Though I know he’s out of favor these days, and I’ve learned not to trust his account of modern philosophy as much as I once did, I still must confess a great debt and greater admiration for Francis Schaeffer; though I might have learned the presuppositional approach to apologetics from Cornelius Van Til or other figures in my own Reformed tradition, I learned it from Schaeffer, and I’m deeply grateful for that.For those not familiar with this approach, here’s a very brief summary, taken from the Wikipedia article: “The goal of presuppositional apologetics . . . is to argue that the assumptions and actions of non-Christians require them to believe certain things about God, man and the world which they claim they do not believe. This type of argument is technically called a reductio ad absurdum in that it attempts to reduce the opposition to holding an absurd position.” I appreciate this approach both for its recognition that none of us ever really starts from a neutral position—we all begin with a particular point of view, from a particular standpoint—and for its understanding that we can’t “prove” the Christian faith simply by piling evidence on people; we need to take their standpoints, their worldviews, more seriously than that.This is, I believe, the best way to contend for the Christian faith in any context, but especially in the Islamic world, given the nature of the Muslim faith and its view of non-Muslims; which is why Fr. Zakaria Botros is such an amazing and critically important witness to Christ. A Coptic priest and Arabic TV personality, Fr. Botros challenges Islam in its own language, on the ground of its own teachings, from its own texts.
Each of his episodes has a theme—from the pressing to the esoteric—often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes—always careful to give sources and reference numbers—from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet—the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present—the illustrious ulema.Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open—and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,”—“evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains—not shout-downs or sophistry.More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence—which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros’s conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him—which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous—and authentic—hadith stating that women should “breastfeed” strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time. A leading hadith scholar, Abd al-Muhdi, was confronted with this issue on the live talk show of popular Arabic host Hala Sirhan. Opting to be truthful, al-Muhdi confirmed that going through the motions of breastfeeding adult males is, according to sharia, a legitimate way of making married women “forbidden” to the men with whom they are forced into contact—the logic being that, by being “breastfed,” the men become like “sons” to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them.To make matters worse, Ezzat Atiyya, head of the Hadith department at al-Azhar University—Sunni Islam’s most authoritative institution—went so far as to issue a fatwa legitimatizing “Rida’ al-Kibir” (sharia’s term for “breastfeeding the adult”), which prompted such outrage in the Islamic world that it was subsequently recanted.
Islamic leaders have proven unable to challenge him, because he’s beating them on their own terms; combined with Fr. Botros’ presentation of the truth of the gospel, the result has been millions of conversions to Christianity every year. There have been threats against his life in consequence, but he will not back down, and so far, no one has been able to make him. A billion cheers for Fr. Botros, indeed.The success of Fr. Botros’ flank attack on the Islamic world, coming as it does at the same time as the frontal assault Pope Benedict XVI launched with his Regensburg address in 2006, highlights an important point: the West cannot answer Islam by purely political means, whether military or diplomatic. Indeed, Islam cannot be addressed on any sort of secular grounds, because the liberal secular mind does not understand religion. As Spengler argues and as the case of Magdi Allam demonstrates, the West can only respond effectively to the Islamic challenge by returning to its Christian (and thus Jewish, and thus Eastern) roots, because “one does not fight a religion with guns (at least not only with guns) but with love” (a point made also by Chuck Colson) The great struggle for the soul of the West against Islam, though it surely must involve military efforts at times against the likes of al’Qaeda and Hizb’allah, will most basically be a struggle for the souls of individual Muslims, and thus for the lives of those who seek to leave Islam for Christianity. To quote Spengler,
Where will the Pope find the sandals on the ground in this new religious war? From the ranks of the Muslims themselves, evidently. Magdi Allam is just one convert, but he has a big voice. If the Church fights for the safety of converts, they will emerge from the nooks and crannies of Muslim communities in Europe.
The parallel he draws to the conversion of the pagans who overran the fading Roman Empire is a compelling one; those tribes conquered Europe, and thus the Western church, but the church in turn absorbed them by conversion. Faith conquered where military power failed. The key, as Wretchard points out, lies in your presuppositions, the foundations of your life, and having a place to stand that you know is worth standing for.
Challenging Islam’s roots requires the challenger to have an irrational [or better, superrational] loyalty to roots of his own. Faith is a special kind of information that arises from providing answers to questions that are undecidable within our formal logical system; that lie beneath the foundations of our civilization rather than in a development of its precepts. It lies within our choice of axioms rather than the theorems that arise from them. And because axioms cannot be proved, “our way of life” will always rest on prejudice—or if you will—faith. Like Camus, we can never rise completely above all our attachments and still retain our capacity to act.
HT: Presbyweb, BreakPoint
As Skarbutts points out in Faith Against Faith, there is no belief system that lacks faith.
A belief system based solely upon the science of reason is more limited than a system based upon faith in a Creator, in that, man as the exclusive source of knowledge is limited. Since a materialistic system of thought seeks to exclude things that cannot be verified, gaps in knowledge are created which must be bridged in order to be logical. This creates a paradox, for to fill these gaps in knowledge, the materialist must resort to faith. The faith of the materialist, however, is an antifaith. His thought process is not in the spiritual but the in the physical. He is, therefore, forced to manufacture knowledge based on circumstantial evidence, or create and rely upon theories and assumptions in order to connect pieces of knowledge and arrive at any explanations. These explanations often tend to create even more questions which in turn demand an even greater faith from the materialist. Thus, in many cases, the materialist is no less believing, no less devoted, no less fanatical, nor any less evangelical than his religious counterpart. When an idea gains enough traction in intellectual circles it becomes widely accepted as a reality; therefore, many things that are treated as fact are unknown to man.
In other words, there is no practical reason to choose the secular outreach over the religious one. A religious belief system is complete where a secular one is not (as Skarbutts proves), and the fundamentalist Islamic belief system is nothing if not complete. You cannot replace a complete belief system with an incomplete one. The incomplete belief system will not hold if challenged.
If we set as our goal the conversion or moral neutralization of the Idolaters of Jihad, or the whole of Muslims, there is no good reason to choose the lesser goal. Failed neutralization does not reduce the number of Jihad-worshippers in the world. But a failed conversion might still neutralize. Likewise, reaching out to all Muslims will necessarily include Jihad-worshippers as well as those who do not idolize Jihad, and will reduce the human ocean in which the Jihad terrorists travel.
Reach for the star, and you might reach the moon.
Very well put–thanks. It’s the biggest reason, I think, why Christians need to be careful not to see Islamic groups and nations like al’Qaeda, Iraq, Hamas, and Iran solely in political terms; such a point of view skews us toward “choos[ing] the secular outreach over the religious one.” That’s problematic not only in Christian terms but, as you note, also in political ones (especially in the case of Iran).
Bookmarked this. Thank you looking for sharing. Unequivocally worth my time.