Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Turning Muslim in Texas

I'm having difficulty embedding this video to my blog. So here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CjJVIiHC20

It's a shocking video. But I think it's indicative of the failure of American evangelical culture, especially in the recurring comment made by converts that they found in Islam everything they wanted in the Church.

9 comments:

Joseph said...

Dan,
This is very interesting. I remember an article you wrote a few years back titled something like "The Koranic reading of the Bible".??? It was very good. The God of Islam fits so well with pop Evangelical Christianity in America since Islam is very simplistic, moralistic, and gives you a list of five things you need to do to be saved. You also won't be bothered by difficult doctrines like the Trinity. There is much more here than I have said but it is not too much of a stretch to imagine a future Muslim America. Maybe you can post your old article?

Acolyte4236 said...

When I was at TAMU I met a convert to Islam. he was manning a booth distributing Islamic literature. He was picking on some poor baptist kid who didn't know which end was up. So being the soul of tact that I am, I went up and injected myself into the conversation.

He was initially agressive in his arguments, which were pretty basic-anti-Trinitarianism, -anti-Incarnation, plenty of attacks on theopaschism, you know, all of the major doctrines of Christianity that most evangelicals have pretty much no real grasp of.

It was obvious that he had no real familiarity with any Christian sources beyond the 20th century. Anyone familiar with the Summa or Church history could have cleaned his clock.

After seeping aside his objections and posing some of my own to the Quaran (like known alterations in the text) his attitude changed. He kept trying the "we all beleive in the same God" line, to which I replied "Oh you believe in the Trinity now?"

After a few conversations over the next few months, it became obvious that his faith in Islam was shaken sine he never met a Christian who could defend core Christian teachings previous to our meeting. He didn't want to talk anymore.

Charlie J. Ray said...

Converting to Islam is bad? What about converting to Roman Catholic? Or to Eastern Orthodoxy? I guess departing from Evangelical/Protestant understanding of orthodox doctrine isn't an issue.

Anonymous said...

One's Christian duty should be to depart from Evangelical/Protestantism to the degree that it has departed from the faith of the undivided church.

Thomas said...

It is interesting to see Evangelicals, who have always identified Anti-Christ with Roman Catholicism, come face to face with Christianity's real historical antagonist.

Dan Dunlap said...

"...AND CONVERT!"

Next time finish your statement, Thomas.

Good insight.

Doug said...

This is a scary video series. The late Great John Paul II once said that the greatest threat to the Christian Faith is radical Islam. I do not mean to offend, but I agree with him. I can see the appeal for these guys in Islam if it is compared with American Evangelicalism.

Dan Dunlap said...

Indeed, so can I Doug. The cafeteria choices of superficiality, individualism, blatant showmanship and personality-cults offered by American Evangelicalism are enough to give any serious seeker of divine transcendence heartburn.

Doug said...

Mark, that is hilarious. Which Teletubby is he, though... I think we may have another Meme...