AA Religious Studies, Prairie Bible College 1989
BA Organizational Management, Warner University 1997
MATS Reformed Theological Seminary 1997
MA Diplomacy, Norwich University 2009
BA Filosofia, Pontifical Salesian University Rome 2013
During COVID-19, while preparing to return to Italy to work with Muslims, I heard a guy called Red Judaism — an Orthodox Jew tie together all the research and content on the ‘why’ of Islam and the Quran, which the remarkable and bold Evangelist Jay Smith and his Pfander Films Channel produces. Granted, this is how one may operate with Muslims in terms of apologetics, but this is not my style. Still, I appreciate the excellent info Jay has pulled together, and this Red Jew validates it.
Thus, in terms of understanding the legitimacy of The Quran and not attacking it, I believe we can change and reason together as that is what inspired the Ahsana ulHadith, (early formative narratives) and search for the author’s original intent (through judeo-arabic and the missing harakat and other markings) by understanding that era and context. Here the evolution of languages stands key as is the use of Hebrew infused languages (i.e. Septuagint LXX, Koine NT, Judeo-Aramaic and Arabic, Ladino and like the forms Western and Eastern European Yiddish today). Therefore is ones claims ‘classical Arabic’ let it be understood in its context.
So we as Believers - Christians are a type of Sabian, a proselyte pilgrim mentioned in Sura 42 along with the Noahide laws (Acts 15), rather than align ourselves with a Christianity within Christendom which Muslims equal as Crusaders along with terms, concepts and actions bound with Western decadence and conquest evident in Middle East today and throughout history.
Let us be archaeologists of eras and language and search for contextual meaning and not impose our strict philological standards upon the Biblical Languages. Granted, such languages were sufficient and in the case of Greek, capable of abstraction and the conceptual, amplifying a verb infused and illustrative ones like Hebrew. Yet Hebrew was simply the language of the Torah and prayer for Jews, it concepts were always contextualized into the local languages where true Jews lived.
In terms of Religious unity, better yet, let us all be called Messianic Hebrews! And grafted into the ‘Cultivated Olive Tree.’ (Romans 11:24) Yet to understand this historical theological concept is the question? Thus what is the ‘old faith’? On this point, I agree with the plausibility of the religious authority of ‘the cultivated olive tree’ that Jo seeks to document as narrative corrective out of the past. This frames my commitment to the proclamation of the gospel and the obedience of faith from the Scriptures as the Abrahamic Faiths.
My privilege to deeply study and formally, adds up to well over a decade, this has helped me with proper questions, yet nothing has changed the Christian Faith taught to me as child and 4 decades in pursuing and practicing humanitarian missions. Thus none of what I have learned from Jo the Red Jew in the last three years has made even a dent nor altered the direction of my ministry. His research is simply a source I was most ready to receive after essentially seeing the logical conclusion of the Eastern and Western Tradition from my studies upon Meister Eckhart. Plus my lifelong ana-baptist convictions of observance over doctrinal stands though my pursuit in World Missions
The Christian & Missionary Alliance is my home and with many who have diverese opinions, hopefully we are all refining our beliefs according to Scripture and revelation built on proper historical narratives to declare and display Christ. Again this may help us ( from the Abrahamic Faiths) better declare and display the Love of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ to each other! As we say in the Alliance, “All of Jesus to All the world.”
