Reading the Bible secretly, Indian Muslim girl questions Islam vs. Christianity

Shahana’s discharge of Islamic obligations was faultless, even to the point to breaking off friendships with Christians who dared to talk to her about Christ.

But when tough times befell her family, she wondered why the “true god” didn’t truly answer. “I had followed Islam for so many years, but my prayers were not answered,” she says on a StrongTower27 video. “I found that my prayers were never accepted. I always used to think, ‘Why is this so?'”

“If you are only going to talk to me about Christ,” she snapped one day, “then it’s better not to speak to me.”

Islam prescribes five prayers scattered throughout the day for its faithful followers, and Shahana never missed.

“But over time as my family went through much suffering and pain, I used to pray,” she says, translated in the video.

But “I found that my prayers were never accepted.”

The lack of response to her prayers was only one unsettling question bothering her brain. She also wondered why Allah seemed unable or unwilling to use any language?

“Why are we told to read Arabic only?” she wondered privately. Muslims must pray in Arabic. Prayers are not accepted in English or Farsi. Muslims must read the Koran in Arabic; the translation is not as good. Allah, it was taught, demands Arabic, the language of the founder of Islam, Muhammad.

Her doubts were growing, but nobody encouraged her to ask. Searching is not permitted in Islam, only submission.

With troubling thoughts brewing in her mind, she relented from the ostracism of her Christian friend. Still, she wouldn’t admit any talk about Christ.

Then, Shahana got the experience that Muslims consider a sublime privilege, a high point in life. For those without many resources, to be able to make pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, is a wild dream.

Shahana visited Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. Her uncle lived there, and she participated in rites of Islam.

She poured out her heart sincerely to Allah: “If you truly exist, show yourself to me,” she prayed.

When she returned to India, she felt a longing to meet her Christian friend to talk. After gabbing about nothing in particular for a while, the Christian friend asked another troubling question about Islam: “Why is it that in Islam a man is allowed to marry up to four wives?”

“This bothered me too,” Shahana dropped her guard. “But we can do nothing about it. It is Allah’s command. Thus, we have to obey.”

“I will say that in the Bible, in my holy book, God gave one Adam only one Eve,” she responded.

Shahana was taken aback. “How can this happen?” she asked. Read the rest: Read Bible secretly to discern which is true, Islam or Christianity.

Frank Sontag, LA rock legend, goes from New Age guru to born-again Christian

It wasn’t the car that slammed into his motorcycle at 100 mph. It was a round of golf that brought L.A. rock legend Frank Sontag to Christ.

After he was sent spinning across the highway, Sontag holed himself up in a Tahoe cabin and lived primitively off rudimentary supplies while he poured over Eastern mystic texts in search of the meaning of life. It took years to physically recover from the accident. But he emerged a New Age guru.

“I read the Koran, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita,” he said in an interview with Greg Laurie. “I never would open a Bible.”

For two decades, Sontag interviewed the “royalty of rock” on classic rock station KLOS. He broadcast music and announced sports events. He was part of #1-rated Mark & Brian show, which would mix Aerosmith with humorist rants and raucous call-ins.

On his own highly-rated, thought-provoking program called Impact, Sontag peddled a self-styled “spirituality” that encouraged people to get in touch with their inner selves, discover their purpose in the universe and feel good about themselves. No repentance needed.

“When somebody would call up and try to share the gospel, I couldn’t hang up on them fast enough,” he said. He would shout down and shut down Christians.
Once #1 in LA, Mark and Brian.

Then one of his closest New Age buds got saved. Three years later, the friend and his pastor brother invited Sontag to golf. Sontag was taking his fairway shot when the pastor fired at him: “Frank, is Jesus Christ the Son of God?”

“We’re not going there,” Frank retorted and knocked the ball towards the green.

A few holes later, Sontag was putting when the pastor asked another pointed question: “Frank, who’s God?”

Miffed, Sontag brushed the question off with, “I’m spiritual.”

After nine holes, the threesome decided to have lunch, and that pastor swung a final shot: “If you were to die today, would you be with God?”

Sontag snorted in disgust.

But something inside told him he should consider the question more. Challenged by the pastor, he sat in his car afterwards and asked God to prove Himself. Immediately, he felt strangely hot.

Then a voice said: “Are you ready to submit to Me?”

“It was unmistakable. Call it ‘because He created me I knew His voice.’ I knew Who He was. I felt no coercion,” he said. “And I freely said, ‘yes.’”

Later the voice said: “Take up your cross and follow Me.”

Sontag had never read the Bible. He didn’t have any way to recognize Scripture.

It wasn’t until nine months later that he stumbled across the same phrase – this time in the Bible. Right there, he prostrated himself before God and prayed: “Lord, I’m yours forever.” It was 2009.

On the video of Christians condemning the Koran only to find out the passage read was Bible

Just me.

Almost always, the end of the book concludes the story. There is character and theme development that only makes complete sense when you get to the final chapter.

This is acutely important with the Bible: Jesus is the conclusion of the matter. He is the “new covenant” prophesied by Jeremiah. With Him, significant portions of the Old Testament hit their expiration. Hence, Christians no longer offer animal sacrifice nor observe dietary prohibitions.

And they don’t massacre. In fact, Christ told his followers to turn their cheek when struck, to pray for their enemies, to not resist their enemies. Inaugurating the new covenant, Christ’s followers suffered endless persecution at the hands of the Romans. They were mauled by animals in stadiums and held worship services in the catacombs. If Christ was a revolutionary, his was not an uprising with arms.

It seems a lot of observers are giddy with the trick video making the rounds in which Christians are first told their being read a passage from the Koran. They condemn “oppressive” religion. Then the trickster shows his hand: Sorry, the passage was from the Old Testament. I guess they think this is proof that all religions are equally evil.

I’m not surprised that a lot of Christians don’t know their Bible well enough to recognize the cited passages. They don’t have to. We are saved by faith, not by holding a degree in Bible knowledge. If these Christian sound outraged by the passage, it is because it resonates with the horrors of the news perpetrated by Islamic extremists.

It doesn’t resonate with the practices of Christianity. We get people out of alcoholism all around the world. We build hospitals, care for the untouchables, staff schools for inner city kids. We don’t wage wars; Ephesians specifically proclaims: We don’t have struggle against flesh and blood. The crusaders were motivated by money, always the true cause of war. If they did have some vestige of Christianity, it wasn’t authentic to the Master who sent his disciples out two by two to preach, heal and free people from demonic oppression.

The trouble with this video is it’s complete lack of sincerity. I’m sure its producers are not so ignorant of the simple truth the end of just about any book is the dramatic conclusion. It would be completely senseless to cut off the end of Hamlet, Farewell to Arms or Moby Dick. The story would be meaningless. So why are they filming Christians who know the end but mess up middle details? Surely, the videos producers cannot be so stupid.

I’m afraid it’s just another shameless attempt to shame Christians, to degrade our faith, to try to make all religions equal. If you want to expose the evil of a religion, don’t ask the guy on the street. Ask the experts. And don’t pull pranks on unsuspecting people that you wouldn’t want pulled on you.