“How to Find Forgiveness from a Holy God” Dialogue
I recently finished watching a debate that was help in March 2011 between Thabiti Anyabwile, a Christian pastor and Bassam Zawadi, a Muslim scholar. They set out to answer the question: “How can we find forgiveness from a Holy God?”
It was helpful for me to better understand the Muslim perspective and the need for Christians to properly articulate our hope in Christ. It takes some time to make it through all the videos but if you do watch one or two I would watch the Christian opening statement and the Q&A session. Let me know your thoughts if you decide to watch!
A couple things I noticed:
- The Christian perspective comes from a biblical basis however the Muslim perspective seems to be largely opinion based. You will notice that the Muslim scholar often uses the phrases, “makes sense to me” or “it seems to me” which points to the foundation of his theology, being his own logic. Thabiti (Christian Pastor) uses logic as well however his foundation of truth is in the Scriptures.
- By some of Bassam’s statements, he seems to be just trying to win an argument for arguments sake. Or in other words he does not seem very evangelistic about his faith. Thabiti on the other hand, has a genuine desire for his listeners to be persuaded to the Christian faith, not to win a debate, but to find eternal life in Christ.
Enjoy!
