User:Adpete/Sandbox

(This is a work in progress)

(Disclosure - looking for a wider audience after getting only one respondent at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard). Hi. I'm wondering whether notable Christian apologist Josh McDowell is a reliable source to use in the article on Muslim apologist Ahmed Deedat. The book in question is "The Islam Debate", by McDowell and John Gilchrist (Full book scan (8 MB) here [1] (yes it's a legal scan, it's McDowell's own site); Amazon page here[2]). Published in 1983, it was written as a follow-up to a public debate between Deedat and McDowell in 1981. I am not arguing for its use directly in the article, rather I am arguing that it (like Deedat's own writings) is an important primary source on Deedat to include as a reference or external link. I argue it is based on the following points:

• Deedat's main work was in criticising Christianity, so a citing Christian response is appropriate.
• McDowell is a notable evangelical Christian author. In a list compiled by Christianity Today, one of McDowell's (other) books was judged the 13th most influential evangelical book since WWII [3] (and third amongst apologetic books). That makes his stature such that anything he publishes carries some degree of notability.
• McDowell publicly debated Deedat, so he has a knowledge of Deedat and an association with him.
• Deedat thought McDowell notable enough that he counters McDowell's arguments in a number of his publications, and directly counters the book "The Islam Debate" in at least one.[4] (Look for the phrase "The Islam Debate", Deedat does not name the authors).
• There are very few mainstream news sources referencing the book,[5] but one I found was from the Miami Herald, December 31 1983, by Religion writer Adon Taft (subscription required), which gave a very positive review as a resource on the differences between Christianity and Islam "as seen by the proponents of each religion".
• The paucity of mainstream sources on the book (e.g book reviews in mainstream media) is attributable to (1) the book was published in 1983 and it's hard to get much from back then; (2) Deedat was pretty unknown in 1981, so the book may not have stirred great interest anyway, but Deedat's fame grew a lot since then; (3) these books (both Deedat's and McDowell's) are written for a reasonably specialised audience and so often don't attract mainstream attention anyway.

I am being opposed by User:ScienceApologist, who wants better third-party references showing that McDowell is qualified to give an opinion on Deedat. If I understand SA correctly, SA does not dispute that McDowell is a notable Christian writer, but what s/he wants is a 3rd party source which says that McDowell is qualified to comment on Deedat in particular (rather than Christian topics in general). My argument is that McDowell's (popular) standing is so high, plus the fact that he has debated Deedat personally and Deedat has responded to him in print, makes it self-evident that McDowell's opinion is notable. In fact it's hard to imagine anyone more qualified (notability-wise, not necessarily quality-wise) to offer a Christian critique of Deedat. 05:32, 1 September 2009 (UTC)