The Great Falling Away of Islam - Ep. 923 - June 11, 2026

Iran's Christian Revival and Islam's Decline

A claim this large is hard to ignore: thousands of mosques have reportedly closed in Iran while more people are turning to Christianity. On Episode 923 of The Smith and Rowland Show, Jeff and Allan treat that shift as more than a news item. They see it as a spiritual turning point.

The episode moves fast from humor to persecution, revival, prophecy, and war. If you're trying to make sense of what may be happening inside Iran, this conversation offers a clear window into how these hosts read the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crK_s-ZsPWY

A light opening gave way to a serious warning

The show began with a running joke about a fake sponsor called "Globe." Jeff and Allan riffed about globes being angry at maps, flat-earth people, and the glory days of the Harlem Globetrotters. It was pure comedy, and it lasted long enough to set the tone readers of the show already know well.

Then the conversation changed.

Jeff brought up reports that Christianity is growing in Iran while Islam is losing its grip. Allan asked where the report came from, and Jeff pointed to a CBN article dated June 10. From there, the episode shifted into one of its main claims: the next major revival may come out of Iran.

Jeff said he has expected that for some time. He connected that expectation to the level of persecution in the country and to personal reports he says he has received from contacts who know the region. Those reports described people coming to Christ without access to a preacher, in some cases after dreams or spiritual encounters that led them to faith.

He also cited a mission board report from August 2025 that claimed more than 1,200 converts a month were coming to Jesus in Iran. Allan did not sound shocked by the possibility of revival itself. What surprised him was the lack of coverage. That became a major thread in the episode. If the change inside Iran is real and widespread, why are so few outlets talking about it?

That question stayed in the background through the rest of the discussion.

What the hosts say is changing inside Iran

Jeff and Allan returned often to one point: the story is not only about military conflict or state repression. In their view, the bigger story is that Islam is weakening inside Iran at the same time Christianity is spreading through personal networks, home gatherings, and underground discipleship.

According to the CBN report they discussed, roughly 50,000 of Iran's 75,000 mosques have shut down. They also mentioned 2026 protests in which crowds reportedly burned Islamic shrines and rejected the ideology of the ruling regime. Whether readers agree with every conclusion drawn from those reports or not, the hosts treated them as signs of public disillusionment with the Islamic state.

Small house gatherings sit near the center of that story.

A recent Christianity Today report on the Iranian church also describes Persian-speaking believers gathering in house churches under the constant threat of raids, interrogation, and arrest. That fits the picture Jeff and Allan described: public pressure on one side, private faith spreading on the other.

They stressed that many converts first encounter Christ through dreams, visions, or secret Bible studies before they ever meet another Christian face to face. Jeff described it this way: if authorities shut the door on preaching, they still cannot stop God from speaking.

The human cost came up several times. The episode described believers facing:

• arrests, surveillance, and state pressure

• fear-based religious control from childhood

• exile or refugee status for some who leave Islam

One testimony mentioned in the discussion came from the president of Iranian Christians International. He described growing up under intense Islamic training and fear of death. Another account focused on a believer who later left Iran as a religious refugee and now supports evangelism and discipleship work back into the country.

For Jeff and Allan, those stories did not weaken the case for revival. They strengthened it.

Why persecution often produces open faith

One of the strongest parts of the episode was the way the hosts tied present-day Iran to a larger Christian pattern. Jeff argued that where persecution is harsh, Christianity often grows faster. He treated that not as a theory but as a historic fact.

To explain why, he turned to 2 Thessalonians. His point was that the believers in Thessalonica were suffering so badly that they feared they had missed the rapture and were already in the day of the Lord. In his reading, Paul's second letter was written to steady people whose pain had shaken them badly.

That mattered to the hosts because they saw a parallel. When suffering rises, spiritual questions stop feeling abstract. People want hope, rescue, truth, and something stronger than fear. In that kind of setting, the gospel does not sound optional.

Allan added a practical note. He said Christians in America cannot easily answer whether they would stand under that level of persecution. You have to be there, he said, because grace meets people in real time. As need rises, the presence of Christ rises with it.

The conversation then moved from theology to prayer. Allan remembered older church traditions where men gathered in a back room before service and prayed all at once, loudly and urgently. His point was simple: desperation changes the atmosphere. When people cry out to God from need, something happens.

That thought led to one of the episode's most memorable pictures. Allan said a truly born-again person has a hard time hiding what happened inside. He compared it to a shaken bottle of Coke. Pressure builds. It wants out. In the same way, a new believer in Iran may see the deception around them and feel compelled to speak, even when speaking brings risk.

That is how the hosts understand revival under pressure. Fear may control institutions for a while, but it does not silence a changed heart forever.

Jeremiah 49 shaped the whole prophetic reading

Jeff did not treat the Iran story as a stand-alone event. He placed it inside a prophetic frame, and the key text for him was Jeremiah 49, especially verses 34 through 39. In his view, the ancient region of Elam points to modern-day Iran.

He quoted Jeremiah 49:37, where God says He will cause Elam to be dismayed before its enemies and send the sword after them. Jeff also drew attention to the line, "I will set my throne in Elam," and to the promise that God will destroy kings and princes there. He linked that language to the current conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.

Jeff's argument was that this passage overlays today's events with striking detail. He said readers can lay Jeremiah 49 over the present conflict and watch it line up point by point. Allan responded with surprise at how closely he believed the passage matched the headlines.

The hosts also treated the text as more than a military forecast. For them, it pointed to spiritual upheaval inside Iran. If God says He will set His throne in Elam, Jeff sees not only judgment on rulers but also the opening of a nation to Christ.

The spiritual battle is not waiting on the headlines. It is already underway.

That sentence captures the rest of the section. Jeff said the conflict has both a natural side and a spiritual side. In the natural realm, leaders deal with missiles, military targets, and state power. In the spiritual one, Christians are confronting what he called the "prince of Persia," a hostile power working behind political events.

This is where the episode blended prophecy with prayer. Allan wondered whether intercession is doing more spiritual damage to Islam than the military campaign is doing in the physical world. Jeff agreed. In his view, prayer may be outrunning politics.

Whether readers share that prophetic reading or not, it is the lens that shaped the entire discussion.

Media silence, nuclear fears, and the bigger alliance question

Allan kept returning to a practical frustration. If Islam is losing ground in Iran and house churches are growing, why is that not front-page news? Jeff answered bluntly: many media outlets push only the parts of the story that fit a preferred narrative.

He said some organizations report Iran in ways that sound almost sympathetic to the regime, even while ordinary Iranians reject it. That, for him, is why reports of closed mosques, anti-regime protests, and mass disillusionment do not get wider attention.

The talk then turned from silence in the press to hard military questions. Jeff argued that the Iranian regime should never have access to nuclear weapons. He referred to claims discussed on the show that Iran was close to that threshold, including a report that an Iranian official told Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff that Iran already had enough uranium for 11 bombs before the conflict. The hosts treated that as the reason forceful action became unavoidable.

They also discussed what it would take for the Iranian people to reclaim their country. Allan said people cannot rise up against a regime with slingshots while the state holds the guns. Jeff agreed and said any real uprising would need cover, structure, and outside help. Both men openly wondered whether some level of support on the ground may already exist, though they presented that as speculation, not confirmed fact.

Russia and China entered the conversation next. Jeff said he believes an alliance between Russia and the Islamic world is either forming or already active. He even suggested that Russia may be helping replenish missiles, because attacks continued after earlier claims that missile stockpiles had been heavily damaged. Allan added that public figures such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens may not realize how dangerous that alignment could become.

The larger concern was clear. In the hosts' view, a Russia-Iran axis threatens both Israel and the United States. Allan argued that many enemies of Israel also see America as bound to Israel, especially because of the large Jewish population in the United States.

The result was a tone of urgency. Allan said he used to feel more comfortable talking about events that were "coming down the pike." Now, he said, it feels like those events are here.

Fear has long been the regime's tool

Another sobering part of the discussion centered on how the Iranian regime shapes loyalty. The testimony cited from Iranian Christians International described childhood training steeped in fear of the afterlife and forced confrontation with death. One example involved being placed in a grave during training exercises.

Jeff said that kind of conditioning explains much about radical Islamic control in Iran, especially within the Shiite tradition. He described it as fear-based conversion and fear-based rule. The goal, in his telling, is to produce obedience first and spread terror outward second.

That point matters because it gives context to the reports of spiritual change. If a society has been trained for decades to honor martyrdom, fear death, and obey the regime, then any visible collapse in religious loyalty is significant. Closed mosques are not only closed buildings. They suggest a break in trust.

For the hosts, Christianity's appeal in that setting is not hard to understand. The message of Christ's sacrificial love stands in sharp contrast to a system built on coercion. A person who meets Jesus, whether through a Bible study, a friend, or a dream, has encountered a different kind of kingdom.

That is why the episode kept circling back to transformation. Jeff and Allan did not describe these reports as a trend line alone. They described them as evidence that oppressive control can weaken fast when people stop believing it has the final word.

Where to follow more of this conversation

Near the end, Jeff and Allan pointed listeners to Kingdom Prophetic Society, where they are building out more material beyond the main show. They said the site now includes short opinion and commentary videos, with new additions coming several times a week.

They also outlined the broader content plan:

• The Smith and Rowland Show on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays

• opinion and commentary pieces on Tuesdays and Thursdays

• daily blog posts and email updates for subscribers

• work in progress on a mobile app, which they mentioned with one last joke about getting "apped up"

That closing detail fit the episode well. Even after a heavy discussion about persecution, prophecy, and war, the show kept its familiar mix of seriousness and humor.

Final thoughts

The strongest takeaway from this episode is not a military one. It is the claim that revival can break out where pressure is highest. Jeff and Allan believe Iran may be living proof of that right now.

Their reading of events joins headlines, house churches, prayer, and Jeremiah 49 into one story. Whether you agree with every prophetic conclusion or not, the central point lands hard: the fight for Iran is not only about missiles and rulers. It is also about what happens when fear starts to fail and people begin turning to Christ.