Dr david liepert biography
Men’s Groups
Men’s All-Age Morning Bible Study
The Friday Morning Men’s Group was founded on the principle that “Men need a place to talk.” Men of all ages gather for fellowship and to study together in a relaxed environment — on Zoom in the privacy of your own home! Please note that members are not Biblical scholars – many have had no formal Bible study until joining this group, so don’t hesitate to join!
When: Friday mornings, 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.
Where: ZOOM (Virtual)
Questions: Contact Greg Ward at g_******@ya***.com or (440) 333-8253
All are welcome – members of the weekly morning Bible study are comprised primarily of RRPC members. Several other non-members join in regularly. To give you a sense of what we read and discuss, in the past, the group has completed Bible studies including Luke, Isaiah, Romans, John, and others, while also reading other books such as The Prodigal God, The Purpose Driven Life, The Man in the Mirror, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions. Authors have included Jim Wallis, Christopher Hitchens, and Dr. David Liepert. The group recently read and discussed a study of Muslim, Christian & Jew and a study of Jesus: A Revolution Biography by John Dominic Crossan.
If you are interested in ordering a copy of what the group is currently studying, reach out to Greg Ward. We hope to see new faces on Zoom soon!
Senior Men’s Religious Study Group
When: The 2nd and 4th Friday of each month at 9:00 a.m. Meetings may be once a month during the summer and holidays.
Where: Rocky River Presbyterian Church’s West Room (In Person) and Zoom (Virtual)
Questions: Contact: Dan McKenzieda*********@am*******.net
On Friday mornings, a group of Senior men meet in the RRPC West Room for fellowship. The men take part in a structured activity such as watching and discussing a video, choosing a topic to discuss, viewing a presentation by a fellow RRPC member
Rejecting Dr. David Liepert's "Aisha Was Older" Apologetic Myth
I have not yet watched the "Innocence of Muslims" clip, and doubt that I ever will. This is because I can think of better ways of spending a spare quarter-hour than staring at rubbish. The film includes references to the Prophet Muhammad's 9-year-old child bride, Aisha. I know this because people in the skeptics community are asking, how factual is this movie really? And some well-intentioned people are replying with claims that "not one thing in the movie is factual", that , "Most scholars for the last 1200 years suggest Aisha was 11-14", and one person even provided a link to an apologetic piece by a Muslim named Dr. David Liepert at the Huffington Post titled, "Rejecting the Myth of Sanctioned Child Marriage in Islam".
Apparently the arguments raised by Liepert and others have given many the false impression that Aisha's age is a long contested issue in Islam, and that it is a valid argument over interpretation that could eventually lead to reforms within mainstream Islam. The problem I have with this, is that it is certainly not an argument over interpretation. The text clearly say one thing and one thing only. For anyone with a little knowledge on the subject and who has actually read the source material, it is disingenuous to claim otherwise. For people like Liepert, simply lying about what sources say may be effective in apologetic pieces, but they are useless if the intentions behind them are to reform the religion.
To explain in a language my readers may understand better; there are valid theological or factual arguments/disagreements, and then there is absurd nonsense that is not worthy of being entertained. For example; there are lots of creationists who claim evolution is not factual because "monkeys still exist, so we haven't evolved from them!!!", and other such protests. Scientists schooled in evolution (in fact Name one thing Muslims and Christians share? Their level effort pointing fingers elsewhere whenever pedophilia comes up. Catholic priests are an obvious and easy target, but when my 16-year-old daughter raised $26,000 in her high school to combat North America's growing child-sex-slavery trade, her grandmother complained that she wasn't doing enough about misogyny and abuse in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and the Sudan. Although she wasn't very clear how Marley would get there. My pen on the other hand? We'll see. Another similarity? Neither Muslims nor Christians blame Christianity for the problem, but the same can't be said for Islam. You've got to give pedophiles their props though. Most sane people consider them something beyond abhorrent, and yet on this issue they have convinced even Christian leaders to climb into bed with them, and with some Sunni and Shiite scholars to boot. And it's time to pull the sheets back and see what's really going on for the sake of women and children everywhere. There are really only three reasons to insist -- as so many do -- that Aisha was only 9 years old when Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) married her: Either you are such a crazy Islamophile that you are willing to go to your grave insisting Muhammad could do whatever he wanted, or you are such a crazy Islamophobe that you want to insist he did, or you are such a weirdly religious sex-crazed pervert that you hope accusing him makes it OK for you to do it too. There is absolutely no other reason to either make or repeat that disgusting claim. Aisha was married in 622 C.E., and although her exact birthday is unknown, Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari recorded that it happened before Islam was revealed in 610. The earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik bin Hisham's recension of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah -- The Life of the Messenger of God records that Aisha accepted Islam shortly after it was revealed -- 12 years before her .