Who's Looking To Convert Whom?

Muslims in Europe are a force to be reckoned with--but it works both ways.

For the first time, perhaps, since the time of Mohammed, large parts of the Islamic world are vulnerable to Christian efforts to convert them, for tens of millions of Muslims now dwell as minorities in predominantly Christian countries. The Muslim migration to Europe is a double-edged sword. Eventually this migration may lead to a Muslim Europe, but it also puts large numbers of Muslims within reach of Christian missionaries for the first time in history.

That is the hope of Magdi Allam, the highest-profile Catholic convert from Islam in living memory (see The mustard seed in global strategy Asia Times Online, March 26, 2008).

... Islamic leaders already have noted that months before Allam's baptism, the Vatican published a "doctrinal note" on evangelization that specifically repudiates the notion that Catholics should refrain from attempting to convert people of other faiths. Church-watcher Sandro Magister notes [2] that one of the 138 Muslim scholars scheduled to meet with the pope in November already has filed a protest in the Vatican monthly Mondo e Missione.

...As Father Dall'Oglio warns darkly, Muslims are in dialogue with a pope who evidently does not merely want to exchange pleasantries about coexistence, but to convert them. This no doubt will offend Muslim sensibilities, but Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem - from the East. A website entitled Back to Jerusalem proclaims, "From the Great Wall of China through Central Asia along the silk roads, the Chinese house churches are called to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ all the way back to Jerusalem."

Islam is in danger for the first time since its founding. The evangelical Christianity to which George W Bush adheres and the emerging Asian church are competitors with whom it never had to reckon in the past. The European Church may be weak, but no weaker, perhaps, than in the 8th century after the depopulation of Europe and the fall of Rome. An evangelizing European Church might yet repopulate Europe with new Christians as it did more than a millennium ago.

2. See Dialogue among the Religions. The Vatican Prepares the Guidelines.
3. See Doctrinal note on some aspects of evangelization

Something for the Islamists to think about.

[Hat tip: Instapundit]

Technorati Tag: Islam and Pope Benedict.