Neil Shenvi is a congregant of JD Greear’s Summit Church, a connection that has allowed him to rise to prominence as an online apologist. But his function in apologetics has always been to defend woke pastors, oppose strong rhetoric against Critical Race Theory, and fight right-wing politics which he calls “woke right.” The most prominent example of Shenvi’s function as controlled opposition is his long-running defense of JD Greear, the three-term Southern Baptist president who led the denomination to embrace Critical Race Theory. Yet on Monday, Shenvi would defend an obvious heresy of Greear.
Megan Basham highlights a portion from JD Greear’s book, Breaking The Islam Code where JD Greear makes the claim that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
“Muslims worship a different God than Christians do”
Muslims claim to worship the God of Adam, Abraham, and Moses. Most missionaries find it therefore helpful to use the Arabic term for God, “Allah” (meaning literally, “the Deity”), to refer to God, and to explain that the God Muslims believe in, the God of the Prophets, was the God also present in bodily form in Jesus Christ and the One worshipped by Christians for the past two millennia.
You might ask, “But isn’t the Islamic God so different from the Christian God that they cannot properly be called by the same name? Aren’t we worshipping two different gods?” Believing wrong things about God and worshipping him incorrectly doesn’t mean one is worshipping a different God. Many first-century Jewish people rejected the Trinitarian nature of God and that Christ was a messenger of God. Yet the apostles did not say that those Jews were worshipping a different God
It would not take long for Neil Shenvi to defend this heresy.
There is a difference between Paul using a cultural custom as an inroad to evangelize and Muslims actively worshipping a god that’s explicitly not trinitarian. But this nuance is lost on Shenvi who seems to think that the word “same” deserves a Jordan Peterson-style breakdown.
Neil Shenvi insists that Christians generally believe that pagans are worshipping God incorrectly, but this is far from the consensus. Most Christians believe that pagans worship false gods or demons. Shenvi would delete the above posts, but the internet did not forget.
Shenvi compares Muslims worshipping God to Lois Lane loving both Superman and Clark Kent. Any casual understanding of Superman lore would know that Lois Lane loved only Superman and not Clark Kent. Moreover, he would understand that Clark Kent is the alter ego, not Superman, rendering the analogy pointless.
Apologetics is about evangelizing people with a fixed position against Christ such as atheism, Islam, or New Age. It is not about defending the heresies of woke pastors like JD Greear. Many normies assume that Neil Shenvi is theologically sound, but his prompt defense of JD Greear’s heresies showcase how he’s a bad actor in Evangelicalism.
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Micheal Heiser (albeit from a disastrous and Heretical view of evolved Israelite religion) Points out God is in Two Powers in the OT and this was declared heretical by the Jews in 200 AD. The Christian God by this language is in three powers as a Trinity because Jesus personifies the Holy Spirit including Him in the Name we baptize in as pastors. We know Jesus eats with Abraham. dialogues with Sarah over her laughter being too old to conceive. The Word of God, who is also the Lord, touches Jeremiah on the mouth in the first Chapter of his book. This Word of God is defined by John 1 as Jesus. Jesus appears as The Angel of Jehovah to Samson’s parents and rides fire, they recognize at that point they have seen God. When Adam sins he hides when he hears God walking in the Garden. If you can hear God walking He’s got feet, if He’s got feet He is Jesus. Modern Judaism does not have this OT conception of God any longer and so do not worship the same God as the Apostle Paul did before he had heard of Jesus when he was 12 years old. The Modern Jews might in fact worship a god similar to Islam but this god is nothing like the true God worshiped by Christians who in turn do not worship the same God as modern Judaism.
Shenvi sounds like a Jewish name and he looks Jewish. Ergo, Zionist infiltrator.