Fr. Zakaria Botros Winning Hearts and Minds for Christ

 Some of my gentle readers may have noticed that I am a Christian.  I fled the local Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation because of the ELCA caved to the current nihilist culture, while the LCMS so far is standing firm.  I have written about that in the past, so won't rehash it here.  But I do urge anyone who is in a church body that substitutes man's thinking over God's scripture, to run as if the Devil were chasing him, or her.  My point here is that confronting Muslims by bringing up their failure to abide by the secular standards of the West will not convince them.  Their God, and their scripture do not abide the West's secular culture.  Frankly, there is much these days that Christians cannot abide either.

So it is that, Raymond Ibrahim. at the American Thinker yesterday had an interesting story telling us This Octogenarian Priest Is The Bane of Islam. Fr. Zakaria Botros is a Coptic Christian priest who understands the Islamic scripture, perhaps better than most Muslims, speaks Arabic, and is thus able to counter Muslim lies with Christian Truth. He has won many Muslims over to Christ. And he is quite open about telling Muslims that Allah is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Creator of everything that is, the Christian God, but Satan himself!  So often, we whisper that among ourselves, but we should be shouting it from the rooftops.  And no, Muslims don't like it, but he is uniquely placed to tell them what they need to hear.

What a world of difference there is between anti-Islamic polemics emanating from the secular West and those emanating from the religiously charged Arab world itself. This is the thought I have whenever I watch Arabic-language programs and debates, which tend to have an unrestrained and animated quality.

Fr. Zakaria Botros, first introduced to non-Arabic-speakers in this 2008 article, is an especially appropriate case study. Originally a Coptic Christian priest from Egypt turned polemicist and evangelist, since around 2000, he has become a major thorn in Islam's side, as evidenced by the many calls for his assassination.

Zakaria appears on a satellite channel, al-Fady TV, where he regularly takes Islam to task, primarily by asking tough questions concerning many of its most authoritative texts (Koran, hadith, sira, tafsirs, etc.) and teachings. And I don't mean the tough questions that we're familiar with — for example, if Islam is a religion of peace, why is the Koran inundated with violence and intolerance? No, he has dug into even the most arcane of Islam's books (almost all of which have not been translated out of Arabic) and unearthed some immensely problematic revelations.

Please read the whole article. Fr. Botros is successful because he is able to reach Muslims where they live, and speaks to them in ways they will understand. Readers who may not be Christian may scoff "There is no God; Satan doesn't exist." Yet the evidence for the existence of God is all around us, and I have written about it in this blog. And if God exists, Satan does too.

In the same way that the Bible is the Word of God, the Koran and the Hadiths are the words of Satan. Note the differences. The Bible has one consistent message-God's plan for the salvation of mankind. The Koran's message changes as circumstances change. God does not condone lying ever, although Abraham lies to save his own skin. The Koran encourages lying if it will advance the cause of Islam. There are, in fact, so many such differences that one must question whether the two books were inspired by the same being. I have concluded they were not.

 One other thing I must comment upon, while on this subject, is the incredible similarity of the tactics of the Left and of Islam. I have often thought it was strange that the Left seemingly wants to glorify Islam by calling it the religion of peace, while destroying Christianity. If the Muslims ever gained ascendency, the Left would be among the first to lose their heads. Similarly, if the Left gains ascendency, as in China, the Muslims are persecuted and killed, like the Muslim Uyghurs. But both employ the same tactics to get what they want.  This suggests that both have the same source.

 Note, though, that I do not speak or write Arabic, so I have trusted others who do. One source has been Robert Spencer's Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins. Spencer has many books and articles on Islam, by the way.  If you read this book, I think you will come away believing as did Thomas Jefferson, that Islam like its author, has no Truth in it.