The ultimate incoherence stems from two opposing notions of God: either the personal Creator, Father and Savior God of Scripture or the impersonal, unknowable God of Islam. The Declaration of Independence presupposes a personal Creator who endows creatures with “personal rights,” including the right to “life,” reflecting his own life, which we know from Scripture is Trinitarian. God is three persons in his own ultimate being. The God of Islam, on the contrary, is in his ultimate being, a singularity and is thus impersonal.

Last November’s elections brought into Congress some of the most extreme office holders ever seen. Recently defeated Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill said: “I’d be lying if I did not say I was worried about this place. It just does not work as well as it used to.”[1] Paul Kane of The Washington Post describes how in the early meetings of the new Congress “tensions flared and lawmakers walked toward each other in the well of the House. The chance of physical confrontation seemed to grow by the second… Shouting, near fisticuffs, emotions high…Today’s Washington could get worse.”

In terms of economic and political theory, progressive socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want to destroy the traditional definition of America, calling for open borders, taxes of 70%, free schooling and free medical care for everyone from cradle to grave. Ocasio-Cortez is the latest radical progressive to enter the halls of government. According to one observer, three of the four members of the Democratic Steering and Policy committee have backgrounds with the Communist Party USA, indicating that “the 116^th Congress consists of more hard-left members of Congress enjoying more power than at any time in U.S. history.”[2]Loudon adds: “The federal government is infested with hard-core socialists and communists.”[3]How long can a government remain stable with such a deep incoherence between consistent socialism/communism and classic free-market capitalism?

The clash between the Left and the Right is not restricted to political theory. Progressives today target traditional religious beliefs regarding both sexuality and spirituality, paving the way for secular relativism to march into all realms of American society. Senator Kyrsten Sinema is the whole deal. She entered the Senate claiming to be the first bi-sexual senator having summoned a “Pagan cluster” of witches to help in her election bid. Not a hint of moral absolutes of good and evil based on religious truths will hold back such progressives’ application of evolving cultural norms as the basis for defining morality. Progressives use all instruments available to them to enforce their code of secular virtues. One is religious incoherence.

One of the two Muslim women elected to Congress, Rashida Tlaib, chose to be sworn into Congress on Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran, printed in 1734. She clearly wished to give the impression that this was part of America’s long-standing cultural history. However, two facts work against this view:

1. The introduction written in Jefferson’s copy warns the reader that, in reading, one must not be deceived by this false religion, since it is an “imposture” of the truth and must be “exposed.”[4]
2. Swearing on the Bible and swearing on the Koran are strictly contradictory activities. When swearing on the Bible, one commits to speaking “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” presupposing the way the Bible describes truth. However, in swearing on the Koran, which Tlaib said was to familiarize Americans with Islam as a faith, one commits, in accord with the doctrine of taqqiya, to practice “precautionary dissimulation.” Taqqiya not only serves to protect Muslims from persecution but also encourages them to lie to “advance the cause of Islam—in some cases by gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them.”

The congressional swearing-in event introduces profound incoherence into the solemn ceremonies of investiture that seek to protect the nation from immoral subversion. Biblically-based law (the truth) and Sharia law (the lie) are irreconcilable. One cannot combine these competing “moral” systems without introducing at the highest levela totally chaotic and irrational basis for our nation’s governing principles.

Since the goal of Islam is to control every country, it is no surprise that the two freshmen Muslim Congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, immediately introduced a bill adding Islamic holidays to the Federal calendar. Until now, that calendar has recognized only traditional American holidays founded, in the main, on our Christian past. Muslim holidays, if made official, will potentially close banks, schools and other businesses for five additional days each year.

Naturally, these women have laid plans. Tlaib and Omar are vocal supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions(BDS) movement, which urges private entities and governments to avoid business with Israel’s government. Tlaib, the Michigan Democrat, daughter of Palestinian immigrants, said last month that she’d like to lead a group of lawmakers to the West Bank, instead of joining a planned trip to Israel. According to GOP Rep. Brian Babin, in his letter to house democrats: “To signal to our most threatened ally in the region that the United States Congress sanctions an official trip to visit Israel’s nemesis would be an exceedingly dangerous path forward.”

We are witnessing signs of a deliberate attempt to Islamicize the USA, with all that means for public policy, foreign relations and religious coherence.

How could this happen? I remember watching on TV the brilliant international cricketer, Imran Khan, a sophisticated, handsome athlete, born to an upper-middle class Pashtun family in Lahore, Punjab. As a young man, he was sent off to be educated at the Royal Grammar School of Worcester, England, and later graduated from Keble College, Oxford. In 1992, he led Pakistan to victory in the Cricket World Cup. Could it get any better for a Pakistani? Yes! Khan returned to Pakistan and became his country’s president in 2018. In that same year, this sophisticated, Westernized politician offered a full-throated defense of Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws that mandate the death penalty for any imputation, insinuation or innuendo against the prophet Muhammad.

How different is the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition! It forbids Congress from either promoting one religion over another or from restricting an individual’s religious practices.

Setting the First Amendment against Islamic blasphemy laws is a further example of profound religious incoherence as the two religious systems are set in opposition to each other at the highest level of government.

The ultimate incoherence stems from two opposing notions of God: either the personal Creator, Father and Savior God of Scripture or the impersonal, unknowable God of Islam. The Declaration of Independence presupposes a personal Creator who endows creatures with “personal rights,” including the right to “life,” reflecting his own life, which we know from Scripture is Trinitarian. God is three persons in his own ultimate being. The God of Islam, on the contrary, is in his ultimate being, a singularity and is thus impersonal. Allah could only be personal by creating us. But, if that is the case, then Allah is dependent on us for an essential divine attribute—personhood. In fact, Allah actually swears by things on earth, whereas the God of the Scriptures can swear only on himself. Since Allah can swear by his creation, then he is not truly transcendent. He takes his place with all those gods whose existence is defined as part of nature. This, then, is the ultimate incoherence, what Paul calls the unresolvable religious conflict between the Truth and the Lie (Romans 1:25).

Expect more fisticuffs as “religious secularism” in the form both of rising Islam and political Marxism begins to claim power in the sacred halls of Washington government.

[1]The New American(January 21, 2019), 9.

[2]Trevor Loudon, “The Looming Socialist Revolution on Capitol Hill,” The New American (January 21, 2019), 21.

[3]Ibid., 24.

[4]The introduction reads: “Whatever use an impartial version of the Koran may be of in other respects, it is absolutely necessary to undeceive those who, from the ignorant or unfair translations which have appeared, have entertained too favourable an opinion of the original, and also to enable us effectually to expose the imposture.”

Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism.  This article is used with permission.