Abdu Murray, as a Muslim in the Detroit area in the 1980s, had a favorite target – cultural Christians.
“Cultural Christians were abundant,” he said in a recent interview. “They were low-hanging fruit for me, and I thought Islam was the truth and everyone should believe true things and not false things. I looked at Christianity as a system of belief that was wrongheaded, even though it might have been right-hearted.”
Although cultural Christians had a shallow faith that couldn’t stand up to his arguments, he later ran into more serious Christians.
“There were some Christians who did know what they were talking about and gave me some great answers to my objections,” he said. “What I had to figure out was: ‘Do I believe something because it’s tradition, or do I believe it because it’s true?’”
Murray particularly took aim at the concept of the trinity, which he saw as diminishing the greatness of God, a key concept in the Muslim faith.
“Many people shy away from the trinity,” he told CBN “But it was one of the things that made me convinced of Christianity. Muslims believe that God is the greatest being and also that God is loving. Without the trinity, God would need to bring humans into the world for him to be loving. With the trinity, the father loves the son and the son loves the Holy Spirit.”
Luke 3:8 also shook Murray’s faith.
“It suddenly occurred to me I was challenging Christians by saying, ‘Don’t believe something just because it’s tradition; believe it because it’s true,’” he said. “But John the Baptist — in a Bible I didn’t even believe in — was challenging me and saying, ‘Don’t believe something just because it’s tradition; believe it because it’s true,’”
At 27, he asked for forgiveness, accepted the atoning work of Christ on the cross and resurrection and became a Christian. He has been serving in apologetics ever since.
His ministry has not been without its hiccups, having served in Ravi Zacharias International Ministries until the controversial discovery after Zaccharias’s death that he had participated in sexual indiscretion. Murray was ousted from the ministries after the accusations came to light, having been one of Zaccharias’s defenders for many years. He apologized and later started his own apologetics ministry, Embrace the Truth.
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice