Transcription
Islam is a religion that was essentially created after the Arab conquests. Interesting. Very interesting.
>> solidify to culturally solidify the the holdings. Terrence better is $10. It's I've seen conflicting statements. Does the church have a patristic consensus on whether Islam worships our God only with a horrific misunderstanding of his character or if they worship a demon? I think Luigi has a Twitter thread or an X thread on this. I think every time they use the term God in the sense of like common parlance, like they worship God this way, they worship God that way. That's not an admission that it's the same God, right? Whenever they are explicitly talking about this issue, the tendency seems to be that they are not worshipping the same God. I don't know Father Stephen. Am I wrong on this?
>> what it depends on what you mean by same. Right? Yeah. Like they don't believe in the Trinity. So that Yeah. [laughter] But then like to a certain degree I I see what you're saying, Father, that like >> like literally it's not the same conception of God. Yeah. Right? Uh Okay. So [laughter] So that I get that people are trying to be great The people are trying to be gracious or trying to feed off of the dialogue with St. Photini. Right? You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship whom you we know. Okay, but but here's the problem. The Samaritans were like the descendants of the refugees from the northern tribes. Right? So they were like heretical. Yeah. Right? So you could use that to argue Protestants worship the same God we do. As Orthodox or Roman Catholics worship the same God we do. Right? If you were ecumenically minded to do that. Right? You could you could try to make that argument validly, but that doesn't work once you go outside of the religion. Right? As soon as you go outside of the religion. Also, people don't really understand the Muslim God.
>> [laughter] >> Right? Like who has body parts and who is also like a true monad. Um one of the one of the wildest things that happened in my discussions with my friend my Orthodox Jewish friend on his channel was where after I laid out the monarchic Trinity, I said, "This is the actual Christian doctrine of the Trinity." Uh he said "Well, that's way closer to the Jewish view than the Muslim view is."
>> [laughter] >> And then the Muslims got mad at him. But they get mad ABOUT EVERYTHING.
>> YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE on our side. I think do they even know like about I don't think they know about the emanations or whatever terminology they use?
>> Right? Like people don't know about the Jewish view of God, they don't know about the actual Muslim view of God. Like the Muslim view of God is radically different than the Christian view of God. Yeah. And even the Jewish view of God. Yeah. Mhm. Right? Like So yeah, that that to me that's just like a non-starter. Like it's just pure I want to do an ecumenism, you know?
>> [laughter] >> Yeah. Well, I guess they're like they're There's some quote mines where it'll like they'll take St. Gregory Palamas or something when he was taken captive by the Muslim pirates or something and he talked about like their great devotion to God. But in my mind he's just using the term in like common parlance. Like clearly, as you said, Father, it doesn't take that deep of an inquiry to know that it's not the same God.
>> Which which saint was that? Gregory Palamas. Okay, Gregory Palamas. Yeah. So yeah, again, that's oh, these are very pious people. I mean, St. Paul says to the Athenians Oh, yes.
>> Oh, you're very religious people. I see all these idols.
>> Altar to the unknown God, yes.
>> Oh, yeah, Zeus, you know?
>> [laughter] >> Yeah. I think actions matter too, though, right? So a lot of people are pointing to this because there's conflicting statements because some of our modern patriarchs will say like kind things to other groups of people, but I think I think also context needs to matter. When you're talking with somebody face to face typically, especially when you're trying to have a relationship with another country, you're not going to insult the like the vast majority of the population of that country and attack them. Like Patriarch Kirill when he gave condolences to Iran losing their leadership. There's Orthodox Christians in Iran under the Moscow Patriarchate. And if he goes around slandering their religious leader that just died, what do you think's going to happen to them, right? I think that's the first thing you need to remember. And then the second thing
>> Too bad, so sad. Sucks you were worshipping a demon, you know? Yeah. And then the second thing is is that um what are the what are their actions? All of our patriarchs evangelize Muslims overtly. And they have statements and sermons talking about the need to for Muslims to convert to the one true religion, right? So it has to be balanced. And I understand maybe some of them go too far and that's a criticism that's valid. Not me to criticize them. I'm a layperson. That can be the other bishops in the synods to critique, not for us to be speculating on. The other thing is a lot The reason I asked about which St. Gregory um is that a lot of the early stuff, right? is historical data. So St. John of Damascus, right? Basically says they're a heretical Christian sect. Okay? But would he have said that Arians worship the same God as us? No. And Arians are a heretical Christian sect. So that doesn't mean they worship the same [laughter] God. Yeah. They're a heretical Christian sect. But you go back earlier than that, you also have to remember uh I don't know if I would have publicly how much heat I want to bring on you, but uh I'll just put it this way. There is very little evidence and by very little I mean none outside of the Quran that any of the story of the early history of Islam is true. Yeah, they have no corroboration.
>> Um and we have counter sources. Like when they invade Jerusalem, St. Sophronius wrote a book on the ways of the Arabs. Where he talks about how they washed their hands and how they dressed and how they did. He never mentions that they had a different religion. That seems odd.
>> actually.
>> [laughter] >> That's like That's a pretty big thing to leave out.
>> For a couple of centuries they all worshiped toward Jerusalem and then all of a sudden it switched to Mecca. There's odd things historically. We don't even have the name Muhammad appear in any records whatsoever until 150 years after he lived. You know? Q Barton Ehrman saying we can't trust any of the Gospels cuz they were written like 30 years after Jesus.
>> Um There's things, right? Going on there. The Muhammad mythicism? Yeah, right. So that yeah, so there is no there is no case, you know? Yeah. This is this is just yeah, the the Roman Catholic Church being Protestantized. It's been Protestantized everywhere, right? But a Protestantized Roman Catholic Church in the US looks like what? Looks like them having like praise bands in the mass and them all becoming right-wing evangelicals, right? Uh politically, right? What is a uh Protestantized Roman Catholic Church look like in Europe? Bunch of libs. I mean, what's Protestantism in Europe? Right? Liberal state churches.
>> So >> Yeah. Roman Catholicism in that's been Protestantized in Europe just looks like a big bunch of liberal state churches in Germany and France and Italy. I think his uh news segments his Catholic news segments are pretty devastating. Like every time he goes I'm just like it can't get worse, can it? And if you look at their view of other religions, it's the same as the state Lutheran Church's view of other religions. Yeah.
>> Same as right, the liberal Protestant European view of other religions, right? So I don't know why anybody would be surprised. Henry Favela 999, given the first millennium is Father Stephen's jam, what is your opinion on the origins of Islam? Heard it was a Christian heresy that was used as a psyop by a neighboring empire. Any legs on that theory?
>> Um I hold to more of the theory and this is actually a whole group of theories.
>> Um that uh Islam is a religion that was essentially created after the Arab conquests. Interesting. Very interesting.
>> >> solidify to culturally solidify the the holdings. Very interesting. I think the conventional view is that Islam fueled the Arab conquests, right?
>> >> Yeah. Yeah, except we have no evidence of it existing. What That is an interesting view. That Maybe we should do a stream just on that. Like that is [laughter] very, very interesting.
>> >> There's a lot of sources of research on this, right? If you read the actual researchers, it doesn't get publicized a lot because uh Cuz they'll freaking kill you, but Yes. [laughter] No, like there was a BBC documentary that laid all this stuff out. It got aired once. Wow.
>> >> And then gone.
>> >> [laughter] >> So there is like some uh I I've I've seen people arguing for like uh Muhammadan mythicism, but I never really took it that seriously.
>> >> that far. Uh There may have been a guy named Muhammad with a lot of the
>> >> anywhere near what is now Saudi Arabia. I think he lived his whole life in Eastern Syria. Uh and uh That would make sense. and seems to have basically been a member of the Church of the East. Uh Okay, we need to have a stream on this. This is pretty wild.
>> >> [laughter] >> Well, the tradition that's preserved over there by Christians Uh-huh. is that his uncle was an a Church of the East bishop. I'm being nice. I almost called them Nestorians. Uh
>> >> [laughter] >> Church of the East bishop. And there's also been a lot of work done cuz technically the Arabic language as a written language doesn't predate the Quran. It's sort of like Luther's German Bible. Like there was German, but it the language gets sort of solidified and unified. And if you translate big chunks of the Quran as if they were in Aramaic, not Arabic, you get different results Interesting.
>> >> far closer to like uh Church of the East, maybe even a little heretical for them Christian text. No way. This is crazy.
>> >> fits with St. John of Damascus calling them a heretical Christian sect and That makes a lot more sense. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to bookmark that in my mind. Thank you for the super chat.
>> >> All this stuff about Muhammad and his life and the Hajj and all that stuff comes from biographies of Muhammad that were written like 150 years later by like the early leaders of the empire after the conquest. Had them published. That is so crazy.