The Nation of Islam

I'm going to do something tonight that I never do, so bear with me as I do this. Let me explain to you first why I started studying and then writing on the nation of Islam. When I was a seminary student. There were two events that really caused me to think very pointedly about the relationships between Christians of various ethnicities. It was one thing to see events in the culture at large that made me question whether or not there were certain ethnic tensions, and so to speak, some would say racial tensions. I don't say that because there's only one race. The idea that there are multiple races is not a biblical idea. There is but one race. There are multiple ethnicities, but there is one race, all derived from the one man atom. You could possibly argue that there are two races, the race of the first atom and the race of the last atom, who are redeemed. But beyond that, there are no racial distinctions between human beings as far as Biblical Christianity is concerned. But there's much ethnic strife, and one would assume that within the body of Christ you wouldn't see that, especially among seminarians. Two things happened. One was the Rodney King trial, and I remember, you know that there are a lot of There are a lot of cameras in a lot of places on that day, and the news when the verdict came down. Choose not the Rodney King trial but the OJ trial. Two things. Ridningy King and OJ put together news cameras when verdicts came down, and the distinction between the response of black people and white people on both of those things was just amazing. For one of those, I was in the sort of common area and I watched I watched a group of seminarians have the exact same ethnic divergence in their response on verdict day. That's the rest of the culture at large day, White. Seminarians largely responding one way and Black seminarians largely responding another. And I filed that away. Another event happened in nineteen ninety five, and that was the Million Man March. Lewis Farakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, called for a million man march. And a lot of people remember me and man march, and that sounds familiar, the idea of the million man March. It was on October the sixteenth, so two days ago is the eighteenth anniversary of the Million Man March. But the Nation of Islam is not celebrating the anniversary of the quote million Man March. They're celebrating the. Anniversary of a holy day of atonement, because that's what the me and Man March was called, a day of atonement for black men. Why was this significant for me? During that period of my life? Lewis Farkhon, the head of the Nation of Islam, came to Houston and he had a press conference in Houston leading up to the Mei and Man March. There were half a dozen or so black pastors in the Houston area who were standing shoulder to shoulder with Lewis fair Khan promoting the Million Man March. Now, remember the Mellion Man March was a day of a tonement. Among these half a dozen black pastors who were standing with Lewis Farakh, two of them I was in seminary with at the time, and one was the moderator of the then Union Baptist Association in the Southern Baptist Convention. Now I have some knowledge of the Nation of Islam, so I'm conflicted. This is a problem. Number One, I was bothered by the fact that these men were standing shoulder to shoulder with Lewis Ferri Khan promoting an event that Farakhan was calling a day of Atonement, just straight blasphemy to the blood of Christ. And the second thing that really struck me was that my brother's the Seminary of Other Ethnicity were confused. And on the one hand they were disturbed because they said, why would these guys be standing with and uniting with Muslims on something called the day of Atonement? But on the other hand they immediately had that white guilt reaction that says, it's a black thing I must not understand. So the response was to not engage. Well, that sort of started me on a journey and on a quest to bring to light more information about the Nation of Islam. Thinking naive as I was that if you just let people know what we're dealing with and maybe we can make some headway in some of these issues. So that resulted in me turning my doctoral thesis in the direction of the Nation of Islam. The title of my doctoral thesis was a critical analysis of the history and theology of the Nation of Islam with a view toward an effective Christian response. It's boring, but since then I've written a number of articles about it, and more bite sized pieces for other publications, and one of those I want to share with you tonight. I wrestled with how best to present this. I don't want you to think that I'm mocking the Nation of Islam. So there are a lot of quotes directly from Nation of Islam sources in this because if I were to just tell you these are the things that these people believe, you would think that I was mocking the Nation of Islam. But I want you to keep this in mind. I want you to keep in mind that picture of half a dozen black pastors in Houston, Texas standing shoulder to shoulder with Lewis Ferri Khan and other representatives of the Nation of Islam because they thought the million man march going to Washington for a national day of atonement for Black men was a good idea for them and for their churches and many of their brethren of other ethnicities. Most the overwhelming majorities, almost nobody took it upon themselves to challenge them on it because of this fear that we have, and it was wrong on both instances. So here we go. The Nation of Islam is often characterized as a Black Muslim sect. However, a closer. Look reveals that the movement is best classified as a quasi Islamic black national cult. Of these folks aren't Muslims at all. That's the great irony. You'll understand that more. The movement was established in Detroit around nineteen thirty with the appearance of an enigmatic silk peddler named Wallace Fard. That name is incredibly important. You may have heard of Fared Muhammad or Farad Muhammad. That's the individual Wallace Fard. He blended allegorical interpretations of Biblical texts, popular black nationalist rhetoric, strict legalistic morality, and Jehovah's witness teaching to form the basis of what would become the Nation of Islam. You notice was not present there. There's allegorical interpretation of Biblical passages. And here's what you'll notice with the Nation of Islam and with Lewis Fara Khan. If you hear Lewis Farai Khan speak, he's almost always quoting the Bible, not the Koran. So there's these allegorical interpretations of biblical passages, popular Black nationalists rhetoric. There were a lot of different Black nationalist groups at the time. There was a big Back to Africa movement. There were other Black nationalists organizations at the time, so he blended some of their teachings, the Black Moors and so on and so forth, strict legalistic morality and Jehovah's witness teaching. What's missing there is the Qur'an. What's missing there is Islamic teaching. The theological distinctives. Nation of Islam claims to be in Islamic movement. However, much of their theology undermines that claim, and due to the vast nature of this topic, the scope of this presentation is limited to the movement's doctrine of God revelation, cosmology, anthropology, so teiology and eschatology in a very limited sense. The reason for this delineation is threefold. One, these categories comprise much of the basis for Islamic theology. Second, these are areas where Christianity and Islam can be compared and contrasted with the Nation of Islam, so you can see the difference between them and Christians and between them and Muslims. And Third, due to the reactionary nature of the movement, the Nation of Islam doesn't have a well documented theology apart from these categories, not even well documented in these categories. So let's look at him first the nature of God, and so it begins. Nature of a Salam teaches that quote God is a man, and we just cannot make him other than a man, lest we make him an inferior one, for man's intelligence has no equal in other than man end quote. Elijah Muhammad also argued that quote, if he were a spirit and not a man, we would all all be spirits and not human beings. Did you follow this? God has to be a man just like you and me, Not that. The second person in the Trinity took on a human nature, as we would say, no, no, no, no, no, no such thing. But that God is actually a man just like you and me. Attributes all the qualities of a man, including marriage, sex, frailties, weaknesses, and mistakes. All of those are attributed to God. So when the nation of Islam says Allah, they do not mean the same thing that Sunni's rashiad or other. They do not mean the same thing that Muslims mean when they say Allah. More specifically, in OII, theology teaches that God is a black man, that he the black man, created himself out of the blackness of space, took the color from the darkness from which he emerged. All that exists in the universe, according to this teaching, was created by black intellect. There's the other idea again, which is why this was so shocking to me. When you understand the nature of this movement, and they're understanding that the black man is divine by the way the other shoe drops, the white man is demonic because blackness, in its purity, represents pure deity. The further way you get from blackness, the closer you get to pure evil, so that white people are pure evil and black people are pure deity. Remember six black pastors in Houston standing shoulder to shoulder with this movement for a day of atonement. How about the person of God. The focum point in Ani theology is the belief that Allah revealed himself in the person of Wallace Fard in nineteen thirty. Remember, I told you that name was going to be important, not just to God, this was God. So when they say Allah, they're referring to this particular man, Wallace Fard. In message to the black man in America, and this is the loijih Muhammad, sort of magnum opus, if you will, He states, I teach not the coming of God, but the presence of God in person. He continues quote, Allah came to us from the Holy City Mecca, Arabia in nineteen thirty. He used the name Wallace d Fard. He came alone. Today, if you get the newspaper that the Nation of Islam sells, in the back of it, they have sections what the Muslims want and what the Muslims believe, and they still state that Allah was the person Wallis Fard, that Walas Fard in nineteen thirty was a Llawh, that was God. Again, these people are not talking about the same thing that Muslims are talking about. There's also the idea of the plurality of God. God's not the only God. A Nation of Islam teaching, in fact, that the core of the Nation of Islam doctrine of God is the idea that while there is only one God at a time, no God lives forever. Hence there must be a succession of supreme Gods throughout the course of history. This is said to happen once every twenty five thousand years. They believe in these cycles of the earth twenty five thousand years, the Supreme God is the ruler of a divine council of twenty four black scientists who governed the affairs of the world during each successive cycle. That council of twenty four black scientists is going to be very important later on. Now a critique of this. One of the things that they teach. If you remember the idea of blackness is divine, the further way you get from blackness, you get toward pure evil. Well, one of these twenty four scientists was a scientist by the name of Yakub, and Yakub went to perform some experiments on the island of Patmos. That's sound familiar to anybody, the island of Patmos. Okay, So Yakub is performing these experiments on the island of Patmos, and it's these experience, these experiments that he's performing that actually creates the white race. And the further he got away from blackness, the more evil these products of his experiment became, until he created the white man, which is the devil himself. Okay, so that white people are demonic. Now, the Nation of Islam calls this practice grafting, and they say in no uncertain terms that the grafting process cannot be reversed. So once you move away from pure blackness and you get to individuals who are white, you get to someone who is purely demonic, and you can't go back from there. Why is this so significant, Well, I remember they say Wallace Fard was God, that he was a Llah. First of all, obviously there's no evidence to support his deity. Secondly, there's his flawed humanity. For instance, he was a bootlegger, he was convicted of assault with the deadly weapon. He was sexually promiscuous, and in his family so on and so forth, not very godlike behavior. But he was also white. If you've ever seen Lewis fair Khan at an official Nation of Islam event, if you've ever seen one of his speeches in one of their halls. There's a couple of days that A very important one is that day in October, this Holy Day of Atonement commemorating the main Man March. Another one is Saviors Day. It's at the end of February Saviors Day, and there is often a big to do and a big speech that fair Khan makes in February for Saviors Day. And behind him there's always a picture. There's a picture of a guy who's not a black guy, not at all, not close to a black guy, not even kind of a black guy. It's a picture of Wallace Fard. This is the guy they say was Allah, but by their own definition, he would be a demon. Not only that. Elijah Muhammad, first main leader of the Nation of Islam, who came after he's the main disciple of Wallace Fard. He was bi ethnic, which means at least half demonic. Malcolm X, who became the most prominent teacher in the Nation of Islam before he converted to Islam, he was bi ethnic, which means he was demonic. Lewis Farakhan, the current leader of the Nation of Islam, is you guessed it by ethnic, which means by their own things theology, these men are demons. And remember the grafting process can't be reversed. There's also the idea of polytheism in the Nation of Islam, the idea of these twenty four scientists again island of Patmos, the number twenty four. These things are coming from revelation. There's also the idea of pantheism in the Nation of Islam. Lewis Ferrikhn in his book A Torchlight for America, uses terminology reminiscent of the New Age movement in attributing deity to all mankind, in particular black people. In one instance, he states, one of the things that separates man from the beast is knowledge. Knowledge fees the development of human being so that the person can grow and develop into the divine and become one with the Creator. Here he gets to the idea that what keeps the black man from asserting his deity is a lack of knowledge. A lack of knowledge. He has to come to the knowledge of who he is so that his deity is sort of activated, if you will. For them, as we'll see, that is salvation. What about their doctrine of revelation? How do we know God? Well? Like most cults, they have a gnostic hermeneutic. Nation of Islam believes that the knowledge of God was withheld from the world until the coming of Wallace. Farg Elijah Muhammad taught quote, this is the first time that the true knowledge of God has ever been revealed, and we the poor, rejected and despised Black American people are blessed to be the first of all the people of earth to receive this secret knowledge of God. That's the very definition of gnosticism. There's a secret. Knowledge of God that was never revealed. And guess what, we are the first ones in the history of the world to get this secret knowledge of God. More specifically, Nation Islam argues that white people are incapable of understanding either the Bible or the Koran, and that only those blacks that have experienced mental resurrection can attain this true knowledge. This approach is fortified by a claim that both the Bible and the Koran have been tampered with and are thus not trustworthy. No Muslim that make this claim. So here we go. We have a secret knowledge of God that was withheld from the rest of the world until Wallace Fard came. This is Elijah Muhammad, who just happens to be Fard's disciple and now his disciple who's currently there today. In order to understand this secret reveal knowledge. You can't get it from the Bible. Why because the Bible is not trustworthy, Why because white people touched it. You can't get it from Quran. Why because Quran is not trustworthy. Why because white people touched it. So where do you get it? You can only get it from a black person who has been enlightened, received the knowledge from and of the Nation of Islam. Well, I don't believe you. Well, that's because you're trusting in tainted documents and you haven't accepted what it is that we teach. Do you see the circular reasoning? There alleged corruption of the Bible in the Koran, the Black nation is said to be the author of both the Koran and the Bible. However, like all evil, the eruption of the holy books is attributed to the white race. The enemy has tampered with the truth in both books, for he has been permitted to handle both books. The NI teachers that the Bible was changed in order to make slaves docile. This is a very popular argument. For example, the Nation of Islam is the fastest growing religion among black men, especially in prison. The idea is that you know, what you think is a result of you being programmed. The white man has programmed you. He's taught you things that were designed to docilize slaves. All that stuff about turning the other cheek, that was just so the slaves wouldn't rebel. You know, Christianity is slave religion. You need to get away from that slave religion. How do you know it is well because white people taught it to you and you can't trust them. Now we go back to the idea of Yakub and the twenty four scientists. Hence, the nation of Islam doctionrin of revelation does not account for the preservation of the essential documents of its faith. Thus followers are relegated to dependence upon their enlightened leaders for instruction. In all matters. Teaching has two main consequences. First, the movement is forced into an apostolic hierarchy. You have to have an apostolic hierarchy. Got nothing, How do you get truth? You can't read your Bible and get truth. You can't read Koran and get truth. You can only get it from your enlightened teachers. And you can only get your enlightened teachers through the apostolic hierarchy. Second, there's a need for either a restored text or a replacement text, which conveniently is something that has been promised. You know, I argue, if we are to change the two worlds, meaning Christianity in Islam. Then surely we need a new book. Elijah Muhammad went on to promise, there is another book that none has been able to see or read, its contents coming soon from Allah, the last book. So they're waiting. They were waiting for a last book. Again a critique Number one circular reasoning. But here's number two. They're constantly using and referring to flawed texts. You listen to them and they're quoting the Bible. What's the Bible. It's a flawed text. You can't trust it on occasion. No quote from Koran? Oh what's the Koran? The Quran is a flawed text. You can't trust it. But you can trust me. So whatever I say about these texts, you know that that's the truth. What about their cosmology. I won't spend much time on this, but the Nation of Islam cosmology, what they believe about the created world is a mixture of science fiction and the misinterpretation of key texts in the Bible and the Koran. First, the movement offers a fascinating account of creation. Quote in the beginning, there was blackness, a triple blackness of space, water, and divinity. The One Supreme God came into existence at the origin of the universe seventy six trillion years ago. He willed himself into being in the form of a black man, Sell by Sell, in a process that took six trillion years. The first Supreme One was a warrior who, in order to combat darkness and shed light, created the Sun, which represents freedom and creativity. Out of his fire, which is truth. He imbued the planets with life and had them submit to the Sun and called it the Solar system. The story includes life on other planets. An explosion that separated the Earth and the Moon, and not just any kind of This was an explosion action of T and T. It was an explosion of TNT. Wasn't even a nuclear explosion. An explosion of T and T that separated the Earth and the moon. The god of the world at that time was actually trying to destroy the world because of evil, obviously of the white race. But he failed in destroying the world, and instead the explosion just separated a part of the Earth off that became the moon. What about their anthropology they believe about man? The world, according to an Oi, anthropology is divided into two segments, one black and one white. By the way, when they say one black and one white. Everybody who's not white falls into the black category. For example, a lot of these individuals were arrested during the Second World War because they would not register with Selective Service. Two reasons for this. One, they refused to fight against dark skinned people on behalf of white people. Secondly, they believed that they were actually citizens of Mecca, and they would change their names. They would either take you know, you know, the X. A lot of people would become so and so X, but they would change their names, arguing that the other names that they had were slave names, and they would take the X until they came up with some Islamic word that they would you know, then identify themselves with. So when they say black world, white world, it's not that they don't recognize other ethnicities. It's just that if you're if you're not white, you're you're almost one of them, one of us. The black man is divine, while the white man is demonic. Again, a black scientist named Yakub created these white men in a process that happened sixty six hundred years ago. When he did it, he also gave a decree. The decree was that the white man would rule for six thousand years, but then his end would come. Let me move ahead their doctrine of salvation. Many argue that the Nation of Islam has no sociology, that they don't have a doctrine of salvation because they don't believe in and afterlife. Si Eric Lincoln explains, in their day to day living, the Black Muslims are governed by a stringent code of private and social morality since they do not look forward to an afterlife. This morality is not related to any doctrine of salvation. Quote. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the Nation of Islam teaches salvation. You have to understand that one of the goals in the Nation of Islam was actually to win Black Christians away from Christianity. You've got to keep this in mind. That was one of the goals. That's why they teach so much from the Bible. They target churches, they target Black Christians, and what they try to do is undermine a faith in Biblical Christianity. You can't trust that book. That book was made to docilize slaves. That book is all about slave religion, so on and so forth. So their theology is like a parallel to Christian theology. They call it Islamic theology, mainly because that sounds exotic. But as you've already heard, there's almost nothing about it that's Islamic nothing. And so because of that, they do talk about salvation, just a different version and a different idea. They try to tell Christians, this is not about pie and the sky, not about the great by and by. It's about here, It's about now. Don't you want yours? Now? Salvation in the nation of Islam is tied to the here and now without a belief in the resurrection. Their teaching is centered on the mental resurrection of the black race. This mental resurrection leads the black man to Islam, his true and original religion. The specific practices required include prayer, fasting, and the avoidance of the traditional black diet. It's interesting if you look at the things that Muslims avoid, it doesn't look like a list that you would find from Judaism or a list that you would find from Islam. It looks like something that you find at a soul food restaurant. You know. A stereiology is summed up an Elijah Muhammad's statement quote, regardless of our sins that we have committed in following and obeying our slave masters. Allah forgives it all today if we, the so called negroes, will turn to him and our own kind. That sounds like something from the KKK. Allah promises salvation if we'll turn to him and those like us turn away from people who. Are not like us. Again, I want you to remember this picture of six black pastors in Houston in nineteen ninety five standing shoulder to shoulder with this to go to Washington for a day of atonement. First, salvation in the Nation of Islam is for the black man only, has noted earlier. If you the black man is divine and the white man is demonic, white people can't be saved. Second, the sins of the black man, if you notice in the statement, are directly related to his contact with white men. Salvation is tied to nationalism. One of the things that the black nationalists that the Nation of Islam argue is that black people should be given a state in America. Pick one, Just give us a state. It's got to be a good sized state, and give us all the resources of that state so that we can have our own nation. By the way, you have to support us for the first twenty five years. That's their idea of separation. We want our people in America whose parents and grandparents were descendants from slaves to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own, either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land, and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next twenty to twenty five years until we are able to produce and supply our own needs again. Racism and separatism. What about their eschatology? Where's it all going? What are we looking forward to? Well? Number one, the imminent destruction of the white devils. The central theme of the Nation of Islam's eschatology is the destruction of the white race. In the seminal teaching on this matter, Elijah Muhammad states quote, they were created to rule us for six thousand years, and then a law will destroy them from the earth and give the earth back to its original owners, the Black nation. In fact, this, according to NI teaching, was the primary reason for the coming of a law. What about the mother planet and the destruction of the world is where it gets a little fantastic, as though it hasn't already. One of the most astounding beliefs in the Nation of islam theology is that is the idea of the mother plane. This man made ufo, which spans one half mile, exists for the purpose of destroying the White race. In the Battle of Armageddy, Elijah Mohammad Muhammad described the plane. Listen, the great wheel which many of us see in the sky today is not so much a wheel, as one may think in such terms, but rather a plane made like a wheel. The like of this wheel like plane was never seen before. You cannot build one like it and get the same results. Your brains are limited. If you would make one to look like it, you could not get it off the Earth into outer space. This mother plane is out there waiting. It's waiting to rapture up the Black race right before it sends smaller planes out to destroy the Earth and white people. By the way, that ought to sound familiar to you, maybe like a movie, maybe like the movie Independence Day. In fact, the Nation of this Lam sued the movie Independence Day for forty million dollars, saying that they stole the plot from the movie from the Nation of Islam's beliefs about the end of the age. Prior to this worldwide destruction, black people will be given one final opportunity to escape. If they do, they'll spend a thousand years on the Mother plane until Earth is remade and the world begins again with the original man. The Black Man then comes the hereafter what's the hereafter to describe the here after as an Islamic world of righteousness and happiness forever in the presence of Allah. The ni Hereafter is also said to be a place of complete peace, harmony, and well being. Critique, This is fantastic, purely fantastic. You can see that it's a hodgepodge of things that they've taken from prophetic books in the Old Testament. From Revelation talk about Ezekiel's wield in the middle of a wheel, a thousand years, that you're on the mother plane, so on and so forth. All of these things are absolutely fantastical. The average of this movement at its inception had only a fourth grade education. That will seem to explain the acceptance of such fantastic doctrines. Yet these doctrines remain at the core of the movement today. There are at least two possible explanations. First, the theology of the movement could simply be hidden from observers and participants alike. A second possibility is that the socio political or nationalistic aspects of the movement relegate the theology to a superficial role. The latter is the strongest argument. Therefore, any attempt to evangelize members of the Nation of Islam must not only understand that the movement's theology is distinct from that of Orthodox Islam, it must also account for the socio political issues that form its foundation. Again, six black pastors right here in Houston, two of them in seminary with me, one the most prominent pastor in Houston's Southern Baptist life. They stand shoulder to shoulder with the head of this group promoting the Millionaire March, which was a day of atonement. Nobody said anything. They didn't have mass exodus of members from their churches. They weren't scolded or reprimanded by their counterparts and their denominations. Their white brethren decided not to say a word about it to them, choosing instead to assume it's a black thing. We just must not be able to understand, folks, this is not hard to understand. These people are lost. Not only are these people lost, these people are deceptive. They are intentionally deceptive, and their deception has a goal behind it, and the goal behind it is that they would reach into the black church community and win converts. That they would be close enough to sound familiar but distinctive enough to offer an alternative. That they would measure on socio political issues, that they would measure on the divide between black and white, and that they would do so in such a way that black people who were Christians would feel a tug in themselves between their Christianity and their blackness, and that in many instances they would put their Christianity aside and respond with their blackness. And that's what happened eighteen years ago this week in Washington, DC, as hundreds of thousands of black men walked on Washington, marched on Washington. Most of those men were not members of the Nation of Islam. So here's the question that we raise. I mean, this is obvious, this is easy. We understand that this is cultic it's nonsense. But here's the question. What is it. That has so divided us that Black Christians are willing to ignore this and align at times with the Nation of Islam, and white Christians are willing to ignore that response for fear of being judged racist. This is not a problem of theological distinction. This is a problem of sin and division in the camp. This is a problem of sin of Christians who happen to be black, who are willing to put their blackness before their savedness. This is a sin of Christians who happen to be white, who put their fear of being called racist above their desire desire to call for truth among those who claim to be fellow Christians. This is also about our ignorance. We've been playing. These people put on garb that often looks sort of Muslim. They look more like Shriners most of the time. But again they call themselves Muslims, and they the name of it is the Nation of Islam, and so we okay, they're Islamic, and they when they pray, they look like they're you know, Islamic, and they greet each other with arsalama lakam, and you know that that you know they that's you know, Arabic sounding, and there's you know, all this sort of stuff and that. Okay, that's great. So they're they're they're this this Islamic group, but I don't understand this particular Islamic sect. You know now that that's not what it is. We all know now that that's not what it is. And here's my prayer that, because we all know now what it is, that the next time half a dozen black pastors line up at a press conference standing shoulder to shoulder with these people, that the Christians in their churches would have none of it, and that they're fellow Christians who happen to be of other ethnicities will call them on it and have absolutely none of it. But there's a price to pay. Here's the question. Okay, you were there, you're in seminary with these guys. How come you didn't say anything? I did? Y'll know me. You well are left to know I did. Here's the response I got. You've been with these white folks too long. That's the response I got. You've been with these white folks too long because in their minds there were some things that transcended their theological convictions. Chief among them their ethnic heritage. God help us, for in Christ there is no Jew, no Greek, no slave nor free, no male, no female, no black, no white. We're all one in Christ. And if we're all one in Christ, then we all have a very simple and unified answer to stuff that sounds like this, and that answer is that dog won't hunt. It's a simple no. It's a direct no. It's a no that says people who are united with this need to be gospelized. It's a no that. Says people who have a willingness to compromise and be a part of this have some severe deficiencies in their understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Pastors who are willing to unite with these people on something called a day of atonement are blasphemers. And there's no other way to look at it. This is a movement that most people don't know much about. They go under the radar until a couple of times a year when they make certain pronouncements. But make no mistake about it, it's a movement to be reckoned with. My prayer for us is that we'd open our eyes to it, that we'd help others open their eyes to it, and that just as we've heard about dealing with Orthodox Islam, that we would press the claims of Christ and the Gospel, because ultimately that's what these and all other people need. I'm going to take five minutes to answer questions because I'm not going to be up here again to talk about this, and when we have our other Q and A, We're going to be talking about other stuff that doctor White's teaching us on. Do you have a question or two about this before we go? The question is did that book actually come yet? The answer is no, no, that that book didn't actually come. Wallace Flard disappeared mysteriously in nineteen thirty four to believed that he was assassinated, kind of like Malcolm X was assassinated by other members of the Nation of Islam. Again, Malcolm X becomes an Orthodox Muslim and before too long he's assassinated in a very brutal, very public assassination by a paramilitary group called the Fruit of Islam. They're the enforcers in the Nation of Islam and they're the ones who killed him. So no, no book came from from far. There has been no book, and were still stuck with the same thing as far as a doctrinal statement, you know, you can you can look him up online in OI dot org and look up their beliefs and you can do a search for what the Muslims believe and what the Muslims were want. You can get a copy of paper and look at the back of their paper and just read it and shake your head. But it's there. The doctrinal statements are there. Yes, do these six pastors, do they still hold true to their responsors to their brother or whatever? Yeah? Yeah, see that this is not uncommon in quote unquote black church circles. There's this affinity with the Nation of Islam with Minster farh con because he says things that from a from a purely socioeconomic perspective, you can you can hear him talk about things and about you know, me and being responsible and you know, and taking care of your family and you know and not drinking and not. You know, like you hear that kind of stuff and you go, yeah, you know, and things happen and he'll stand up and you know and speak against him or whatever. So there's this sort of this sort of affinity you know, for him, and he's kind of a a father figure in many. Parts of the black community. But that's because he's not talking about this stuff, and people just kind of ignore that stuff. So yeah, afterwards, you can go look up Freddie Haines in Dallas. Freddy Haynes passes a huge church in Dallas. Freddie Haynes had a sermon that next Sunday, after the Me and Man March. He dedicated his time in the pulpit to He called it a message from the March and basically communicating to his people the word from God that Minister Farakahn had at the Me and Man March. And Freddy Haynes is still passed from the church in Dallas, and it's bigger than it's ever been right there on our twenty big. Giant church. Yeah, have we passed the time? Yet? The question is have we passed that time when supposedly the reign of the White Devil. Was to be over? It was supposed to end in nineteen eighty seven, So yeah, a little late man. Y'all need to be scared. Who are some of the people that fund them, That's a great question. They are. They are the wealthiest quote black organization in the United States. They're in Chicago now, they're based in Chicago, and they have they have massive wealth. Some of the people who fund them are Muslims from the Middle East for example. I mean several years ago, there was there was one very prominent UH leader in in Arab nation that was a known you know, not a friend to the US, who gave a million dollars you know, which was nothing for him. It was oil money, you know, million dollars to the Nation of Islam. But there are people you know who are you know, who are funding them from there. The big thing that was happening then here, here's a big controversy that came up. Slavery. You know, there are as many, if not more slaves in the world today than there have ever been, most of them in North Africa, many of them, you know, enslaved Christians in predominantly Islamic countries, Sudan and Maritania. Huge slave trade you know, for slavery there. And there was a big article that came out about slavery and the slave trade. Folks went to the Nation of Islam saying, Okay, if anybody is going to condemn this and speak on this and bring this to light, it would be Lewis Ferrikhn Because of some of the folks who were lining in his pocket. He said nothing, he couldn't. There are a lot of people who support them. Is there a connection between the call for reparation and wanting to have a black state? What do you mean by the call for reparation? Oh, just kind of the general reparation movement. Yes, and no that not not necessarily so. But the Nation of Islam has been calling for reparations for a long time. Uh, there are other people completely unrelated, you know, who called for reparations from slavery and. Things of that. But no, they're not they're not necessarily connected, and they're definitely not connected to the idea of statehood and having a separate, separate state. Yeah, to think, does Nation of Islam go by other names? Oftentimes they referred to as Black Muslims. Generally it's either the Nation of Islam or Black Muslims. The Black Israelites would be a different group, but they would come kind of from the same stream. Again, you know, there's a whole lot of stuff behind why why this thing started in Detroit in that particular period of time, you know, the time during the depression, And there are a lot of other black nationalist movements. So yeah, they would come from the same stream, but they wouldn't be they wouldn't be the same movement. Yeah, well, and that a big question. You know, what can we do to enlighten people and enlighten churches that dwell in that ignorance. Yeah. Here, here's the thing. Take care of your circle, take care of your sphere of influence. Take take care of the opportunities that God gives to you. And if God broadens that sphere of influence, then you take care of that. But just worry about your circle, you know, and to the degree that He gives you influence and he gives you opportunity, you can share these things that may lead to more influenced, more opportunity to share these things. It's the same with anything else. You just you worry about your worry about the circle that He's given you, you know, because people aren't generally aren't too keen on hearing from folks who just kind of parade in saying, hey, you need to know this, you know, it's just yes, one more. Yeah, good question. Outside of places like you know, Chicago, New York, Detroit, is this really a major issue. It's a it's definitely a major city issue. It's a it's just it's an issue where there dense urban populations. It's an issue within our prison system. It's a huge issue within our prison system throughout the country. So yeah, it is. It is an issue, and it is a pervasive one, although it's kind of demographic in nature obviously. You know the other question about Lewis Farrakhan, he's old, he has prostate he had prostate cancer. He's been I don't know if he's been treated for that, if he's you know, remission here or whatever. But he's he's up there now. You know what happens when he's gone. A lot of people ask the same thing about Elijah Muhammad. Here's Elija. Nobody knew Lewis farak Khan. You know. Who's that? And then Elijah Muhammad's gone. You know, a son of his takes one group one way. Lewis Ferri Khan, who is head of the Fruit of Islam, you know, goes in another direction. He becomes he becomes the guy. They've got a lot of resources, you know, and organizations with a lot of resources tend to have somebody pick it up and move it on. And there are a lot of other groups out there that are very close and very similar. You know, these ideas that the New Black Panther movement and things like that. You know, they've got kwant Lex here in Houston. He used to be you know, Nation of Islam guy. Now he's a New Black Panther you know guy or whatever. You know. There there are tons of streams out there that are very much connected to this, and it's not going anywhere because it has a lot of traction with people, unfortunately. So I don't think that Lewis Ferri Cohn's passing will will mean the end of the Nation of Islam.