Wait! Not That Kind of Ambassador!

January 22, 2007 Posted by Amy HallcloseAuthor: Amy Hall Name: Amy Hall
Email: galatians611@aol.com
Site: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=664873664
About: See Authors Posts (240)

A New Yorker article about Adam Gadahn's transformation from Southern California resident to Al Qaeda “media committee” spokesperson surprised me with a familiar name:

Gadahn wrote of a yawning emptiness, and he sought ways “to fill that void.” He began scrolling through AOL's religion folders on the Internet and tuning to Christian programming on the radio. That summer, he attended several Christian lectures and events, including one led by Gregory Koukl, an evangelical talk-show host who argues against religious pluralism. But Gadahn found evangelical Christianity's “apocalyptic ramblings” to be “paranoid” and hollow. As he later recalled, “I began to look for something else to hold onto.”

Now, Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason (known for “equipping Christian ambassadors in the areas of knowledge, wisdom and character”) is anything but “apocalyptic” and “paranoid,” and he is certainly no rambler.  Yet this is the one name Gadahn recalls on his road to becoming a spokesperson for Al Qaeda?

I'll give Gadahn this–he did become an ambassador.  Hmmm.  It's like he's a super-villain who learned the way of Greg's ambassadorial powers and then turned to evil and became Greg's arch-nemesis, using his powerful knowledge for destruction, and apparently holding a longstanding grudge.

Just look at how Darth Gadahn has used his ambassador training for evil:

Last year, shortly before the fifth anniversary of September 11th, Al Qaeda's leadership featured Gadahn in a video titled “An Invitation to Islam.” The video began with an introduction from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's main theoretician, who referred to Gadahn tenderly as a brother and as “a perceptive person who wants to lead his people out of darkness into the light.”

All kidding aside, since Roger and I have both worked with Greg, I can confidently say that Stand to Reason is not in the business of creating the winsome terrorist leaders of tomorrow.  On the contrary, the Ambassador Basic Curriculum has been a helpful force for good for thousands of people.  Why, just last month, this nice young man, Abu Fayed, took ambassador lessons from us.

Strange, though…he was only interested in getting his ambassador skills off the ground–the first part of the training.  He insisted that he didn't need to learn how to land any follow-through discipleship situations.  Um…uh oh….

Related posts:

1. The Ambassador's Table (August)
2. A Different Kind of Evangelical or Betraying Evangelicalism?
3. The Ambassador's Table – April 8th
4. Books I Can't Wait to Read
5. ETS 2008 – Mark Wittmer "Machen on McLaren: A New Kind of Liberal?"
6. The Ambassador's Table – Friday the 13th

Posted in Amy's Posts, Apologetics, Main Page, Politics