Bridge of Reason

  Over the years I have heard countless Christian testimonies. The person sharing their testimony (sometimes called a conversion story) talk about how they became a Christian. Their testimony will usually involve a before, an after and how Jesus has changed their life. Testimonies also play an important role in both Mormonism and Islam; but unlike the Christian testimony of conversion, their testimonies serve a very different purpose. The Mormon Testimony I have discovered that Mormon Missionaries like to bear their testimony. They usually do so in response to a challenge from a Bible believing Christian. But what is the Mormon testimony? A testimony is a spiritual witness given by the Holy Ghost. The foundation of a testimony is the knowledge that Heavenly Father lives and loves His children; that Jesus Christ lives, that He is the Son of God, and that He carried out the infinite Atonement; that Joseph Smith is the prophet of God who was called to restore the gospel; that ...

  I recently attended a course entitled ‘Who is My Neighbour?’. We spent three days looking at the beliefs, teachings, and practices of Islam. During the course we had a tour of a Mosque and had three Muslim ladies visit us to share how their faith shapes their lives and way of thinking. It was all very interesting. The programme was designed to help Christians better engage our Muslim neighbours with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we shared about what we had learned, I realised that I got something from the course that no one else did. The more I heard about the beliefs and practices of Islam, the more I thought to myself that Mormonism is Islam in disguise. This is the first in a series, where I will compare and contrast the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with those of the Islamic religion. Mormons and Muslims ‘ Elder Carlos E. Asay of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-da...

  It was a friendly enough discussion. We found ourselves agreeing on several things. We both believed there was only one God, who is the creator and sustainer of the Universe. We agreed that God is Sovereign and that the world He had created was in a mess. Surely, there would soon come a time when God will act, a time when the righteous and the wicked will be raised to a final judgement. He was keen to point out to me that, along with Judaism, we were all ‘People of the Book.’ He said: ‘We ‘Abrahamic’ religions have much in common and we need to stick together to overcome the world.’ I liked this Muslim. He had a zeal and a passion for God with a real desire to obey the one who, according to him, will ultimately decide whether he has done enough to enter paradise. After commending him for his desire to honour God and follow truth, I asked him a question: ‘Who is Jesus?’ His eyes lit up, and he went into a frenzy of excited explanation. A PROPHET ‘We respect and honour Jesu...

Ramadan is approaching and Muslims will be fasting and spiritually searching. As Christians, we should be ready to give a reason for the hope within us with meekness and fear. We should consider how we can share the gospel in a way that is understood and, at the same time, make an effort to comprehend where those from the Islamic faith…… read more →

This is a very disturbing documentary for, amongst others, the following reasons (from most to least obvious): Racism is alive and punching in the UK The abolition of corporal punishment has proved disastrous Islam is an incredibly destructive force The BBC1 documentary follows two British Muslims who go undercover for eight weeks, posing as an Asian couple in a Bristol housing estate. They are constantly abused, harassed, sworn at, racially slurred, sneered at, subject to missiles of glass and brick, threatened, mugged, reduced to tears and actually physically thumped. It makes one sick to be white and British, and stiffens one's resolve (if it needed any stiffening) against the BNP and Nick Griffin's slippery attempts to sanitise its inalienably racist platform. Firstly, then, the most obvious conclusion is that racism is not dead in the UK, despite Trevor Phillips' assurance that nobody has a problem nowadays living next door to someone of a different ethnicity. Mancunia...

C4 Sunday 16 August 2009 7pm Revelations: How do you know God exists? Written and produced by Anthony Thomas An arresting opening image: a burning effigy on a busy western city street. We try to figure out what it is- some religious protest against the Mohammed cartoons, perhaps? As it turns out, it's a model of a banker. In commencing his contribution to the Revelations series, Anthony Thomas may be trying to show how materialism has failed as a concept, and that as western capitalism turns on itself, religious solutions to man's dilemmas may begin to reemerge. Thomas chooses five leaders from major world religions (Judaism, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism and Hinduism) to explain to him and the viewer how they know there is a God. The five men (and they are men, as my wife dryly observes) are Jonathan Sachs (chief rabbi of Orthodox Jews in the UK), Rowan Williams (Church of England Archbishop of Canterbury), Vincent Nichols (Catholic Archbishop of Westminster), Tari...

The Big Questions , BBC1, Sunday 28 June 2009, hosted by Nicky Campbell. This fascinating discussion began with Campbell asking the one woman in the studio with a burka why she wears it. Throughout the programme, she consistently maintained that it was an expression of her own personal choice, and that she was not under duress in any way. Nevertheless, she did say that she wore it because certain scholars said so. Campbell's opening 'googly' bowled the poor woman for a duck. His question: If men and women are equal, why shouldn't men cover their faces too? No answer. Even more interesting was the tirade from the moderate Muslim preacher who insisted that the burka is a pre-Islamic cultural item of dress, which is a relatively new introduction in the UK. He was angry about the infiltration of Saudi Wahhabism and its non-Qur'anic dress codes. He asked several times where the words 'niqab' and 'burka' were in the Qur'an, and criticised the Hadith as...

Most will be aware now that the new head of religious broadcasting is a practising Muslim. This excellent comment in the Daily Mail by Stephen Glover seems to sum it all up. What do you think?

  “- People need an explanation of religion. I do not say that it's necessary to make all children pray. They will start praying when they realize religion. But they are obliged to know about religion - about Islam, about Christianity. If a person knows about religion, no matter whoever has approached him, it will not misdirect him.” So said the new Russian Patriarch head of the Coordinating Center of the Muslims of the North Caucasus Ismail Berdiyev speaking on the issue of interreligious dialogue in that area and the problem of what he calls “extremist literature”. He expresses particular concern about Wahabism an extreme form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia although there is general concern about both Muslim and Christian sects and cults moving into the area. Foreign missionaries are being monitored and: “The regional Council on religion recommended regional executive board and local municipal authorities, public associations and religious organizations to...