Journey Home - 2018-06-11 - Derya Little

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and often I'm asked because on the journey home we've had lots and lots of folk from great many backgrounds but oh actually recently I was asked the question of what awakens Muslims to the Catholic faith and I had to say well the truth is that I haven't interviewed that many former Muslims on the program because often even the ones that do say they'll gladly join me in the program sometimes they back away because we live in a difficult world today we live in a difficult world sometimes we look at the wars going on and we just think their politics know there's religion involved and for that reason I am greatly honored that we have da da little here former Muslim atheist and Protestant maybe a few other things we'll find out in a moment welcome to the journey home thank you and thanks for having me it's good to have you here as one of my staff members was saying that we had thought about having you on in the past and then we were weren't sure and then we heard you had a chance you got a book out from me from Islam to Christ you know it spoke with like a recent woman's conference so it's time to get her on the program welcome thank you I'm excited well I'm excited to get out of the way because I want to hear your journey okay so I was born in Turkey in Iconium we pronounce it as Konya st. Paul was there I'll say I've heard that he was kicked out there and not much changed last 2000 years unfortunately so my parents were Muslims nominal Muslims like the Turkish way I don't know how familiar you are with Turkey but at the end of World War one when the Ottoman Empire collapsed turkish republic was the last nation-state that's separated from the ottomans but our founder mustafa kemal ataturk he he he wanted this new Turkey to be more Western nice because he thought Islam kept the country backwards that's why the Empire fell away no it also imposed all these Western ideas but obviously he can't get rid of the religion so Islam was kind of bridled in a way so you could be Muslim but not too Muslim like the Saudis or the Iranians so it was a very secure it's become a very secular country he he forbade people to wear the headscarf and everybody was forced to wear the Western outfit and and we turned we also started using the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic script so but all of these were forcefully imposed so this is in the 1920s and in the 1980s when I grew up in the in the winter I went to a public school and learn about secularism democracy and evolution you know and then the summers all this neighborhood kids would get together and we would go to the local mosque and learn how to read the Quran so it was kind of an it's always been a little bit stuck between the East and the West but it's really firmly Muslim still because no matter preserved within the family even though the government was imposing this yes so awkward you look like I never covered in my hair growing up I you know a lot of women still don't have yet don't but at the same time you have to be Muslim because what they did they informed this national identity but it was really tightly tied to Islam because Westerners were still seen as enemies and they were Christians also they used a lot of the history like the Crusades and to form that national identity because it's part of the you know part of who we are so as we grow up we also learn about Islam who says that who teaches that Christians change the religion Allah so they've corrupted so you have to stay right away from the Christians so it's like really kind of confusing but my parents wanted me to be better Muslims than they were like my father never really fasted he thought it was just too rigorous of course he was Muslim but he just didn't really observe my mother was a little bit more observant but they just wanted me to be better so I learned how to read the Quran early did they believe in God yes yes yes they were definitely Muslims like my mother fasted during Ramadan but he really didn't she really didn't do the five times daily prayers she does it now but there were people of faith yes Muslims they just were hardened it's more like your Christmas and Easter Catholics you know there's still Catholics but you know they don't observe it as much but I think it's important to explain before we go forward that from an early age we are taught that you cannot doubt or question Allah because the relationship between an ally and a Muslim is a master in a slave relationship so that's one of the biggest hurdles for Muslims to overcome because we are taught as soon as you that as soon as you question that is a big sin and you will be punished for it as a little girl I remember I was told that if I imagined God like as a as a person because I would I would picture him this is like rainbow eyes and like flowy hair but then I will be paralyzed with fear because I was told you cannot put an image on Allah and I would use to see these big boulders next to this Creek we live near and I thought they were they used to be kids like me who tried to picture Allah does it make sense so it's like from an early age you're like ingrained that in that fear it's kind of hard to explain this to Western it especially Americans because it's all like freedom and individualism but no a Muslim child is not raised that way so that was my childhood but wasn't all like oppressive you know we played outside you know we played ball you know everything was normal other than Longview within these boundaries right yes and within those boundaries you didn't have any Catholics any Christian no I haven't met a Christian or a Jew or anything until I was 19 so but what made me question for the first time was the divorce of my parents so I was around 11 years old and my whole world fell apart I didn't know anybody whose parents were divorced it was very uncommon back then and it's still a lot less common than it is in America so it it it shook my world so much that it made me started to question everything my parents taught me so they told me they loved me me and my brother but then they were okay to just you know just leave us especially my father then I started thinking about what else did they lie us about and that was my that was the first time I broke through that wall of fear wall of fear to question Islam and the more at the same time the more I tried to read the Quran and pray I felt like there was nobody listening no but nobody hearing and I realized that this could happen to any child whose parents are going through divorce it's not unique to you know Muslim parents and that was the first time I started reading Muhammad's life with an open eye because we are told we were taught that he was the perfect man Charmeleon son and we have to emulate him because everything he's done like because Quran and Islam is not only Koran religion right so you have Quran and you have Muhammad's sayings and his deeds so you kind of bring everything together and you become you that's what forms Islam and but not until my parents divorced I actually read the hadith with an open eye and I saw that Muhammad was not the perfect man when you read his life then you realize he was another power-hungry man who kind of used people's desire to worship and to fight because he was a soldier in the commander and he waged wars so that's that's when I started to lose my faith not just only doubting your Islam but the reality of God yes because I had I was never taught anything else I didn't know because when we were taught that Islam was the continuation so okay so the allah gave moses a book right we call it a fraud so it's like I think at the first five books and then Jews corrupted it and then Allah gave Jesus a book the New Testament engine and Christians corrupted it and then does it make sense so it was the continuing continuation I didn't know any other God and and the more I thought about Allah he he was not his capricious in Islam a sin is a sin not because it's bad for you because Allah says so and you cannot expect him you cannot expect them to be same forever because that means you're limiting him so if he comes back in tomorrow he says you know what I changed my mind and this is sin now which happens a lot actually in the Quran if you read it there is you know and and it was not compatible with my with my reason by the time I started to doubt it's not more and more so I thought if God is Allah because that's the only God I ever knew then I don't have I don't want to do anything with him and I eventually gradually became an atheist but first I lost my faith in Islam were you also awakening what about the sexism that's so we in the Western world see so much in Islam the way women are oppressed was that true in Turkey were you seeing that in your own life then yes legally men and women are equal so all those good Western laws that are all based on Christian teachings but in reality in the social life Darren and I talk about the same in length in my book especially in my own family's life like my mother worked full time as a nurse and she came home and she still had to be the perfect wife because you know Muslim men aren't they don't go into the kitchen or do the dishes so she had a very hard life and and I witnessed it in my own family and then again when I said you start reading Muhammad's life and the Quran and you realize as a woman yeah no I I don't like this and I mean I think the two biggest issues with Muhammad's teachings for me was the treatment not woman obviously you know hell would be filled with women and and two woman's testimony was worth one man's and you know so there's a lot of especially as far as the polygamy part you know I was like it's there wasn't any equality so that was a big problem for me and the violence was very hard for me to see because we were always taught Oh mom had never waged wars of aggression and you've read it from the hadith itself it's not like these crazy Christians writing about Muhammad it's like you read the Hadees itself I know this looks like a war of aggression to me so those were the two biggest eyeopener's for me and and we see those things from a Western culture when we look at those cultures but I think the enlightened Westerner doesn't point fingers because he realized we're not very perfect ourselves you know and yeah and what we brought into those countries right after World War one and especially Wilson's ideas of dividing up the world did not do a good thing to your culture right our guest is a dotty little so you're an atheist how long we had atheist in the Muslim environment so I say I was a staunch 80s by the time I was 13 and I was and and I read more and more about it and I moved away more and more about Islam and and by the time I was 19 that was the first time I met a Christian I knew everything yes so my of course my Islam was my only moral compass and so once that went out of the way I had a very moral life by time I was 19 I didn't have any family support so I had to work and I found this job to work for a Christian lady and she wanted to learn Turkish and I needed money so it was it was perfect and the first time I went to meet meet with her she opens the door and right across the entrance there is a cross-stitch and it's a Bible verse it says salvation is found in no one else acts 4:12 like oh great she's a Christian but then I thought like you know what let me help her let me enlighten her because you know I'm 19 I know everything I figured all things out and little did I know she was raised in a seized house herself and she had a conversion experience when she was in the in college and everything and then she dropped everything to go preach the gospel in Turkey of course I didn't know when God has it you know wonderful sets over here over here and we were very much alike like she was you know she liked reading books and arguing and she didn't do this politically correct talking she just told me the way it was and I was that's why - because I felt sorry for her and from the day the first day we started talking about Allah and God in Islam and everything and anything in between so I talked to her for three years we met twice a week faithfully and two and a half hours a day and we hardly ever talked about anything else and so she would come up with this an argument that and I would get so mad I was like okay there all these smart ATS surely they have an answer and I couldn't find something to completely refute what she said so at the end of three years actually this is what she convinced me that God God God's existence was possible because I've never been a troll atomist so I was like if God is real if he exists that's a big deal you cannot just ignore him but if he is not then you're so stupid to devote your entire life so that was a big deal for me but another thing is that the god she was talking about it was completely different than Allah so that was a big break for me because I was really into science and you know I was going to a really good university in Turkey so she the God she was talking about was reasonable loving and pure which if you don't if this does not make sense to a Muslim because if you say like God is constant and reasonable then you're limiting him then he's not only but that so it's kind of a different empty and that's when I started to doubt that maybe after all there was a God so by the time he ended your time with her were you a believer at least in the reality of God I was and so that was my biggest thing so I said even if but then I came to it this another big hurdle for a taste I'd say if even if there's a God do I really want to believe in a God when there's so much evil in the world so that was the biggest thing so terrorists display deep she left for a sabbatical so she was gone and it was my second year in in the college and we so the university I went the education ylang-ylang which was in English so once in a while they will bring Americans to teach us how to pronounce all these crazy English words the painful language - like are you intuitive very easy Lane oh yes it's so regular there's nothing you know hard to learn about it and so we had this a buddhist american who came to teach us English and she was very excuse me he was very anti-christian and he gave he gave us as an assignment this a chapter from brother Karim lots of dostoevsky's book it's called the Grand Inquisitor so it's an old translations the painful read so you submit it I start reading it and again I go into detail in the book and if you haven't read this chapter it's wonderful it's a little anti-catholic but bear with it it is it's wonderful so Jesus comes back to earth he's just visiting it's not the second coming and it's the Inquisition time in Spain he performs a few miracles and everybody recognizes him recognises him for who he is but this Grand Inquisitor he comes and he realizes that there is this unrest so he arrests Jesus and puts him in the inn in a jail and then he goes back to visit him to talk to him and he said why are you here we have been trying to fix the mess you made for all these years you you wanted he said you should have accepted the devil's offer in the desert you wanted to give humans heavenly bread but all they want is earthly bread you wanted to give them freedom free well but all they want is security and you wanted them to love you freely they all want all they want is a master and it's like in the middle of the night I am reading this too many cups of tea you know I realized for the first time I understood what sin is so again this original sin this concept it just doesn't exist in Islam right because you can go to Muslim heaven it just works right so so the for the first time I understood that everything that went wrong in my life was a consequence of somebody else's sin or my sin it just dawned on me for the first time that no the world is evil not because God is evil it's because we are because we sin and my sin affects so many other people no man is an island we will keep racking each other's lives and now there was a really big hurdle for me to realize and then of course Jesus's sacrifice makes sense if you don't have a proper understanding of the original sin why is why would God die why would we need the crucifixion or resurrection all these are problems for Muslims to understand because they don't have a proper understanding of who God is who humans are who men is and then what sin is so that was a big one did I get it no no I didn't know but thankfully God stuff at the time yes exactly and sometimes I picture like Holy Spirit and all these angels and saints into heaven just rolling their eyes it's like I really get it so I think at this point I was intellectually convinced you know because everything kind of fell into place but I couldn't make take the last step you know I worried about my job prospects I was engaged I was I worried about that all my friends were either 80s and maybe kind of nominal Muslims I was going to lose that and and I wasn't like I was looking to get a really good job in a in the government but once you convert to Christianity you're basically a kind of a traitor so you will never get a government clearance you know so I couldn't give up all these so I worried and worried I lose sleep over it you this is another thing you probably heard about Muslim comer Commerce visions or dreams because it's such a it's such a hard soil it's almost need it's a lot people need almost like it's divine intervention so sometimes take the last step or even just to start searching for me I just needed that final push so I'm going to classroom one day it's early in the morning and I suddenly have this picture in my mind's eye it was very quick there's a little girl outdoors sitting on the ground and she's looking down on her lap and playing with these tiny toys and then um a few moments later these two hands come from the sky and they're trying to give this girl a gift the hands are so big that you can't even see the rest of it you can only see the hands and this gift they're presenting you can see there's something different about it it's not just a simple gift something that it's glowing and it's so precious you can't even express she doesn't even see that this big gift is being handed to her and finally she looks up and she says no thank you I had these little things to play with stupid how can you even compare it with what you have and then of course that's me that's exactly I'm thinking about my fiancee which is important of course or my job but this like I am being presented with eternal gift which is like uncompelled so finally I get it finally I get it so by this time I was also teaching Turkish to another family that I was teaching Turkish to their little kids and I witnessed the Christian life up close and that also made a big impact on me with the other lady I did witness their lives but it was just me and her so it wasn't like I wasn't really surrounded with a Christian family life but this family's life was so different I actually thought they were faking it while I was there I was like no way you guys can love each other this much because I had never witnessed how much Christ can change a person's life in a family's life and so I went to the lady whose children I was teaching and I told her a sec okay I think this is a good day to become a Christian and she dropped it this is she was watching is watching so that was 15 years ago yes a little lower fifteen years ago and was it a non national or what yes they were nondenominational the first day I talked to she was a Calvinist but the this family was they were nondenominational and and they they baptized me and you know we had the Bible study and it was my life completely changed then most of the things I worried about if they have become real like I ended up breaking up with my fiancee and I lost friends and but at the same time it was true that gift was much more precious than everything I lost and this is why you're still in Turkey I'm still living in Turkey yes and it wasn't like this it's become very hostile to Christianity since I left I left ten years ago but back then it wasn't openly hostile so I kind of made different career plans like I was like okay I can't get a government job but I can get a PhD and become a professor so I adjusted my life we learned how to function within the system you know keep your heads low so it's what I was I never felt threatened until three Christians t-33 protesters were murdered and that was the first time I ever felt like okay this is not a very you know friendly place to become a Christian but it's why I never felt personally threatened well I wasn't so the kinds of stuff we see on the news with Isis and that happening in Iraq Iraq and other places that wasn't it no and those are fairly new this is ten years ago as well so I mean Isis and everything like also like Turks we think you know we're better than everybody else so all that crazy stuff happening in Iran and Saudi Arabia it's like all their fault and we're better so it was it's kind of different you know so there's religion and nationalism kind of going you know complain against each other but I never felt threatened like physically you know we kind of learned again to function within the existing existing system so I become became it became I started working with teenagers high school Christians in high school age and life was going really good all right well let's pause there then all right and we'll come back just a moment daddy a little we'll come back in a moment and hear the rest of her story you see that [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and what a privilege our guest is dotty a little and okay paused you in the middle you're a Christian still living in Turkey you have realized that some of the fears you use that you anticipated some of them were true some of them were not so you're able to live in that part of the world which again I can't even imagine because there's a different part of the room Wow well they're souls we know so you don't know anything else and if anything different from the when I started reading the Bible and going to Bible studies a few things bothered me but I just chalked it up for me just not knowing enough and one of them was Sola scriptura at the only only scripture because it didn't make sense to me that Christ would come to earth to die for us and say well in a few hundred years I will send a book until then you just hang in there because he knew our human nature so how could he just leave us without just any authority so it didn't make sense I was like but I'm learning this stuff it's only you and when I read the Bible you need to realize this is like one of the first times I'm reading it like it didn't make the only faith didn't make sense to me because there were all these branches that were cut off it never said that they were never branches they said they didn't bear for it that's were cut off so fruits should be work so hot like I couldn't reconcile again I said hey what do I know very rarely I say this and I was I really struggled with creationism because I was an atheist and I believed in evolution evolution and I've in every everybody around me they were creationists and I it just didn't make sense to me and I felt like it was really flimsy if our entire belief system would come crumbling down if we came from monkeys like physically that is you know it's like if there is a omnipotent God couldn't he have used different means to make it come about but when you believe I think I think Sola scriptura traps most protests and in who would decide what is literal what is not now when you say creation if you're talking about the very fundamentalist very literal Genesis one seven days limited to that doesn't open to the realities of what we find in yes scientific it's not yes it's it's very it's very common it was very common where I lived and I think a lot of like evangelicals who are so on fire that they would go to a Muslim country to preach the gospel they kind of you know they they're wrapped up in that and I understand because they don't have a no soul mm look Genesis is not a literal world history it's not a science lesson so nobody can tell them that like some things are well unless of course if you're talking about the Eucharist then that's simple but is not so that was another reason that that it didn't make sense to me but I kind of pushed these aside I just okay I don't know enough and then um so I told you I was working with these teenagers and there one of the counselors I worked with he grew up in Turkey was an American and he came to study at Notre Dame in America and excuse me and he used to he used to live in Istanbul after he finished college so one day I was at a conference with my agnostic roommate and he said daddy I'm going to tell you something but don't freak out and that's like are you pregnant like what could it what could make me feel like you're a man and are you pregnant so it could freak me out possibly and he said I became a Catholic and that freaked me out I think I would have been surprised so I couldn't believe so so we're at lunch with my again agnostic room mate and we're talking about all these like how could you put the Catholics you know worship Mary and the statues and the Papists and the Crusaders it's I think in most Muslim countries it's very anti-catholic not anti protest and because the Ottoman Empire supported the protests and princess during the Reformation so and most of our history is very anti-catholic like all the bad guys in Turkish movies they wear the you know the tub the Crusaders Tabard you know and they just pillage and rape it's just awful so anyway I went went back home and I'm getting my masters by this time so I was like okay I will permeate him wrong and you know it just never works that way with the Catholic Church but I had never ever read anything about Catholic theology I was just never exposed to it so I go to the library this is like it's you know secular private university library in Turkey there was one valium on Catholic theology it was written by this guy called Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger fundamentals of Catholic theology so it's like this big so it's in English I pull it up it's like I will prove him wrong like I have never read and I'm going to pro Cardinal Ratzinger wrong and I open it and I read the first 10 pages I have no idea what he's talking about I mean I have no basis to understand this theology so I just respectfully closed I didn't put it and I went back to the doorman my friend who became Catholic he had sent me a package and he said it's this little book and he said so that you know that I haven't gone crazy and now it was written by this guy called mark Shea I had never heard and it's called by what authority and from he would use he would use scripture to answer all these questions I have about the Catholic Church and that was the beginning of the end of my protest in life six months later I was trying to find the only Catholic Church in in a city of five million so so I mean that's a radical jump because of good old Mark Shea's wonderful book by what authority what what would you say and that's based on Scripture so you had already had a solid the confidence in the trustworthiness of Scripture yes so that would give that book it's fun since it was based on Scripture yes that's because I had already asked those questions about is the Bible real did Jesus live all of those questions when I was talking to that first protest that lady because that's all what we talked about and like I read these troubles case for Christ you know and he makes all those all those and I read so many books coming to the conclusion that yes there was a person called Jesus and he died and you know so I had already made these arguments and then I knew that Bible wasn't changed because if you today if you ask a Muslim about prove me that it's changed they can't because we have so many manuscripts from you know so so earlier and so I had already establish the Bible and Jesus and you know all that but but it was like okay we then the last apostle dies then there's this huge gap until Martin Luther like nobody ever talks about that there has never been Christians in that time and then suddenly Martin Luther but I think what made my passage easy was all these questions because when I read the Bible it's just because I didn't have it had preconceived notions like I didn't grow up protesting to always believe this so but when I read the Bible or you know Sola scriptura Sola fidei in lack of a Magisterium it just they just didn't make sense and another thing that really bothered me so be I knew all these protesters but they all believed in so many different things and Christ was so clear that unity was important to him and I said don't don't tear my body apart and that's what the Reformation is dead so I was I was really confused but I think my final suit brought him I was going to a different Bible study by then and we were talking about the Trinity which is like one of the basic beliefs you will think of Christianity and they said because it's not in the Bible Christians are not they are not required to believe in Trinity but it's this is not a minor issue this is this is one the pillars of your belief a lot of Muslims don't become crazy because we think we're policies so it took a while and I read quite quite a bit and you know you Chris the real prep presence it's like so weird you know it's C so that was very hard but I read all the account accounts from Eucharistic miracles and I was studying history by Dan so I knew the records of the monks were reliable so so there was a lot of little things that kind of contributed to me is realizing that Catholic theology was much more consistent and full of truth and the protest and theology that that I was exposed so you had mentioned that a almost a paralyzing assumption you had as a young girl was this idea that God is master and I'm slave and I'm not even able to envision him mentally mm-hmm and then as a Christian we see ourselves as sons and daughters of ABBA talk about that transition was that hard was it gradual it was an awakening realization you're a daughter of God if you have Muslims in your life I think this is very important to understand the st. Thomas talks about this um you know he says there's servile fear and a filial fear like the the the fear you would feel towards your father but it's a fear of disappointing him we're a servile fear it's fear of punishment it's like it's incomplete because there isn't love involved so in in Islam that fear is all servile because you cannot presume to think that God is your father who do you think you cannot pull him to your level and a lot of I think in Judaism this could be said it to some extent but that's why they thought being son of god was blasphemous blasphemous so so there was that serve I'll feel and it builds a wall around you because you'll learn at this from a very early age so you have this servile fear wall and then you can't break unless you actually have a very good reason like a dream or in my case I built I am that when the divorce shook my faith that started to crumble that wall and as an atheist I completely lost it so I had to learn a new kind of fear I had no fear towards the deity and I learned a new found fear and that that was my transition and I think it's one of the most important things for Westerners to understand about Moslems it's like when you don't see God as your father then they have a completely way of seeing who God is and who they are and who we are so yeah you know that that whole issue of works and how works is important to our relationship with God if you're coming out of a servile fear environment then you end up with works being something I owe him and if I don't do them I'll be punished but if I do them he's obligated to me because I did them well that you're using works to manipulate God we're from a filial everything you have is from him works is just giving back to him what what you've received yes and it's like contrition right when we go to confession and we can have contrition for fear of punishment and it's imperfect I mean because of God's mercy he still forgives us but what he wants is the perfect contrition that we are truly sorry because we have disappointed our heavenly father not because we are afraid that our master is going to whip us so it's a come it's a completely different world view and that's where that's why it's very hard to penetrate in in Muslim lands because that kind of thinking is very against the Gospel message itself of course in the process you learn like we were always right on the Crusades right I know no it is because it's one of the things like Moslems use and now because it hasn't been taught but we you know if you read and there's a lot of scholarship now the white income book I am NOT your number two title but it's it's an excellent resource and I've listened to it and just and it's perfect if you want to use the trade or the Inquisition even Muslims use that against the Catholic Church but it's not it's not taught well so so it was I mean there certainly were bad Catholics that were didn't follow what the church was teaching that's true we may a capo we recognized that but there were also very gallant and wholesome reasons for these efforts to try and well for one to have a free route to the Holy Land all right yes and the church is full of sinners I mean they keep letting people like me and so what what do you expect is going to happen so but it's completely different than what the Church teaches I mean the Catholic Church stands today not because men have been wonderful faithful it's because Christ himself promised so okay seems like another and again correct me on this but another big difference between Islam and Catholicism is is the sacraments and the sacramental Grace's talk a bit about that because it was anything like that in the Islamic oh no no I think I see sacraments and miracles as well it's just this point when you take the heaven and earth touch but Muhammad never claimed to have performed any miracles and there are some miracles that has been attributed to him to kind of give legitimacy to his claims but it's it's a very kind of earthly of religion there is no heaven and earth touching in those occasions so everything you do is again within that surveilled relationship my master told me to fast during Ramadan and that's what I will do without question and the same so there is no sacraments or miracles or it's it's just it's very you know it's very physical religion rather than spiritual what about oh yeah I'm very clear because it helps me out when someone on the monitor says the book is the glory of the Crusades yes thank you why did God what about the place of love in Islam versus Christianity um it's it's so it's there's not a similar understanding I had to learn it even after is an atheistic I had to learn how to be a daughter to God and how to be a wife to my husband or mother to my children I think women probably close are closer Muslim women are closer to understanding the love they because of their you know the motherhood but and no not the way we would understand that like the thought that God so loved the world they died I mean that statement itself John 3:16 God so loved the world no it's it's completely meaningless because they don't have this that understanding of God is love like that's a completely income like on its gibberish to a Muslim mind so starting from there will not take you much because I've further because it makes you weak love makes you weak which is true it doesn't make you a yes but you don't want to be weak because Allah is strong and all-powerful and he would never become weak I guess another important part of our Christian faith that we take for granted is the the place of forgiveness how does that connect with Islam Allah can forgive anybody he wants or he he it's all in his in his hands if he wants to show mercy he will show mercy but you just don't know basically you don't know if he will or not again because it's a very confused understanding of sin it's not taught that God cannot look upon sin because he's pure so he can't just say oh well you've been awfully your whole life you rejected my love but it's okay but he cannot coexist with sin an hour about rebellious and he will never force himself upon us so it's again even you don't understand have a proper understanding of sin forgiveness becomes something you cannot bestow only Allah can bestow and because we cannot decide on his behalf like the church Catholic Church claims to do then it's it's really an empty concept again yeah in that issue of sin separates Catholics and non-catholics Christians you know understanding what sin is and how do you define what sin is and which is a sin and the effect it has on us and our relationship with God and we have an email Emma from Virginia Beach writes does the Virgin Mary play any role in the average Muslims belief or piety are they devoted to her at all I've heard that Mary is mentioned in the Quran yes Mary's mentioned in the Quran many times and more than Muhammad himself but they have a very I think that's um our lady's humorous way of getting herself into a religion rather than Muslims really actually properly venerating her but like his her house or would presume to be her house in Ephesus is it's venerated by Muslims and Catholics alike but again because women are still second second-class so she kind of gets into that but at the same time she's seen as a mother of Jesus I think that her she's used more to negate Jesus's claim to be son of God when you call Mary Mother of Jesus then he was like look he's a human he's never claimed to be God you Christians made it up so yes and I think I think she's going to pull a cord a loop in one of these days in one of the most don't countries and just make a big difference but oh mm-hmm yes yes Fatima had an influence on Muslims not not that I know of maybe I mean there are many hoping that the named Fatima would would that be an opening but I think through her intercession if there will be a conversion of Muslims I believe it will be through her intercession definitely when you talk about sin and you talk about the importance of understanding forgiveness and love in Islam in your transition to Islam to Catholicism what about the pro-life issues particularly touch a woman's life was that a transition for you also yes this Muslim is a little Islam is a little kind of confusing about where when life starts growing up we were taught that the the soul enters the body at the time of quickening which is about 20th week so for instance on is legal in Turkey until then especially first trimester abortions it's common practice for by regular obstetricians it's um it's used that's basically birth control there are different sects of Islam who believe that it's always sinned but it's not it's nothing like the Catholic Church it was a it was a big it was a big change for me but I think the the first lady who who talked to me about Christ she was very pro-life and it made sense to me that the pro-life claims she made and and by the time I became a Christian I was very pro-life and I had also experienced the book I also have personal experience experiences with abortion so I have I know that it wasn't just a bunch of you know South so and that was even when I was an atheist so um yes by the time I became a Christian the the the Catholic view of when life starts it was just completely made sense to me we have an email from Carmen from South Dakota what do you think are some common misunderstandings Catholics have about the Muslim religion I am okay the biggest thing for me I think it's important for Catholics don't understand the God we worship God the Father is not the same as Allah and I know it makes us feel good and you know we can then kind of get rid of our responsibility to separate the gospel but it's not I think that's the biggest misunderstanding about the Muslim religion and we need to educate ourselves more about Islam because it's it was it's given the Great Commission is still valid we still need to spread the gospel but first of all we need to learn about Islam and be honest about it and we need to remember that Muslims are they haven't heard anything about Christianity they are all they know about is what they've been taught so it falls on us to teach them about this loving God who would come and die for them so I think that's the biggest understanding that we just basically worship the same God it sounds like in your journey certainly the the free witness of that first woman that you met with and her courage and you're both fighting it out there I mean praise God but it was the life of that next family that's so open to you right this the scene by your love they'll know you by your love yes I mean we have to witness be with our actions with our words but they first need to come and say that the Christians have something different and also we need to remember that when they went from the Middle East when they look to the West it looks like the West's Christian and their decadent and as through faithful followers of Christ we need to show them like Luke and Christianity has been living the West too but here is the life of a true follower and Christ has can change your life too I mean you've made it sound very difficult to evangelize Muslims you know as a Catholic wants to reach out to a non Catholic Christian we start with look at all the stuff we have similar now let's look at the things that differ or we go to a Jew okay look at what we have similar the Old Testament right with a Muslim what do we got what do we have that similar that gives us a foundation to start building on we believe in one God and you can start there and you can build it and I think they first need to see that your life is very different and that difference attracts a lot of people and read about your own faith and Islam and just be ready to answer questions and be honest and and also we need to remember we cannot convert anybody it's you know it's God's job is the whole security just lets us tag along it's like me letting my kids bake cookies in the kitchen you know they we sometimes it gets messy but the cookie it's made eventually so that's the whole spirit we just need to follow God's promptings I guess one of the things we just kept can we begin with God as creator yes mm-hmm yes definitely and that's it that's that's a big starting point again you know creator one God and that omnipotence we can talk about and but more most of the Muslims just know that we already believe this stuff but you can ask the can you show me why you think the Bible is changed where do you think it is changed or we ask questions about their own faith because most of them they're just you know they grew up without not ever thinking about this but when you start making them question their own beliefs then when the ones that starts kind of becoming a little crumbly then David's like oh maybe Bible wasn't changed after all something we didn't have a chance in Russia to the story is that you're now a wife and a mother with kids that happen here in the United States I was I was confirmed into the Catholic Church in England and I realize that I didn't have a vocation to the religious knife but I really wanted to marry a committed Catholic so I met my husband on Catholic match and he's he's an American and now we live in America and we have four little Saints makers who they are gonna take custody of it so yeah that's that's the life now well that's wonderful again want to remind the audience is listening if you want to know more about da Diaz story there is dere dairy a little comments what it looks like de ry a little calm of course you're also the author of from Islam to cry mm-hmm how do you thank you so much thank you thanks for having for joining us on the program god bless you and your family and your continued witness I mean this is powerful we need to see what kind of response we get from the program - god bless you thank you and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that her journey is a deep conviction to you to follow Christ in this church god bless you see you next week [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 29,980

Rating: 4.8233995 out of 5

Keywords: JHT, JHT01616

Id: gT2X2LCGdi0

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 11 2018