Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

EX-MUSLIM: KORAN REVEALS A RELIGION I DID NOT LIKE

Dale Hurd reports for CBN News:

 

GOTHENBURG, Sweden -- Mona Walter is on a mission. Her mission is for more Muslims to know what is in the Koran. She says if more Muslims knew what was in the Koran, more would leave Islam. 

Walter came to Sweden from Somalia as a war refugee when she was 19. She says she was excited about joining a modern European nation with equal rights for women. But as a young Muslim woman, that was not the Sweden she encountered. 

A Real Introduction to Islam

It was in Sweden that she first experienced radical Islam on a daily basis.

"I discovered Islam first in Sweden. In Somalia, you're just a Muslim, without knowing the Koran. But then you come to Sweden and you go to mosque and there is the Koran, so you have to cover yourself and you have to be a good Muslim."

Walter says she grew up in Somalia never having read the Koran.

LOUIS ZAMPERINI - "UNBROKEN" - THE REST OF THE STORY

From CBN News:

Unbroken hit the box office Christmas day and made $47.3 million during the opening weekend.

The film focuses on Louis Zamperini's life as an Olympic runner and his amazing tale of survival and perseverance during World War II while he was held captive in a Japanese prison camp.

The film leaves out Zamperini's conversion to Christianity.

But a new video just released by Universal Pictures details Zamperini's struggles after returning from the war and how his life changed when he found Christ.

 

 The Billy Graham association has put out a 28-minute TV-special "Captured by Grace" which goes into more detail and chronicles Louis Zamperini's life including his conversion at a 1949 Billy Graham Los Angeles campaign.  Zamperini's life was changed dramatically and permanently.  Inspiring.  Highly recommended!  You can watch it online here.

QUICK TAKES

Christian Athletes to Watch at the Olympics

A Leftist Lesbian Professor becomes a Follower of Christ

Through Dreams, Investigations, and Visions a Muslim Doctor becomes a follower of Jesus

Muslims becoming Jesus followers in unprecedented numbers

BARNA REPORT: DO AMERICANS CHANGE FAITHS?

Excerpts:  (HT: VirtueOnline)

The most common type of spiritual shift was from those who were Christian, Protestant or Catholic in childhood to those who currently report being atheist, agnostic or some other faith. In total, this group represents about one out of every eight adults (12%), a category that might be described as ex-Christians.

Converts to Christianity (those converting from another faith or from non-belief as a child to the Christian faith as an adult) represent 3% of the population. About twice as many (7%) moved from Protestant to Catholic or from Catholic to Protestant. Another 2% of adults were no longer the same as their childhood faith but did not fit into any of these three categories. . . .

Most of the people who have made these changes did so as a teenager or young adult. The study discovered that the median age at the time they changed faiths or significantly altered their faith perspective was 22.

One-third of those who experienced a significant faith shift did so during their twenties and another one-third did so before age 20. In total, two-thirds of people who had a major faith change experienced that outcome before the age of 30 (68%). In fact, among respondents over 40, only 5% of them reported making a major shift in their religious affiliation after the age of 40.  [more . ..]

WILLIAM BENNETT & ERGUN CANER -- TWO OUTSTANDING SPEECHES FROM THE "VALUES VOTER SUMMIT"

Last weekend I was able to watch a few of the "Values Voter Summit" speeches "live" via streaming internet, but not all.  Now the Family Research Council has made them available as webcasts for leisurely viewing.   Of those I saw, I found William Bennett's comments on his two-volume textbook, America: the Last Best Hope, both entertaining and instructive.  He makes history "live" and made me want to go out and buy his two books.

A far different talk was given by Dr. Ergun Caner, the President of Liberty Theological Seminary, and a man who was raised a Muslim.  If you don't watch any other speech, this would probably be the one to see, especially if you have an interest in Islam and would like to hear the story of how one Muslim became a follower of Jesus.  Caner's talk is powerful, personal, insightful, and entertaining, and well worth the 25 minutes it takes to watch it. 

You can find these two speeches, and many more, here.

STORY OF A PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

I tuned in this morning to the "Hour of Power" TV program and was moved by Becca Cook's story.  Video and transcript can be found here.  It's a powerful story of God's deliverance of a young woman who seemed beyond help, "too far gone."  Her parents expected to pick up the phone and be asked to go down to the morgue to identify their daughter's body.   Becca's story should be an encouragement to many. 

LETTERS OF C.S. LEWIS TO A SPIRITUAL SEEKER (SHELDON VANAUKEN) - NOW ONLINE

1977 saw the publication of a book that rocked the evangelical world and beyond.  I am referring to Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy.  The book is still in print, as well it should be.  The current edition carries this descriptive blurb on the back cover:

This acclaimed story traces the idyllic marriage of Sheldon and Jean Vanauken, their search for faith, their friendship with C.S. Lewis, and the tragedy of untimely death and love lost.  It includes 18 letters by C.S. Lewis.

That's not bad, but better and more complete is this description (from the Amazon.com website):

A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken, is a heart-rending love story described by its author as "the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than of the lovers." Vanauken chronicles the birth of a powerful pagan love borne out of the relationship he shares with his wife, Davy, and describes the growth of their relationship and the dreams that they share. As a symbol of their love, they name their dream schooner the Grey Goose, "for the grey goose, if its mate is killed flies on alone and never takes another."

While studying at Oxford, Sheldon and Davy develop a friendship with C.S. Lewis, under whose influence and with much intellectual scrutiny they accept the Christian doctrine. As their devotion to God intensifies, Sheldon realizes that he is no longer Davy's primary love--God is. Within this discovery begins a brewing jealousy.

Shortly after, Davy acquires a fatal illness. After her death Sheldon embarks on an intense experience of grief, "to find the meaning of it, taste the whole of it ... to learn from sorrow whatever it had to teach." Through painstaking reveries, he comes to discover the meaning of "a mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love." He learns that her death "had these results: It brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealously of God. It saved her faith from assault. ...And it saved our love from perishing."

Replete with 18 letters from C.S. Lewis, A Severe Mercy addresses some of the universal questions that surround faith--the existence of God and the reasons behind tragedy. --Jacque Holthusen

The book had a powerful impact on me as it did on thousands of others.  I recently discovered that three of C.S. Lewis' letters to Vanauken have been placed in the public domain and are available on the internet.  They originally formed part of a small booklet, titled "Encounter with Light," which Vanauken published with C.S. Lewis' permission.  Much of that booklet was eventually  incorporated into Vanauken's larger work, A Severe Mercy.  The text of "Encounter with Light" is available here.   It chronicles in brief compass Vanauken's intellectual journey to belief in Christ, and offers the context of Vanauken's correspondence with Lewis.  The C.S. Lewis letters are reproduced below.

A.N. WILSON RETURNS TO CHRISTIAN FAITH FROM THE WILDERNESS

A.N. Wilson is an exceptionally talented writer.  Charles Colson has summarized his return to Christian faith (reprinted below).  Optimistically, I wonder if Wilson might one day turn into the sharp-witted, God-honoring, secular balloon-pricking Malcolm Muggeridge of our present generation.  Wouldn't that be extraordinary?  I am moved to wonder that on the strength of his article: "Why we should no longer be cowed by the chattering classes ruling Britain who sneer at Christianity."

Herewith Colson's article (But I must say parenthetically, that Wilson's book on C.S. Lewis -- which Colson praises overmuch -- has a whole lot of serious problems.  See Wayne Martindale's review here.)  But back to Colson's report:

SHARON ALLEN - STORY OF AN ORTHODOX JEW WHO CAME TO ACKNOWLEDGE JESUS AS THE MESSIAH OF ISRAEL

Someone told me about this women this morning.  She tells a fascinating story.

"BASIC INSTINCT" AUTHOR (JOE ESZTERHAS) WRITES ABOUT FAITH

Drudge points to a fascinating article about Joe Eszterhas, the screenwriter for various Hollywood thrillers, who will be publishing Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith, on Sept. 2.  His "Damascus-style" turnaround is riveting reading.   The following (on the importance of the Eucharist to him) may interest some readers:

. . . Mr. Eszterhas told The Blade that despite his mixed feelings over the [Roman Catholic] church and the abuse scandal, the power of the Mass trumps his doubts and misgivings.

"The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It's almost a feeling of a kind of high."

. . .And he complains about priests' homilies being boring and pointless.

When Mr. Eszterhas visited a nondenominational megachurch, he heard a sensational sermon. But he felt empty afterward, missing Holy Communion and the Catholic liturgy.