The Blue Collar Scholar

Islam is the second biggest religion on Earth, and by many accounts, the fastest growing religion. It has a long and rich history. Every major Empire in Asia, Europe, and Africa has had to interact with the religion of Islam and powerful Islamic states for almost a millennium and a half. In this episode, I try hard to provide a fair, unbiased analysis of the history of Islam, from the career of the Prophet Muhammed to the Hamas attack on Israel a few years ago.

Christians are tempted to reinterpret every teaching Jesus gives us about wealth, because His insight into wealth is so counterintuitive. Building off last week's teaching about the Upside-Down Kingdom of God, today we will take a look at Jesus' teachings about wealth and dare to take them seriously.

This week is Spring Break in Southeast Kansas, so our classes are taking a break. Instead of the regularly scheduled World War II lecture, I decided to dust off (and re-edit) an old lecture from April 4, 2023. When I taught this class previously, it was called "The World Wars" and I devoted the last quarter of the class to the Pacific Theatre in WWII. To kick off this section of the class, I went far back into Japanese (and a bit of Chinese) history to provide more background than I chose to do this semester. So, enjoy this throwback episode, as we build a bit of historic background in order to better understand Imperial Japan.

This one will be controversial. I have concluded that several religions are not part of Christianity because they have changed or abandoned major theological components of Christianity: the Trinity, the Incarnation, the nature of reality, the existence of God, etc. I acknowledge that many of these groups claim to be denominations of orthodox Christianity, and I don't deny their right to define their own religious expression. But if the world "Christian" has any meaning, I cannot make the claim that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Jehovah's Witnesses, or Christian Science (to name a few) are Christian. What I will admit freely is that these groups clearly descended from the Christian tradition, often from American Protestantism. In this lecture I attempt to be unbiased. But - full disclosure - while editing this episode I came to the conclusion that I did a pretty poor job of that. So consider this episode to be a mild polemic from an evangelical Protestant Christian who is trying to make sense of the beliefs of religions that branched of Christianity.

Jesus calls us to an unbelievably counter-intuitive calling: the lead by serving. As He washed His disciple's feet and willingly died as a sacrifice for sin, we too should use whatever leadership we get in this life to love and to serve other people, even if it means that we lose out on this or that advantage or payday.

This episode returns to the Pacific Theatre of World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese conquest of the Philippines. In the 1st six months of the war, Japan racked up an impressive list of victories. Then at the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japan failed to take Port Moresby, and for the first time, they suffered a strategic defeat. However, since the Allies lost more ships in that battle, Japan could sell the battle to its citizenry as a victory. But about a half a year after Pearl Harbor, the US Navy dealt the Imperial Japanese Navy a crushing blow at the Battle of Midway, which turned out to be the turning point of the war, though no one suspected that was the case at the time. At the end of 1942, the Allies racked up another big win in the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Solomon Islands. And just like that, the tides turned.

This episode wraps up the Christianity subsection of the course on Comparing World Religions. From here on out, the course will cover religions that are separate from Christianity. (Note: Some of these religions do come out of the Christian tradition, and some of them consider themselves a version of Christianity.) Before we broaden the scope of the class, I thought that it was a good idea to lay out my biases as the professor. For there are 2 ways to be unbiased: (1) You can have "no dog in the fight," which means that you have no preconceived notions. You truly are a tabula rosa, ready to provide unbiased analysis. (2) You can pretend that you have no dog in the fight, even though you actually do. This is dishonest. So as a Christian from the Baptist tradition, I decided to provide my personal story, including my religious testimony, so that anyone who wishes to critique the teachings of this class can do so knowing exactly what the professor believes. And, of course, I shall try to do my best to be as unbiased as I possibly can be moving forward, even though I do have established beliefs in contradistinction to the religions we will cover in the next few weeks.

Luke, the author of the Book of Acts, tells us that the Jews from the town of Berea were "of more noble character" than the Jews from the town of Thessalonica, because when they heard the Gospel, they listened intently, then they went home, searched to Scriptures, and investigated to see if the things Paul was teaching them was true. And from that excellent Bible study, the church in Berea was born. This sermon seeks to use the example of Acts 17:10-12 to inspire the church to be of more noble character.

The Holocaust is a tragedy on an unimaginable scale. It was the result of unrestrained racism amongst those with absolute power. This episode focuses on the history of antisemitism, the rise of the Nazis as an explicitly antisemitic regime, and the unspeakable evil that they wrought. This was a packed lecture, and a rushed lecture. I did not even have time to talk about Oskar Schindler. During the editing process, I was ashamed that I did not even mention once that the Holocaust also targeted the Roma people, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, pacifists, and communists, among others. Alas, if everything about World War II that should be addressed was in fact addressed in this class, it would last years and years. For now, listen to this episode, internalize that visceral reaction that I hope you have against such violent hatred, and join with me in saying, "never again."

Since the professor and every member of the Comparing World Religions class in Christian, our sub-section over Christianity is several lectures long. Furthermore, since (I believe) we all come from Protestant traditions, I have set aside 2 full lectures to talk about Protestantism. In the previous episode, we took a historical deep dive into the Protestant Reformation. This episode is a broad survey of the most common denominations. By "most common," I am referring to the kinds of churches we see most often in Erie (Kansas), Neosho County (Kansas), the state of Kansas, the American Midwest, & the USA. The types of prominent Protestant denominations in your region may look a bit different.