Pastor Robert Jeffress of the radio-TV program Pathway to Victory got into a heated debate with Imam Muhammad Ali Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom when they appeared recently in a debate hosted by Fox's Sean Hannity.
The two talked about President Barack Obama's stand on terrorism. Jeffress accused the president of being the "defender-in-chief of Islam," and said it is about time Obama and other government leaders wake up to the fact that all terror attacks have a common denominator: "They were not committed by Jews or Hindus or Episcopalians, they were committed by radical Islamic terrorists."
In response, Elahi told Jeffress to stop using the word "radical Islam" since "it is either radical or Islam, but it can't be both." He then referenced the group Ku Klux Klan (KKK), saying that he would never wrongly assume that the white extremist group represents Christianity as a whole.
But Jeffress disagrees. "Here's why you can't tie [the KKK] to Christianity. You can't find one verse in the New Testament that says, 'Kill unbelievers,'" he said. "Jesus, the founder of our faith, didn't kill anybody. He was crucified, but you look in the Quran, you can find 35 sword verses."
"Muhammad was nothing but a bloodthirsty warlord who beheaded 600 Jews who would not follow him into battle," he continued.
Elahi said Jeffress' belief "is not true."
The pastor also voiced agreement with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who earlier said there is something about Islam that "causes its followers to hate us."
Jeffress agreed that only 5 percent of Muslims are radical, but if Islam has 1.5 billion followers, then this means that 75 million people in the world are extremists.
"How did so many people get their religion wrong?" he rhetorically asked. "You don't have 100 million radical Christians in the world."
