Dr Dirks' Lecture

Having attended the talk by Dr Dirks entitled Stepping Into the Light at One Marina Boulevard, my fingers got itchy, and I really felt like blogging about it.

In a nutshell, the talk was about his conversion story into Islam, himself formerly a minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church. He holds a Master's degree in Divinity from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver

The story of his conversion can be found here: http://www.welcome-back.org/profile/dirks1.shtml

Arguably, the central theme in his story of conversion would be his struggle to change the Christian identity or label that had for so long, been stuck with him, part and parcel of what Dr said defined his being. Having studied Christianity at a scholarly level, he came to know about the true history of early Christianity. How external, non-religious factors such as geopolitical concerns affected the decision-making at the Council of Nicea a few centuries after Christ; which was to define the many fundamentals of modern Christianity.

He also mentioned that the person Paul of Tarsus never met the historical Jesus, upon whom be peace, and that it was rather unfortunate that the Paul-ine Christianity was the one that emerged popular.

As to the title son of God, Dr Dirks mentioned that many in the Old Testament were given that title, among them, David, Solomon, the children of Israel. All these are understood in the context of the title ‘son of God’ carrying a metaphorical meaning, and definitely not a literal one. And the Disciples of Christ all recognized him as a Prophet, or a metaphorical son of God, since Christ was righteous and pious, and definitely not a literal Son of God.

Anyways, Dr Dirks was relating how he had an internal struggle to disagree with some things he was preaching as a minister. He constantly described himself as an atypical Christian whose beliefs are more similar to Islamic Faith.

Psychologically, his sub-conscious is reaffirming as to his muslim-inclinations, which led to several unusual self-denial kind of incidents which normally just simply shouldn’t be the case.

For example; while applying for his US passport, he had to fill up his religion. With ease, he had put Christian, but when asked by his wife what religion he had indicated, he replied that he put Christian and not Muslim. To this, his wife was rather shocked, for she was more of expecting an option of either Christian, Protestant or Methodist, so such a reply can unexpectedly.

Another one: while reading an English translation of the Quran at an eatery, he was asked by the waiter whether or not he was a muslim, to which he answered an irritated ‘No!’ He himself agreed that such a tone was uncalled for since the question asked was an innocuous one. So why the aggression? Of course, his sub-conscious was constantly telling him that he is a muslim.

He made a round-about apology by explaining to the same waiter later, this time he, perhaps “inadvertently”, repeated the Shahada, albeit rephrased or modified in his own words. He said something like “If you ask me whether or not I believe in One God, I do. And if you ask me whether or not I believe that Muhammad (saw) is a Prophet, I do.”

Subhanallah.

Dr Dirks declared that he was not the only Christian Minister, who having learnt the history of Christianity in depth, came to harbor some doubts about some of the fundamentals of Christian theology.

Even among the various Churches, the Doctrine of the Original Sin is not unanimously accepted. Eastern Orthodox Churches do not accept that doctrine.

That reminds me, the book Misquoting Jesus, by Bart D Erhman, a biblical schorlar, in it, many arguments proving the adulterated verses of the bible, in very much the same fashion as those that one would find if one were to study mustolah hadith. Both deal with the issue of securing reliability when transferring or relating verses/text. Various factors come into play, credibility of narrators, the written accuracy and copying of the texts which, at that time, was tediously done handwritten, geopolitical influences, or simply unintended mistakes during copying. Either case, it is different from the original.

An exact example in Misquoting Jesus: imagine a text that is old and not have the formatting style of today.

Iseeabundanceonthetable can be seen as 2 scenarios:

A miracle, whereby a bun dances on the table (perhaps upon recitation of dzikrullah)

OR

A feast on the table. (abundance)


The Injil, which means the Essence, is not the one that is called Bible today, but even so, it does contain some of the Injil (essence of essence huh, quintessence perhaps hehe), especially with regards to issues on ethics, morality and spirituality, and thus deserve our respect.

And……..I finally got my hands on ‘Is the Bible reliable?’, although borrowed, by Almarhum Ust Taha Suhaimi! And I currently also hold some of Ust Taha’s other books ;)

Alhamdulillah! May God guide us all!