Broadcasting from the west side of Big Brother City in the heart of Gridlock County, where preaching with impact is like plowing pavement, so I've been told. You know why? Because people continue to place their hope in unsatisfying things. This is the Frederick Faith Debate. Our sponsor is Putman, Plumbing and Heating. How can we make you smile? We are online at WFMD.com, keyword faith. We are also on the WFMD Facebook page from time to time. And you know what? I hinted last week you're going to try to get the video camera in here for this week's show, and we didn't do that. so you know why that was the because there's the show today is such an exciting continuation of last week's show that i don't know about you but you know i've done nothing else but want to think about in between past week's show in this show how to move forward so uh... that the word pictures that were in for it was even better we're keeping in in in touch with our roots where we are a radio program and audio program what's this video stuff anyway it's a fad it'll go away at all video never work Jonathan Switzer, senior pastor at Crossroads Valley Church. I am Troy Skinner, and again, this is the Faith Debate. And our guests this week, let's see if I can get their names right, Dr. Harpal Mangat and his wife, wife, daughter. What's your wife's name? Harmandar. We've got to get her to come on the show. Absolutely. Okay, next time she will bring her wife. But Hannah is their daughter. Hannah Mangat is a sophomore in high school in Montgomery County, I believe. Churchill High School. Churchill High School. and she's done some amazing things that i think if you google her name you'll probably find some stuff that she's done down there yeah that's true about you and i too it's just hers will be nice early positive yeah mine will be pictures with mustaches drawn on me and things like that people who aren't fans i guess but uh... anyway last week we're talking uh... about well of a variety of things we ended up drilling down on islamophobia and what we mean by that and uh... how we should understand uh... terrorist activities isis and and other like-minded uh... professing muslims and whether the representing true islam or not and if uh... if those of us who are not muslim in america should have a fear of them if it's justified and uh... uh... and okay to have a fear or if it's completely insane and uh... and unforgiving and on unknowing to have such a fear is kinda where we we were and i finished with the strong uh... uh... uh... historical comment about not hysterical historical in christianity and how those two groups act when they are under oppression and uh... doctor may get was prepared to give a uh... you know crushing response to that and to frame a really quick point was uh... the point uh... the point was doctor made the point initially that you know there's there's economic oppression and political oppression and and and they're really there's a there's a tough environment in which they're living and so that makes them right candidates for being into the movement by these extreme uh... terrorist groups right and then jonathan was making the point that the okay that's may or may not be true but you don't see christians in similar situations china or the middle east or wherever going out and conduct and uh... committing terrorist activities uh... in the name of jesus and so that the show ended there seems to be a unique psychosis that we're seeing among these islamic groups that we haven't seen in sikh groups and now we've asked the doctor to hold his thought for one hundred sixty seven and a half hours let's see how well he does yes in answering that response back the fundamental word is freedom if you look at the countries you quoted there's no freedom of expression there's no freedom of expression in china in north korea and many of the middle eastern countries what you're talking about so they aren't allowed to express themselves And they live in fear of a repression. So I'm not saying that is right or wrong. So it's not right. But the whole point is in Europe, they have that freedom of expression. And that's what is being given to them and allows them to express it. And we're not saying it's right or wrong. I don't think it's right that, you know, committing violence and hate crimes against the rest of the population. That's totally inexcusable. But the whole point is, you've got to have a fundamental understanding, the liberties we take for granted. uh... but whether be here or in europe another in china i mean the guys uh... that they have a muslims in china and they can express themselves uh... in fact wouldn't you argue or would you agree those freedoms that you're referring to that are the freedoms of liberal democratic uh... nations all over the world our freedoms that have arisen primarily in what were originally Christian nations, and that to this day, we have never seen a Muslim nation move from being a Muslim nation into being a liberal, democratic nation. They tried to do that in Egypt and it fell apart when the Muslim Brotherhood got in power They were moving in that direction in Turkey, but in the in the and they were thinking maybe this is gonna happen You know, we're all excited about it, but then it has not and it's moved in a in a more extremist direction again and so maybe one day there will be muslim nation that is moved toward a democratic republic but as of now that's not the case and so there appears to be some key differences uh... in the world view in the in the theological constructs that produce uh... even the uh... the secular societies of today that have allowed the the context of the secular society day that we just don't see coming forth from muslims i'd like it to happen I think it's happening. I think the whole point is when we went to Iraq, we went with that idea in mind, the idea of having the freedom for people to do that. Let's look at freedoms in our own country. It took a civil war and a lot of blood to get freedoms established. Profoundly. And that's what we're witnessing now today in these countries is a change from the dictatorial system and this Arab Spring and many other countries is showing the expression of the people to express their freedoms from the prior colonial eras when they had dictators who left in power after the colonial powers left. Without a doubt, you can't separate the history of those nations from colonialism. And I've tried to think through some of those implications. We'll never be able to go back and try to, you know, imagine what Islam could have done if there had been no colonial rulers that have moved into those nations. So, you know, it wouldn't, I think, be a productive discussion to try to imagine that. Nevertheless, to this date, It's the Christian what what most people now call post-christian Europe is post-christian the United States most people are saying now is post-christian, but it's these post-christian societies that have been at the at the forefront of This idea of civil rights around the world and even producing the United Nations and such and if that's the case I'm just saying that that In communist Russia, in Nazi Germany, in communist China, in Vietnam, the majority of the population was not Stalinist, was not Hitler-esque, was not Pol Pot-esque, or Mao Zedong. The majority of the population were just peace-loving people. But that's the problem, is that in all of those nations, the minority extremists were able to grab a hold of power and create these tyrannical monster regimes that ruled for a generation in each of those places. And so I'm in agreement that probably most of the Muslims in our nation are moderates. but there's enough that are uh... that are radical extremist violent at this point i feel like i can't trust them anymore than i could have trusted stalinist russia or nazi germany because there's enough that they're able to stir up the people and the people that are the moderates don't seem to have the moral strength at this point they need it from us they need encouragement from us to rise up and a throw off these people that shouldn't represent islam but at this stage of history are getting away with it i'd like to uh... if we can pull him into the conversation a little bit what are your thoughts on what's been said so far in this week's show Well, I just wanted to point out one important fact that I'm assuming everyone knows, but just to say it, last week we'd mentioned the Planned Parenthood shooting and how you'd said that in the Christian community, you guys had, you know, many people had come to consensus saying that that shooter was not, in fact, a Christian. Though he did claim it. Oh, he doesn't claim it. No, I think he does. He does seem to be claiming at some level that he's speaking for God. But his actions don't reflect Christianity. No, his actions reflect a really unique individual. The guy lived outside and didn't have a toilet, didn't have electricity. He lived all alone. Everybody that knew him thought to themselves, wow, that guy's a weird guy. They didn't think, oh, he's in a culture that is a Christian culture. They didn't think, oh, he's in a culture that is a Muslim or something other. They thought, wow, that guy's really weird. You know, I hope everybody's going to be okay. I mean, and so all I'm saying is that, is that, um, uh, well, what was your, what's your point though? Well, um, I just wanted to say like that from like my friends who are Muslim or, you know, from like Arab descent that I've like spoken to in their opinions, ISIS are like members of these extremist groups. They say they're not Muslims, you know? So it's like, you have to like, none of us here right now are Muslims. So I think that's just important. Of course, we're talking about a very national security point of view or a political point of view, but when we're talking about religion, I don't think you can say that the Qur'an or Islam, the five pillars of Islam, produce terrorism. And that's actually segwaying into a point I wanted to make. We're spending a lot of time on the faith debate, talking about geopolitical ideas, economic strife. a sociological examination, even with the WACO, the Planned Parenthood thing, kind of a psychological analysis. All these things have absolutely nothing to do with the principled faith matters that are at stake. And so this is part of my ongoing frustration, not in this show, I haven't been frustrated yet in this show, but in life. hearing the dialogue happening among the general population, you know, out and about. It's just a political discussion. And there are some people that are Islamophobes, and I mean that pejoratively. Like, it's not a well-thought-out, reasoned concern. It's just, oh, the lights went out, I'm scared, you know? And so that's troubling. It's funny we'd have had the camera right there. But there are other people that are making very cogent arguments or fact-based statements that say, look, here's the deal. And they sometimes then get lumped in with what I'm pejoratively calling Islamophobes. And I'm just saying that they're accurate researchers or historians or religious experts or whatever. And so, when the wacko goes into Planned Parenthood, the guy who lives in the woods, and he wants to say all day long that he's a Christ follower, I'm going to say, really? In what way are you following Christ? When did Christ ever do anything like what you've just done? And he has no leg to stand on. But when someone says, no, they're not Muslims, this is the point I think I made towards the end of last week's show. I said, well, those extremist violent terrorists, they're not really Muslims. They're not following what Islam teaches. They are in an awkward position where they have to then say, Mohammed wasn't a good Muslim because Mohammed did those things. And so the founder of the religion is what's at stake. And so I don't want to make it about Muslims being good or bad. The moderate Muslims would be, I would think, would not be accepted as Muslims by the radicals, right? They would point to them and say, there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. You're either an adherent to Islam and a follower of Muhammad or you're not. But that aside, in fact, the religion itself, if it is followed I'm going to get myself in trouble with this, but I'm going to use an analogy that will make sense to my Christian friends. I'm going to make enemies on the Protestant side and the Roman Catholic side with this, so just forgive me in advance. I believe that there are Roman Catholics who are saved, who are Christians and will be met in heaven by other Christians. But I don't know that there are any good Roman Catholics that are Christians because I don't think you can be a good adherent of Roman Catholic teaching and follow Christ. because of the faith plus works aspect, which is contrary to what the gospel is. So if you're putting your faith in yourself to accomplish it, you have rejected the finished work of Christ and therefore you're not, to my understanding, you're not a Christian. So I'd actually be in a similar place with you on that. So I'm gonna have Roman Catholics mad at me for saying, oh, what do you me, we're not Christians. And I'm going to have Protestants being mad at me for saying that any Roman Catholics could be saved, right? So I'm going to make enemies on both sides. But I think it's the same with Islam. I think you can be Muslim and not violent and and killing people who don't convert, but I don't think you can be a good Muslim based on what the Hadith and the Quran and the example of Muhammad have taught. And that's where the divide is. We're asking for more moderate Muslims. What we're asking for is a watered-down Islam to be embraced. We're asking for a change in the religion. And maybe that's doable, but it's never going to happen if we won't admit that that's what has to happen. Now, let me ask a quick question about this because In my little, very short study of Sikh theology and worldview, my understanding is that Sikhs are of the opinion that no one religion holds absolute truth and that all religions are Inherently good. Well, would you go that far? Like how would you express all that? It'd be that all religion runs on their own path that a religion is a path to the creator to becoming one with the creator That's our goal in life. And so all of those paths are equally Adequate yeah, I mean whatever path you take if you're being a good person, you know, if that's at the end of So this is an important foundation for the discussion that maybe we should have gotten to last week at the beginning, that in Christianity, We inherently believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but through him, right? Jesus is the one that said that. And so that's like a central tenet of what it means to be a Christian is that you can't believe that there's other paths because Jesus is the path. I used to joke about it this way, tongue in cheek, that there's many roads to God. They just all lead through Jesus, right? On the other hand, you guys, from what I'm understanding, believe that kind of precisely the opposite there, that there are many roads to God. So at the heart of this discussion, our belief that there's a problem with Islam, your belief that it's not a problem with Islam, it's just another good path, is at the heart of what is a theological distinction between Sikhism and Christianity. Well, I'll jump in real quick. Jonathan Switzer, the voice you just heard, he's the senior pastor of Crossroads Valley Church. I am Troy Skinner. We're joined this week by Dr. Harpal Mangat and his daughter. I erroneously had you guys hitched earlier. His daughter, Hannah Mangat, is on as well. That's because Harpal's looking really good, like a young, you know. And Hannah's so darn mature. That's right, you know, you put those two together. And I think I said something along these lines the last time that you were on with us like a year and a half ago, and I'm going to echo it again, you know, it's not false flattery, but we have a lot of people, we've been doing the show for 11 years. Yes. We have a lot of people who know what they're talking about on this show. But we've had a lot of people on this show that are supposed experts and well-educated and lots of experience that aren't half as articulate and thoughtful and insightful as you are at 16. So it's a pleasure to have you on the show, even though obviously our worldviews are not exactly matched up. That's what the show's all about. It's about worldviews that don't exactly match up and trying to figure it out. uh... recent experience that i had here in frederick uh... i uh... that just we we just had news in the in the uh... newspaper that the unity campaign this year working with twenty non-profits raised three hundred seventy five thousand dollars that was originally started as frederick forty eight we had twenty two non-profits were working with race six hundred sixty thousand dollars over uh... three years and then we handed off and and they kind of transformed in the unity campaign at the beginning of that process One of the other religious groups in town wanted to do something similar to that. And the basis of the unity, she said, was, look, we all just worship the same God anyways. Why don't we just work together and quit fighting with one another? And I said to her, I said that that basis of unity will never fly in the United States. And the reason for that is because the United States was founded by Christians. And the foundation of the unity that I've bought into in the United States is not that we all worship the same God, but that even if we don't worship the same God, we can still build a country together. and so we have freedom of religion freedom of conscience that is built into the first amendment and as long as this other lady was attempting from her religious uh... perspective to bring unity in frederick on the basis of something that is that that is uh... a blatant contradiction of christian uh... teaching meant that we could never come into unity when we moved in to build that kind of unity and we said, look, it's not about when we're doing these kinds of things together as a community, whether or not we all worship the same God, it's about the fact that we have accepted that we can still live in the same community without saying that we all worship the same God. And that distinction, I believe, is the reason why there can be any a multicultural religious respect in the West that you don't find as pervasive in the rest of the world. It's the principle of good fences make good neighbors. If you guys were to set up a Sikh perspective as the foundation of unity in the United States, the Christians could never fully participate. They would find themselves at a distance and would have to constantly be raising the question that we can't do this. I want to give the doctor a chance because he's raising his hand, but I want to say something and this might add to your fire for both of us. I don't know, Doctor, but it occurs to me, John, would you agree that the first 300 years of our nation's history, going back to not the Constitution, but to the arrival of the pilgrims and all that, right? So the first 300 years I shy away from language like saying that we were a Christian nation. We've had that discussion on this show before. But I do think it's fair to say that the primary influencer on society was an influence of Christian biblical principles. That's what was primarily influencing the way that our society thought about things, interacted with one another. I have a small caveat to that. Right. you and i have got an hour later uh... just real quick that the small copy out to that was that the enlightenment thinkers uh... that with ben franklin thomas jefferson brought in what i would argue was a secular in in some eighties philosophy that that was uh... uh... strong enough second to judeo-christian uh... philosophy that i think it's not saying it wasn't monolithic influences just that but that the what was winning the day more often than not was this christian influence but over the last at least 50 years, maybe a little more than that, that's not been the case. It's been more of this, and it seems to be at the same time that the nation is in a decline. Well, and that's, you know, for a different kind of post-game analysis. I'm trying to make the point, though, that what the nation once was is no longer. Would you agree with that? I would agree, which is post-Christian. Right. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, I'm sorry. You were responding to my comment that Jonathan said that the basis for unity can't be that we worship the same God. I think the response I was going to give was a historical perspective. You're talking about... Always. I love this when you bring this. 1776, Benjamin Franklin and the Declaration of Independence. Yeah. But if we look somewhere across the globe in 1780, from 1780 to 1820, where our heritage is from in the Punjab, there was a Sikh king, Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He had a islamic people it is uh... ministers he had hindus in his ministers uh... and also the generals were uh... from the phone and bonaparte's uh... by crew so there was a pluralistic society and as a person who really let me just be clear you're saying napoleon bonaparte's guys were somehow christian I didn't say the Christian. I said they had a general from Napoleon Bonaparte at that point. So you're not necessarily saying that Christians were a part of that? I didn't say anything. I just said there's a pluralistic society there which had people of different groupings. But it didn't have the Christians? It had them. I mean, they had everybody in that, that's what I'm trying to put across to you. It wasn't just Sikhs, it wasn't just Muslims, it wasn't just Hindus. It was a pluralistic society with everybody there. And that functioned pretty well before the British decided to seize the Punjab and the Treaty of Birwal and the Treaty of Lahore in 1846 and 1848, which is a totally different story. But the whole point is the precedence of what you're talking about also happened on the other side of the world. I mean, you're absolutely correct what Benjamin Franklin did here and his viewpoint and what he brought, his great intellect brought. But the whole point is, it was a time that was occurring in many other places, which many people may not know about. But it did occur. So that was 30 years that that was the case? For 40 years. 40 years. Well, for 50 years. From 1780 to about 1846, when the British annexed the Punjab. We never lost against the British in battle. We were basically tricked out of our lands. I don't know that Jonathan was disagreeing with that, though, right? You're talking about we can live in a pluralistic society. What I'm saying is that the democratic liberalism is not rooted in saying that we all worship the same God. But it's rooted in saying, eh, maybe we don't worship the same God. But we're going to give each other freedom of conscience and not try to force a unity where there isn't a unity. We're going to respect the fact that Christians don't believe that anybody's going to get to heaven and have eternal life outside of Christ. We're going to respect the fact that you guys believe that we all just worship the same God and that it's just different paths. But in respecting that, we're not going to force some kind of a unified belief. And I'm just saying that here in Frederick, I'm just drawing a distinction about belief. If a Sikh were to say at the root that he's going to allow for freedom of conscience and not require there to be a belief that we all worship the same God, then I think Christians would be okay with that. But I know that across much of India, I read all the time about Christians being the one group that is uh... is or christians and and and muslims actually because they're uh... both uh... absolute uh... approaches to uh... to uh... god muslims believe that there's the only way christians believe that there's a is the only way that general buddhism and hinduism is uh... finds itself fighting against those two because those two are a threat to the reigning ideology of india which is that all religions are just different paths to the same God. And Jonathan gets the last word two weeks in a row. He's John Switzer, senior pastor at Crossroads Valley Church. Harpo Mangott and Hannah Mangott on the show. I'm Troy Skinner. This is the Faith Debate. Our sponsor is Putnam Plumbing and Heating. How can we make you smile? And I'll tell you next week what I've been reading because I'm out of time. Thanks so much for listening. 167 and a half hours from now, we'll start all over again. God bless.