Barger on Chrislam

Should Christians and Muslims seek to merge their religions into Chrislam? Find out with guest Eric Barger on the show Christ in Prophecy.

Last aired on October 14, 2012.

Video References

Take a Stand! Ministries

Transcript

Dr. Reagan: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Should Christians be reaching out to Muslims seeking spiritual reconciliation with them? Should Christians and Muslims be holding joint worship services? Is the sacred book of Islam the Qu’ran, equal in authority to the Bible? Should Christians and Muslims seek to merge their religions into a new religion called Chrislam? Stay tuned for a discussion with an expert on these issues.

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Part 1

Dr. Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus, our Blessed Hope, and welcome to Christ in Prophecy. My colleague, Nathan Jones and I have a very special guest with us this week, one of our favorite guests. His name is Eric Barger, and he is the founder and director of a ministry called, Take A Stand! Eric welcome to Christ in Prophecy. It is always a joy and a blessing to have you on this program.

Eric Barger: Thank you David, I’m glad to be here with you again.

Dr. Reagan: Tell us how in the world did you ever come up with an unusual name like, Take A Stand Ministries!?

Eric Barger: Well it is time for the church to do that. We saw a lot of people that were waffling on a lot of things. And since our ministry is about discernment and apologetics we just felt like, Take A Stand! was something that we were saying. Take a stand on the Scriptures, on the Lord Jesus and that is what we stand for.

Dr. Reagan: I know from my own experience that a lot of the waffling has to do with the fact that people just don’t really know why they believe what they believe. And that’s what your ministry helps with.

Eric Barger: It is. And I think that lends to the lack of sound doctrinal teaching that we see going on. We see a lot of self help sermons going on; but not a lot of sound doctrine. And the church needs to know the doctrines of the faith.

Nathan Jones: You said apologetics; could you explain to our viewing audience exactly what apologetics means?

Eric Barger: Sure.

Dr. Reagan: Do you go around apologizing to people?

Eric Barger: I only apologize when needed. But apologetics is a Bible school term for the defense of the faith. It comes for the Greek word, apologia; giving an ample defense of what you believe. And that’s what we’re doing.

Nathan Jones: Well there is this new ecumenical movement that our folks have been writing in asking us to talk about. It is this idea where we blend Islam with Christianity and it is called Chrislam. And folks have been writing in saying, “Can we do a show on Chrislam?” and you’re here. So define it for us.

Eric Barger: Right.

Dr. Reagan: And I want to underline that incidentally because he really has. He has been overwhelmed by requests. It seems like people are really becoming aware of this. And they are saying, “What is it? What is it?” So we are so delighted to have you here to tell us what it is.

Eric Barger: Well I am glad to be here to do this.

Nathan Jones: You have been speaking on it a lot right?

Eric Barger: I have been. I’ve done a DVD on it. And we’ve been speaking on it. It’s one of my most requested seminars now. And this is something we need to talk about.

Dr. Reagan: Ok. So as Nathan said what is it? Where did it come from?

Eric Barger: Ok, Chrislam is the blending of Christianity and Islam. It came from Nigeria it is less than 30 years old.

Dr. Reagan: From Nigeria?

Eric Barger: Yes, an Imam and a Christian pastor who were at war with each other; literally having a type of civil war, laid down their guns. Good idea. But when they did they started looking at what they had in common. And in the case of the Christian pastor he didn’t examine what they could never have in common because they based it around the idea that Allah is Jehovah. And the Esa or Jesus mentioned 97 times in the Qu’ran is the Jesus of the Bible. But I think a clear view of the two when you begin to understand it you begin to see that Esa is not Jesus, and Allah is not Jehovah. And I believe every Muslim Imam knows that but they love the mileage they get out of it with the Christians who think we are being conciliatory or kind somehow by saying that we all worship the same God.

Dr. Reagan: Now you say it started in Nigeria but it spread from there hasn’t it?

Eric Barger: Oh, yeah, yeah. But this imam and pastor are traveling the world now.

Dr. Reagan: Oh, is that right.

Eric Barger: Talking about the joys of Chrislam and how we can have joint services where we read the Qu’ran and Bible side by side.

Dr. Reagan: Well didn’t we actually have a Chrislam Sunday here in the United States recently?

Eric Barger: June 26th of 2011 was Chrislam Sunday.

Dr. Reagan: What does that mean?

Eric Barger: Several hundred churches brought a Muslim leader or cleric in and they read the Qu’ran the Bible side by side.

Nathan Jones: In the churches?

Eric Barger: Christian churches.

Dr. Reagan: Yeah.

Eric Barger: Or churches that at least used to be.

Nathan Jones: What about the mosques?

Eric Barger: There weren’t any mosques involved.

Dr. Reagan: Of course not.

Nathan Jones: No, only the churches.

Eric Barger: That’s right now understand that Christianity is what suffers when you begin to look at these two religions.

Dr. Reagan: Sure.

Eric Barger: Because no imam is going to bring a Bible into his mosque and read it from the pulpit.

Dr. Reagan: Or allow a Christian to come in and talk about Jesus.

Eric Barger: Exactly. Exactly, oh they’ll talk about Jesus but not the biblical Jesus.

Dr. Reagan: But not, yeah there not going to let them talk about the biblical Jesus.

Eric Barger: That’s right. That’s right.

Dr. Reagan: Yeah.

Eric Barger: The Jesus of the Qu’ran is a prophet and I think that everybody needs to understand that the Qu’ran teaches that the Jesus of the Qu’ran is going to be Allah’s enforcer to eventually force everyone to become Muslim. This isn’t the Jesus of the Bible.

Dr. Reagan: So we’re going to invite false teachers to come into the church. Simply because we want to show them that we love them and that we respect them and we care for them. We’ve come a long way from the times of Elijah haven’t we?

Eric Barger: We have. Now look I would go anywhere and I’ve been criticized for this. I would go and preach in the presence of the cultists if I could. I would be misunderstood for doing so. But I believe that’s where we are supposed to take the truth. But in this case this is a promotion of Islam saying that it is equal to Christianity. That both paths lead to God. It is a form of limited universalism.

Dr. Reagan: Here’s a quote from John Ashbrook, “A debate is a conflict which clarifies a position. A dialogue is a conversation which compromises a position.”

Eric Barger: Wow. I think the folks with DVR are going to play that back several times. That is a powerful quote.

Dr. Reagan: Well we’re going to talk about dialogue that is going that started at Yale University and what’s meant when we get together for this dialogue. It’s not to talk about differences it’s to talk about where can we say that we agree, and let’s forget about the differences.

Eric Barger: Right. Yeah.

Dr. Reagan: OK.

Part 2

Dr. Reagan: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and our interview of Eric Barger we are talking about Chrislam. Nathan kick it off.

Nathan Jones: Well Eric soon after 9/11 we had this, you now we had to deal with Islam, whether it had to do with terrorism or what not. And George W. Bush came out and he said, “Well we need to have peace with our brothers because their god is our God.” The Christian God and the Muslim God are one and the same, is that true?

Eric Barger: No, that’s not true. However that was a political statement, and if indeed President Bush is a Christian, and I’ll give him that much. And if indeed he is I don’t think he understands that the differences are there. And there are a lot of people in the church who are confused about this. We see Christian leaders some evangelicals who are saying that Allah and Jehovah are the same by the different actions they are talking, by the things that they are saying. So no wonder there is that confusion. And certainly as a political statement by President Bush he has to be the President for all the people including those who are Muslims here.

Nathan Jones: Well who is Allah then to the Muslims? I mean if he’s not Jehovah God then how is he different from the Jehovah God?

Eric Barger: Ok. There were over 300 different gods being worship around the Kaaba back in the 7th Century.

Nathan Jones: The Kaaba is their?

Eric Barger: The Kaaba stone and the Kaaba Monument is their–

Nathan Jones: That’s a meteor right that they worship?

Eric Barger: It’s a meteor exactly. And they believe that their god lives there. This is why Muslims pray towards Mecca wherever they are in the world. They do it five times a day at least. And that being the case that there are all these different gods and idols being worshipped. Mohammed took it upon himself as the political, spiritual, and military leader of his tribe he believed he had a vision from the Angel Gabriel while he was in a trance state in a cave.

Nathan Jones: It’s always Gabriel isn’t it?

Eric Barger: And that he was to bring pure religion back to the world. So by the sword went about either converting people either they come to his viewpoint or it was off with their heads kind of thing. And we see this all through history. So he took it upon himself to bring his god to bear upon the world. And his god, although the word Allah means God in Arabic, and we if we were Arabic speakers we might use the word Allah if we were referring to God. There’s got to be a clear delineation by Christians in the day we live in to discern between Jehovah and Allah. And the Esa or Jesus of the Qu’ran and Jesus Christ of the Bible who is God incarnate.

Nathan Jones: Now was Allah the moon god initially?

Eric Barger: Allah was the moon god.

Nathan Jones: Ok, so he wasn’t the overall god all powerful, he was just god of the moon.

Eric Barger: That he was the god of the Koresh tribe who was Mohammad’s tribe he decided in the cave that Gabriel had shown him that his way was the only way. His religion was the right way and there wasn’t any other way.

Dr. Reagan: Let’s go back to Nathan’s original question though. Islam is a monotheistic religion worshipping they say the one and only true God.

Eric Barger: Right.

Dr. Reagan: Christianity is a monotheistic religion. So if they both worship the one and only true god, don’t they both worship the same god?

Eric Barger: They are not worshipping the same god.

Dr. Reagan: Alright now how are they different?

Eric Barger: Ok, Jehovah God as shown to us in the Bible to the Jews and then to the Christians is different than the god of Islam. Islam worships the god that Mohammad’s tribe worshipped who is the Koresh tribe.

Dr. Reagan: But how is he different in nature?

Eric Barger: Well if you read the Qu’ran and the Bible side by side you see that either God must be schizophrenic if he came up with both those books because they do not read the same. And in my DVD on this in my teaching on this.

Dr. Reagan: An example the Qu’ran never mentions Allah as a god a love.

Eric Barger: No, never. And the Jesus of the Qu’ran is but a prophet, He is not God incarnate. It says that God had no son. I think the greatest reputation of Chrislam is from the Qu’ran in Surah chapter 4 in the Qu’ran clearly says that Christians should never speak the word Trinity, and that we should understand that Allah never had a Son.

Dr. Reagan: Right, so Islam rejects the very idea of the Trinity. They reject the idea that God ever had a son. They reject the idea that Jesus was crucified on the cross, they say it was an imposter there.

Eric Barger: That’s right.

Dr. Reagan: That He was never resurrected from the dead. And yet if you were to invite an Islamic Imam to come to your congregation and talk about Jesus he would get up and talk about how much they love Jesus. And how Jesus has mentioned in the Scriptures and you would think that, of course he’s not going to tell you that they don’t believe the things that we believe about Jesus.

Eric Barger: That’s right.

Dr. Reagan: It’s very misleading.

Eric Barger: Yeah it is. And they believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, I mean this is all in the Qu’ran. But at the same token they never deify Jesus. He is not deity. He is not God. This is a different Jesus and the apostle Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:3-4 about different Jesus’, different Gospels, and different spirits that will come along. And it is our responsibility to know what we believe that when these other religious systems come along that mention a Jesus that we are able to discern whether they are talking about the real one or the imposters.

Dr. Reagan: So we are talking about really two different gods here.

Eric Barger: We are.

Dr. Reagan: For example the God of Islam is an arbitrary God. He is so arbitrary that even Mohammed said he didn’t know for sure if he was saved or not.

Eric Barger: That’s right.

Dr. Reagan: Because it’s just going to depend at the last judgment whether God saves you or not, and you might never know. About the only hope you have is maybe to die fighting for Islam.

Nathan Jones: That’s an excellent point then, their salvation is totally different right?

Eric Barger: There is, exactly and that’s what I was going to say that martyrdom is the only way out. If you’ve done too many bad things you don’t know if you’ll make it. Even if you followed the five pillars of Islam the legalism of Islam. They have what they call recording angels; one that writes down all the good stuff you do, and one that writes down all the bad stuff you do.

Nathan Jones: Hey, point this way.

Eric Barger: Sorry, anyway but if the one writing down the bad stuff overpowers or has more on his ledger than the one that writes down the good stuff well you don’t know if there is a way out except for martyrdom. And that’s tragic.

Dr. Reagan: You mentioned to me in a previous conversation something about the Insiders Movement. What in the world is that?

Eric Barger: Well the Insiders Movement is a movement inside Islam that says if you come to faith in Jesus while you’re a Muslim just stay there. It is too much trouble, you’ll lose your family, you might lose your life, you know don’t stand against Islam inside of it. Just stay there, do the five pillars of Islam, do the five prayers. Keep reading the Qu’ran. Go to the mosque, listen to the Imam. But where is coming out from among them and being ye separate is the problem.

Dr. Reagan: That’s like saying I know that you’re worshipping Baal but you can go ahead and do that and worship. Just have Jesus as one of your Gods.

Eric Barger: That’s really what it comes down to. And tragically there are people all through Christianity including some who claim to evangelicals who are advocating this kind of thing. There are books that have been written that are helping to substantiate the idea of the Insiders Movement.

Dr. Reagan: You know one thing that people do not understand about Islam is the principle of abrogation. The Qu’ran was written over a long period of time. And the very earliest statement in there about Christians and Jews are very positive, these are people of the book, we should seek unity with them, and all this sort of thing. Later on when they didn’t accept what Mohammed had said then he had new revelations from God that we were to kill these people, and subdue these people, and all that. And that overrides the earlier revelations.

Eric Barger: Right.

Dr. Reagan: The principle of abrogation, we don’t have that in God’s Word. I mean God doesn’t change His mind. But in the Qu’ran he changes his mind. So I’ve noticed in Western cultures like America when Muslims quote the Qu’ran they quote the early scriptures which have been abrogated and they know that. But then when they get into control they suddenly switch the scriptures that talk about, “put them under subjection.”

Nathan Jones: What do these leaders who want to join with Islam do with verses like Surah 9:5 which is the Qu’ran’s verse and chapter 9:5, “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Take them captives and besiege them and lie and wait for them in every ambush.” Or Surah 2:191-193, “Kill them wherever you find them.” And then if you go to the Hadeth which is the collection of Mohammed’s sayings, “And the last Imam would come not unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews. And the Muslims will kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and the stone or tree would say, ‘Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him'” What do we do with these verses?

Eric Barger: I know, I know.

Nathan Jones: I mean there just outright kill everybody unless you’re a Muslim.

Eric Barger: And especially those who stand against it and that is said over and over. The cutting off of the right hand, and the left foot is one of the punishments, if not execution. I mean that is the kind of thing that the Qu’ran teaches. But again let’s come back to what it says. Surah 9 is a great example of that.

Dr. Reagan: And it’s one of the later ones right Dave that you had talked about?

Eric Barger: Well the Qu’ran you remember as it written they begin to compile it 18 years after Mohammed’s death. So it’s not Mohammed actually writing it, they are writing down what he taught the followers. It says in Surah 4, “O people of the book,” that’s talking about us, Christians, “commit no excesses in your religion, nor say of Allah but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary of was no more than an apostle of Allah and his word which he bestowed on Mary in a spirit proceeding from him.” It says, “So say not Trinity, detest for it will be better for you. For Allah is one Allah glory be to him above having a son.” It says clearly he didn’t have a son. This is not a religion that Christians can join hands with. And when we have people like the Yale Divinity School that we’ve talked about reaching out. And they base their premise in the paper that they wrote that many high profile Christian leaders have signed they base their premise on the idea that we all worship the same God. If we do then our God is a very confused God who has said one thing to one people, and another thing to another people.

Dr. Reagan: The god of the Qu’ran is not the God of the Bible.

Eric Barger: Absolutely not.

Dr. Reagan: Point blank. I mean it’s just not. And anyone who thinks he is, is deceived.

Eric Barger: Yes, I’m afraid so, that’s exactly right. And yet we have Christian leaders all around us saying, “Oh, it’s not that big a deal. It’s for world peace.” I mean that’s going to be the cry, “It’s for world peace.” You know.

Dr. Reagan: It’s for the damnation of people’s souls.

Eric Barger: All we do is assure that Muslims who listen to this kind of thing. Or people who get involved in the Insiders Movement which is really Chrislam inside Islam; or in Chrislam in Christian circles. All we are assuring is that they’re going to have a convolution of who God is and never a clear picture of salvation through the blood of Jesus.

Part 3

Dr. Reagan: Welcome back to our discussion of Chrislam with Eric Barger the founder and director of Take A Stand! Ministries. Eric how about telling our viewers how they can get in touch with your ministry. And also how they might be able to get a copy of this new DVD you have just produced called, The Deception of Chrislam.

Eric Barger: Thank you David. If people want more information about us they can contact us at our website: ericbarger.com, E-R-I-C-B-A-R-G-E-R.com, ericbarger.com. Or call us at 214-289-5244. Both the Deception of Chrislam DVD, which is a brand new one and also the, Truth About Islam DVD both those will be helpful to you along these lines of discussion we are having today. And there’s lots of articles and information on our website that deals with this, and a lot of other areas in apologetics.

Dr. Reagan: Eric do you put out a newsletter?

Eric Barger: I do. We do a newsletter. We do it six times a year through the mail. And then we do it about every other week through e-mail. And we would love to send you also our newsletter and a free packet of information if you’ll sign up at our website or just call our phone number.

Dr. Reagan: Is the newsletter free of charge?

Eric Barger: It’s free of charge. Thank you David.

Dr. Reagan: Well folks you can’t beat that. I mean ok. Nathan how about you telling our viewers about our website and some of the features on it.

Nathan Jones: Certainly. Well after visiting ericbarger.com come to lamblion.com L-A-M-B-L-I-O-N.com and we have tons of articles, TV shows like Christ in Prophecy you can watch this right on there. We have a newsletter that comes out every other week you can sign up for right on the homepage. We have a blog if you need a daily dose of Bible prophecy. And we have a Facebook group, there are thousands of people there talking and sharing about Bible prophecy every day.

Dr. Reagan: Thank you Nathan, I hope people will do that. I tell you it’s an exciting website. I congratulate you on how you keep it changing all the time.

Nathan Jones: Praise the Lord.

Dr. Reagan: And especially your blog and all the things that go on there. That’s a very interesting and exciting.

Nathan Jones: Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

Dr. Reagan: Eric let’s get back to our discussion of Chrislam.

Eric Barger: Great.

Dr. Reagan: In my research on this I discovered that there was a major Muslim Christian dialogue that was held in 2008 and sponsored by the Yale Divinity School. And it produced a document that many major Christian leaders have signed, including evangelicals. And it basically talks about the fact that there are many things that are common between Islam and Christianity and that we ought to focus on those and not the differences. And the two things that they single out and really focus on are: love of God, and love of neighbor. And they said this is characteristic of both of them, both Christianity and Islam.

Eric Barger: Right.

Dr. Reagan: Your reaction.

Eric Barger: Well first of all it’s a different God. I mean we’ve already gone through that but I’ve got to reiterate that for anyone who just tuned in. This is a different god. And I know it sounds like we’re being stick in the mud, and isolationists and so on. But I don’t see any reason why I should give any credence or try to be friendly to a religion who has done one thing. To every person who has ever followed it, and that is people lose their soul by following it. Why should I be kind to it? Yet the Yale Divinity School and some of the usual suspects that we see, both the squishy evangelicals and also those in liberal circles.

Dr. Reagan: I like that term squishy evangelicals.

Eric Barger: Well that’s really what it is. You know people who really don’t, they kind of go along and really don’t know what they believe.

Dr. Reagan: They want everybody to like them.

Eric Barger: Exactly. Let’s all be one big happy family, all be friends and so on. They talk about the love of God, and love of neighbor. But you know in Islam they tell you that unless you convert to Islam you’re still a member of the house of War. You’re either a member of the House of Peace you’ve become a Muslim or you’re a member of the House of War that’s the infidels. That’s everyone else. There is no, live and let live in Islam. This is a Christian’s idea of how we can somehow join hands with Muslims. But yet we do so based on the idea that they worship the same God that we do, and that’s just simply not the case.

Dr. Reagan: You know Eric when I see these Christian-Islam dialogues going on. Knowing what I know about Islam I’ve got to believe that the Muslim leaders must laugh all the way home after it’s over with.

Eric Barger: I’ve said exactly the same thing David. I’ve said the exact same thing. Can I tell you the other little dirty secret here is that you find out that the people who are signing documents like the Yale Divinity School document, and I’ve got a long article on our website about this; the links all go back to the Yale Divinity School people can read the original documents. But the dirty little secret is these folks are pushing for a Palestinian State and they are anti-Israel. And that is the thing. It’s Replacement Theology. It’s Dominionism. And you begin to trace down the roots of it, and then it comes back to what they believe about eschatology and Israel as a state.

Dr. Reagan: Well the thing that gets me is how people talk about Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance and all this. And yet there is not a mosque that’s going to allow a Christian to speak in a mosque. There’s not a mosque that is going to have one of these dialogues held at a mosque.

Eric Barger: Yeah.

Dr. Reagan: There is not an Islamic country in a world where there is any freedom of religion. You’re either a Muslim or you’re going to be dead, one of the two. And yet they talk about this as a religion of peace.

Eric Barger: Yeah, the Saudi Arabian government put out a book that was for high school and junior high school students aimed at the United States students. And that book said that all across the Muslim world that other houses of worship had flourished and they welcomed it. That’s simply not true. Our soldiers can’t even bring a New Testament with them when they go over to try to help one of those countries to over throw a dictator or whatever.

Nathan Jones: Well if Islam started around 600 AD so it has been around for 1400 years. Does its history show that it flourishes with Christianity? How does it treat Christianity throughout the centuries?

Eric Barger: No, and certainly the saints who have been martyred along the way because they rejected Islam. I mean Mohammed when to Medina and he forced the Jews and Christians to either accept Islam or die. And they died. They were martyred.

Dr. Reagan: Well along that line several years ago we did an interview with Mark Gabriel and produced this album called the, “Mark Gabriel Story.” Mark Gabriel is a remarkable man. He grew up in Cairo and he had the whole Qu’ran memorized by the age of 12. And that’s remarkable because the Qu’ran they don’t allow it to be translated into modern Arabic.

Eric Barger: Right.

Dr. Reagan: So he didn’t even know what he was saying he just had the sounds. And then he became the number two in his class of almost 3,000 at the Al-Azhar University there in Cairo. And then he became the Professor of Islamic History at the university there, and an Imam at Gaza. And he said that looking back on Islamic history he could sum it up in one sentence, “The history of Islam is a river of blood.”

Eric Barger: Boy that is it exactly.

Dr. Reagan: Every place it has advanced it has advanced with the sword, not through conversions but through the sword. And it keeps people under control with the sword.

Eric Barger: I think the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in what is called the Arab Spring is really bad news for Muslims who are trying to hide where Islam is coming from. You know this is not a hate campaign about Muslims. This is about trying to dialogue with them about who the real God is. About who the real Jesus is. If that’s what the Yale Divinity School was doing, and all these as I call them squishy Evangelicals who were signing these documents, I would be all
for it. This is not where they’re going with this though. This is not the goal of it. Our goal here is to define the differences; the stark differences between Islam and Christianity and show how they can’t be brought together. But our heart desire is to see the Muslims be saved.

Dr. Reagan: Incidentally this sort of thing is going on in other areas. We recently had a Christian-Mormon dialogue in Salt Lake City where some major evangelicals went out there and they hugged on each other and even got up and apologized for persecution of Mormonism. And they don’t point out any differences. They point out that they’re going to Hell.

Eric Barger: Yeah, now that happened in 2004 and may I say the guy who did that at the Salt Lake City Temple also signed the Yale Divinity School Document saying the Muslims and Christians are on the same path with the same God.

Nathan Jones: Eric all throughout Europe people are giving up their Christianity, they went to secularism. And now mosques are flourishing. People are joining Islam like crazy. Why are people converting to Islam so much in Europe?

Eric Barger: You know it might be out of pressure. It might be out of deception. Certainly we are in the end of the end times, and when you see everything all the forces of the world being rallied together against Israel. I have to think this is part of what is going on. At this point in time we are watching these events.

Dr. Reagan: You know I think all people we are born with a spiritual hunger that is part of our make-up; we are born with an emptiness that needs to be filled spiritually.

Eric Barger: Right.

Dr. Reagan: And in Europe Christianity is dead because Christianity sold out. And Christianity sold out to humanism. And began to teach that the Bible is not the Word of God, but the Bible is mans search for God and full of myth, legend and superstition. People stopped going to church. The Anglican Churches of England are empty today. Only 5% of the people in England even bother to go to church anymore because there is nothing there. And yet there’s still that spiritual hunger. And I think people look at Islam and they see people who are dedicated, committed, and believe. And they are looking for something to believe in.

Eric Barger: Yeah, you’re exactly right. It has been part of the failure, or should I say it is the failure of the Church that has caused some of this or opened these doors. This is why the cults are thriving. This is why we have kids who are floating around in the Emergent Church Movement that have no idea about the blood of Jesus, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth, salvation by grace. They’re not hearing those doctrines. We need the doctrines of the faith to be taught by our pastors wherever they are.

Dr. Reagan: So let’s place ourselves in the place of our viewers for a moment. If the pastor of one of their churches suddenly announces that next Sunday we’re going to reach out to Muslims because we are going to invited one of the Imams to come to our church and speak to us. What should they do?

Eric Barger: Well that was what suggested by a conference at Yale in 2008 that pastors should do this. And large evangelical churches, mega churches have done that kind of thing. What should people do? Protest with all your heart. Warn everybody you can. It isn’t that we’re being unloving to the Muslims. It is that this religion has no place inside the Christian church and should be exposed for what it is.

Dr. Reagan: And pray that their pastor would be delivered from spiritual deception.

Eric Barger: Exactly.

Closing

Dr. Reagan: Eric I want to thank you for being with us this week. As I said at the beginning of the program you’ve been on this program many times and it’s always a joy and blessing to have you with us.

Eric Barger: Well it’s great to be here. And I’m just blessed to do it. Thank you.

Nathan Jones: Well hey man, you should come back next week because another show that people want to see is how do you deal with Atheist? After all Atheist have really increased their attacks on Christianity and the Bible. Would you mind coming back and talking about that?

Eric Barger: I’d love to. That’s a topic that needs to be talked about.

Dr. Reagan: Yeah, they’re getting very aggressive. Well Eric thanks so much and we’ll look forward to seeing you back here next week. Well folks that our program for this week. I hope it’s been blessing to you. And I hope you’ll be back with us again next week. Until then this is Dave Reagan together with Nathan Jones saying, “Look up, be watchful, for our redemption is drawing near.”

End of Program

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