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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and

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faith. And today, we challenge you to think through the issue of Islam, freedom, and democracy.

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We are continuing with our series on a comparison and contrast between Christianity and Islam.

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And today, Islam, freedom, and democracy is the religion of Islam compatible with our way of life

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and governance. We hear, for example, that one of the prime motivations for having gone into

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Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria, besides the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, ostensibly,

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and maybe killing terrorists, the reasons were to bring liberty and democracy to these places.

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In fact, the military campaign into Iraq, remember way back when, was codenamed Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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Oh, how was that turned out?

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The president at the time, W, President Bush, repeatedly proclaimed that Iraqis are now a free

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people. Yeah, what happened to that? As much as I would like to believe that to have been true,

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I'm haunted by a persistent question. What do we mean by freedom? And can Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan

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or any other Muslim nation, for that matter, ever be free in the way in which we mean freedom?

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It goes right to the heart of the difference between Christianity and Islam and how both religions have

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shaped and determined the courses of their respective cultures and societies. Given the religion of Islam

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and its power to shape the worldview of its adherents, is it possible that freedom and a republican form of

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government will ever take root in any nation in which Islam predominates? In order to answer this and other

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related questions, I'd like to make four points today with you. Four points. Number one, religion shapes

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worldview. Quite simply, religion shapes worldview. West or East, Arab, Caucasian, every rational, sentient man

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who walks the face of the earth answers the four basic questions that define religion. That is,

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whence did I come? Whither do I go? Who am I? And number four, why am I here? Oh, every religion worthy of

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the name answers these questions for its adherents, Islam and Christianity being no exceptions. Even the proud

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atheist, which comprise less than two percent of our country, they cannot escape the worldview shaped by

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religion. His very name, for example, atheist means no God, which means he defines himself in spite of

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himself in relation to God. He would have no definition if not for God. Atheism is a completely

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modern notion without precedent in the ancient world. Even the so-called atheists of the ancient world

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were not atheists in the sense in which modern atheists call themselves. Most of the ancient

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atheists rejected, for example, the panoply of ancient gods, but still believed in some supreme being or beings,

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but hesitated to name them or define them too closely. In the end, even the atheist must answer the

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ultimate questions in terms of his religion. In turn, men behave consistent with their God

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and the answers to those questions I mentioned embodied in their religion. For instance, and I want to give

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just several specific concrete examples of how religion shapes worldview. If the Muslim despises manual

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labor, and he does, seeing manual labor as beneath him and the work of slaves, then it will be impossible

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for him to nurture a work ethic that is so necessary for the building of a sense of citizenship and belonging

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in a republic. The Muslim's state of being is an answer to the who am I question. As Raphael Pattai,

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in his book, The Arab Mind, I urge you to read this book, as Pattai points out, he says, and I quote,

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his state, that is the Muslim's state, was the will of Allah, and man must obey God. In fact, Islam means

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submission, it's submission, by the way, dear listener. Pattai goes on, he says, Allah made the Muslim to be a man

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of the soil, and such a man of the soil must remain one, unquote. In Arab and Muslim lands, one does not

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become rich, for example. One does not become rich and successful by hard work and frugal living. No, one becomes rich

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in the Muslim panoply of ideas when and if he finds, for example, or steals a treasure, or inherits a

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fortune, or finds a lamp with a genie in it, for example, as we see in the Arabian Nights, that will grant

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him three wishes. Oh, in contrast, the West has always cherished what has come to be known as the

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Protestant work ethic. That is, God, from the very beginning in Genesis, has commanded that we subdue

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the earth and take dominion of it. That is, we work. Genesis 2.15 says, the Lord God took the man and put

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him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it, unquote. From the beginning, we were created to work

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and find dignity and purpose in even the most lowly of tasks. In the words of John Calvin, even the plowman

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and the washerwoman bear the image of God and the call of God in their lives to their tasks, plowing and

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washing. In fact, he called even the simplest workman has a woka, a vocation, a calling. One of the reasons

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for the Industrial Revolution and unions and fair labor laws, the dignity and pride of the working man

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in the West, in complete contrast to the Middle East and Muslims, by the way, one of the chief reasons for

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that dignity and pride is the Protestant work ethic. Additionally, in thinking about how religion shapes

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culture, what will be the consequences for a culture's treatment of women? For example, if sin

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and the fall, that is, answers the question, where did we come from, can be traced back to sex and the

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woman as a temptress, right? As it is in Islam, what will be the consequences? Voila! You see the

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consequences every day all across the Islamic world. That is the barbaric surgery of female circumcision,

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the burqas, the second-class status to males, and women have little or no appeal in the law system

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of Sharia, too, for example. So, I have sampled merely two examples of how religion determines worldview.

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Religion determines worldview. Is it a mere coincidence that we find ourselves in the most prosperous,

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most powerful nation in the history of mankind? Or are there real, tangible reasons and explanations

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for it? In keeping with our Christian-bashing age, however, many try to explain it in strictly

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non-religious terms. But that fails to do justice to the evidence for the deep, strong Christian

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consensus at work in our nation and culture from its inception. And that brings me to my second point.

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Number two, the Christian worldview shaped the Western understanding of freedom and a free republic.

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For the Christian, the gospel has deep implications and transforming effects not only in the life to

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come, that is, for eternity, but also for this life and all of its institutions. When Jesus spoke

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those immortal words, even the atheists like to quote, he said, you will know the truth and the truth will set

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you free. Oh, well, he didn't speak those words in a vacuum. Even the enemies of Christianity love to

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quote Jesus here, supplying their own definition, of course, for exactly what the truth is. But Jesus does

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not leave us in doubt as to what he means by the truth. And it is here that most men like to edit

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Christ. Three things I'd like to say about that. First of all, Jesus defining the truth. He says,

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if you abide in my word and you are then truly my disciples, you will know the truth and the truth

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will set you free if you abide in my word, right? That's a very steep condition of knowing the truth

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that is following in and obeying Jesus and his teachings. It's a very steep condition of knowing the

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truth. One which most men reject and refuse to hearken unto. And secondly, Jesus also said,

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truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. So if the Son sets you free,

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you will be free indeed. Ah, it is Christ, the living word that sets us free from sin. He sanctifies us

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and sets us free. And those thus set free from sin, from the tyranny of sin and death unto the liberty

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of righteousness and life, those are truly free. It is the Christian who is truly free. Let no one

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misuse Jesus' words again and twist them to mean something other than he intends. And then finally,

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thirdly, Jesus says in the Gospel of John, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the

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Father except through me, unquote. Jesus locates the truth within himself and his mission. His mission

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was to reconcile men to his Father through his life, death, burial, and resurrection, to restore

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covenant status to them that they might know and see the Father. For the Christian, then, this meant a

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spiritual birth from out of a spiritual death into which he had been plunged by his first father,

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or Adam, that is, that death. Now, however, in this new life brought about by the Son, he is part of an

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eternal world, the world of the Spirit, as well as the world of the flesh. Well, into the pagan world

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of the Roman Empire, this Gospel of freedom burst in the first century. When a man is liberated in the realm

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of the Spirit, that is, free from the tyranny of sin and death, and a slave to righteousness and

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eternal life by his liberator, the Lord Jesus Christ, well, then, he can no longer be brought into slavery

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by any power. No, no matter what his earthly circumstances might have been. Though in his

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earthly circumstances, he may, for example, be a lowly slave in a Roman household, well, nevertheless,

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he was a freeman in the household of Christ and the Church. And though his earthly circumstances,

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he might find himself, he might find himself in a prison cell, or a slave galley, or a Roman legion as a

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forced conscript, or in the Colosseum about to be slain for the entertainment of a pagan emperor,

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well, nevertheless, he was a freeman in the household of Christ and the Church. He knew, down to his toenails,

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this early Christian, by the promises of the Word of God, that his kingdom was an eternal one

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in the heavenlies, which no man could take or deprive. And there were consequences for this

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state of being. That brings me to point number three. Christianity has brought a renewed focus

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on both individual liberties and, conversely, covenant responsibilities to the community.

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Liberties and responsibilities. Well, in Christianity, here was liberty and responsibility,

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not seen upon the face of the earth since the theocracy of Israel. No longer was the individual

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merely a cog, a nameless, faceless entity that existed for the use and sake of the state, which

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was the essence of paganism, to which we are headed as a culture now. But instead, here was an individual

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set in the midst of a community, that is the Church, to which he had first loyalties. And this Christian

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had both liberties and responsibilities to God and his fellow man. This is what infuriated and threatened

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pagan statism in Rome, and it continues to infuriate and threaten pagan statism throughout

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the world today. And the pagan statism arising in modern socialist liberalism in the United States,

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and the pagan statism inherent within the very structure of Islam, we might add. The very name Islam, for

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example, means submission, ostensibly submission to Allah, but by implication also submission to the tribe

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and language and book of Islam, the Quran. In Islam, there's no sense of a heavenly kingdom and its heavenly

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king, the Christ, to which one owes first loyalties, and which consequently liberates him from fleshly

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tyrannies. Instead, in Islam, we see what Roger Scruton calls a creed community, a creed community, that is

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a people defined by tribe, language, and Quran, which stakes its destiny in the kingdom of this world.

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Ha ha ha. Coincidentally, this world, not the world of the spirit. Now, how can I say this one? All we seem

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to hear about are Muslims willing to die for Allah, go to heaven, enjoy virgins and oasis, and eat figs

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under palm trees. Doesn't that indicate they hold a greater priority of heaven than for earth? Well, that's

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only in appearance. Two observations I want to make with you on this. Number one, for the Muslim, heaven is

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merely a grand extension of this life, and not an entirely new creation, as it is for the Christian.

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What the Muslim can't have here, like a child bride, for example, he will be able to indulge in heaven.

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Sex is taba'u here. There, in the Muslim heaven, it is to be indulged with great profligacy.

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Food is restricted here. That is no pork. You have to fostering Ramadan, for example. But there,

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it is to be indulged food with gluttonous excess. Work and toil plague the Muslim here. There,

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in heaven, he will be able to lounge around in great sloth. In Islam, there is nothing of the

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spiritual realm, precisely because they are dead to the things of the spirit, rather than a spiritual

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kingdom, in which one will not be sexually united to 72 virgins, but to which the church will be united

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to Christ himself, even as a bride is united with her husband. Instead, Islam merely extrapolates the

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world of the flesh on a grander scale to heaven. And then secondly, we also see, for the Muslim,

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all of this world of the flesh writ large, that's the heaven of the Quran, depends upon his performance

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here, his loyalty to tribe, customs, and laws of the Quran. It's a theology of works. Rather than seeing

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the spiritual kingdom of God as inherited as a free gift to an adopted son, given as a work of grace

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done by Christ on behalf of his covenant people. Instead, Islam sees the larger world of the flesh,

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that is heaven of the Quran. He sees it as earned here in this smaller world of the flesh. That is

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why people like Osama bin Laden and fiery imams preaching in their mosques can urge their followers

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to throw their lives away in suicidal missions on behalf of Islam, because it will instantly earn them

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a place in this extended world of the flesh. Their kingdom is essentially a this-worldly kingdom,

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a kingdom of the flesh, meant to be extended by fleshly means, that is, the sword, jihad,

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and meant at all costs and without compromise to be extended over governments and nations and peoples of

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this world of the flesh. And so, with no sense of true, eternal liberty and freedom, it is no surprise

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that Islam cannot comprehend nor abide genuine individual liberty and covenant responsibility.

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In fact, Islam is threatened by our Western sense of freedom with its roots in Christianity. For

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example, Osama bin Laden calls the values and freedom in institutions of the West and the United

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States in particular, the enemy of Islam. Yes, America, its values, the enemy of Islam. And the imam,

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Shamim Siddiqui, who is the author of The Need to Convert Americans to Islam. That says it pretty

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plainly, the title of that book, The Need to Convert Americans to Islam. Well, Siddiqui calls our way of

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life and the freedom it brings as it makes its way to the Islamic world. He says he calls it the treacherous

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hands of the secular West. And another author, Islamic author, Issan Bagbi. He puts it this way. He says,

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ultimately, we can never be full citizens of this country because there is no way we can be fully

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committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country. That says it pretty plainly. Every

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serious Muslim must confess this. Ultimately, we can never be full citizens of this country because there

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is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country,

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unquote. It becomes clear that as we examine the heart of Islam, that any nation with a primarily

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Islamic consensus will never understand nor adopt the principle of liberty and freedom as it is lived and

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cherished in the United States. Islam is inherently and constitutionally incapable of practicing and

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embracing liberty and freedom. To do so would spell its own death. And then finally, fourthly,

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Christianity has nurtured the institutions of a democratic republic in the West. Christianity has

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nurtured the institutions of the democratic republic in the West. While our anti-religion, anti-Christian,

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socialist left and socialist left in the United States is desperately trying to cleanse and revise

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our history books. It is nevertheless there for all to see who will take a little effort to look,

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Christianity has nurtured the institutions of a Christian republic in the West. While it is true

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that Rome has contributed much of what we know of the rule of law, it was not until the advent of

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Christian rulers like Justinian, for example, that law was tempered with both justice and mercy and

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wisdom. Additionally, the precepts for the rule of law have their roots in the rule of God's law,

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the Old Testament. Even the Supreme Court has in their chambers yet today a statue of Moses

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holding the Ten Commandments as testimony to the biblical roots of the rule of law. Now, while it is true

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that a primitive form of democracy can be found in ancient Greece, it was quickly tried and discarded

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as little better than mob rule, the tyranny of an ignorant and passionate rabble. It is not until

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democracy was taken up by our founding fathers and transformed into the Christian republic that it is

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today that democracy stepped out of the pagan darkness of its past into an institution that properly

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represents its people and the will of the majority on the one hand, but also respects the rights and

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privileges of the minority on the other hand. Our democratic institutions are not strictly democratic,

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but republican in nature. For example, the passions and poor judgment of the majority are tempered by

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having legislation enacted by wise representatives, supposedly wise, enforced by an executive branch and

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then adjudicated by a separate judiciary, three branches of government. And as James Madison

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pointed out in Federalist number 10, he said that human nature is fallen and corrupt to a point that

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it needs to be restrained by the rule of law and a separation of powers so that power does not become

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concentrated into the hands of a few factions of men. And also, the rights of the minority are protected

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in a bill of rights, appended to and part of the constitution, guaranteeing that the majority cannot

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tyrannize the minority in America. The founding fathers recognized that all of these institutions

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owed their existence to the Christian consensus that existed among the population and the Christian

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traditions that informed even the deliberations and writing of our constitution. In fact, many years after the

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exhilarating days of the American Revolution and the early days of the Republic, John Quincy Adams,

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son of John Adams, could say of the role of his father and other founding fathers, John Quincy Adams said,

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and I quote, the highest glory of the American Revolution is this. It connected in one indissoluble bond

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the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. But Islam, on the other hand,

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has a directly opposite view of government and rule. It is God who rules directly through the Quran in

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Islam and the body of law derived from it, Sharia, and the traditions of Islam. To see any law in Islam

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derived from any other source than Allah is blasphemy. Once again, quoting Saeed Khutub, he says,

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it is God and not man who rules. God is the source of all authority, including legitimate political

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authority. Virtue, not freedom, is the highest value, he says. Therefore, God's laws, not man,

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should govern society. Unquote. Dear listener, it becomes clear that as we examine the heart of Islam,

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that any nation with a primarily Islamic consensus, and America is headed that way if we're not

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careful, any nation with a primarily Islamic consensus will never understand nor adopt the

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principle of a democratic republic. They will never embrace liberty and freedom as it is lived and

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cherished in the United States of America. Look across the broad world of the Islamic nations and you'll see

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that this religious tyranny prevails in every nation that adopts Islam as its primary religion. Religion

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determines worldview. Islam is inherently and constitutionally incapable of practicing and embracing

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liberty and freedom. To do so would spell its own death. They are not ever going to, even in the enclaves

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and ghettos of Islam here in America. So, let no one say that Christianity and a Christian republic

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and democracy are not bound together in this nation. They truly are. And dear listener, you must do all that you

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can as well in practicing your Christian faith to also apply it directly to our ways in here in America, both our

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culture and our culture and our form of government. And thus, we will bring glory not only to God, but also then to the

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practice of the Christian republic here in this life as well as the next. This has been Pastor David Bass at New

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Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We meet for holy worship at 10 a.m. on Sundays. And we are meeting for the month of

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September at the Senior Citizens Center. We have closed our church. We're renovating, doing some major

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renovations. So, we have closed the church, and we will be meeting every Sunday in the month of September at the

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Senior Citizens Center, which is located on the corner of 21st and Rolandette. And you can call us for more

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information on these things at area code 208-523-0196. Call us for further information at area code 208-523-0196.