engaging in uh... libya and syria uh... in different places some people would argue it has been responsible for the rise of the arabic spring excuse me or uh... you know that the rise of How do I say it? In Libya, Egypt, Syria, the bringing down of political strongmen, which has opened up the space for Islamic extremists to move into positions of power, ISIS, of course, being the most significant of those. And then the way that he handled things with the deal with Iran. Again, I have a friend from Egypt who Try as I might I can't convince him that Obama is a Christian. He's absolutely convinced that Obama is a Muslim and Without getting into the debate about whether Obama's a Muslim or a Christian the point is is that the way that he's gone about Engaging with these different groups has been in a manner that that has felt I think to many people and I think to me as well disingenuous and At best I Like, he won't bring in any Christian refugees from anywhere in the Middle East, right? And so, even though there's Christian refugees that are under severe persecution in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, all of these different places, Egypt, he's not allowing Christians to come in, but he's embracing hundreds or thousands of these refugees from Muslim countries. And so I think as a result of that, there's a sense in our nation that whatever it is that I personally believe about what should happen with immigration, the current leadership is not handling it in a way that I feel like I can trust what he's saying. And so therefore, even if Even if I'm pro-immigration, because of the way Obama's handling things in the current administration, I find myself anti-immigration. Let me, uh, there's so much there. I think our big challenge is going to be how to filter out particular aspects of it, to drill down on them a little bit. It's going to be hard because they're all interconnected, so that's going to be a challenge. But again, to reset, that's the voice of Jonathan Schweitzer, senior pastor of Crossroads Valley Church. I am Troy Skinner, and we're joined this week by Dr. Harpal Singh and his daughter, Hannah Singh. She is a sophomore. It's Harpal Mangat. Oh, Mangat. Hannah Mangat. Singh's your middle name. Correct. say apartment and so it's a harpo's the same mang mang it that's great and hannah mang it that's great for me yet and see them sing is for use for all guys and chorus use for all of the i didn't this didn't come out and i we had a lot actually did but i don't know that i'm remembering so what is it is an according to it you know where and how would you spell that k a u r one k c and there's something to all the time all right so anyway so forget that rewind the tape start over and i think that's good and it was so uh... i'm not sure how much of what we talk about is going to be a divide based on political understanding versus uh... or is going to be a divide based on religious understanding yeah and i think christian on the protestant uh... uh... and of of the christian uh... specter yeah and uh... and the maggots being seeks I'm not sure if that would mean that you'd be... Culturally, you'd have a different understanding because people look at John and they see some, you know, rugged, you know, Northern European descent guy. Rugged, huh? Sure. And they look... My boys would be proud of you. And they look at you and they don't see that. You know, you're clearly not European. You know, it might be hard to say exactly, but you're not European, Jonathan is, and so that right there is going to be distinctive. But I'm wondering, is it just politics that drives this? Is it just our racial awareness that drives this? So let me ask a quick question. The way that I just described that, did you feel like it was being described politically? I think a lot of it was. Interesting. But I think politics is woven in. Yeah, because I was doing so much with what Obama's doing. And I don't want to go down this rabbit trail, but it might take you some time to persuade me that Barack Obama's a Christian. I'm not arguing that he's a Muslim, but I'm not so sure that he's a Christian. Well, that has to do with definitions that we've talked about often on this show about what a true Christian looks like and believes, and clearly Obama, by his own admission, would be on the liberal end of that. He claims to be a Christian, and so if you want to take him at his word, you say yes, but then if you examine the fruit of his life and stuff, there's not a whole lot of evidence. classical orthodox christian faith and so i'm not so sure that he's really anything yeah you know but anyway but all that being the case uh... it breeds this sense at least uh... from where i stand i think a lot of people that would even consider themselves christian that were not being told the truth about what's happening and so then in the midst of that It's one thing if we have people coming in we know who's coming in and we're able to embrace them as they are It's another thing if we're just not being told the truth and so then there ends up being I think a lot of miss there All right. Well, so you two let's sit from from your own personal. Yeah, what's your sense or religious point of view? Immigration for it or against it. So you want to speak right into that microphone in order for it to hear it Just switch it back and forth. Let's reflect back at what Jonathan said I mean clearly the events in Iraq preceded our president becoming the president. So the question is, you can't uh... said he was responsible for i mean and it was a mess before he even was a senator and if we look reflect back correctly if i remember correctly a former vice president uh... who's long departed now uh... was a person to the security sector defense of the time when saddam hussein was in power and he went to the nineteen seventies to iraq so that we have a long engaged history in that country and without a doubt we have to acknowledge that we participated in some of the wrong decisions. So it is a mess. I agree with that. And the question is now how do we solve the mess? No question, the strongman got taken out, the vacuum occurred, and we see a rise in extremism. I want to call it Islam, I'll call it extremism. And the question is, is it more political or is it more for the power accumulation, for a better word. But for that, you really have to reflect back and see what Iraq was prior to independence. And afterwards, there's never a country per se, but a union of three different groupings. And now we're seeing those three different groupings falling apart. And that's what we're witnessing. The three different groupings being? The Kurds, the Shia Muslims in the South, and the Sunni Muslims. I mean, my own grandfather, in World War I, won a medal fighting in Basra against the Turks, Ottoman Turks. And this has been going on for three generations. This is nothing new. So the question is, you have to acknowledge that. And the question is, I agree. Is it? I mean, ISIS is a new is a different phenomenon, but it's really the quest for power for different groupings. I mean, we all abhor the way they've conducted themselves and no question about it. The question is, they're there. And how do we combat them? So that response I think is dealing with the political realities on the ground in the Middle East, which is a whole discussion that I think is worth our time and energy and thoughtfulness, whatever little we bring to it. However, I think what I was intending to respond to was the sense that there's an Islamophobia here in the United States and what are the roots of that Islamophobia here in the United States. And I think it's very hard to separate that from what is labeled as a culture war that I would argue at some level has a spiritual, you know, significant spiritual overtones to it, which is if a christian you know that the the uh... coach out west that that uh... with his football team would go out after the game to half field and he would pray right in now he's lost his job he was a christian you know that that a lot had lost his job but apparently a buddhist guy was doing a similar kind of thing in has not lost his job But the Buddhist guy was going out doing Buddhist things when he did it. And so the question of Islamophobia in our nation for Christians has a bigger context than just Islam. Right? I personally have chosen to befriend a bunch of Muslims in Frederick and played on soccer teams and this sort of thing with them. And I have, in fact, chosen a doctor who is a Sikh, which I don't know if you find that to be common or not, but it's just something that is a part of, you know, my other doctor is a Muslim. So I'm just a guy that has not personally lived in a place of keeping my distance from those of different religions or even Middle Eastern background. in our nation there's a sense in the christian community that were mocked in hollywood that were mocked in the school system were mocked in colleges and in being mocked in all these places last time we had you on the show and you were talking about how at your school you were advocating for a better uh... acceptance and appreciation for ck isn't because it's one of the top five uh... most populist religions in the world and yet Christianity in many places, I don't know what it's like in your particular public school, there's a sense that you can't bring your Bible to school, that if you write a paper on the article just came out about a woman who spoke about Homosexuality and she was in a psychology major at college and she wrote in a way that that argued that homosexuality was inherently disordered and Her teacher gave her an F and yet that's that's yes. That's her opinion, but she was you know bringing that into her paper, and yet there's a sense that if you bring your Christian beliefs into the public square that you're going to get mocked and kicked out. Now you feel that at some level as a Sikh. The funny thing is that we feel that as Christians, and so maybe the point is we need to get together and push back against secularism. And maybe there'd be less Islamophobia if there wasn't a sense that secularism is used as something to beat Christians over the head with, but all other religions, we're going to encourage them while we're beating back Christianity. And so, I don't know, do you have Christian friends that have felt that sense of culture? Um, I mean, I would like agree to disagree that I think that this applies to like, not only Christianity, like, but just religions in general, that if you look at like, Hollywood mocking Christianity, it's also that it's just with pop culture and westernized culture, the like, America is technically one of, you know, they say that it's more religious country than other westernized countries. and I think that like just with our culture that religion doesn't fit into culture here and that's why but I wouldn't say that we could fight against secularism because we live in a country where that's our choice and we're blessed to have that choice and I think Islamophobia, I think I understand what you're saying that of course, it's just that when any religion suppressed, that's a violation of our human rights. But I would say that it's, it goes to different religions, because like, you know, like Christianity, is we're a protestant nation like we live in and uh... there's this whole starbucks i don't know if you guys heard about a starbucks is not christmas trees on the cops anymore and so yeah you know every very offended by it but i kinda love that i think that it's that uh... we're kind of where the melting pot right and i think that islamophobia is uh... something that right now is being I think Islamophobia promotes terrorism because I think that the goal of terrorism is to bring terror to people. And if we're living in a world where we're scared of anybody who has brown skin or is Muslim or who looks different from us, then that's giving in to what the terrorists want. A couple of things I want to clarify. You said that we're in a nation and we have a choice and it's our choice. I wasn't sure what we were choosing. Our choice to follow religion, to be secular, to oh we can choose to be secular, we can choose to be religious, whatever. First Amendment, right? Right, okay. I don't want to get bogged down in the weeds on that. I do want to say, for years, I would have subscribed to the exact same, I would have said exactly what you said, that we don't want to give in to the terrorists because then we're giving them what they want. They want to instill fear, and we've given them what they want. But I've come to realize, they don't want us to be fearful. They want us to be converted or dead. So, you can be afraid of somebody who wants to kill you, and you can be afraid of somebody who wants to force you to convert against your will to a religion that you don't believe in, and you're not giving in to them. You're rightfully fearful because these firmly committed muslims to uh... old-school orthodox historic islam teachings which we now call extremists that's what they believe they don't want you to be a sikh they want you to be a muslim and if you won't be a muslim they will conquer you and they want jonathan not to be a christian pastor they want him to be an imam and if he won't convert he's going to pay the price for that. They don't want him to be afraid. They don't want Jonathan to be afraid unless the fear causes him to do what they want. By the way, I want to call you on something. I ask you to define something for me, John. because you want to introduce the term is islamophobia what do you mean by that what do i mean by yeah how are you defining in islamophobia so i might be okay with you using it for defining in a certain way but i think too many people that have thoughtful intellectual understandings of islam get lumped in with being islamophobes for merely calling the the teachings of the religion with the teachings of the religion are yeah and so She was the one that used the term first. So I don't know if we want to let her define it first and then me work off of that definition. I mean, you used it recurrently and that's what caught my attention. I didn't catch her using it first. So I think I was understanding Hannah as defining Islamophobia as those people that ascribe to Islam. that it is inherently terrorist in its teaching and its orientation. And so people in the United States that speak against Islam as being incompatible with liberal democratic ideals at its root, meaning that the Quran itself teaches things that would make it not possible for Muslims to be a true Muslim and live in a liberal democracy. Is that a fair, Hannah, is that a fair representation? Yeah, I mean, I was just the simple definition of Americans fearing Muslims to be altars. Basically, what you said is a much more. Well, how are you? Sure. Is that how you're using it too? Yeah, that's that's how I use it that that I I feel that the term Islamophobia is a term that is a broad brushstroke that doesn't appreciate that that Islam itself has a significant problem in the year 2000 and beyond in the late 1900s into the 2000s that of the world religions, the top world religions, that they have a higher percentage of violent people in their midst than they seem to be willing to admit, and that when other people identify that that's the case, we're all called Islamophobes. So I think in general I end up being called an Islamophobe, and I think I'm the farthest thing from it. Well, I mean, I would disagree because, well, what you, what you said about, um, of the top major religions about, um, Islamic people having the highest number of extremists or, you know, violent people. Um, like if you look at the United States, just like the mass shootings, like mass shootings since like 1982, I was reading about it. Um, majority of the shooters have been white Christian males. And if though, if that's, you know, violence and if, you know, those are still white supremacists or, Just Christian supremacists, if you look at it, I don't think they're an accurate representation of Christianity, but I think those numbers are still spiked, but it's just how the media presents them to us. That's the point I would like. That's a distinction I think is important. What we might label in our society as a white Christian male, if you drill down and really explore the details, you might find out that they weren't Christian at all. You know, like in England, everybody's Church of England. you know if you're born in england your church of england i mean that's just the way it is you know and but they're not really adherence so the question would be somebody who's if jonathan goes and gets a machete and starts hacking people up at the at the local walmart are we going to say oh a white christian male went and did that maybe because he's a christian he's a male he's white but was he doing it in accordance with the teachings of his faith and he was not and furthermore the following example aiming to do it because he's a christian Right? And I'm saying that there are more people that are claiming to kill in the name of Islam than there are... I don't ever hear of Sikhs killing in the name of Sikhism. And that they're killing because they're Sikhs and they want to show the world that the glory of I don't know the term that is used for God, but the glory of God, according to Sikh theology, that they're killing for Him. I'd never hear of Jews doing that. I've heard of a Christian guy down in Africa that does that, that everybody in the Christian world that I know of all agree that he is not anywhere close to being a Christian. He doesn't look like, he doesn't taste like, but these guys that are white Christian males in the United States, It's very possible that they're a Christian in the background, but outside of this Plain Parenthood guy that was clearly mentally profoundly unstable, I don't know of any of those killers that killed in the name of Jesus Christ. And that's a big distinction. And it's the simplest way of saying it. You know, people who are Christians are Christ followers. They're following after the example and the teachings and the person of Jesus Christ. Yeah. Well, Islam, the Muslims, are Muhammad followers. Yeah. They want to live a life like Muhammad did. Right? Right. This is important. And what kind of life did Muhammad lead? One would argue he led a life an awful lot like what we see from what we label as the extremists today. Yeah. So are the people that are the extremists, are they the most accurate followers of what Islam teaches? And that's the point is that Jesus said, follow me. I'm seeing you shake your hand. Why not? And he went to the cross and died. I want to disagree with you. The reason I'm disagreeing with you is very simple. If we look historically, I want to speak into that, Mike, if you can. If we look historically, and I'm going to quote from my own faith, I mean, we had, our last guru had four kids, and the last two kids were bricked alive by Islam, and the name of Islam was done. But there were people in Islam at that time who said, this is not Islamic, this is incorrect, how can you brick alive kids? Likewise, if you look in every faith, there's a spectrum. Now, you were talking about discovery and science. In their golden era, when they had empires extending across North Africa and parts of the Middle East, there were a lot of advances in science, which we take for granted today, which came from that era. So there's a whole spectrum of learning and willingness for technology. as much as we have here in today. Do you feel like we've spoken in a way that we're not admitting that there have been beneficial advances? No, I'm not saying that at all, but I think you're going to put it in context. We see extremism everywhere. in every faith. Right, but the point, to Jonathan's point, the advances are kind of a non-sequitur because there were great advances coming out of Nazi Germany, too, but we wouldn't then hold up Nazism as this great paragon of human advancement, really. So I don't know if that helps support your cause, but the thing, what I'm hearing, and this is going to be provocative, but what I'm hearing is you're saying that Muhammad himself was a bad Muslim. I don't know. I'm not a Muslim. I can't comment on that. But what I can say is I think you've got to put the judgment, keep the book open, and get people of that faith to express what their viewpoint is in terms of ISIS. I certainly know friends of mine who are Islamic and not anywhere near ISIS. They're actually diametrically opposed to ISIS. But the whole point is, What number is in what group? I don't know. I can't comment. But I think the thing you also must realize, if you look at the recruits ISIS is bringing up, they are disaffected. islamic people growing up outside islam how much of the roots are from their own social circumstances in uh... france germany and the u k and the misunderstanding of the faith because i grew up outside and i can tell you that they were never this fanatical when i grew up with these guys uh... in london but now we see a total different polarization i can't explain that uh... this uh... you know extremism is And you're saying the extremism is coming from the fact that they're disaffected and that they're poor and that they're not being enfranchised. Is that what you're saying? I think that's what you see in Europe. If you look here, this is a land of incredible opportunity. If you're proud to work hard in the States, the sky's the limit. But in Europe, it's not the case. So we don't see that degree in the U.S. But if you look in Europe, it's a very regimented society. It's very difficult for mobility. That's why a lot of the Europeans moved over here. And that's you're seeing the net result of the disaffection being reflected. They're easily targeted and recruited by these. OK, so this is, I think, a very common Argument and I think that you say it in a very intelligent way you present it clearly That that in Europe in particular Germany France that there's a disaffection And there's a there's a disenfranchisement that that is has left them you know in a tough spot the problem that I see with that is that the christian uh... populations in china and in north korea in in uh... the middle east you don't find those disaffected populations profoundly economically oppressed and even living under severe mean they're losing their heads uh... depending on how they handle themselves in these most muslim countries or communist countries you don't see the same acting out from those that are Christians that are claiming to be in the name of Christ. In fact, what you see is them appealing to the West that we will come in and stand with them, that they would have religious freedom. But you don't find them taking up arms or blowing themselves up or other people up because they're so disaffected. That unique psychosis is not something that you're finding from oppressed christian groups and we're gonna have to pick up and in where we're leaving off now with next week's show and and uh... and and because this an awkward place and we're getting into the meat of some stuff but we're out of time yeah until they give us more time suspense which is going to happen because Tell them we're on the air, they'll take us off. Jonathan Schweitzer, Senior Pastor at Crossroads Valley Church. Dr. Harpo Mangat and his daughter Hannah Mangat. Not to be confused with Thing or Core. I was confused earlier. Clearly, Jonathan wasn't, so good for you. Now I'm not. What have I been reading lately? Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. I would say the first two-thirds of the book helpful, the last third kind of lost me a little bit, so there's my reading review for you. Thanks to our sponsor, Putman, Plumbing, and Heating. How can we make you smile? Until next week, God bless.