“Jesus Didn’t Preach Christianity, but Islam!” - British Ex-Christian’s Revert Story!

how was your life in regards to Faith what were you believing in what type of problems did you see in Christianity and in the Bible that ultimately LED you to Islam I had a very interesting spiritual experience one day which led me to seek out a spiritual path and I chose Christianity there were problems I noticed when I started to read the Bible Jesus didn't preach Christianity he didn't preach the Incarnation he didn't preach the Trinity he didn't preach the atonement and this is the Scandal Christians generally don't know about what their own Scholars are saying about this brother Paul Williams as towards eternity we are very happy to have you thank you very much great to be here thank you I want to start with who is Paul Williams can you tell us briefly about your life oh very briefly I was born in Essex a County East of London some years ago at the moment I produced content on blogging theology which is looking at the abrahamic face Judaism Islam and Christianity from a more scholarly academic perspective I grew up in a nominally Christian home my study theology Christian theology at University and I study philosophy as well at University as a Christian But ultimately I did Embrace Islam alhamdulillah and here I am today before Islam how was your life in regards to Faith what were you believing in in my early twenties I became a born-again Christian I wasn't a nominal Christian as an adult at all I took my faith very seriously and I had a very interesting spiritual experience one day which led me to seek out a spiritual path and I chose Christianity because that was the religion of my background nominal Christianity so I became a Christian and I went to church Evangelical went to church all the time and believed Jesus was God I believed in the Trinity and the Incarnation and read the Bible very uh carefully and this went on for some years but before Christianity you were an atheist that's right yeah before Christianity I was an atheist in my late teens and then in my early 20s I remember one uh one morning uh Sunday morning I was cycling back from an all-night party in London where I lived and I saw a beautiful Church in Islington not far from here and I so just to go in because I was just curious and I just looked sat at the back and suddenly I felt this powerful force which I experienced as love very strongly coming towards me and I didn't want this it was kind of almost no thank you and I knew if I stayed for long I would break down it was just so powerful so I literally left I didn't identify it with Jesus or anything it was just wow and so I went back the following week of course hoping for the repeat experience but nothing happened but um I decided that this was a spiritual experience and it set me on the journey to uh to Faith and spiritual life and because of my nominal Christian background I decided to go to a church of course I didn't know anything about Islam so ultimately I became a Christian there were problems I noticed when I started to read the Bible but it was the only show in town but ultimately uh discovered Islam or God guided me to Islam and he provided solutions to some of the problems I had as a Christian and so I changed Faith so what type of problems did you see in Christianity and in the Bible that ultimately LED you to Islam I'll try and speak now in terms of what the scholarship says what historians have discovered it seems to me that Jesus didn't preach Christianity he didn't come to found a church if for example none of the gospels apart from one speak of Jesus talking about a church at all the earliest gospels don't have Jesus speaking of church at all and he doesn't preach Christianity what he preaches is God he preaches tauhid and he's against hypocrisy he preaches near sincerity and the love of God and love of neighbor and so on so it's kind of like a renewal movement it's a spiritual renewal movement within Judaism so Jesus's faith if you like we would call that Judaism or the faith of the Israelites he didn't preach the Incarnation he didn't preach the Trinity he didn't preach the atonement according to the vast majority of historians the problem for Christianity is and the idea that God became a man in Jesus this is a late idea it's not there in Jesus ministry it's only found actually in the Gospel of John this is the last gospel to be written in the earlier gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke marks the earliest there's no Incarnation at all and that's the least historical Gospel of all and that's the Gospel of John only in one place in the gospels does Jesus walk around saying I am the light of the world or before Abraham was I am or I am the resurrection of the life or I am the light of the war all these I am statements are only found in one gospel the last Gospel of John if you look at the early gospels Jesus never speaks like this he speaks about God he speaks about um repentance God is someone other than Jesus he's not the message God is the message he's the messenger he's the prophet for sure but he is not God in John it gets a bit more difficult more complicated Jesus comes across as a somewhat Divine figure in the beginning was the word the gospel begins and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us Etc now all of this is very late and if Jesus actually went around saying these amazing things that John claims he did Why did no one else report that so we have an earlier gospel the Gospel of Luke for example in the entire Gospel of Luke Jesus never speaks like that he never speaks about himself so much it's about God he just doesn't call himself God he's just a prophet and he never says I am the way the truth and the life so the bad news is the Gospel of John is used by Christians more than any other gospel to preach for example the American evangelist who I saw in London some years ago he said Jesus says I am the light of the world and you know his Scholars will say no he probably didn't say that that's not historical and this is the Scandal Christians generally don't know about what their own Scholars are saying about this that's worrying because how can you trust him now if they contain made up stories there are made up stories in the gospels so this can shake your faith and if Jesus didn't preach the Trinity if he didn't believe he was the Incarnate Son of God I would have found that threatening as a Christian but that wasn't the problem the problem was you know the early historical Jesus for example or the reliability of the gospels and and that's not based on skepticism that's based on but what is the evidence and the evidence often is not there for their reliability and that was a problem while finding these inconsistencies in Christianity I want to know what you were thinking about Islam did you have any prejudices very much sir I um as a Christian I was becoming quite islamophobic after 9 11 fears about Muslims and so on and I decided though that I would find out for myself the truth about Islam by actually talking to Muslims I didn't know any Muslims so I walked into my local mosque regions part mosque and spoke to Muslims there I read the Quran in English and I discovered Real Islam and that suddenly surprised me because it opened up a true way of understanding the concept of God then I I had as a Christian I didn't realize there was another option I didn't realize that Islam also held Jesus and his mother in high esteem and a whole chapter of the Quran is named after Miriam or Mary in English so that was my my yeah what other answers did you find in Islam that you couldn't find in Christianity can you give us more details some answers to some profound questions that still baffle Christian theologians and Bishops of the highest or for example the problem is suffering the problem of evil in the world Christians basically have this idea that God is very very loving and you think well why are people dying of cancer what about earthquakes and I actually heard the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby talking about this and he has no answers is for I find that frustrating because if only I mean I don't mind if he Nix it from the Quran I mean there are answers in Islam to these real answers to do with the nature of our life on earth and the character of God and the life being a test and a trial and the afterlife and the rewards so many answers but Christians don't use any of this material I mean I wouldn't mind if they just borrowed it you know but also other answers to problems about who was Jesus who was Jesus according to Western Scholars he thought he was a prophet okay well that's what the Quran teaches what else he thought it was the Messiah the Quran teaches that he did not think he was God the Quran teaches that he did not teach the Trinity he did not teach the Incarnation he did not teach the he did not found a church actually according to historians and Muslims don't believe he found in the Catholic church so there's incredible convergence between the latest Western scholarship is saying about Jesus and what the Quran is also saying about Jesus and I think that's a miracle of the Quran which is often not spoken of we talk about the Miracles of the Quran of course there are many this is all for me this is another one what other evidences can you give that refute the core beliefs of Christianity let's deal with the atonement first and I'm going to give one version of How It's understood by Christians many Christians will tell you Jesus was God okay and he died for your sins I think that's interesting so you're telling me that God died for my sins I have a problem according to the Bible it says God is Immortal and yet you believe that Jesus died for my sins and they say okay go God didn't die but the human being died the man Jesus died for your sins say ah well that's interesting so you're telling me that you believe in human sacrifice and that's the way to be a reconciled to God that's atonement well oh it's not really Human Sacrifice well it is because Jesus was a human being he was a sacrifice for your sin that's what you just said Jesus didn't go around preaching Human Sacrifice he preached The God Who was merciful and loving so that'll be one problem the other problem with the Trinity the two problems one is Jesus never taught it it wasn't believed by his disciples that's a big problem for me but secondly they say that God is one but the father is God the son is God and the Holy Spirit is God so there are three but they are one and I'm saying hey back up so how can the father be fully God the son be fully God in the Holy Spirit be fully God and yet there be one God you've just said there are three Gods the idea of the Trinity evolved very slowly over several centuries so first you had the idea there was God God the father and then the issue was well who is Jesus in relation to God and in the second century particularly you had the idea that Jesus and God Were Somehow um in relationship that that the God was God but somehow Jesus was divine in some sense but it was only really in the third Century at the Council of nicaea in in Turkey only at the counts of nicaea was it officially decided by the Bishops under Constantine the emperor that the Son and the father were co-equal they were they had the same substance or in Greek homo meaning the same uzia meaning substance so the Son and the father were the same substance in other words Jesus was God people often say nicaea was about the Trinity it wasn't the Council of said doesn't mention the Trinity that came later in the Council of khaledon and Constantinople at nicaea they talked about the relationship between the Son and the father and the only trinitarian verse in the Bible because there was one is fake it was added in later and we know this is 1 John 5 7. if you look in your modern Bibles most modern Bibles have now taken it out but this says there are three that bear witness in heaven the Father the word and the spirit meaning the father Son and the Holy Spirit but this is a made-up verse that everyone now apart from fundamentalists agrees was added to the Bible if you remove that Trinity verse which all Scholars do there is nothing in the Bible that speaks about the Trinity you said that the gospel writers are Matthew Mark Luke and John who are they do we have any historical records of these people or are they Anonymous the four gospels are Anonymous as you correctly say you get the gospel of Matthew for example the first one in the New Testament the first book of the New Testament it never says that is by who who is by Christians I speak to don't agree with me on that so I say okay I'll wait give me a passage in any of the gospels where it says a name of a person who wrote them says it in John's gospel fine I'll wait here's your Bible show me where it says it so I wait so I usually give them two minutes because I you know I've got things to do with my life you know and I always know because it's a game of chess that they're going to come back and say and they change the subject they just change the subject because it doesn't say in John anywhere a named person who wrote it it's simply not there but they believe it is because that's what they've been told despite having such business scriptures and belief systems why do so many people still continue to follow Christianity well that's easy because they have no idea that this is a problem many Christians are educated people they might have a degree in chemistry accountancy media studies whatever you know they're not stupid far from it but the way the churches teach the faith to them they don't teach them an advanced understanding of their own scriptures now the priests and pastors and ministers who teach them or preach at them are trained in universities they know say the Gospel of John is the least historical of the four gospels they know that because they've been taught it so how come the people in the Pew don't know and many reasons have been given by Urban the American academic has discussed this some priests don't want to lose their jobs they don't want to teach their faithful by the way your Bible is not as what you might think it is or they don't want to upset their Christian people they don't want to disturb them or maybe they don't know how to communicate it or maybe they're just running away but whatever the reason is they're not doing it usually at all so for me this is the scandal of Christianity or maybe they do know but and they live in this kind of like I did as a Christian for a long time this kind of you believe but you have big doubts and you just carry on anyway because what else is there to do if Christianity is not true then why do some Christians find peace when they become more serious about their faith Christianity is mostly true what do I mean by that I mean Christians believe in one God I know we've spoken about the Trinity but they believe in one God they think they believe in angels they believe in the day of judgment they believe God created the heavens and earth they believe that God sent Moses and all the prophets etc etc it's like an iceberg you know there's a massive under the water line thing that they believe which we also believe as Muslims it's just a bit on top I mean it's not a small bit it's important bit about the Trinity and the Incarnation atonement which we don't agree on so it's not as if Christianity is all false so it's more complicated than that and I think many Christians when they pray to God just pray to the father actually I've heard many Christians say that they're not quite sure about Jesus they might officially believe he's God but in practice they pray to God the father so they're functionally Unitarian they by which I mean they believe in the Oneness of God rather than Jesus they behave quite often like people who are more in line with Islam in practice so I think many of them find peace because there really is peace I mean if we believe as I do on you that God is merciful and he he does try to guide people even from other religions towards the truth even within that Faith away from shirk for example I believe that because I believe God cares about people in the Quran we know that Jesus gave the good news of coming of the last prophet Allah in your reading of the Bible have you ever come across an information like this yes often in the earlier gospels not in John the least historical in the earlier gospels you get Jesus talking about the son of man who is to come not himself he's talking about in the third person there is someone else now Christians often say oh well Jesus is talking about himself there but it's a bit odd because Jesus talks about himself and then he switches to the third person and speaks about one like a son of man who is to come people like bar ehrmann and others the American New Testament scholar have said Jesus talking about someone else who is to come the word Muhammad is not mentioned in the Greek of the New Testament absolutely and because these gospels have been corrupted and changed but we can still see strong hints that Jesus was speaking about someone else and that was historical and even in John actually chapter 14 and so on we see him of someone else also being spoken of other than Jesus who was to come so the fingerprints are there even in the gospels we have now what was the main thing that convinced you that Islam is 100 the truth the thing that I discovered which totally impressed me unexpectedly was the life and teaching of the Prophet Muhammad upon whom be peace you know when we talk about great historical figures on British television and Western literature you know they go from you know Plato and Caesar Julius Caesar and they'll talk about Alexandra the great and then they'll jump to Napoleon Bonaparte they never mentioned the prophet Muhammad never mention him and I'm thinking this is extraordinary he comes from the same part of the world that Jesus did that Moses did and he's ignored and if you look at his seera his life which is well authenticated this is not myth we know he really existed the most extraordinary human being about this man the teaching there it felt very familiar to what I read in the gospels in Luke for example or in Matthew there's a lot of true stuff in the gospel still I think so when I saw the teaching about having puppies behind me I recognized the Hallmarks of an authentic spiritual teacher and that was the problem for me accepting Islam because I saw the connection between Jesus and Muhammad if Jesus was a prophet so does Muhammad if Moses was a prophet certainly Muhammad was because they're the same now they're interchangeable they were both heads of Nations they were Generals they were law givers there were spiritual guides there were fathers except the difference is Moses was sent to Israel and Muhammad was sent to All of mankind what impressed you the most about our Prophet Allah one thing that really impressed me amongst many things was the day that he and his companions and the Uma rode into Mecca when they finally claimed Mecca back and they conquered Mecca and the way he treated his enemies many people in the west would have very negative views of Islam they say oh well I'm sure I'm sure Mohammed slaughtered his enemies or something what did Joseph do when he was like the second most powerful man in Egypt and he had his brothers who were betrayed him and sold him into slavery and left him for dead how did he treat these nasty people he forgave them he showed them mercy and this was the example the prophet Muhammad upon every piece explicitly referred to when he conquered Mecca from the pagans from the position of power total power he could have destroyed them and he didn't he showed them Mercy this is says something about the character of the prophet and I just wish the West knew about that the Muslim world knows about it but the West doesn't and it is infinitely the poorer for not knowing that what was your purpose in life before Islam and what is it after Islam well I've always been my purpose in life before Islam is still the same now in a way to seek the truth wherever it is found I don't believe I need to go beyond Islam but I'm still searching for the truth within Islam I'm still trying to learn but before that I was still searching but now I've kind of arrived how home but I'm still seeking within that ever greater knowledge and understanding in the world we see an increase in atheism and many people are also leaving Christianity especially in the UK and Europe when you look at the current situation do you see the same Trend with Islam as well I had an academic on Professor Linda Woodhead she's a professor at King's College here in London she's a leading expert on religions in Britain as a sociologist's religion and she was commenting uh on the census that had just been published a couple of months ago religion in Britain is declining and it has been on very steep decline for a number of decades now and the trajectory is to continue the decline but the one religion that isn't declining in Britain is Islam I was in Birmingham a couple of days ago I was talking to this guy azra Rasheed and he's the author of this book Islam answers atheism which I really recommend by the way Birmingham is Britain's probably Britain's second cities he said to me about 40 percent of people in Birmingham are Muslims now there's very high percentage the first generation of Muslims arrived what in the 1950s 1960s they weren't necessarily practicing Muslims they had children obviously so I said to him about Professor Linda Woodhead uh you know religions on the decline secularism materialism what about Muslim youth in Britain in Birmingham in Britain's Second City are they praying are they fasting oh yeah they're more religious than their parents so what we're seeing in England uh when it comes to Muslims is not only are the youth holding to their faith and they're paying five times a day and they're increasingly religious more than their own parents now that is incredible and someone told me who knows Germany because I thought wow isn't England amazing yeah oh no it's like that in Germany it's like that in other places as well in Europe Muslims are not losing their faith look the younger ones are holding on to it and that's good for the future but we're like to say to encourage people who are watching this video and are considering Islam but are hesitant about it someone I know who was a church of England priest you know he was a priest for some time in a church here in London and he said when he embraced Islam he discovered a level a depth of friendship and Brotherhood that he'd never experienced as a Christian and I discovered that too in Christian churches you know you're kind of friendly but the kind of depth of Brotherhood amongst Muslims is something else you know you're not going to be on your own if you Embrace Islam you're going to have this Global family basically yeah but also you know what does Islam offer well a chance to have connection a relationship with our creator and that we have a purpose in being here we're not here just to acquire material Goods we're very materialistic in Britain and in America but we're not focused really on what really matters that there's a guy who's basically a coach to entrepreneurs businessman he's not a Muslim there's a LinkedIn post that he put up yesterday he says that getting your yourself healthy is a fight against modern living and what he means is modern living at least in the western world has contributed he says to staggering rates of obesity and mental illness the way we're living now mainly in the west but is being exported is actually causing us lethal diseases like obesity when I was in Bahrain last year it's the number one cause of death in that country's obesity they're now experiencing this consumer culture which comes from America and Britain and mental illness as well now what's this got to do with Islam fasting is really important it's just on a physical level it helps to rejuvenate your body it makes you better to cope with disease it makes you fitter and healthier affects your mental health so fasting is part of the Sunnah The Profit you know visit Mondays and Thursdays you fast fasted this is really healthy what's this to be doing this for centuries the idea of mental illness we are obsessed with Dunya we're obsessed with Tick Tock I'm obsessed with material good Islam gives you a deeper satisfying relationship with what really matters which is with our creator and also to and the knowledge that this life is brief and that our true purpose lies Beyond this life in the next life Islam is what we call a Deen it's a complete way of life that includes the the mental the physical the diet the spiritual uh the economic the political it doesn't separate religion out to the private realm this is the Supreme answer to Humanity's needs you know we're not going down that path at the moment at least in many parts for someone who wants to learn about Islam how would you recommend him to research it is it enough to write what is Islam on Google I don't recommend you use Google because you may get some good results you're going to get a lot of bad results as well and how you're going to know what's a good result and a bad result if you don't know about the subject so what I do recommend however because I like books this particular book there are many books I could recommend but this one's good by Jonathan Brown called misquoting Muhammad The Challenge and choices of of interpreting the prophet's Legacy and this is an excellent introduction to the whole subject of Islam the Quran is it authentic uh the history of the life of the Prophet Hadith how we interpret the Quran the four schools you name it is all in here lastly what would you like to say to a Christian who is watching you right now I'll say that Jesus if you look at the gospels did not say he was God he preaches God in the gospels God is someone other than Jesus Jesus himself says in the gospels a man comes to Jesus and says to him good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life Jesus says according to mark why do you call me good there is no one good but God alone that's in the earliest gospel Jesus denied he was God he pointed to God Islam is with Jesus on this so come back to the original Jesus you will find him in Islam you will not find him in what you call Christianity [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Towards Eternity

Views: 1,273,068

Keywords: islam, muslim, towards etenity

Id: qvBNViZG0Mk

Length: 26min 18sec (1578 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 27 2023