DREAMS OF UTOPIA

Utopia is something we dream but never possess. I came to this conclusion after tasting several utopic contenders - living in harmony with nature, farming, vagabonding, and living on various Marxist kibbutzim.

One of them was Kibbutz Yehiam in the western Galilee, where our daughter was raised communally for the first five months of her tender life.

She made a hit with the attendants. She smiled at each as if they were treasured friends. We would come for her each evening for two hours after our work was done.

I was therefore thrilled to find Yael Neeman's account of her early life in Yehiam. In "We were the Future: A Memoir of the Kibbutz," she illuminated the kibbutz life that I had never perceived as an outsider.

The preface provides an overview:

·       The kibbutz movement is one of the most fascinating phenomena of modern history and one of Zionism’s greatest stories. Several hundred communities attempted to live the ideas of equality, freedom, and social justice by giving up private property, individualism, and the “bourgeois” family unit to create an Israeli utopia following the Holocaust—the only example in world history of entire communities voluntarily attempting to live in total equality. However, for the children raised in these communities, the kibbutz was an institution collapsing under the weight of an ideology that marginalized its offspring to make a political statement.

The Marxist kibbutz movement, Hashomer Hatziar, represented the most radical social experiment where all forms of "ownership" had been rejected. Instead, everything was to be "owned" by the collective - children, clothing, and even decision-making. Neeman explains:

·       Public and private issues were decided upon at the kibbutz meetings, and committees were elected there. If someone wanted to leave the kibbutz for higher education, the secretariat, the Education Committee and finally, the kibbutz meeting decided whether he would go or wait, and also, what he would study: Did the course of study he wished to pursue correspond to what the kibbutz needed? If it didn’t, he had to adjust himself to the needs of the community.

Even coupling with one specific sexual partner had originally been disdained.

However, this perspective had been disbanded long before my arrival in Israel. Eventually, human nature overtook this severe ideal, and eventually, everyone settled down with their chosen spouse and were visited by their biological children for between one and two hours every evening.

At the time, I had thought that this had been an ideal arrangement, which allowed the parents to spend quality time with their children. However, according to Neeman, the youth did not connect with their parents. Instead, the parent-child relationship felt artificial and uncomfortable.

This discomfort became magnified when the youth from a neighboring kibbutz visited, necessitating the Yehiam youth to stay with their parents for three days. About this Neeman writes:

·       Our parents’ close proximity seemed sick and crazy, as if we were locked in an embrace with death...We could hardly wait for morning to come.

In this Marxist utopia, there was no room for God or for anything that might undermine Marxist purity. Neeman writes:

·       And not only did God not exist in Hashomer Hatzair, but he was forbidden; he was an irrational, pagan obstacle to the remarkable abilities and productivity of the sublime human being. God was a vestige of the dark Middle Ages.

Anything that smacked of the bourgeoisie was disdained:

·       The [kitchen] workers called us [children] over for a minute, quickly, so no one would see or hear them pampering us, and let us taste the food. And they also asked us if it was good, fishing for compliments because there were no compliments on our kibbutz. Applause at the end of a performance was frowned upon too; that was a bourgeois custom.

Meanwhile, the children would sing:

·       We were born to the sun. We were born to the light.

The vacuum created by the banishment of God had to be filled, and the children "born to the light" had to fill it.

I hadn't been aware of this burden that the youth carried, the weighty expectations placed upon them to fulfill their commune's Marxist ideals. Nor had Neeman in her early years:

·       We were proud that we worked on Yom Kippur and ate wild boar that we roasted on campfires. No circumcision ceremonies were held on our kibbutz. No rabbi set foot on it to perform weddings. The dead were buried in coffins, the Kaddish prayer was not said over them, and any mention of the Bible was forbidden.

Later the vacuum would become oppressive. Meanwhile, the ideal was accepted as the unexamined norm in the automatic way that lunch would follow breakfast. Neeman reflects:

·       The boys and girls who graduated from the educational institution [where they would go at age 12 on a neighboring kibbutz] had been born on the kibbutz, had absorbed its values from the very beginning, and had not been damaged by the bourgeois institutions of family and education. They would lead the kibbutzim and the city dwellers, who came from the various city branches of Hashomer Hatzair to fulfill their ideological dreams in the kibbutzim, to a better world. During his years in the institution, the new child would mature into a new man living on a kibbutz, fully connected to and involved in the life of the country.

However, the ideal was never able to fill the vacuum. Neeman reports that, once into their teen years, they began to be plagued by questions of the meaning of life, which would not be satisfied by the standard kibbutz answers. While they felt a debt to the kibbutz, it had a stomach that could never be filled:

·       We worked out of a guilty conscience for a system that would never be satisfied. We felt as if our conscience was a biological, organic part of our body, like an invisible inner hump.

It was an ideal Neeman knew she could never meet. In this regard, I found a recent interview quite revealing:

·       Nevertheless, her childhood memories are happy ones. Contrary to popular characterizations, she said, separating children from families was not an inhumane policy: “It was created from a belief that it would make a better human being and a better family, After all, families are not so ideal all the time. When we ex-kibbutzniks speak among ourselves about this issue, we call it a paradox because most of us were really happy in this strange arrangement. Yet none of us want our children or grandchildren growing up like that.”

As a result, most of the kibbutz youth have voted with their feet and have fled their utopia for the world of the bourgeoisie.

Time has passed its verdict on what seems to have been the world's most successful communist/socialist experiment and has found it wanting.

Time has also been ruthless with other communal experiments. The 70s had been the heyday for communal living in the States. My wife and I visited several, none of which can be found today. Nevertheless, in each instance, it members had been convinced that they had found their permanent home.

We had also spent time in the Longhouse in Borneo, where the tribesmen live communally under their chief. They share games, singing, and the communal connectedness of a large extended family. But once again, the youth gladly give it all up for their own dream of an education, a city job, and enough money to buy a pickup.

Why can we not find utopia? Why is it only vapor that we cannot grasp and keep? Perhaps we can understand this with the help of a couple of analogies:

A man saw a butterfly struggling mightily to emerge from its cocoon, and so he helped free it. However, it died. Why? The butterfly needs the benefit of the struggle to pump its liquids into its wings.

Similarly, baboons build stable communities through the practice of grooming. However, grooming loses all its relevance without the troublesome pests – ticks and lice. Without these predators and other threats, the baboon community cannot survive.

Is it possible that we too require an assortment of threats in order to prosper? To use an extreme example, perhaps we also need death. I remember seeing a video of a woman recovered from the rubble of an earthquake, after five days. The hugging and the tears of joy shed by the husband were touching, to say the least. I wondered, “Had he been complaining about her the week before?” If so, what had changed his disdain into joy? The prospect of losing what he had had!

What would we be like if we lived in a perfect utopia where there was no death and no loss? Wouldn’t we become callous and take every relationship for granted or even as a burden? Would we have any room for gratefulness and love?

Instead, it seems that there are many blessings that we cannot yet handle, blessings that might destroy us. Perhaps all we can do is just dream about a more perfect world. Perhaps we would again just spoil Eden if we were there. Perhaps the door to this enchanted Garden will swing open to us once we have been readied for it.

ARE WE BORN CHIDREN OF WRATH, GUITY OF ADAM’S SIN, AND UNABLE TO CHOOSE GOD?

Are we free to choose God? A number of verses suggest that we are not:

·       No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44, 65; 3:3; ESV)

Why can we not choose God? Is this evidence of the Original Sin of Adam – that as a result of the Fall, we were born as children of wrath with a nature that can only hate and reject the Light? Is this why we cannot come to the Lord?

This is a weighty theological issue. It not only says a lot about humankind, is also says a lot about God. On the one hand, if we were born without the capacity to choose God, then our culpability is either reduced or entirely eliminated. After all, how can we blame people who reject God, when they never had the possibility of doing otherwise? It is like kicking our cat because he cannot speak to us. However, in our case, it is even more than a kick; it is hell.

Even worse, if God punishes us for something we were never able to do – to come to Him – it calls into question His righteousness and love, His very character. This also brings derision upon the Biblical revelation. Skeptics dismiss Christ, saying:

·       God will throw us into hell if we do not believe in Him, but it was never possible to believe in Him. Your god is the worst monster ever invented.

Is this an accurate Biblical assessment? I want to argue that it is not. Why then cannot we come to God on our own? Indeed, numerous other verses claim that God had hardened people so that they cannot come. Paul had quoted one such verse from Isaiah 29:10:

·       What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” (Romans 11:7-8)

When did God give them a “spirit of stupor?” At birth? Certainly not! Let’s look more closely at the context:

·       For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers)… And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, therefore… the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.” (Isaiah 29:10-14)

Israel was blinded, not because the Fall had made humanity blind and at enmity to God,  but because of Israel’s sins and rejection of God. In fact, we never encounter one prophetic word against Israel based on the addumption they were born children of wrath.

Paul quoted David next:

·       And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.” (Romans 11:9-10)

Once again, in this Messianic Psalm, the hardening of Israel is not attributed to the Fall but to their own sins:

·       Let their own table before them become a snare; and when they are at peace, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents. For they persecute him whom you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. (Psalm 69:22-26)

Israel could not see because they didn’t want to see. They loved the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19-20). Consequently, they received the very thing they wanted. God merely allowed them to pursue the very thing that they had wanted – to have things their own way. Paul related the same message:

·       Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (Romans 1:24-28)

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, we find that Israel’s hardening and subsequent inability to come to God as a product of their own sins, and God withdrawing from them:

·       “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not. Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail; though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away.” (Jeremiah 5:21-23)

Israel’s problem was born out of their own stubbornness. God had given Moses a song to teach to the Israelites. This song was to testify that Israel had been the problem and not their righteous God:

·       “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation.” (Deuteronomy 32:4-5)

How did Israel become “blemished?” There is never a hint that they were born with a blemish, an adversity towards God. Rather, the blemish was the result of their rejection of God.

We encounter many verses where God claims that He had done everything that He could for Israel, but this was never enough for His people:

·       He [God] dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes… What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? (Isaiah 5:2-4)

Israel had often complained against their God. However, they never once complained that God had created them without the ability to choose Him. This indictment never seems to have ever entered into their thinking. Why not? It would have sounded entirely ludicrous to them. Instead, God always asserted that Israel had had absolutely no justification to reject their God:

·       “Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me,” declares the Lord GOD. (Jeremiah 2:21-22; Micah 6:3-4)

Nor did Israel’s Prophets ever suggest that there were mitigating circumstances, that Israel had been birthed with a fatal flaw. Nor are we doing anyone any favors by cutting them this kind of slack.

Well, shouldn’t we be compassionate? Certainly, but not by mitigating our guilt before God! Instead, compassion should arise from these two facts:

·       We are no more deserving than others.

·       God had mercy on us, and we must have mercy on others.

We all had gone astray, and this didn’t take place before we were born:

·       All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

It is we who have actively turned from God, not God from us:

·       The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:2-3)

To claim that we were His enemies from before birth is to muddy the entire Biblical revelation and to call question to the nature of God, clearly set forth in Scripture.

However, there are verses that seem to suggest that we are born sinners. David had confessed:

·       Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 51:5)

This entire Psalm is penitential – David confessing his sins. Therefore, we cannot take it literally that it had been David’s mother who had been the problem, that she had conceived David in sin. Nor should we think that David is making an excuse for himself, claiming that he was a sinner even before he was born – no fault of his own. Rather, David is taking full responsibilities for his sins.

Instead, we should regard this verse as hyperbole. John W., Haley termed it:

·       An Oriental hyperbolic way of saying that he had begun to sin at the earliest practicable period. This language is no more to be pressed literally than is Job’s. (Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Baker House, 1977, 161)
 

Job had boasted hyperbolically:

·       For from my youth the fatherless grew up with me as with a father, and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow. (Job 31:18)

Certainly, Job was not able to provide for the widows while he was still in the womb. Instead, he was saying that, as soon as he was able, he cared for them. We should regard David’s statement similarly and not an endorsement of the notion that we are born sinful.

Here is a similar hyperbole:

·       The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies. (Psalm 58:3)

Certainly, they couldn’t speak lies at birth. Instead, this Psalm tells us that the wicked gave indications of their wickedness early on, from the get-go.

In contrast to the idea that we are sinners before birth, Solomon declared:

·       See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7:29)

Therefore, it is wrong to blame God for our sinfulness. It is we who have sought out our sinful schemes. Instead, James has warned us that we must take full responsibility for our sins:

·       Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. (James 1:13-14)

God has not coerced us to sin by implanting sinful desires within us before birth. Instead, these are our own sinful desires. We therefore, cannot say, “God (or the Fall) made me do it.”

Instead, it seems that these sinful desires grow within us over time as we harden our hearts to God and become more accountable. Therefore, Israel’s infants were not held accountable for the rebellion at Kadish Barnea:

·       And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. (Deuteronomy 1:39)

No mention of them being guilty of Adam’s sin! This is why Jesus was able to talk about children as exemplars of the Kingdom:

·       [Jesus] said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3-4; Luke 18:16-17)

It is hard to understand Jesus’ teachings if we believe that children are guilty of the sin of Adam from before birth and are vessels of condemnation.

Paul also doesn’t give any indication that children had been guilty of Adam’s sin:

·       Though they (Esau and Jacob) were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— (Romans 9:11)

Evidently, Paul didn’t regard the children as having sinned with Adam. Nevertheless we do bear the consequences of Adam’s sin. For one thing, we all die (1 Corinthians 15:22).

However, Paul also regarded us as “children of wrath”:

·       And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3 (ESV)

However, these verses do not claim that we were born “by nature children of wrath.” Instead, the context argues that we were dead in our own “trespasses and sins” in which we “once walked.” We were not dead by virtue of Adam’s sin, but by virtue of our own. Therefore, we became in nature children of wrath.

If, instead, we were birthed “children of wrath,” this would also make Jesus so:

·       Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

However, Jesus was without sin. This suggests that we too were born without the guilt of Adam’s sin, only its consequences.

Why then are we unable to come to Jesus on our own? This inability does not seem to be the result of the Fall but our own sins, which have hardened our hearts against the Light.

This means that we are as guilty as sin and rightfully deserve the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). It also means that our righteous God is just in His condemnation of those who reject Him (Romans 1:18-20).

Besides, this understanding should enable us to see His free gift of life as what it is – the sheer mercy of God upon those not at all deserving.

A FRIENDLY WARNING TO OUR MUSLIM NEIGHBORS

Please reconsider your intention to hate and kill Jews and to exterminate Israel. You might be fighting against Allah. While God has been upset with His people and has temporarily abandoned them, this will all be changed:

·       Isaiah 49:13-15: Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains!    For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me." "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I [God] will not forget you!”

God will fulfill His promises to Israel in the end:

·       Ezekiel 36:24-31: "For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices.”

He does not forget His promises:

·       Isaiah 44:21-22: "Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are my servant, O Israel. I have made you, you are my servant; O Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."

You might succeed in killing many Jews. If it is God’s will, you might even lay waste to Israel. However, God’s plan for the Jews will prevail:

·       Jeremiah 33:6-8: "I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me.”

·       Hosea 3:5:  Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

·       Zech. 12:10: "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.”

·       Amos 9:14-15: “I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the Lord your God.

God will restore Israel to faith so that He can reconcile Israel to Himself:

·       Hosea 14:4-5: "I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them. I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots;

·       Micah 7:18-20: You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago.

All of the nations of the world are therefore told to rejoice with the good fortunes of Israel. And those who continue to persecute Israel will receive God’s vengeance:

·       Deut. 32:43:  Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.

If you are wise, you will repent from being an enemy to Israel and the Jews:

·       Micah 4:1-2: In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths."  The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Please know, dear neighbors, that God will avenge those who have oppressed Israel:

·       Zeph. 3:15-20: The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you…At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes," says the Lord.

This is also the message of the New Testament:

·       Romans 11:26-29:  And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.  “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.

I am therefore concerned for you. You mustn’t blind yourself to God’s purpose regarding Israel and His vengeance against those who continue to hate Israel:

·       Isaiah 41:11: "All who rage against you [Israel] will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish.”

·       Isaiah 51:21-23: This is what your Sovereign Lord says, your God, who defends his people: "See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger; from that cup, the goblet of my wrath, you will never drink again. I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, who said to you, 'Fall prostrate that we may walk over you.' And you made your back like the ground, like a street to be walked over.”

·       Joel 3:19-21: “But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood. Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations. Their bloodguilt, which I have not pardoned, I will pardon."

Please don’t dismiss these verses but consider what your Koran says about them:

·       “Proclaim what is revealed to you in the Book of your Lord. None can change His words..” (18:27)

·       “…and you shall find they remain unchanged…” (Jonah 64; Cattle 34, 115)

·       “Falsehood cannot reach it from before or behind.” (Revelations Well Expounded 42)

·       “After those prophets We sent forth Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming the torah already revealed, and gave him the Gospel, in which there is guidance and light, corroborating that which was revealed before it in the torah, a guide and an admonition to the righteous.” (The Table 46)

·       He has revealed to you the Book with truth, verifying that which is before it, and He revealed the Tavrat and the Injeel aforetime, a guidance for the people, and He sent the Furqan. (3.3)

·       Surely We revealed the Taurat in which was guidance and light; with it the prophets who submitted themselves (to Allah) judged (matters) for those who were Jews, and the masters of Divine knowledge and the doctors, because they were required to guard (part) of the Book of Allah, and they were witnesses thereof; therefore fear not the people and fear Me, and do not take a small price for My communications; and whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the unbelievers…[5.46] And We sent after them in their footsteps Isa, son of Marium, verifying what was before him of the Taurat and We gave him the Injeel in which was guidance and light, and verifying what was before it of Taurat and a guidance and an admonition for those who guard (against evil). (5.44)

·       “Say: ‘People of the Book, you shall not be guided until you observe the Torah and the Gospel and that which is revealed to you from your Lord.” (The Table 68, 47)

·       “Believers, have faith in Allah and His apostle, in the Book He has revealed to His apostle, and in the Scriptures He formerly revealed. He that denies Allah, His angels, His scriptures, His apostles, and the Last Day, has strayed far from the truth.” (Women 136)

Please also listen to your conscience – the conscience that God has given you to guide you into His truths. In your heart, you know that it is wrong to kill the innocent. You know that sex-slavery is wrong. Even if you have had teachers (Imams) who have misled you, Allah will still hold you responsible for the truths He has put in your heart.

I write these things not to hurt you or even to criticize you, but in hope that you will seek the truth and find the forgiveness that can only come through Jesus.