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Mosques in My Backyard? Christians, Conscience, and Community · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity just sufficient to flavor to be
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  pleased or gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what we bring to your table
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  today might add some spice to your life,
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  welcome in to a another episode of relish i am not rowan miller no,
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  i am not i am not uh my name is alex zimmerman i do a lot of the producing for
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  this go so and did this many years ago and then you all know of course don patterson
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  yes the handsome the punctual,
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  the intelligent um wow really glad for to be here today with you guys i am glad
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  to be here with you yeah it's been a long time and it's it's always been good
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  every time we get together yeah yeah i look forward to it So it's nice to see what,
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  happens now, because this is sort of a segue.
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  We don't know what's next, but I knew you had some good questions brewed up,
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  and in our discussion. It's good to have you here.
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  Yes, I'm glad to be here. Bring those provocative thoughts from Westchester.
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  Yeah. And you're part of the world. That's right. Yeah. um.
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  I i've even had people kind of reach out before and they're like you know it's
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  a little different with rowan i really like rowan what he's doing you know it's
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  he's like i learned so much more i'm like oh yeah thanks yeah but,
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  like i needed to hear that exactly exactly okay okay i really appreciated the
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  questions that rowan was getting i mean a lot of them are coming from his Hillcrest students there.
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  And he had a Bible study that was doing that. Oh, yeah. They were generating quite a bit every week.
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  Oh, listen, in a Bible study, I mean, I feel like sometimes you're...
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  Well, Don likes to keep it rolling in Bible studies, if you've ever been with
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  us. We want to make some progress.
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  And sometimes I feel like I'm the one really dragging us to,
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  oh, wait, did we look at this?
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  Yeah. What does the Greek mean? I actually have a little sticky note with one
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  of the answers to one of the questions you brought up and I couldn't bring an
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  answer. Oh, okay. So it's actually above my desk. Let me know when we leave
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  that I give you the answer that you asked me. I have no idea from that. I know. Yeah.
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  But I remember. That's right. So those are great places for questions.
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  I've always felt like Sunday school Bible study is so awesome.
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  It is. Yeah. And we need to be, that's part of what the church is all about, isn't it?
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  Is to be that place where we can bring those questions we've got and get answers
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  from somebody who might know. Right.
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  And at least has some way of getting the answer. Right. If he doesn't know it right then.
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  And yeah, I try. Yeah.
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  Uh pro tip if you got like a new person if you got a new person i made this
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  mistake once i had some guys that i was doing a bible study with we started
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  it up and everyone brought their bibles and i go okay and you know and you go
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  ahead and read the next couple verses uh-huh,
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  oh boy and he is he was i don't know if you've ever cracked this bible open
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  before but it was a king james version and my golly.
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  Wasn't that fun? Oh boy. Well, I do like to have at least one King James in every Bible study. Yep.
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  And then what we spiced up our Bible study at Westchester last was with The
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  Message. The Message, yep.
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  And Eugene Peterson does a really dynamic job and sort of adds a little to it.
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  I mean, at least the emotion he adds to it. Yeah, listen, I... And it's good.
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  There are times when you're like, okay, that was nice. And other times you're
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  just like, What are we doing? Yeah.
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  Yeah, I agree. Okay. And then we always have the original language before us
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  as well. And so that helps if things get out of hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah, and that one night it almost got out of hand. It's the other thing we
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  had the Greek there. Yes, that's right. Yeah. We are exciting Bible studies.
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  We do. Oh, yeah, super exciting.
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  Well, everyone, we're not going to do banter the whole time. Are we?
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  We do have some good questions here. Um, this was something that was kind of
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  popular, um, recently. And it was talking about, it was down in Texas where
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  there's this mosque being built. And there were some people that kind of did not want to do that.
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  And so I thought of, you know, like what, what would we do here?
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  We're sitting here in Kelowna, Iowa, and there's going to be a mosque being
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  put up, let's say within city limits. Right.
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  How are Christians supposed to respond to that? Yeah. What are we supposed to do with that?
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  Oh, you want me to answer? Yes, tell us. Come on. I'm saying like,
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  because me as a conservative, I would say, leaning Christian,
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  I'm like, well, you know, First Amendment, everyone's free to practice their own things, right?
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  But my Christian side is like, well, I mean, I wouldn't. I don't want that influence
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  on my kids. I think part of the thing is, do we treat other faiths at the root?
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  And what is their root? So if it's a religion, we want to have the freedom of
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  all religions, right? Sure.
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  And then you have the question, at what point does your religion become political?
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  Yeah. Because political, at its root, is how people work with each other.
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  At a faith, it's how I work with God, how I keep my relationship with God.
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  But the situation you're talking about sort of grinds me sideways because I
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  think it's less religious and more political.
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  The reason being is, you know, the Muslim faith did not even,
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  their prophet didn't even live until, I think he died in 657,
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  AD, which is 650 years after Christ. Right.
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  And so it's a very new religion, and it calls upon a very old religion.
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  I mean, it looks back to the Old Testament and all the way back to Abraham and
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  acknowledges some of the same lineage.
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  However, we need to, as you read through the Quran, it's somewhat religious,
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  and it calls on some Old Testament kinds of things, but it's pretty political. Interesting.
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  Because it calls for anybody other than us you kill right,
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  and that really is hard to work with in a in a local community you know and so when you then allow uh.
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  A group with this kind of mantra to kill other people,
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  for freedom of religion it really is hard on the neighborhood i mean you talk
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  about being hard on the neighborhood, anybody other than who goes to your mosque would be, uh,
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  you'd be free to kill under freedom of religion. Yeah.
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  So then we have to go back and say, what is freedom of religion?
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  And I guess I'm coming from the standpoint when I look at this and what's going
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  on and the mantra that's coming out of that group, I'd say, nah, this isn't religious.
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  This is political.
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  So do I let another country's political system into my democracy or my republic, if you will.
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  And at that point, then you're going to have competing, more than it already
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  is, Republican and Democrat, you're going to have competing political systems. Yeah.
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  And I don't think we can let that happen.
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  We've got enough going on with Republican and Democrat and not allow another political system in.
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  So I guess I find that while we want to be good to our neighbor,
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  and I'll say this, I have never had a Muslim treat me poorly.
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  That's good to say. So I do want to admit that. Yeah.
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  Uh, it's the radicalized that we really need to have our senses aware of that this, this, uh,
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  political system can become radicalized and, uh, at the places it is,
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  it's becoming very dangerous.
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  Uh, I'm just saying, I think we've got enough trouble with Republicans and Democrats.
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  I'm not sure we need to add another political system to the base.
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  I mean, am I just totally off base? That's where Don comes from.
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  I'm sometimes off base. I mean, yeah, as far as the political system goes, yeah.
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  Would we really want Sharia law? I don't think that that's something that people
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  would say. That's political. Right. That's political.
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  So I'm saying, nah, I'd have to stand and say, ah, guys, not in my backyard.
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  If they know on the basis of it's a.
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  It's more political and religious. But if they can prove that.
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  Or convince enough people that it is a religion, which I would say most people would agree with.
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  Well, then we...
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  At the risk of just coming off as, you know, bigoted while opposing it, you know.
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  Oh, my. Oh, yeah. Why would you? I've never been accused of that. Yeah.
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  Yeah. I've never been accused of that. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Which I think, you know, as Christians, we can say, you know,
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  we are against Muslims or not Muslims, but the Islamic faith,
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  right? The Islamic religion, right?
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  Right. And as Americans, we can safely say that Sharia law has very big clashes
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  with what we believe as far as individual freedoms go. Right.
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  And so then we we need to understand that this could undermine who we are. Yeah.
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  And are we willing to say, you know, you're free to be who you are, but you can't.
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  Well okay most of us have been as immigrants have come into the united states and we've become,
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  sort of the melting pot oh yeah of these cultures awesome and i like my jibak
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  and my veroniki and a good reuben sandwich sure but uh you know,
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  i'll eat a tequila grill you know good mexican and I'll,
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  I honor the things that have come to us from other cultures.
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  But in reality, we have been influenced by other cultures and have sort of homogenized it, I guess.
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  And here we have another group that will not be homogenized.
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  In other words, there's, there's nothing they will give up of their culture,
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  to be a part of who we are as a country.
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  There there's there's actually within it uh it's sort of like amish on steroids.
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  We, I'm, I'm checking that analogy in my head. I go, okay.
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  You know, the Amish are counter-cultural, but they acknowledge the culture that
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  we're in and they'll ride in a bus, but they won't ride on an airplane. Yep.
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  Uh, they'll ride on train, but not in a jet.
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  Yeah. And, and, uh, now they have cell phones and so they're adopting some things culturally.
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  They have their certain places they put boundaries but you know they dress more
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  like us than some of the muslims would yeah and,
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  so is there a point in time when there will be more,
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  of an effort to be like the culture or is their intent,
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  to exclusively race against the culture right and i'd say hmm i'm i'm what i'm
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  seeing in minnesota what i'm seeing in detroit.
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  And what i'm hearing from texas is that no we're going to go against,
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  what you're saying yeah and against the culture and we're going to take over
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  governments and we're going to dominate in the political atmosphere when the
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  and then that's not religious,
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  right that's politics yeah bottom line Yep.
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  And I haven't seen an Amishman run for Congress yet. Not yet.
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  Maybe in Pennsylvania, if you're listening.
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  I'm just saying the intent is different.
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  And I think we need to acknowledge that it's not a religious intent.
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  It's an intent to nominate. Yeah.
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  I, I, I do tend to go that way. And there's always this thing in the back of
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  my mind. It's like, ah, it's a little conspiratorial. I'm not quite comfortable with it, but.
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  Looking at it, you know, if you're thinking about like from even like a Christian
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  perspective, say you've got kids and you want to make sure that,
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  you know, the world doesn't corrupt them. Right.
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  Well, you're going to take similar steps in order to keep that from happening.
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  Like I'm, I'm, I'm close to, you know, making my kids be Amish with me.
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  Keep the cell phones and screen. Sing Amishman. I would, I would say it right
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  in. Right. You know what?
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  That's right. Shave this up. That's right. That's right.
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  So I can understand why they, uh, why they would, why they're operating this way.
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  And part of me is like, you know, America's got so much comforts to offer.
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  I'm sure it'll corrupt them eventually.
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  Corrupt them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I guess you'll say it that way.
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  Yeah. Because from their standpoint, that's what it would be.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So a question I want to ask, you know, based off of this,
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  because there are a lot of Muslims that come in this area to buy, you know, um,
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  sheep and goats and have the Amish slaughter that for them, you know,
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  I've heard like people from, you know, Chicago, you know, what if, and so this reality of,
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  a mosque moving in, you know, it'd be pretty convenient really if you've got
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  this Amish community that's going to do this service for you.
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  The city. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So should we also be doing those things?
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  Or I mean, should we allow our goats to be used? There you go.
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  For, you know, for Muslim holidays or, um,
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  But that is the religious part. Right. Yeah, exactly. And so,
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  yeah, and a Jewish man that would want to come and get a sheep, I don't see.
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  Same thing, yeah. Yeah, the same way. And I guess the religious part,
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  I don't want to say, no, you can't do that. Because then it could come and say,
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  well, you can't be Mennonite. You can't be Anabaptist.
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  You can't be Wesleyan anymore. You can't be.
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  And so when we start doing that politically, politically influencing religion.
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  Then then we get on a dangerous spot. Well, I was in something.
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  So I'm saying, yeah, if he wants to come by my goat.
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  Yeah, I'll sell my goat. So you're saying on an individual basis,
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  on an individual religious basis.
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  Because that's part of their, their religion, their, their, uh, the way they eat. Yes.
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  Uh, if they are going to come and take my goat and kill me, then I probably
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  will not like that. Right.
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  Cause you know, they look at me as an infidel. But you're supplying something
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  to someone to use in a way to worship a God that, I mean, I mean,
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  depending on how you read the Bible,
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  that is demonic, right? It's a different God.
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  I mean, the attributes of the Muslim God and the attributes of our Christian,
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  even our Jewish God, are different.
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  Is there anything in the Bible that says the same thing? That I would imagine
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  it'd be Old Testament as far as supplying for animals for the sacrifices for
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  the worship of Baal or something like that.
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  Or some other God. Right. And is it okay to sell? Boy, you're right. That would be in there.
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  I don't remember anything in commerce in Leviticus. I'm thinking Leviticus.
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  Yeah, that's what I would have thought as well. That would keep us from selling
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  to someone for their purpose of sacrifice as long as they paid the price. Right.
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  And if they took it, that's a different story. But if they gave the price for
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  sacrifice, I didn't see anything against that.
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  And my brain is sort of going through verse by verse, and I'm,
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  not having much luck right now. So we may have to study that one and come back.
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  So as long as they give the price, I don't think there's a problem with selling
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  it to that person for their sacrifice.
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  If they take it, that's a different. right story okay that's fine uh.
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  And you know we come from a standpoint well if i do anything towards that i'm supporting it,
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  and i'm getting that's that's where i come back around like do i feel good about
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  this you know i mean there's lots of practices i'm a farmer so and my stepdad
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  rob you know there's a lot of things that we don't do just based off of,
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  what they're not the right thing to do not the right thing even though it's
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  legal even though other people are doing it we just this is not the right thing
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  to do well do it and i'm gonna default to some place where i,
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  i feel most comfortable uh because of god leading through the spirit so many
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  times in so many different ways and sometimes it feels like god's leading in,
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  contradictory ways i'd still go in prayer to Almighty God and allow His Spirit
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  to confirm yes or no. Yeah.
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  If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.
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  Hmm. I mean, like Rob, if it just doesn't resonate well.
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  Okay. I see what you're saying. If it doesn't resonate well,
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  boy, this, I don't think I want to. Yeah. I'm not sure that we should totally
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  rely on our feelings. Well, not our feelings. Right. But that I'm talking about
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  getting that word from the Lord. Yeah.
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  That isn't our, what I find is when you are in, in a, like a, a healing prayer,
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  a prayer with the Lord and you've given him time to speak, a lot of times,
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  a lot of times God won't tell you what you think you want to hear.
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  Sure. Oh yeah. And that's, that's where I, Oh, Ooh, I, yeah.
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  Usually the Lord comes at an angle I hadn't anticipated when he brings an answer.
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  Yes. And so, okay. I'm willing to do your will, Lord.
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  Uh, that's not exactly how I saw it playing out, but,
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  I'm willing to do your will no matter what you've called me to and that's i
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  think i've told that said that to people before like you know discerning whether
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  it's the spirit or you know just yourself or something you know because even
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  your conscience can yes speak against you or something um,
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  i'm like do you know ever have that feeling where you're just like boy i don't
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  want to do that because i'm gonna that's gonna make me uncomfortable even though like.
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  That seems right it's uh-huh but it makes me uncomfortable, I'm like,
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  oh boy, sometimes that's the spirit, man. Like, I don't want to talk to that person about Jesus.
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  The thing that you're calling me to do is a very strange thing.
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  I don't really feel comfortable doing that. I don't want people to think ill of me, right?
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  I'm like, oh, that's because I care about what people think,
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  not about what God thinks. Yeah.
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  But it depends on what it is, you know? Yeah, yeah.
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  Depends on what it is. Last and final question. I have no idea how long this
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  has been, but. No, I don't.
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  But it's been fun. Can we make the pig the official Christian animal?
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  Well, John's gospel. The other religions, they won't eat it.
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  I mean, it's kind of special.
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  It is. So it could be special to us is what you're saying. Yeah. It could be.
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  The ham. Yes. instead of the yeah i mean i go pork i suppose i'm good i'm not,
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  trying to figure out what would beget that but yeah you know maybe we could
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  draw all denominations together,
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  if we had the same lunch sure i mean yeah i mean but i doubt all the other relation
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  or religions would do i i have christian friendly and still don't won't eat
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  pork and that doesn't make sense to me but yeah okay yeah i i,
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  i don't know that's gonna happen no but if you're talking about scripture yeah it's free to happen,
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  yeah because of you know you look at uh acts chapter 10 you and then what uh
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  happened with john you know,
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  all things clean uh,
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  and and john puts that little footnote in there nicely right yes he does so
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  yeah as far as scripture yes yeah so we could yeah Shall we have, uh,
• 21:35
  bacon on our salad? You know?
• 21:37
  Yeah. Well, I won't eat the salad, but I'll eat the bacon.
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  Right. You know me and salads. Yes. None of those. Yep.
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  Um. Go for the bacon though. I think we can wrap that up next,
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  next week. We're gonna, um. Okay. Talk more about other religions.
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  Um. Oh. We're gonna try to, um, talk about the quote unquote,
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  the Jews. I've seen a lot of stuff. online as far as like uh.
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  People discussing and attributing things to, quote, unquote,
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  the Jews. And I'm saying it that way. It'll make sense next week.
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  And when you derive that and get that all messed up without any discernment
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  or wisdom of who you're actually talking to, it's easy to really get off on
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  a, I mean, a foolish route.
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  I don't know how to say it anyway. There are several. Yeah. Okay.
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  So we'll try to pave a path in our understanding of the Hebrew race and then go from there. Okay.
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  And we'll do some research and figure out if there's any other places in the
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  Bible where it forbids selling animals for another religion's practice.
• 22:47
  Makes sense. Good. Sound good?
• 22:49
  All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time. Lord willing. Bye.
• 22:56
  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
• 22:59
  ministry by sharing it with others.
• 23:01
  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
• 23:05
  and his calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.