Father Zakaria Botros
An Egyptian Coptic friend of many years, who attended Wesley Mission when I was preaching there, and a member of the Christian Democratic Party, Gamil Helmy, was telling me about Father Zakaria Botros, and his amazingly successful evangelistic ministry among Muslims via TV. Now, Chuck Colson, in his April 22, 2008 “Breakthrough” radio broadcast, contributes some more.
Zakaria Botros is a conservative television star with a huge audience, who is hated by his political enemies. I looked up a number of websites, both in English and Arabic. http://www.islam-christianity.net/
He has been making substantial waves in the Arabic world. He has taken his courage in his hands and begun to fight Islam intellectually and publicly. For the first time a reasoned defence of Christianity is being made available to the general public in Islamic countries. There are plenty of good critiques of Islam written in English and other languages, but very little in Arabic. Fr Zakaria, very well read in the Qur’an and the Hadiths (oral traditions), regularly goes on public television where he poses hard questions to the imams who visibly struggle to provide answers. The Arabic newspaper al-Insan al-Jadid (New Man) calls him Public Enemy #1. I understand that his campaign of simply informing people of the odder and questionable aspects of Islam has led to quite a number of converts.
On Arabic television channel al-Hayat, or “Life TV,” you will find Father Botros, a Coptic priest, discussing theology in a way that embarrasses—and enrages—Muslim leaders. His television talks are leading not only to mass conversions, but to the disempowering of radical Islam. He is a bearded, bespectacled cleric who sports a large wooden cross, and his specialty is examining “little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition.”
Because he speaks and reads classical Arabic, Botros can report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies found within Islamic teachings which affront the moral common sense. Satellite TV and the Internet mean Botros can question Islam’s teachings in Arabic—the language of 200 million Muslims—without fear of reprisal.
Botros asks such questions as: “Are women inferior to men in Islam?” “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” And, “Does sharia really teach that women must breastfeed strange men?” Botros cites chapter and verse, so to speak, of Islamic sources, and then politely invites Islamic scholars to respond. The response is deafening silence. Even worse, religious experts have at times been forced to agree with Botros, which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV, according to journalist Raymond Ibrahim who describes the work of Father Botros.
One example the author cites from a television broadcast, e.g., a hijab-wearing Muslim TV presenter asking an imam why he won’t provide a reasonable answer to Botros’ question, only to have the imam storm off the set; shows that too often, the answer to legitimate questions about Islam is bluster, bullying and evasiveness. Botros’ methods are not meant to incite the West against Islam, nor to promote Israeli interests, nor demonise Muslims, as most Australian anti Islamists do. Botros’s ultimate goal is “to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia law to the spirituality of Christianity,” says Ibrahim. He is not only saving souls, but is cutting at the very heart of radical Islam. There is a rumored $5 million price on his head.
Ibrahim says that the West will not disempower radical Islam by offering Muslims democracy, capitalism, secularism, materialism, feminism—or any other “ism.” Instead, we must offer them “something theocentric and spiritually satisfying.”
Consequently, at the end of each program Botros reads from the Bible and invites his listeners to follow Christ. That he is successful in this endeavour is acknowledged by none other than Al-Jazeera (The Island), which complains of Botros’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world.
Botros offers a great example of why we Christians must learn our own doctrines, along with those of other religions: so that we can lovingly reason with people and draw them into the kingdom of God.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.
