Defenders of Farrakhan Cast Truth at Serene Thirteen & Lance Shabazz

In August 2017, various online sources reported that Louis Farrakhan, the 84-year-old leader of the Chicago-based religious group Nation of Islam, had posted a video on his Facebook page in which he declared Jesus as his Redeemer, seemingly contradicting his own Muslim teachings.

For example, the Christian Post stated:

Reflecting on his inevitable physical death, leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, 84, declared in a controversial video recording Tuesday that Jesus will save him from the grip of death despite his organization’s creed that there is only “One God whose proper Name is Allah.” The declaration came the same day Farrakhan was shown visiting Bishop Larry Trotter, longtime pastor of Chicago’s Sweet Holy Spirit Church, who was hospitalized last Wednesday with a “serious illness” following a trip to Israel. “I thank God for guiding me for 40 years absent my teacher (Elijah Muhammad). So my next journey will have to answer the question. I’m gonna say it,” Farrakhan teased briefly in the clip before declaring: “I know that my redeemer liveth.”

Similarly, Dan Calabrese of Canada Free Press wrote:

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is 84 years old. We all know the Islamic radicalism and racial division he’s been preaching for decades, so there’s no reason to go over it in detail here. But what’s this? Farrakhan released this video yesterday, and if it’s what it appears to be on the first glace, he’s made quite a radical change of direction: My first instinct was to find a loophole in his wording. When Farrakhan said “my Jesus lives” and emphasized the “my,” I thought maybe he was trying to give himself license to declare that his “redeemer” can be whoever he wants it to be and that he could express that by referring to said redeemer as “my Jesus.”