The story of the Acts 17 Apologetics team, Nabeel Qureshi and David Wood (including Negeen and Paul Rezkalla), being arrested at the 2010 Arab Festival this weekend in Dearborn, Michigan, is exploding not only across the blogosphere but is also getting picked up by other media sources, such as news programs and radio talk shows. With that sort of exposure you just know it is going to elicit responses from their critics. It is for this reason that everyone, Nabeel and David especially, can appreciate the value of their having filmed the experience.

For example, someone named Nick—over at Tom Gilson’s Thinking Christian—thought that the opinion of “Spiffy the Basset” had some credibility. Spiffy let loose with some very strong words attacking the character of Nabeel and David, calling them liars and claiming that they were “showboating” and “trying to cause a scene,” suggesting that they were “trying to get arrested” (which is not only fallacious but Gilson had already obviated this sort of response within his article itself). So herein lies the value of video footage: the scathing opinion of Spiffy can be compared against starkly unbiased video evidence, averting the tedium of this person’s word against that person’s. (Provided that the footage on their cameras is not coincidentally damaged or deleted while in possession of the Dearborn Police Department.) Just as the footage of their experience last year proved the lies and physical assaults of the security guards, so too will video evidence prove more reliable than the vituperative attacks of their critics this year. Clearly that is one of the very reasons they brought video cameras with them and had them rolling the entire time. So go ahead and toss in your lot with the unscrupulous and illegitimately personal attacks of Spiffy, Nick. The more reserved and responsible of us will toss in our lot with the unbiased view of the camera, and the testimony of Nabeel and David who make their statements knowing very well what the footage on the cameras will expose.

On a related note and something I found quite remarkable? There was supposed to be a second formal debate between Dr. James White, from Alpha & Omega Ministries, and Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed Awal, from the Zaitun Dawah Institute, this evening at the Center for Religious Debate in Romulus, MI (info)—but it got cancelled, and I doubt you could ever guess why. Evidently the mosque that was hosting Sheikh Awal demanded that he pull out of that debate because of David Wood’s arrest Friday evening! If you’re struggling to grasp the connection between these two things, you are not alone. It is difficult to say what the connection could be, other than they are both apologists and participants in The Great Debate Series over last weekend. But even if we assumed that David Wood did something highly illegal, what has that to do with Dr. White? Why is that mosque equating the two men? As Dr. White noted,

I pointed out to Sheikh Awal that Sheikh Zakir Naik has been banned from the UK for saying that all Muslims need to be terrorists. So, should I hold him accountable for everything Zakir Naik says or does? If not, why not?

With consideration to how often American Muslims object to “being lumped together with others unfairly,” it was a very curious choice that mosque made, predicated on such a dubious connection.

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