both were telling the truth from their perspectives. Likewise the authors of the Gospel are telling the story from their perspectives.

Since when does God deal in relative truth? The Titanic survivors might not have lied but the majority of them were wrong. The Titanic sank in two pieces, not one. Likewise, it is impossible that Jesus both spoke and remained silent at the same time. We might absolve the authors of the Gospels of lying but we cannot absolve them from the error that is found on the pages of their accounts. God is not limited by the circumstances that surround events. He knows the absolute truth of everything.

Was the Bible inspired by a god who couldn’t differentiate between relative and absolute truth or did he intentionally mislead the authors to write false statements?

John mentioned that there is no way to verify the statements of the authors of the Gospels because we can’t dig them up and question them. However, we were able to ascertain the real truth about the fate of the Titanic because we were able to question survivors and later we were able to descend and view the Titanic in two pieces on the bottom of the ocean.

The irony is that the Titanic has little significance and there is less significance on whether it went down in two pieces or one and yet God choose to preserve the truth regarding that event but He wasn’t bothered to preserve His Bible.

John’s deceit is clear. First, he relabels the contradictions as contrasts and then he reduces the Bible down to relative truth. John’s position effectively destroys the Bible of any value as a book of guidance because the guidance of God must be absolute. That is the only way that mankind would be able to navigate the pitfalls of life in a manner that is pleasing to God.

I invite you all to the absolute truth of God, His Quran and His noble prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam. I invite you all to the light of pure monotheism and true guidance. I invite you all to Islam.