Dr Paul Allen

Islam has been called a Christian heresy for centuries — first by the Church father  St. John of Damascus , an Arab Christian who lived during the Muslim conquests. Other notable Christian thinkers since —  Martin Luther ,  Hillaire Belloc , and  C.S. Lewis  among them —have agreed. Why? Because Islam’s founder, Muhammad, and the compilers of its holy book, the Quran, clearly cribbed from the Bible — both the  Old  and  New Testaments , as well as the  apocryphal “gospels ” that didn’t make the canonical cut.  In fact, a great  many biblical figures and events turn up in the Muslim holy book ,  as well as in  hadiths  — extra-Quranic sayings attributed to Muhammad. These figures include Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jonah, John the Baptist, Mary, and Jesus—but in the Quran, they’re all given a quite different spin.  Raymond Ibrahim deconstructed the Islamic Mary recently; a s for her Son, Muhammad’s  `Isa  litt...

“Wars will continue to flare up between sinful human beings as long as they live in this fallen world, in which Satan is at work…. Christ himself declared there would continue to be ‘wars and rumours of war’ [Matthew 24:6]…. Only when he returns in glory to bring this world to its end and fully subjugate Satan will war cease.” So says The Lutheran Study Bible, “Divine Warfare,” p. 376. That doesn’t mean we have to like it. We must acknowledge that we’re stuck with warfare, hoping and praying to keep it manageable. But that’s a tall order at the moment, considering that nine countries now hold a total of 12,000 nuclear weapons. The Current Top 10 Most Deadly Conflicts Granted, Russia and the U.S. hold more than 90 per cent of those 12,000 weapons. But as tensions escalate around the globe, that’s hardly reassuring. Here are the most violent conflicts currently being waged around the planet, with their minimum estimated fatalities over the last two years: Russia vs. Ukraine: 98,000 Israe...

The entire world has seen how powerful the LGBT movement is. They’ve managed to insert their victim status into every aspect of life and turn it into a glittery display of “diversity and inclusion.” In a parade of French historical moments of liberation, the finale of the Paris Olympics tableaux made one thunderous political statement: “They’re here. They’re queer. And we’re supposed to cheer.” Billions of people didn’t feel that way. The Olympics are supposed to be uniting, but this year’s host country decided to divide, dismiss and denigrate. It started with men dressed up as caricatures of women being given the Olympic torch. It continued with its dismissal of heterosexual love as it frolicked through scenes with a (more than suggested) bisexual threesome, to which the official Olympic X account said: “The freedom to love is no less sacred than the freedom to think.” What if someone’s thinking about paedophilia? What if someone’s thinking about incest? Not everyone’s version of “lov...

For a spot sacred to countless billions throughout history, Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been the site of a lot of bloodshed. When the site was first awarded sanctity cannot be known. Prehistoric peoples may have venerated pagan gods on the hilltop and the tradition continued, in changing forms. Or perhaps, it was made holy when the Jerusalem Temple was built by King Solomon, as the Bible says. We cannot even investigate when the site was first settled: Excavation is impossible both because of the holy sites now on the Mount, and the unrelenting political tensions. With material evidence scarce at best, two main camps have developed in biblical archaeology. One takes the bible literally and believes King Solomon constructed the First Temple there in the 10th century BCE. But based on what archaeological evidence there is, the second camp suspects that Jerusalem in Solomon's time was a small hilltop village, and that the site that would come to be known as Temple Mount wasn't e...

A Korean Christian and three nationals of India are in jail in Uttar Pradesh state, accused of conversion attempts while distributing food and other aid to people in need due to COVID-19 lockdown, sources said. Under a new “anti-conversion” law that focuses on Muslim marriages to Hindus, it has been used as payback with Hindu who hate the Christian gospel message of love and grace. The confusing legislation ent into effect in Uttar Pradesh state, India on Nov. 28, police arrested 50-year-old Mi Kyung Lee of Seoul, South Korea and the three others on Dec. 19 in Greater Noida, Gautam Buddh Nagar District, said the aid organizer, Raj Kumar Masih. Masih has organized relief aid to thousands of people since obtaining permission from the Additional District Magistrate on March 23, setting up distribution centres in various areas and at his church site, he said. Among the beneficiaries were Anita Sharma and Muksi Gupta. As Gupta knew who needed aid in her neighbourhood, Masih sent two Indian ...

During the Reformation, the advance of the Muslim religion was very much “in the news.” The advancing Turkish Ottoman Empire, which reached its height in the early to the mid-sixteenth century, posed an unnerving political and military threat to European Christendom. Even though the armies of Europe turned back the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1529, the fact that the forces of Islam had made it that far left Christian Europe “severely rattled” for decades to come.1 Thus, while primarily doing battle with the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformers also gave occasional attention to Islam. In addition to explaining the nature of Islam, the Reformers pondered what lessons God wanted the church to draw from the advance of “the Turks” (synonymous then with “Muslims”) upon an outwardly Christian people. As we’ve just recognized the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, we find ourselves troubled by these same questions. It seems timely to ask, how did the Reformers view Islam...

"True Islam is a religion that wholly rejects all forms of terrorism."  So says an online pamphlet put out by the  True Islam Campaign . The pamphlet lists ten other truths about "true Islam," including "True Islam believes in the equality, education, and empowerment of women," "True Islam encompasses the universal declaration of human rights," and "True Islam recognizes no religion can monopolize salvation." Each truth is accompanied by a page or so of the text providing verses from the Koran and other Islamic sources to support the assertion. The True Islam Campaign says that it hopes to counter the menace of extremism which, it says, is fueled by ignorance of Islam. Thus: Extremists like ISIS depend on ignorance of Islam to grow. That's why the more people know about Islam's true teachings — and what Muslims truly believe — the less they'll fall for ISIS's propaganda. The pamphlet even comes with an invi...