Today’s Broadcast

Top Christian Apologist and Polemist to Islam comes to Dearborn

Jay Smith is a noted evangelist and apologist to radical Muslims at Speakers’ Corner in London. “Jay has a Masters degree in Islamic studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and is currently working on a Ph.D at London School of Theology. Jay is an expert in Christian-Muslim Apologetics, having worked with Muslims for [over] 23 years. He is famous for his unique evangelistic ministry. Every weekend he leads dozens of Christians to the Speakers Corner in Hyde Park in London, where they meet with hundreds of Muslims face to face, to make friends, answer tough questions, debate the latest research and ideas, and share their faith.”^[1]^ Smith heads up Hyde Park Christian Fellowship, and emphasizes the use of Polemics with Muslims, over Apologetics.

Today’s Broadcast

You can be right, but wrong in how you say it!

You can be delivering truth, but if you are not saying it in love, then you are wrong.  I love the phrase that I was taught in my youth, “You are seldom persuasive, if you are abrasive.”

If your mission is to offend and spew out your hurt and hate about Islam, then you will do what Reuben Israel did last Friday.  However, doing so will  cause many Muslims in the US to never give Christians a voice to communicate the gospel to them.  It will drive them to be resolved to hate Christians and Christianity.  Many of the Muslims that were throwing water bottles, crates, and eggs at these ‘Christians’ were just 10 or 11 years old.  These children were being threatened and provoked by those who called themselves ‘Christians’.  This is not the image we want to show as true Christians.

You may be interested to know that I have a Christian critic who says that I am as much to blame and equally offensive to Muslims because I speak the truth to them.  He would rather that no one speak the truth  and expose Islam’s sordid past and autocracies.    He says just speaking about it is offensive to Muslims.  I guess he would rather it be like this:  IF, after being examined by a doctor, he was found to have cancer, he would rather the  doctor NOT tell him the bad news.  Instead he would rather the doctor candy coat the news and give him a lolly pop as he sends him on his happy way.

I find this quite interesting because  many of you remark on how mild mannered I am and on occasion some of you even wish I were more aggressive.  I cannot please every man, and thankfully that is not my goal.  My goal is to please God and to glorify His name.    If the truth is ugly we still have to speak about it and face it, but we don’t have to be offensive in the way we deliver it.

There are a lot of terrible things in Islam but I am not going to blame Muslims for those things.  They are victims of Islam and need to be freed from it.  Jesus can set them free and the truth is in the Scriptures.  Let’s speak the truth, even if it is not an easy thing to do, and let us do it with compassion and gentleness.

This is the point that Reuben is missing.  He is being provocative in the manner he is speaking.  He is disobeying the scriptures and if he is a child of God, may his heart be pricked and may he repent.

I talked to a leader of the Chamber of Commerce, who are the organizers of the festival, and made a suggestion to them that might help.   They seemed to like it and tomorrow I will tell you what it is.

Today’s Broadcast

This is not the face of Biblical Christianity

A group of ‘Christians’ showed up at the Arab Festival this year to protest Islam and to insult Muslims.  They claim to be Christians but their behavior does not go in accordance with Biblical Christianity.  They came to offend and to provoke Muslims to anger and, unfortunately, they were successful.

They stuck the head of a pig on a pole, knowing this would offend Muslims, and carried signs insulting their prophet.

The scriptures teach us that we are not to give offense.

• 2Co 6:3 “Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed.”
•  Eph 4:15 “But speaking the truth in love,”
•  Joh 13:35 “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
• Mt 5:44 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

This was not seen among these ‘Christian’ men, but rather they showed hatred.  Local Pastors were telling me that it takes months to undo the damage these people create.  It certainly made it hard for real evangelists to do our work there.

There were two groups who thought they ‘Won’ a battle here:  Some Muslims got to go home saying they defended their god and their prophet and these so called ‘Christians’, got to go home saying they suffered for Jesus.   There were two who in a sense ‘Lost’:  God was not glorified in any of this and the city of Dearborn, once again, got a black eye over this.

More to report tomorrow.

Today’s Broadcast

Email from the Thomas More Law Center

ANN ARBOR, MI – Late this morning, Detroit Federal District Judge, Denise Page Hood, granted the Thomas More Law Center’s motion for an Emergency Temporary Restraining Order and enjoined the City of Dearborn from requiring Pastor Jones to sign a Hold Harmless’agreement before approving his application to speak in front of a mosque on Saturday, April 7^th.    [Click here for Motion]

Referring to a provision in the Hold HarmlessAgreement which the City demanded that Jones’s organization sign before he would be allowed to speak, Judge Hood stated,

“This is clearly an unconstitutional clause which impedes Plaintiffs’ First Amendment right to free speech and assembly.”

[Click here for Order granting motion]

Judge Hood’s order went on to state:

  “The ordinance requiring the indemnity agreement and the “Hold Harmless” presented to Plaintiffs are unconditional and violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as to Plaintiff and others who wish to exercise their rights to speak and assemble in the public fora.”

As late as last Friday afternoon, March 30^th, the City was insisting that Jones’s organization, Stand Up for America Now, sign the Hold Harmless agreement before he would be allowed to speak.  The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor Michigan filed its federal lawsuit on Monday, April 2^nd; the Emergency Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order was filed on Wednesday, April 4^th when a satisfactory resolution could not be reached with city attorneys.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center commented,

“Dearborn has a history of discriminating against Christians who want to speak out against the internal threat of Sharia law and Islam.  And every time the City attempts to curtail the Constitutional rights of Christians, we will confront them in a court of law.  There is no doubt in my mind that the City knew the Hold Harmless agreement they were trying to get Jones’s organization to sign was unconstitutional.”

Ironically, minutes before Judge Hood’s order was received, the City approved the application without the need of the Hold Harmless Agreement.  However, the City’s insistence that the entire case be dismissed was rejected by the Law Center.  The reason:  the “Indemnification agreement (Hold Harmless) ordinance and the unfettered discretion given the legal department were still in place.  Consequently, the City could again violate the constitutional rights of Pastor Jones and others who may want to exercise their free speech rights in the future.

With this order, Pastor Jones and his associate Wayne Sapp have been given a green light to proceed with their speech in front of the Islamic Center of America (the largest mosque in North America) in Dearborn, Michigan.

Stand Up America Now is established for the purpose of proclaiming the Holy Bible to Muslims and educating people about the threat of Sharia Law for our Nation’s fundamental principles of freedom. As part of its outreach efforts, Stand Up America Now travels around the country speaking about Christianity at Muslim events and mosques.

Remember Terry Jones – The Qur’an Burning Pastor?

If you have followed my broadcast  for a while, you will know that I am not a fan of Terry Jones.  Although he is right about Islam, his methods are not.

His actions of burning the Qur’an were offensive and insulting, yet he has the Constitutional right to speak his mind.  He tried to do that in Dearborn, Michigan where he tried to hold a rally in front of the largest Mosque in America.  However, he was picked up by the police at the airport and hauled into Wayne County Court last year even though he had not committed a crime.  He and his associate, Sapp, were forced to pay a ‘peace bond’ of $1.00 even though they were going to be restricted from holding their rally in front of the Mosque on public land.   When they refused to pay, they were thrown into jail.  The next day, they paid the fee and were released but forbidden to have their rally and banned from being anywhere around the Mosque for 3 years.

The Wayne Country prosecutor was fearful that if they let Peter Jones exercise his freedom of speech, it would enrage the Muslims of Dearborn.  Therefore, they violated his Constitutional rights.  The Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor took their case and the Wayne County Circuit Judge Robert Ziolowski ruled that the Wayne County Prosecutor and Dearborn District Judge Mark W. Somers violated the constitutional rights of Pastor Terry Jones and his associate, Wayne Sapp.

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