An Interview With Christian Apologist Dr. David Wood

Story. What an amazing testimony. What a great ministry. I'll be talking with Apologist David Wood. It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth. That's 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. We are going to have a great time on the line of fire today. Last week, Last Wednesday, so one week ago today, we focused a lot on Islam. Talked to my friend Dr. James White about an intrafaith dialogue he did with a conservative Imam and some of the controversy surrounding that.

Then in the second hour of the broadcast last Wednesday, he and Robert Spencer debated the issue of authentic Islam. Is it monolithic? Does it always express itself in violent jihad? And that got me in communication with Dr. David Wood.

I've watched his videos with joy and interest over the years, and he is a leading apologist in dealing with Muslims and atheists, member of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the Evangelical Philosophical Society, and the Hume Society. He has a PhD in philosophy from Fordham University, but his way of getting from where he started to Fordham is quite interesting.

So we're going to talk about a lot of things. We're going to hear David's personal story and testimony. We'll talk about some of his work with atheists and Muslims, but we'll also take your calls. Number is 866-355-6656. 884-866-34Truth.

We will intersperse some calls and questions from you as well. Hey, David, welcome to the line of fire. Hey, how's it going, brother? Doing doing great. How things on your end?

Good, good. All right, so you you live in the Bronx. Yeah, happiest place in the world. The Bronx. All right, man.

I grew up on born in New York City, grew up on Long Island, but the Bronx, that's hardcore. Hey, a quick question before we find out how you got where you are today. Your video style, the tone, the feel, the kind of looking off at an angle, which is characteristic, David Wood, how'd that develop? Um Well, it was a It's kind of several things. As far as the tone, that actually, I mean, I'm kind of naturally like that, but Um Years ago, when I was discussing Islam with my friend Nabil, I learned over time that.

Um Muslims pay attention to to sort of approaches that we wouldn't think. I mean, you know, we would think like the nicer you are and the calmer you are and so on, the more people are going to listen to you because we value those kinds of things. But I found out that Muslims are paying more attention to other things like how confident you are, how aggressive you are, how fearless you are, and those are the kinds of things they're looking for. And I mean, this happened. Nabil and I were watching a debate between William Lane Craig and Jamal Badawi, and Dr.

Craig just crushed Badawi. I mean, everything that Badawi said, Craig refuted, and Badawi couldn't refute anything Craig said.

So Nabil and I, this when he was still a Muslim, were watching this. And Um I'm really looking forward to Nabeel's input because he's really smart. And we there was a part in the debate where Bottowie got frustrated and flustered and even started yelling. And so we finished watching this debate. And so I say, hey, Nabeel, what did you think of that debate?

And he says, well, Bottowie obviously won. I was like, what are you watching here? What are you watching? And it took a while to sort of unpack that, but Nabeel eventually broke everything down for me when we. see a debater become angry and flustered and frustrated and start yelling, we think, you lost, you know you're losing, you're desperate, that's why you're angry.

And the Christian debater is calm because he knows he's winning. Whereas Nabeel was in a t was interpreting interpreting it as The Muslim is yelling because he's passionate for the truth, because he's so confident that he's right, because he has such great evidence for what he believes. And therefore, him yelling is actually a sign that he's right. Whereas Craig, the Christian debater, is calm because deep down he doesn't even really believe what he's saying. He knows that it's false.

And so we're interpreting things completely differently. And so just over time, interacting with more and more Muslims, I noticed they're more inclined to listen. Um if you're if you if you just come right at them. Got it, that's how I picked up on the tone. The tone, all right, we'll find out about the kind of sideways look a little bit later.

We'll be right back with Dr. David Wood. No, he doesn't yell on his videos, but he's confident. Oh, very confident. Oh God of burning, cleanse.

Single flame. Send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. I'm speaking today with Christian apologist and debater Dr. David Wood. He's focused especially on debates with atheists and Muslims. We'll get into that.

Some of the specifics, if you have a comment or question, or if you differ with him, would like the opportunity to speak with him directly, 866-348-7884.

So, David, when I was a teenager, I had a couple years of real serious rebellion, was a heavy drug user. And my testimony is literally from LSD to PhD. And the most shameful thing that I did. during those years of heavy drug use was on a number of occasions I actually stole money from my father to my lasting shame. But reading your story, you went a little further than that.

So tell me about you, David, before you knew the Lord.

Well, uh uh I think that there are probably lots of instances that are somewhat similar to this in terms of. uh young people who grow up with some sort of psychological problem, but don't know what it is. They haven't been officially diagnosed. And so They have no idea what kind of problems they have. And I mean, I grew up, I was later, I was eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, which is what sociopaths and psychopaths are.

But I didn't know this. And so when I was growing up, I just noticed. I mean, starting when I was like five years old, that I didn't react the same way when bad things happened, when something would die, you know, start off with like pets or something dying, and eventually. friends dying and so on. And I just reali I have I have no reaction.

Other people are crying their eyeballs out and are depressed and I mean, I don't even have so much as like a a bad feeling. It's, oh, so so and so died.

Okay. Let me let me go uh, you know. go play video games or something like that.

So there's just no reaction and and but I didn't know that that that there's actually You know, that's actually a clinically diagnosable problem. I thought I just knew I was different, and I explained it, and I had to have. figure out why I was different, and I concluded that I had Um That I had evolved to a higher stage of humanity, that I had other people are controlled by their emotions and I had gone to a higher stage where I'm just pure reason and logic. And that turned out to be false much later, but I didn't find out until I had done some bad things.

So, did you want to go into those? Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah.

So, what what happened? What what was kind of the the the the real e uh fall which ended you up in in serious condition?

Well, it was a few steps. I mean, I start if you become convinced that you're like the next stage of human evolution, and unfortunately, I was reading Crime and Punishment around this same time with Russ Kolnikov giving his Superman theory that some people just don't have to live by the moral standards that society lays down. I concluded that that was me. And there was this one time when I was sort of when everything finally clicked. I was running from the police in the middle of the night after stealing a bunch of stuff, breaking into a store.

And I ended up running through swimming across a river, running through the woods. And I came out in someone's backyard, and there was a big garden in front of me. And I started to walk around the garden just because, you know, I needed to get away from the police who are chasing me, but you wanted to go around the person's garden. I just sort of stopped. and thought, why am I walking around this person's Garden, why would I even show that basic level of respect to someone's property?

And so I proceeded to just stomp my way through the garden. And something sort of clicked right then that I don't have to follow any of society's rules on anything. And I got this amazing rush of freedom. Like my mind had been polluted all my life by telling me, David, you need to show respect, you need to do certain things. And that by doing the opposite of what I'd been told, that I was like cleansing myself of this pollution that had been put into me by society.

And that went on and on and on. And eventually, of course, I took it as far as I could possibly go with it. I decided to kill my dad. And that was like, to me, going to be the ultimate just purging myself of anything I had been. taught was that I had to do, any sort of rules I was told that I had to follow by society.

So um I attacked my dad with a hammer. I hit him in the head seven or eight times. Left him for dead, thought that he was dead. Turned out that someone found him later and took him to a hospital. And the hospital there said he'll die here.

His injuries are too severe. They took him to another hospital where they had um World champion neurosurgeon there and uh patched him up. And at first I was put in a mental hospital and later Uh jail eventually went to um you know, w went to the trial, went to uh went to prison and so on. All right, so you end up, you're in prison, you are. Diagnosed with a condition that would put you in the class of a sociopath.

You end up with a PhD in philosophy from Fordham University, married four great kids. and very productive in the kingdom of God, sharing the gospel in a reasoned way. What happened? How did your life change so dramatically?

Well, I was in jail and I was in the dorm and we would just there'd be fights all the time and other than that, you people are playing cards and so on. And there was a there was a Christian in the in the dorm there. with us and um he was he was an interesting fellow. He had he had turned himself in for twenty one felonies. He had he'd become a Christian and went to the police and confessed everything he'd he'd ever done and um they charged him with with twenty one felonies.

And uh this guy was interesting because when when there would be a fight he wouldn't uh he wouldn't watch it. And uh later I would ask him, I said, Hey, why why didn't you why why weren't you watching that fight? He said uh I was praying that it would stop. And so this is uh you know Kind of not ordinary sort of guy you'd be running into in jail. And one day he was reading his Bible, and I walked up to him and I said, Hey, do you know why you're reading the Bible?

You're reading the Bible because you're born in the United States. If you've been born anywhere else, you believe in something else. If you've been born in China, you'd be a Buddhist. If you've been born in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you've been born in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a Muslim.

Because people like you believe whatever you're told to believe. And that was just silly because, you know, in terms of where the universe came from and how life formed, I believe everything that I was taught. It never occurred to me to really question those things. And so there is a consistency problem. But something interesting happened is this guy, his name is Randy.

He just tore me to pieces. And it wasn't by like overwhelming me with facts or something. It was just he started questioning things I was saying. Where did I get that from? Why do I believe that sort of thing?

And over time, I started realizing I just have no reason for any of these things that I just take as as obviously true, just because I'd absorbed them over time. And so Randy and I eventually got into a fasting battle where he wasn't trying to battle me, just he would fast for long periods of time, like seven days at a time, and I would go more just to beat him because I couldn't, you know, I wasn't beating him in arguments or anything. And I fasted so much, I'm about 250 pounds, I got down to about 150 pounds, which is bad for a guy who's six foot three. And they stuck me in an isolated camera cell so they can watch me. They thought I was trying to kill myself.

I'm trying to beat the Christian. They think I'm trying to starve myself to death. And uh it was back there that I Really started wrestling with a lot of issues. Started thinking about design in the universe and. where my beliefs had gotten me, and am I really the greatest person in the world?

And I was reading about Jesus at the same time, and it kept hitting me as I'm reading this guy's obviously better than me. Why do I think that I'm the ultimate stage in human evolution? And uh and it was just going through lots of uh lots of uh lots of sources. Um I eventually just got to the point where um I realize what am I thinking that I'm the best person? I'm like the worst person.

I mean, I'm in here for. For bashing my dad's head in with a hammer. I'm starving to death. People bring me food every day, and I'm starving to death. I can't stand up without falling over because I haven't eaten in so long.

What do I mean that I'm the best? And it sort of came upon some.

Sort of uh simple versions of basic Christian arguments like the design argument and the moral argument. And of course the the the resurrection was what got me to thinking that that Um That Maybe we have a miracle on our hands. I had always explained Christianity by. By thinking that the disciples just wanted Jesus' message to go on, and so after he died, they said he rose from the dead. I found out how these guys died, and it no longer made sense to me.

You can die for something that's false, but you have to believe in what you're dying for. You have to at least believe it. And so these guys couldn't have been making it up.

So why did all these guys conclude that Jesus had risen from the dead? And it sort of all came together because when I start thinking that I'm the worst person in the world, not the best. And Then I start thinking, well, either I'm stuck like this, either I'm stuck like this, I'm just this awful sort of person with all these problems and just really violent. Or there's someone out there who can help with people like me. And when you start thinking like that, I think you're about.

An inch away from becoming a Christian because when you look down through history, who has the ability? Of anyone in history to just take horribly messed up, dysfunctional people and do something with them, you get Jesus, and He's the one. And so I wasn't sure. sure that Christianity was true, but I was I was Um I was intrigued enough with various evidences and the resurrection to think, hey, maybe I need to maybe I need to start praying. And so I I bowed down and prayed and I told God, Hey, if you can do anything with me, you're welcome to it, and I went through a kind of sinner's prayer and Got up and everything looked different, and so that was the beginning.

Wow, extraordinary. The mercy of God. You talk about transformation, new birth. Absolutely. We'll be right back.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

You know, friends, if we do not understand why Jesus died on the cross, if we don't understand our need for a Savior, we don't understand the gospel, It's not a matter of just adding Jesus in to have a better life. It's that we are lost without him. He dies for our sins. If he doesn't die for our sins, we die for our sins. We can find mercy and new life in him.

That's exactly what happened to my guest, Dr. David Wood. Under conviction of sin in prison, recognizing he needed a savior.

So, David, once everything looks new, you've been born again, let's fast forward out of prison, now in school. What happens that's significant on your journey and a significant roommate that you had?

Well, um Uh I was I joined the speech and debate team when I got I got out and went to college, and we went on a on a trip. You actually go and compete at other schools and stuff and ended up sharing a hotel room with Nabeel Qureshi, and I'd had um I'd had lots of discussions with Muslims in um in prison, but I'd I never had a chance to really study the the original, you know, the the early Early Muslim sources, you don't have access to them. Um, but uh when I was in a hotel room with Nabeel. Um I was over on my bed praying, I said, God, if you want me to talk to this guy, please let him start it. I don't want people calling me a bigot or a hate monger for getting into an argument with a Muslim or something like that.

And so I prayed, so please let him start it. And that way, if if anyone says, hey, why are you arguing with that Muslim? then I can say, well, you know, he started it. And anyway, shortly after I prayed for God to let Nabeal start it, Nabeal says, So, are you a hardcore Christian? And I was over there reading my Bible in my butt and on my bed.

And I said, Yes, I am. And that weekend we spent we ended up staying up all night, one of the nights that weekend, discussing Islam and Christianity, and Nabeel went through. All of his beliefs about Muhammad and the Quran and the Bible and Jesus and so on. And he finished his. presentation and I said I have a question for you.

If you're wrong, do you want to know it? And I talk to atheists who say no, right? I ask atheists, hey, if you're wrong, do you want to know it? And I've had atheists say no, I'd rather just go on believing what I believe. But Nabeel said yes and no.

He said, yes, I'd want to know the truth about God, but But no, because it would destroy my family. And the better part of him, of course, was the part that said he would want to know the truth about God.

So we ended up speaking. spending several years discussing Um At first we focused on the Bible and the reliability of the New Testament and whether Jesus died on the cross and the resurrection and the deity of Christ and so on. And we spent probably the first two years discussing those things. And we we were serious. We we'd go to debates, we'd read books, we'd we'd write down our arguments and sit down and go through go through them point by point and so on.

And eventually we started going through the Muslim arguments and started taking a more critical look at those. And that's when I started really going into the Muslim sources. And Abib would give me an argument for Islam, and my first question would be: what's the source? Where do I get this source? And so I started buying the Muslim sources like Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim and Ibn Asaq and so on, and going through those.

And then I started bringing. going back to Nabeel with point with things that he didn't know from these sources.

So wait a minute, you're quoting Sahih Al Bukhari to defend this point about Muhammad. Look what it also says in this same source you're quoting. You didn't tell me this, and he didn't tell me it because he didn't know it, because the things have been filtered for him by his leaders. And uh so anyway uh uh uh We spend years going through the sources and eventually Nabeel gets to a point where he's just resisting in every way. And fortunately, after that, he started having like dreams telling him to to leave Islam and uh Nabeel Uh eventually left Islam, became a Christian, and I actually thought.

Cool, my friend's a Christian now, so I'm done with Islam, because the only reason I was studying Islam was that my best friend was a Christian. If he had been a Buddhist, I would have been studying Buddhism. And so he became a Christian. I thought I was done. But then it was actually Muslims who started challenging us to debate.

They really don't like it if someone leaves Islam.

So they wanted to expose Nabeel, and they wanted me on stage as well because they wanted to show everyone that I'm stupid, I don't know what I'm talking about, and therefore Nabeel's stupid, he shouldn't have been listening to me, and therefore other people shouldn't listen to what we say about Islam. And so still f for the first several debates, I really thought I can get away from this very soon. I can get back to dealing with atheist objections. That's what that was my background. That's what I was more interested in.

And it was really over time watching The stand that Nabeel took when just everything went wrong, you know, with family and everyone else. Just having to give up so much and watching the stand that he took, that I realized, you know, Muslims make really cool Christians because they have to go through so much more. in order to believe in Jesus. I could have told my parents that I'd become a Martian Buddhist. They wouldn't have cared all that much.

But it's just a much bigger deal for Muslims, and so they have to really know why they believe what they believe if they're going to convert. And so Nabeel, He became a Christian, and it was somewhere over time. I just realized there are lots of Christian apologists who are dealing with atheism. and not a lot who are dealing with Islam. Um and maybe instead of doing what I'm most interested in or what I, you know, uh are Something from my background, I need to do just what I think is needed right now.

And I think there needs to be people dealing with the topic of Islam. And I'm I'm uh holding in my hands on my desk a copy of uh Guyami's translation of the life of Muhammad, a translation of Ibn Ishfaq Surat Rasulaha. What impact did this book have on you reading it?

Well, I I had a I had uh my my One of my under my undergraduate degrees was in philosophy, but it was with an emphasis in religious studies. And so I studied various religions as as part of my degree. And I stud I took a course in Islam, and it was taught by a Muslim, and we were given books to read. And I actually wrote a paper on how what a wonderful job Muhammad did in Arabia, because I was reading all these, you know, modern books on Mohammed, and he really sounded like a like a a great guy reading these these these books for class. And going back to Ibn Asaq, which is our earliest detailed biographical source on the life of Muhammad.

You get a completely different picture than what you get from modern sources. And for someone like for someone like Nabeel, The Muhammad he hears about when he's at home or when he's in the mosque. The Muhammad that he hears about is completely different from the Muhammad we read about in Islam's earliest sources. And so I started going to Nabeel with passages from Ibn Asaq. Hey, look at this.

This is our earliest source. Look at the things he did. Look at this right here. And he, like many Muslims will, rejected the source. He said, Don't come to me with Ibn Asaq.

Come to me only with Sahih al Bukhari or Sahih Muslim. And why that's interesting, a Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are much later sources. Um and so Muslims are f the Throw out their earliest source and go with later sources because they don't like what the earliest sources say. And so started going to the deal with the later sources. And even then, he eventually had to start rejecting things because it was just so different from what he had been taught about Muhammad.

And he really liked the Muhammad that he'd been raised to believe in. But this is true for. For almost any Muslim you run into, they have this mental picture of Muhammad based on the information that's been filtered for them. And that's why it's important for us to learn what's in the sources, to go to the Muslims, so that they can make a more informed decision about Muhammad. Right, and really the difference between the gospel faith and the faith of Muslims is the difference between Jesus and Muhammad.

We'll be right back with Dr. David Wood. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. If you have a question for Dr. David Wood, 866-348-7885.

David, what's the best place for folks to follow you online, a website, YouTube channel? Where would you like to direct them? If they just type in David Wood on YouTube. I mean, they'll get a bunch of videos that are angry at me and responding to me. But if you type in David Wood, you can get to my channel on YouTube.

Okay, great. That works well enough. Yeah, you'll find out when you take stands on this. You have videos by folks that don't like it that much. It means you're doing a good thing, means that people are waking up.

All right, so let's talk about Islam for a moment. If. The majority of Muslims worldwide are not like ISIS or not like Al-Qaeda. And in their mind, they want Islam to rule the world or take over the world. They believe it's the right faith.

But they have a more idealistic view of Muhammad. They think of him as the perfect man and even non-violent and humble and all these other things. And that to them. as authentic Islam. And they genuinely believe it's a religion of peace.

is that not really Islam, or is that a development of Islam that doesn't reflect the original sources? Can it truly be called Islam if perhaps the majority of Muslims worldwide ascribe to this, even though it's not in harmony with the real Muhammad?

Well, even if every single Muslim on the planet rejected something about Muhammad, that would have nothing to do with whether. That's the truth about Muhammad, right?

So, if every Muslim in the world believes something about Muhammad, or if every Muslim in the world rejects something about Muhammad, The truth about Muhammad is already laid down. People's today's beliefs do not affect what Muhammad was. And the same thing with Christianity. A Christian, I mean, if every Christian in the world tomorrow decided that Jesus didn't die on the cross, it wouldn't affect whether Jesus died on the cross. And so it's what I mean what you have is I mean, Islam means submission, right?

Islam, the word Islam means submission. And This doesn't just mean That's You have to submit to God. If Islam just meant you have to submit to God, then Christians and Jews would agree with Muslims. Of course, we have to submit to God. Islam doesn't just tell you.

That You must submit to God. It tells you how you submit to God. and you submit to God by unquestioningly obeying. the commands and decisions of Allah and Muhammad. And it's important to keep in mind that part of submission, part of Islamic submission is submitting to Muhammad.

This comes straight out of the Quran. I'll read you chapter four, verse sixty five. Allah says but know, by your Lord, they can have no faith So you can have Muslims can have no faith. by your Lord, they can have no faith until they make you, Muhammad, judge in all disputes between them and find in themselves no resistance against your decisions and accept them with full submission.

So this saying you have no faith, You have no real Muslim faith unless you make Muhammad judge in all disputes and you have no resistance against Muhammad's decisions. And so based on this passage, if you Are aware of things Muhammad said, and you say, I don't really like that, you don't have real Islamic faith.

So, this is kind of one, this is sort of the extreme. This is the sort of passage that ISIS would go to and say, You see all these guys, all these Muslims we're killing, it's because they're hypocrites and apostates because they don't, they're rejecting things that Muhammad said. You have other passages from Muhammad saying that if you recite the Shahada, you're a Muslim.

So if you recite, you know, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger, then you're a Muslim. If you keep the five pillars, you're a Muslim. If you believe the six articles of faith, you're a Muslim. You have passages that say this.

So there is a sort of it depends on what your focus is here. On whether something will count as whether you are a true Muslim, depending on what you believe or don't believe. But that is separate from the question of what does Islam teach on doctrines like jihad. Got it. All right, we come back.

Let's ask the question: is it possible? to separate Islam as a religious faith from Islam as a political and legal system. We'll be right back with David Wood. Give us strength to always do what's right. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us, friends, speaking with Christian apologist David Wood. David, before I get to the political question, in my years of Semitic studies, I had three years of classical Arabic, so I fully understand.

That when someone says Islam means peace, no, no, it doesn't. Maybe the same root, salama, but it's the fourth form of the verb and then a noun derived from that, and it means submission. Anyone that knows Arabic knows that.

So if you see a publication put out by Muslims, that and Muslim leaders, I don't just mean somebody on the street that's got an opinion, but put out by the local mosque and it says Islam is the religion of peace and the word Islam means peace. Is that in your mind willful deception? Is there any way that anyone who knows Arabic could make that mistake? I don't see how. But I mean, there it's just the fact that there are lots of Muslims who are out promoting Islam and defending Islam and saying things who don't really know what they're talking about.

And that Nabil and I went to went to an ISNA meeting. That's the International Society of Islamic Society of North America. We went to the meeting. We went to their Dawah Task Force meeting.

So they're actually meeting in there to discuss how to use Islamic apologetics. And Nabeel asked the leader, he asked, after the meeting, he went to the leader and said, Hey, you know, you're saying that the Quran has been perfectly preserved. What do you do with people like Ibn Masud, who didn't agree with the number of chapters that are in the Quran today, or Ubay ibn Ka'b, who didn't agree with the number with the chapters that are in the Quran today? What do you do with these? And the guy goes, I've never heard of any of these people.

I mean, these guys are like central figures in the early Muslim sources. And this guy has no idea who they are. And I didn't get the impression that he was. Trying to deceive us. It was just he really doesn't, he really doesn't know what he's talking about.

And so it's always possible that a Muslim makes a pamphlet or puts something out and says Islam means peace. The word Islam means peace because they've heard that and they've never investigated it. But it's also perfectly possible that the Muslim's trying to deceive people, and that's kind of the problem is When we see false claims, and Islam allows false claims in certain situations, we kind of don't know: is this person just not well-informed, or is this person actually trying to deceive us? Have to dig a little bit deeper to try and figure it out. Yeah, and certainly there are many sincere Muslims that are misinformed, and many sincere Muslims who have studied issues for years and are experts in legal issues, philosophical issues, and language, and have memorized the Quran, and others that willfully deceive.

The reason I brought it up is that I downloaded a 55-page document. from mosques in England saying that Islam is not a religion of terror. Terrorism is not Islam. And it has quote after quote after quote from original sources that would back the position and they were denouncing the terrorism being done in the name of Islam, which of course is praiseworthy. You want them to do that.

But the very first paragraph said that Islam means peace. And I thought, well, How in the world could they do that? I mean, they've got quote after quote from Arabic sources, and it does make you wonder. But the question then, as we go back to the original life of Muhammad, as we see that Islam spread with the sword, and yes, there was a message of monotheism and turning from idolatry and things like that, and an ethical lifestyle. A lot of it borrowed from Judaism that Muhammad called for, but it expanded by the sword, and it does have a legal system with it.

Can you separate Islam, the religion, from Islam, a political and legal system?

Well, we can separate things in our mind and we can separate them sort of in practice, but There's no concept of that in Islam. Islam Is meant to be this sort of comprehensive system where, again, Islam means submission. What's it what are you submitting to? You're submitting to God.

Well, how are you submitting to God? You're submitting to God by obeying His commands and the commands of Muhammad.

Well, then the question is, what are the commands? Of God and Muhammad.

Well, that includes things that Muslims have to do, things like saying their daily prayers and fasting during the month of Ramadan and taking the pilgrimage to Mecca and giving alms and so on. It includes things that are required of Muslims. But the difference between Islam and other religious systems out there is that Islam. has rules for the unbelievers as well. The unbelievers have to Have to submit.

If you're a Christian or Jew, you have the right to pay the jizya, an acknowledgement of your inferiority, your inferior status in society and in religion, and continue. Practicing your Judaism or your Christianity, although your rights are limited. You can't just go out and preach the gospel to Muslims, for instance. Um but and and so Those are the restrictions placed on us. People like pagans or atheists have it even worse.

They have to convert or die. And so. Submission here, you submit to Allah and Muhammad. As a Muslim, you do certain things, but some of the things that you are to do is to subjugate other groups and other peoples.

So that you can enforce Allah's the commands of Allah and Muhammad. And so that's where politics comes in. And that's why even though you might have individual Muslims or Muslim communities or you have Muslims in a certain status in society where they're not able to subjugate other people, if that's the case, if they're not able to impose Islamic law on other people, they don't have to until the situation arises where they are able. But the goal is ultimately the subjugation of other people and the establishment of Islamic rule over the entire world. Yes, so in short, we could say that while Islam brings subjugation, the gospel brings liberation.

And speaking of liberation, David, here's some of the fruit of your ministry. Jennifer from Queens, how does your life intersect with David Wood? Um hi, I'm Like to say, first of all, thank you so much for everything you do, both of you. David Wood, I found you. online because I was I wanted to learn about Jesus and I was baptized as a Mormon in 2006.

My brother is a Mormon. And then I just Googled, I typed in, Am I a Christian? And I found your video, Why Am I a Christian? And there I began my journey to learn more about being a Christian and to learn more about Jesus Christ.

So I'm no longer. a Mormon and I began attending a Baptist Christian church. And uh seven years seven years ago, Um, I I just became obsessed watching your videos and I introduce you. to my friend, um, Coral. is now a former Muslim.

He's from Lebanon. And My question is about baptism. Do I have to be baptized again? And also my friend Ahmad. he wants to be baptized as well.

Since I was baptized as a Mormon, I know that that's not the right Church and um I follow Jesus Christ, no other uh Chiltern Smith or anyone else. And if I do have to be baptized again, Where do I go? What is the right church and the right way to do it? Oh uh Thank you, sister, and thanks for the encouragement, and glad I could help. I'm by no means an expert in baptism, so I'll share my thoughts, and then Dr.

Brown can correct me if I'm wrong. But I would say you should certainly be baptized again in an Orthodox Christian. Church. As far as you know, specifics, you know. In the ancient world, baptism was, you know, the word means basically to dunk.

Um yeah, so I I would I would say, you know, find find a good church that is uh that is uh preaching a true gospel and that is going to to dunk you in the in the name of the the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And and by the way, I g I go to church in Queens, so if you ever if you ever wanna you wanna swing come by church with me, you're you're welcome to it. What what church is that, David? Uh I would rather not. Don't say it.

Okay, no, fine. All right. That's fine. I can share it afterwards, but yeah. All right, tell you what, Jennifer, you stay there.

When we get to our next break in a minute or two, David will tell Howard where he goes to church in Queens, and then you could know that. But Jennifer, if you're in a Baptist church, then you're obviously hearing the basics of the gospel, and they believe in baptizing believers.

So next opportunity you have, get baptized, and I would make clear, hey, I was a Mormon. Came to know Jesus.

Now I'm following him. And the reason you want to, you shouldn't look at it as have to, you should look at it as get to, because this is a great opportunity for you to make a public declaration of your faith. And Romans 6, it symbolizes you dying to sin and rising in new life. And for your Baptist friend, for your former Muslim friend, by all means, the same thing. Public testimony symbolizing the cleansing of the conscience, the washing away of sin, the dying to the old.

You go down with the old, you come up in brand new life. And it's powerful. It's spiritual. It's God-glorifying.

So I would just ask the leadership in that church, if it's a Baptist church, you assume that's your home. They're preaching the gospel, and the fundamentals are being emphasized there. And ultimately, As long as it's with other believers. that hold to the fundamentals of the faith, you're good. In other words, there's no perfect church on earth or perfect environment to be baptized in.

It's just holding to the fundamentals, as David said. And I'm assuming if you're in a Baptist church, that would be the case.

So I talk to the leaders and say, hey, I want to be baptized. And what do I need to do? And then let your testimony be known and shared the same with your former Muslim friend. And think of the encouragement that brings to others in the body, especially a place like Queens.

So many Muslims there and people of other faiths, so many to reach out to. All right, stay right there, Jennifer. Howard will let you know where David goes to church. We'll be right back. Got a Light and you're our cry.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Speaking with Christian apologist David Wood.

If you haven't watched his videos, go to YouTube. Just type in David Wood. And you'll see his signature videos. One I looked at immediately after one of the horrific terror attacks in France. He was talking about the particular verse in the Quran, and did it say that you could kill unbelievers?

And I've got a conversation. commentary on my desk. New edition of the Quran with lots of commentaries in one place. And they'll go through all the application and Muhammad in his warring days. It was then.

So we would parallel it to, you know, Joshua killed the Canaanites, but that was then versus now. And David, in this particular video, you're explaining that there can be an Islamic justification that people are doing, quote, harm in the land. It's somewhat ambiguous as to what that actually means. That they could be killed. They could be put to death by Muslims.

So what's the rationale that some of these terrorists use? And it's not like saying I went out and committed suicide because I read that Judas did it and Jesus said, do likewise. It's not based on taking something out of the Bible and twisting it. It's based on taking something in the Quran in a somewhat consistent fashion and carrying it out violently today. Yeah, well there's a there's a massive differe well there are many differences, but there's a massive difference between the Uh the Bible and the Quran and other Muslim sources Uh when it comes to Um To the issue of violence, yes, you can point to fighting the Canaanites and things like that, but if you ask yourself, hey, if I read this book from beginning to end, What are the final marching orders for the Christian?

In other words, what are the commands that are actually directed towards me?

Well, I'm not commanded to go fight any Canaanites. That's part of a specific covenant there. Um I'm commanded to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, strength, love my neighbor as myself, love even my enemies, to if as far as possible, live in peace with all men. These are the commands that are actually directed to us as our final marching orders, as the as the things we are supposed to do. In Islam, it's actually somewhat reversed.

the the peaceful passages that Muslims quote There is no compulsion in religion. If you have a dispute with an unbeliever, then you say, To you be your religion, and to me be my religion. These are not the final marching orders. These are from different periods in Islamic history. But when you read the Quran from beginning to end, and it's important to keep in mind that the Quran is not arranged chronologically, you have to go to outside sources to put it in order.

But when you read the Quran in the correct order of Revelations, It's the final marching orders, the final takeaway message Is Surah 9. It was the last major Surah revealed. And this is where you have Surah 9, verse 29: fight those who do not believe in Allah. This is where you have so many different Passages both directed towards Muhammad, like Surah 9, verse 73, where Muhammad is commanded to wage jihad not only against Unbelievers, but also against hypocrites.

So, Muslims who are claiming to be Muslims but aren't. fully submitted to his commands. That's directed towards Muhammad. Fight not only unbelievers, but also hypocrites. And so, anyway, if people wanted to know why ISIS fights other Muslims, that's part of the command there.

Chapter 9, verse 123: O you who believe, fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find in you hardness. You had earlier. Commands in the Quran to fight in self-defense, to fight people who are attacking you, to fight aggressors or oppressors, but the final marching orders over and over again are about fighting people based on what they believe. And so the difference between the Quran and the Bible is: if you read both books beginning to end, the final takeaway message, as far as how you are to interact with unbelievers, Are very different. In Christianity, you don't go out and violently subjugate people in the name of Christ.

I mean, if there was ever a time to defend Christ with a sword, it was in the garden, and Jesus responded with, put your sword away. Um in Islam The final marching orders, the final takeaway message is that you have to, when you're able, Violently subjugate unbelievers in the name of Allah. If you're not able, then you can promote a message of peace to protect the Muslim community. But the goal, again, is the subjugation of the world. And Muhammad himself said that he had been shown by Allah that the world would be subjugated to the authority of the Muslim community.

And so that's the goal that Muslims are to strive for.

Now, again, just to be clear. When because I pointed out that as a Muslim, if you are not in a position to subjugate the world, you are you are to promote a message of peace and tolerance. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that if a Muslim tells you that Islam is a religion of peace, He's deceiving you. That Muslim might totally believe that. And there are tons of Muslims in the West and around the world who sincerely believe that Islam is a religion of peace.

But going back to what we said earlier, the problem is since Islam allows Muslims to promote a message of peace even if they want. to establish Islamic rule over the entire world. You kind of don't know when a Muslim tells you Islam is a religion of peace, whether he sincerely believes that or if he's actually practicing an Islamic practice called taqiyyah. Yeah, so if you develop a relationship with someone, watch their life over a period of years, like anyone else, you can get an idea. We can all be deceived.

You can be deceived by a pastor that's living in sin. But just on the surface of it, that's the point, that it could be a sincere belief. And I've gotten to know Muslims and some of our folks serving in different parts of the Muslim world, grads from ministry school, they know Muslims that are appalled by the violence and hate it. On the other hand, they're afraid to say it publicly because they know what would happen to them. And would you say it's an oversimplification if we said that whereas Muhammad killed his enemies, Jesus died for his enemies?

I mean, Mohammed Mohammed did Mohammed did all kinds of things, but That is a world of difference. And even, you know, sort of some of their last words, Jesus on the cross, you know, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Muhammad died. calling down Allah's curses on Jews and Christians.

So there there these are two just radically different kinds of individuals here. Yeah, and and friends If you question this, if you're listening, we know many of you listen and you're Muslims and you differ, just go back to the sources. To to the to the Earliest sources to the Quran and the earliest life of Muhammad, and just see: is that the model man? Is that the perfect man? Is that the one whom you want to emulate?

You want to raise your children to emulate. And then take some time to find out who Jesus is. Since you do believe in Jesus, you believe that he's important, you believe he's a prophet, just take some time to read his actual words and to read from people that were right there, eyewitnesses, people that knew him and lived with him. Read his actual words, read the story of his life, and then compare it prayerfully. And ultimately, that was a key thing in the transformation of the life of Nabil Qureshi, Nabil Qureshi, after years of interaction with David Wooderen.

Again, friends. To find out more about David's videos, and they are entertaining and informative, go over to YouTube and just type in David Wood, and I think you'll get a kick out of some of the videos that are not too friendly towards him. And just a reminder, I've been posting new articles day and night on our website, askdrbrown.org, as well as new videos. They're all there to help you and minister to you and your gift of any size this month. We've got a great book we're sending you out, Cult Shock.

So find out more. Go to askdartybrown.org. What an amazing testimony. What a great ministry. I'll be talking with apologist David Wood.

It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. That's 866-34TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I'm speaking today with Christian apologist David Wood, has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University. He was in jail as a young man for the attempted murder of his father.

He was as antisocial and his behavior and personalities could be. In prison, he met the Lord, was transformed, and has had a great ministry preaching the gospel through debate and dialogue with Muslims, with atheists. And there's a lot that we can learn along the way interacting with David. Great to have you on the air with us today, David. Let me ask you this.

You've done, what, 40, 50 plus moderated debates so far, is that right? Uh I think I'm getting close to sixty.

Okay, uh great, and primarily with Muslims and atheists? Yeah.

Okay, in my years of debating rabbis and interacting with the religious Jewish community, I've come to know some tremendously sincere men, some amazing families.

Some people who are deeply devoted, highly ethical, God-fearing in so many ways, and yet I would say so near. And yet so far still lost and still need of a savior. Over the years, debating Muslims, interacting with Muslims, have you found the same in the Muslim community? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I mean, that's why I became best friends with Nabil Qureshi.

In college, we had a lot of the same values. We ended up hanging out together so much because. we would be away on a school trip and the other students on the team would want to go go out clubbing or they would be doing drugs or something like this or go out drinking and we didn't want to.

So we would end up over and over again trip after trip, end up hanging out in the hotel room together while everyone else is out is out going to the club or something like this.

So we had we had we had a lot of shared values. We had different beliefs, but we had a lot of the same values. And this would be true of lots of lots of Muslims out there. You know, I mean the the Muslims are people who believe in God, believe that they were created, believe that they're created for a purpose, believe that God sent messengers into the world, has given us instruction. Muslims, as far as what the what the Quran says, that Muslims are required to believe that that God gave Jews revelation, that God gave Christians revelation.

And so we have we have cert you know, a certain level of connection there. And You know, this can be used positively or negatively because there are people who will say, just focus on the similarities and not on the disagreements. Just focus on the things we hold in common. And the disagreements aren't important, but the disagreements are like the core of the Christian gospel. When the apostles went out and started preaching, they always emphasized Jesus is Lord.

He died on the cross for sins, he rose from the dead. And so if that was their takeaway message, that needs to be our takeaway message as well. But those are the areas where Islam disagrees with us.

So in Islam, Jesus didn't die on the cross for sins. Um he didn't rise from the dead, and he certainly isn't Lord. in a slum. And so as far as the Bible is concerned, we should be addressing those issues.

So anyway, as far as why those the areas of agreement are kind of a blessing and a curse, There are lots of Christians who think, you know, hey, we don't need to really focus much on it on Muslims because they say, hey, they already believe in God, they already believe in Jesus, and they already believe in scriptures and so on. But you know, really it's those areas of agreement that can bind us help bind us together in friendships and can be used as kind of a springboard into further discussions. Because i if you're talking to atheists nowadays, you might have absolutely nothing in common ideologically with an atheist. If you're talking to a Muslim, you're talking to a guy who already believes. That God created the world, that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus performed miracles, lots of common ground there to then go on and say, hey, This guy is obviously very important.

Maybe we should want to learn all the truth about him. Got it. Got it. We'll be right back. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame.

Shit. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire. I'm going to go to some questions that are being sent in for my guest, Dr. David Wood. To follow him, to watch his videos, to see more of what he's doing in debate and dialogue, just go to YouTube and search for David Wood.

If you'd like to call 866-34TRUTH-866. 3487884. David is the God of the Bible. The same being, same personality, same character as the God of the Quran. Uh well there are some there are some uh there are some similarities because Mohammed, he he uh he sort of rebels against his own culture and in the in the in the seventh century Arabia, the alternative to polytheism was not atheism.

The alternative to polytheism was monotheism. And so Muhammad aligns himself with the Jews and the Christians and begin puts himself in the same line as As the bibli biblical prophets. And so he's taking, and even in his earlier revelations, it's clear that he takes the Jews especially as authorities. in matters of religion. He's even told, by Allah, if you doubt the revelations we're given to you, ask the people of the book.

Ask the people who read the book before you.

So Muhammad could only confirm his revelations by making sure that they line up with the revelations of Jews and Christians.

So there's obviously going to be plenty of similarities there. But there are significant differences as well. Both Jews and Christians believe that God is our heavenly Father. And in Islam, God is a Father to no one. The highest relationship you can have with Allah, according to the Quran, is a slave to master kind of relationship.

The God of the Quran has no love for unbelievers. You have to love God first, and then He can respond to your love with His love. And this is the sort of love that Jesus condemns. In Matthew 5, if you only love those who love you, how are you better than tax collectors and sinners? And it's just it's completely different from the gospel message where we love God because God loved us first.

We were yet sinners when God saved us.

So So, very different. And of course, if you're talking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then the Quran. denies this, um even though the Quran does not accurately understand what Christians mean by the doctrine of the Trinity.

So you have, again, some similarities there, but you do have significant differences both in the nature and the character of God. Yeah, and the Quran, of course, the al-Fatiha, the opening chapter, and this is recited through the day. God's described as Arahman al-Rachim, so the merciful and compassionate. And it says elsewhere in a Hu'at Tawab that he is oft relenting. To the one that is oft repenting, Allah is oft relenting.

And yet, a Muslim does... never has assurance of forgiveness of sins. They could practice all the pillars of Islam and they could be absolutely devout and devoted, and yet they do not know that they know that they'll end up in paradise versus hell, correct? Yes, ev even Muhammad himself didn't have assurance of salvation. He was told to say that he didn't know what Allah would do with him.

And the the the context here is There was a wonderful, nice Muslim who died, and a woman said, Oh, he's in paradise now. And Muhammad said, What? You don't know that. And she She's like, well, if he doesn't have salvation, then who does? And Muhammad said, I don't even know what Allah is going to do with me.

And so that that's that's that has become kind of somewhat this lack of assurance has been part of the driving force. For jihad, because supposedly, if you lay down your, if you're a martyr, then you do have assurance of salvation. Right, and initially, say the context dying in what is it, the Sabilahi in the path of Allah would mean in war.

So, let's say theoretically, you were being attacked, you're a Muslim country being attacked, and you die in war for your country and for Allah.

So, that would guarantee the world to come, that would guarantee paradise. But it's obviously been taken as far as if you blow yourself up with a suicide vest and kill little children, that somehow you're getting in. I mean, that's how far the thing has been taken. But the idea that there's no assurance, that is something that many people attracted to Islam don't know. And I was in a meeting once where some Christians were considering Islam and sat in a home with the Imam.

Everyone was sitting around talking.

So, I asked him, I said, So you're devout? Yes, I try to do that. I said, But you live by the yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, So when you die, you're assured. He goes, Oh, no, no, it can't be.

The Christians there were pretty shook up. Hey, uh, question just posted on Twitter. Please explain tiqiya and when Muslims can use it.

So the whole idea that deceit can be practiced in certain legitimate circumstances, you said earlier it's hard to know if someone is sincerely saying something or if you don't know them at all, right? They're sincerely representing Islam as a religion of peace and that's what they believe, or if they are denying the truth just for political purposes. Are there rules as to when it can and can't be used? Yes, I mean, because there are people who any time a Muslim says something, they think the Muslim is lying to them and they've heard there's a doctrine called Taqiyyah where Muslims can lie to unbelievers and so on. In the Muslim sources, it's it's applied in in certain situations.

Um the the one that many Muslims are familiar with is If they are If they're being threatened with death.

So if someone says, hey, we're here, we're killing Muslims, and are you a Muslim? According to the Quran, chapter 16, verse 106, a Muslim can deny that he is a Muslim. He can even curse Muhammad in that situation if he wants. in order to protect himself from being killed or from persecution.

So that is a version that many Muslims are familiar with. Um but it's It it it's applied in a bit different situation when Muslims are Not able to subjugate unbelievers. The Quran sort of hostility towards Unbelievers, and the Quran says not to be friends with Jews or Christians, not to take Jews or Christians as friends, they are friends of each other. Um But there there's an exception, and that's if You need to protect yourself from unbelievers by being friendly towards them. In other words, if you're in an area where you can't subjugate the unbelievers, And that's They outnumber you.

You, as a Muslim, have been told to violently subjugate them. What are you supposed to do here?

Well, the Quran does allow you in that situation. To act friendly towards them. And just to be clear, once again, before anyone gets the wrong idea. When I say that Muslims are allowed to pretend to be friendly even when they're not, I'm not saying that when a Muslim is friendly towards you, he's trying to deceive you. Again, lots of Muslims sincerely believe that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance and everything else.

We're talking about what Islam teaches here, not what the motivations of your Muslim friends are. But chapter 3, verse 28 of the Quran says: Allah says, Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers.

So the command is: you don't have disbelievers as friends. says, whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah.

So you have no connection with Allah if you take unbelievers as your friends, but there's an exception. He says, unless it be that you but guard yourselves against them, taking as it were security.

So you're not really friendly towards them. You are pretending to be friendly because you don't want these guys thinking you're a bunch of jerks and then coming after you. And in the commentaries, we find what Muhammad's companions say. Said about this.

So, anyone can look this up. You can go to the Tufts here of Ibn Kathir. Where he gives the commentary on this verse and shows what Muhammad's companions thought about it.

So Ibn Kathir comments on chapter 3, verse 28. Allah prohibited his believing servants from becoming supporters of the disbelievers or to take them as comrades with whom they developed friendships. rather than the believers. Allah warned against such behavior when he said, and whoever does that will never be helped by Allah in any way, meaning whoever commits this act that Allah has prohibited, then Allah will discard him. And then commenting on the unless you fear a danger from them, which is where we which uses the word takiyah.

Uh meaning Accept those believers who, in some areas or times, fear for their safety from the disbelievers. In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly. Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Adarda said, We smile in the face of some people, although our hearts curse them. Al-Bukhari said that al-Hassan said, Taqiyyah is allowed until the day of resurrection.

So here, Ibn Kathir, this is Ibn Kathir, this is the most respected Muslim commentator of all time. And he cites al-Bukhari, who is the most. uh respected hadith collector of all time. And he cites two companions of Muhammad. Um Abu Adarda and Al Hassan.

Who talk about the doctrine of taqiyyah, we smile in their faces while cursing them in our hearts.

So on the one hand, as far as taqiyyah, you have if your life is actually being threatened, there's a sword at your throat, hey, we're going to kill you, then you can deny your Islamic faith. But this in Surah 3 verse 28, this is not about denying your Muslim faith. It's about denying your intentions. You want to subjugate the unbelievers. You hate them.

You despise them. You have no intentions of being friendly towards them. But you pretend to be friendly in order to guard yourselves against them.

So again, you know, there can be Muslims who lie about various things, but as far as what taqiyah is, that's what it is according to the Quran. Got it. And I just want to give a comment on how we respond to that, and then we'll take your calls. Stay tuned. It's fire we want for fire we want.

We please stand the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for being part of the Line of Fire broadcast today. This is Michael Brown. I am speaking with my guest, Christian apologist David Wood. And for those wondering, again, in terms of interrelationships with your Muslim neighbor and friend, we walk in love.

We believe the best. We we are people that that don't uh expect Evil just when we meet someone, we're you know, we're going to be gracious and kind and reach out.

So, my posture is going to be that I'm not going to be foolish. But I'm not going to have all these walls up and think, well, everything you tell me is just a lie meant to deceive and it's calculated. I'm going to walk in love and have that attitude towards others. And then if there is sin, if there is deceit, let it be exposed. David, is that the attitude that you've used in terms of relating on a personal level with Muslims?

Oh, yes. And I mean, I I found by experience that that lots of I would say most Muslims who are talking about Islam being peaceful Here in America, at least, sincerely believe that.

So, I had lots of Muslim friends over the years, and several of them left Islam and became Christians. And when they became Christians, they didn't say. Hey, by the way, I was lying to you when I said that Islam is a religion of peace. I was just trying to trick you. They really believed that, and they came to realize that they were.

uh that they were wrong and so um Yeah. Yeah.

Got it. All right, let's grab another phone call. We'll go to Holt, Michigan. Donald, welcome to the line of fire. Hi.

you doing? Doing well, thanks. What's your question for Dr. Wood?

Well, I wanted to say it's awesome to meet or to talk to ya. We've been through a lot of the same experiences. Um, I did a lot of time in prison. Um and I had a lot of bad emotions, you know, and I did the same thing and asked Christ to Use me in. I did did ended up doing the same thing on the yard, would use my time to talk to people about the Bible and And then I would go back and find the answers, and that's just, you know, I l I did the same thing as I talked to Muslims and a lot of debating skills I learned as well.

And I I I always share your videos on YouTube. Um one of my favorite ones I share is That is a ISIS follow the Koran. And the other one is The Quran admits Allah is Saint.

Well great.

So yeah, David, you continue to bear fruit. The message gets out in all kinds of places. Did you have a, Donald, did you have a question for Dr. Wood?

Yeah, I was wondering 'cause I no churches that I know ever have a prison ministry and I I want to get involved in something and I don't know of any prison ministries and I just maybe needed some advice or Are you involved in prison ministry? Um well It it's it's it's it's kind of a problem that uh that in in certain prisons, um they they they don't always want expellings uh to to visit the prison, so it is kind of an obstacle. It's it's it's usually after a while, so after after um after many years of not getting into trouble, then they'll they'll let you in. But there there are several uh there are lots of prison ministries out there. There are there are the the large um prison ministries like uh like Chuck Coulson's prison ministry, um and and then there are usually um local Prison ministries.

And so basically, if you if you know A prison or a jail that's close by you, normally you should just be able to contact them and say, Hey, you know, what ministries are involved here? Because lots of times it's not an actual. ministry that's that's um That's reaching out to the prison. It's like a local church. A local church will send a pastor or send a group there.

regularly. And so if you're interested in prison ministry, the the the simplest way would be to ask which local churches or which local ministries actually visit this jail or this prison, and then to then go to that church or that ministry and say, hey, I understand that you guys that you guys reach out to the people in the local prisons and to how can I get involved there? And then you'll get to find out what what the requirements are if it's if they don't want people who are former convicted felons or something like this, that will be stated in the rules somewhere. But you can then learn the requirements.

So it's pretty simple. Contact the prison and contact the ministries that are at work there. Excellent. That works. Donald, bless you for your heart to reach out to those that are hurting and not forget about them.

And may the Lord give you some good, solid connections. David, just two minutes before the break here, but when a Muslim who's been raised thinking that the Quran is this perfect book and only aware of this one text and it's perfect, doesn't have contradictions, and then they start reading the Bible and, well, this text says this, and this version says this, and they get confused. If you just had a sound like this in a couple of minutes, how do you get them to have confidence in the scriptures?

Well, I mean, there are lots of ways, but I mean, I've found by experience that when they have that level of confidence in the Quran, it's almost never based on them actually studying the Quran and developing this confidence out of a study of the Quran. They've been told by their leaders and their apologists that the Quran's been perfectly preserved. Not one letter has ever been changed. The Quran contains all these scientific miracles. The Quran is perfectly consistent.

All of these things that are absolute nonsense if you actually go to the Quran and investigate it. And so I find that it's helpful to sort of Respond to the things they've been taught and to actually spend some time going through those claims and. Helping them realize that, hey, the things you've been taught about the Quran are not accurate. You need to take a closer look. at what it means for a book to be inspired, how you would know that a book is the Word of God, because based on the criteria that the Muslims are laying down, perfect preservation and things like that, the Quran fails those tests.

So what then are the tests of an inspired book? And Somewhere in there, somewhere in there, you can get to some criteria. And when you're looking at the Bible, I mean, there are lots of interesting things about the differences here. But when you talk about scripture, everything in Islam comes down to one man, Muhammad. When we're talking about the Bible, we have a cloud of witnesses.

We have a cloud of witnesses. spanning many centuries, many even different continents. Um all ultimately boiling down to the same message. And so uh and especially when you have you know the the the figure of Jesus Christ. who's the culmination here of all of this.

If you know that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and we can know this historically, if you know that Jesus rose from the dead, then this is God's sort of key act in history And if God is raising Jesus from the dead, and this is his, his, his. his most important act in the history of salvation. then you can start putting together a case for the scripture because now it makes perfect sense. If God is doing this amazing thing, he's obviously, obviously going to preserve the message from that. Yeah, well said, clearly said.

We'll be back. We've got 30 more minutes with David Wood. Hey, Harold, I'm going to answer your Twitter question. Yeah, if you've got visual arts game development skills, get the gospel out in parabolic form. Yeah, use your skills to communicate the gospel.

Yes. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on the line of fire today. My special guest is Dr. David Wood, PhD in philosophy from Fordham University.

He's had nearly 60 moderated debates, primarily with Muslims and with atheists, himself radically converted from a very lost life, and now bringing the good news to a wide range of people. You can follow his ministry by checking out his videos on YouTube. They get lots of views for good reason. Go to YouTube and type in David Wood, and you'll find his videos and find out more. David, I'm always in the midst of controversy, one way or another, asked for or not.

And I find when I talk about Islam, I'm going to get hit from two different sides. I will write about radical Islam and I will explain why terrorist acts have their grounding in Quran and in Historic Islam, etc. But I'll refer to it as radical Islam because I know that there are many Muslims who do not relate to Islam in that way.

So I get slammed from the one side, from the Muslim side, saying this is not Islam, ISIS is not Islam, etc. Then I get slammed from the other side. Don't say radical Islam. All Islam is radical. All Islam is violent.

How do you sort out that terminology issue? Do we distinguish radical Islam from Islam? Do we try to prove that radical Islam is true Islam? Are we concerned about not pushing away Muslims from dialogue by branding them all as terrorists? What's your take on that?

Yes, I don't think there's any solution to the problem of Of language here.

Someone's going to be upset no matter what we say.

So the the people who are saying, hey, stop calling it radical Islam because it's just Islam, I mean, in in a way, they're right. I mean, if if Muhammad said that he'd been commanded to fight people until they say that there's no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger, and that's not.

Some radical version of Islam, that's Muhammad himself. I'm not quoting the Al-Qaeda handbook here, I'm quoting Muhammad, whom Muslims are supposed to. submit to.

So if you know, if we focus on that, then we'd have to say that's what Islam is and you know Muslims who are who are not following that, that's like Islam lights or you know something like that. But at the same time, we do need to distinguish between your average Muslim in the streets who just is living his life and working and goes to the mosque and fasts during Ramadan, but he's not trying to kill anyone, and people who are actually trying to kill us.

So we need meaningful distinctions, but no one's going to be happy no matter what terminology we use.

So I think at the end of the day, we just need to carefully explain our terms as we go on. I'm using this term this way because of this and this and this. Got it. Yeah, and again, I'm trying to be accurate and I'm trying to be pragmatic. And obviously, we're not going to satisfy both sides.

Hey, another Twitter question. Have you ever invited Zakir Niyak to a debate?

So an Indian Muslim cleric. Have you? Or is he someone you've wanted to? Yeah, as far as I know, all of the Christian debaters who deal with Islam have challenged him. I've challenged him.

James White has challenged him. Nabil Koreshi has challenged him. Sam Shimoon has challenged him. Jay Smith has challenged him. Nike is is really one of the saddest things Saddest things ever that Muslims look up to Nike as this champion debater when he really had a brilliant strategy.

He debated a couple of people years ago, most of whom no one's ever heard of. He's only debated one person that I've ever heard of, and that was William Campbell. But Nike's approach was to debate people, only debate people who've never debated before, people who had no debate experience. and to get them on stage and to You know, normally an experienced debater or someone like this who's who's uh who's an experienced orator. is going to win some some some easy points on someone who uh isn't an an orator or who doesn't have a lot of debate experience.

So Nike did this. He faced a couple of people that that no one's ever heard of. And Then now Muslims think of him as this champion debater when all the experienced Christian debaters have been challenging him for years and he always backs down. He always refuses to debate.

So brilliant strategy if your goal is to mislead people into thinking that you're an actual debater. Oh God of burning, cleanse. Single flame. Say And the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Yeah, my bad there. I was reading a tweet that had the last name misspelled, and I just read it Neoc, of course.

It's Nike, so David would set the record straight there. Yeah, I actually actually misread the subtitle of Life of Muhammad earlier.

So yeah, these verbal typos, they do happen. All right, 866-34TRUTH, the number to call my guest, David Wood, top Christian apologist debating with Muslims and with atheists. I want to switch over to atheism in a moment, but just another Twitter question. Is there one English translation of the Quran that you most highly recommend or a compilation of the Hadith in English that you most highly recommend? Um the the the Quran question is tricky because it kind of depends on what you're what you're looking for.

Um if you want something that's not going to be watered down, you'd probably want to go with a like a Sullafy translation.

So the Hilleli Khan translation. Um is uh was put out by by Cellophies. And so they tend not to try to water down things.

So that's the Hilleli con. Um As far as what's the most popular, what Muslims are most likely to be using, that if they're using a Quran, an English Quran in America, that would probably be the Yusuf Ali translation. It's just I just see lots of people using and distributing Yusuf Ali translations of the Quran. As far as what is most is sort of easiest to read, Um The the Oxford, the Oxford edition of the Koran. It's translated by a Muslim, but I I just found that it's it's really easy reading.

He was a he's a he's a good writer of of English. And he does tend to tend to water things down more than uh than, say, the Hilleli Khan. But if you're just trying to to get If you're trying to make it through the Quran without giving up, The Oxford edition of the Quran is easier reading. And I say that because you obviously want an accurate understanding of the Quran. But the Koran is very, very, very difficult to read.

The twentieth century atheist philosopher Anthony Flew said that to read the Koran is a penance rather than a pleasure. It's like you're punishing yourself reading this Quran because it's disorganized, it's jumbled together, very, very difficult reading. And I'm not saying that because I don't believe in it. I mean, I find other Muslim sources to be very interesting, but the the Quran, not so much. As far as the.

As far as the Hadith, there aren't a lot of options on the table.

So I would stick with whichever collection you go through, there are six main collections. But I would go with the Darus Salaam editions. That's the publisher, the Darus Salaam publishers. With their editions of the Quran, just because those are the ones that are being used and others are sort of Um Well, I don't think that the others are ever going to become more popular.

So I would stick with the Darussalam editions of whatever Hadith collection you're going for, and that would that would at least get Sahih al Bukhari. And you know what's interesting? immerse myself in learning another perspective. I'm Jewish, but I didn't grow up in a very traditional home or anything like that, so I had to learn the literature later. You do your best to read the primary sources and see them through the eyes of the adherents and then understand why they find something beautiful or why it has meaning.

The same way when I started to immerse myself in looking at issues of gay activism, I tried to put myself in the shoes of those that identified as LGBT. I couldn't because of my own life and upbringing, but tried to see it, you know, liberation, tried to see their cause and see how they saw us. And it's painful to do it, you know, because you're trying to see the world through other eyes.

So there are select portions of the Quran. you know, in the shorter chapters in Arabic. And I understand the power of it and the force of it and how it's chanted beautifully and all this. But I read a lot of it. It's like, oh, I just don't get, I don't see the power and the beauty of it, to be honest.

But with that, Let me shift over to atheism because when I met my wife Nancy, I was a believer at 19. She was a staunch atheist when we met. She had been since she was about eight years old. And then God saved her, brought us together.

So that's been since 74, married since 76. And I've done my best to try to see the world through the eyes of an atheist. And I almost get there, I think, but I can't fully get there. You know, Nancy would have to help me understand something. When I debated Bart Ehrman years back on the problem of suffering, I went over a lot of my opening arguments with her.

And some, she's saying, no, that doesn't mean anything to an atheist. And I would tell her what a brilliant argument it was. And she would dismiss it. And she'll sometimes draw my attention to something on Facebook where Christians respond to atheists as Christians without even trying to understand the atheist viewpoint. As someone who came out of atheism, do you find that lack in the church as well that our response is not often Really scratching that atheist itch or addressing the issue they're raising.

Yes, and this is an area where lot lots of Christians would have more in common with Muslims in a sense, certainly not on violence or something like that or terrorism, but in terms of Sharing belief in God, and there's a purpose to the world, and there's a God out there, and something happens after we die. This is all completely different if you're talking. uh if you're talking to an atheist. And so uh certain Like, if someone were to ask me, you know, what's more rational, Islam or atheism, that's kind of a difficult question. question to answer.

On the one hand, there's so There's so much that's irrational. in Islam, but Islam can deal with the big questions, right? Islam can deal with the big questions of how we got here, why are we here, w you know, how important are we, what is the meaning of life. Islam can deal with those kinds of questions. Atheism really, really can't.

And so I mean, that's sort of the heart of the issue to get down to because Atheism, as far as its popular expression nowadays, is kind of grounded in. Really superficial thinking. They think they have answers to big questions, and you dig just below the surface, and there's just nothing there. And they don't realize it because lots of, especially the more aggressive atheists, they spend so much time attacking that they never really evaluate their own positions. And that's that's something I found by by experience that I spent I spent years attacking everything else and just taking my own beliefs as an atheist for granted.

And as soon as I started questioning my own beliefs, they crumbled very rapidly. And have uh one thing that struck me though is that some atheists have an extremely high view of the god they reject in other words If he was really that good and really that loving, he couldn't possibly tolerate so much human suffering and pain or create a world in which he would know there's such suffering and pain.

So, yes, they're rejecting God, but sometimes they're rejecting him because the God they were hoping for and looking for didn't seem to be there.

So, it's not an intellectual thing, it's a spiritual or emotional disappointment. But there's something good that they were believing about God, they just felt let down. I think that's a whole other angle to approach as well. Yeah, I mean lots of atheists that you you find those kinds of experiences in their life. Lots of, hey, you know, I grew up in, you know, I grew up in the church and then my grandma died and why did God let my grandma die?

And, you know, I talked to my pastor and he couldn't give me any answers and nothing made any sense and people didn't give me any answers. And so I just left. And so it wasn't you know, things weren't set off by, you know, hey, I took a philosophy class and started investigating these things philosophically and examining arguments. It's that they went through some pain and you know, asked for a reason for the pain and didn't get the sort of answer that uh that that they were comfortable with. And then what about those that get picked off high school, college, just because of evolution?

I'm always shocked to hear how many people that happen to, and it seems to be such a straw man to me, but I don't have much scientific background. How big an issue is that still coming up over and over in your atheist apologetics?

Well, that was my wife's experience. She grew up as a good Catholic girl and got to college and Uh took evolutionary biology and uh Stop believing. As far as the big questions are concerned, yeah, you would still have to deal with. you know, the the origin of the universe or something like this, but how How we got here, how human beings got here, what's the process that produced us. Historically, historically, Christians have a good answer on that.

We got here by we have a Creator, and that's why we are different from other creatures, and we have these unique abilities because we're created in the image of God. We have answers to these kinds of big questions. Um but When You know, when atheism comes along and says, oh, but you don't need God to actually answer these big questions because we can answer it by these other means. Then you start, oh, okay, uh, well, maybe I don't need God to understand. Why I'm here or what I need to do.

And so it can be a kind of replacement in that sense. Yeah, and and again, the big questions we have the big answers for in our one true God, our great big God. To find out more about David Wood's work, go to YouTube and search for David Wood. We've got a few more minutes. I'll take a few more questions.

It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown.

I have been speaking with Christian apologist David Wood. The last 0 hour and 45 plus minutes to listen to our entire discussion, our entire interview, his testimony, his past, his conversion, his work in Muslim outreach. To listen to that, just go to the Line of Fire website, thelineoffire.org. Later today, the entire broadcast will be there. Or if you download our app, The Line of Fire with Dr.

Michael Brown, download that app for your iPhone or for your Android phone. Then you'll be able to just click and listen to the archive today's show as well as listen live on any other day. That's the Line of Fire app on the Apple, on the App Store with Apple or the Google Play Store, The Line of Fire with Dr. Michael Brown. All right, let me grab a couple more questions for you, David.

This is also posted on Twitter. Is there a good, easy-to-use resource to counter the classic Islamic atheistic claims that the Old Testament is, quote, just as violent? as the Quran, perhaps a video of yours or some source you'd recommend. Uh well I've I've uh Uh I've I've addressed this in uh In debates and so on, Shabir Ali and I discussed Old Testament violence in our debate. Is the Bible, the Book of Peace?

Um But it I've been planning haven't actually made it yet, but I've been planning a video along the lines of Bible violence versus Quran violence, ten differences. And so there are all kinds of differences. Even if you look at the Old Testament and completely ignore the New Testament, you have differences that are emerging already. In Islam, Muslims are to go out and and violently subjugate the world. In the Old Testament, the Jews were to take a piece of land and to hold the piece of land.

It wasn't something that they were conquering the world with.

So you had things like that. Another difference is the Quran affirms the Quran affirms the inspiration and preservation and authority of the Torah.

So if Muslims are quoting the Torah to show violence, well, they have to believe that that is divine revelation as well. But again, the main difference here is if you read the books from beginning to end, The takeaway message is as far as how we're to live, is that that we're to love everyone and we're to do good to everyone. There is violence in terms of The Old Testament, keep in mind, these people weren't just attacked just because they had different beliefs for the Jews. If you look at the. If you look at the behaviors of the the Canaanites, the people that were to be fought, you know, it was bestiality and sacrificing their kids and things like that.

So it's not just fighting them because they're not believers. In Islam, you do fight people because they're just not believers. And so when you put these things in context, you look at the final marching orders, the takeaway message of the Bible is one of love and peace. The takeaway message of the Quran is one of violently subjugating the world.

Now you can have Christians who ignore that and decide that they're going to be violent, just as you can have Muslims who ignore the final marching orders and live peaceful lives. But we're not talking about the adherence here. We're talking about the messages. We're comparing the messages. And so very different, very different when you put the books side by side.

Yeah, and again, that's a simple comparison is reading the books. But if folks, if you watch David Wood's debate with Shabir Ali on Is the Bible a book of peace, then you'll see this argument laid out. And David, last question, just a couple minutes. I've done many debates as well and see great fruit in them.

Some people wonder and they think, well, why don't we just preach the gospel as if it's preached the gospel or debate or that you can't preach the gospel in and through a debate? Aside from strengthening the faith of believers, which is massively important in doing a debate and helping them find answers to their questions so they'll be stronger witnesses, what other fruit from debates have you seen in terms of reaching those who differ with you? But I mean I I I've even uh I mean Nabeel and I, we weren't formally debating, but we spent years arguing and discussing these things. And he eventually left Islam and became a Christian. But other others do as well.

I mean, I had. Probably five or six debates with a Muslim named Farhan. He eventually. left Islam. And this is this guy I mean, he was a he was a member of the Muslim Debate Initiative.

So you know, this this this guy's a debi James has debated him. Lots of people have uh debated Farhan. I think that was Nabeel's first debate. He debated Farhan. But this is a guy who left Islam.

So even debaters can be impacted by the debates. But as far as you know, as far as the average audience member, I think the the most important benefit of the debates is that Most people haven't, most people aren't apologists, whatever their background. um atheists or Christians or Muslims or whatever. And so they don't know all the arguments and they don't know all the responses to the arguments. And so Lots of Christians and atheists and Muslims are convinced that even though they don't have all the answers, they really think that they're apologists.

Do.

So, lots of atheists out there just think that Christians are such complete morons. If you put someone like Richard Dawkins or something on stage, he's just going to completely humiliate them, and the Christian will walk away with his tail tucked between his legs. And so, for an atheist to get up there and see a Christian even putting forward a rational defense and holding his own, that has a psychological impact. Wait a minute, I thought all of you were just stupid, mindless people. And if you're a Muslim, you think it's so clear.

We've got all the evidence on our side, the scientific evidence of the Quran, and the perfect book, and the perfect man. Our guy's going to crush this Christian. And with a Muslim, they hear all of this information that they've never heard before, right? That they didn't hear from their mosque and they didn't hear from their leaders. And so, sort of all the way across the board, what you're looking for is kind of a light switch moment where it's like a light goes on.

For the Muslims, it's like, hey, I've been told all of my life that the evidence is so clear. And now I'm seeing that it's not. If my leaders didn't tell me the truth about this, what else have they not told me? Maybe I need to look into this for myself. That's the sort of light switch moment for a Muslim and with an atheist that's similar.

It's wait a minute, I thought these guys were complete morons, so I thought these Christians were totally stupid, and that atheists were the smart ones. And here, this Christian is obviously really, really intelligent and yet continues to believe in Christianity. Maybe I need to reconsider my position that these guys are really just, you know, this deceit. stupid people. Maybe I need to look into this a little more carefully.

So that's kind of the goal. It's usually not, hey, I just watched a debate and therefore I'm converting or something like that. These things normally take a lot longer to unpack than an hour and a half or two hour debate.

So you're looking to sort of help spur people on to go and start looking into these things for themselves. Yeah, well said. And I know when I began debating rabbis, because we were told you Jewish believers don't know anything, and the rabbis were so brilliant and learned and studied since they were children. And this sudden this wave of courage would go through the Jewish believers. Like, wait, we do have answers, and it is amazing to see the effect of it.

And then others say, wow, the same thing. I thought these guys were a bunch of idiots, but they've got something to say.

So keep planting good seeds, keep doing the good work, and we'll leave it as a mystery. The question I asked at the beginning of the show, we never got back to, the look, the distinct David would look on the videos, looking off to the side. Why he's done that remains a mystery for right now. Hey, keep up the great work, man. I appreciate it.

I can answer that in 20 seconds if you. Go ahead, go ahead. The answer is: I'm actually at the end of my bed in the videos, and I'm wedged in between. my my uh my uh dresser and my bed and the chair will only face in one direction so i'm kind of stuck in that position that is it it has now been revealed on national radio