Can Peaceful Christianity Beat Militant Islam?

Robert Spencer’s book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t raises an interesting question, according to a review by John Derbyshire.

If, as the subtitle of his book declares, Christianity is a religion of peace, while Islam is irredeemably militant, what on earth does Spencer think is likely to be the outcome of a conflict between the two?

Good old John Derbyshire.  He comes right to the point.  All this talk about whether Islam is or isn’t a religion of peace, or whether Christianity is more peaceful rather misses the point.  The question is: how to prevent militant Islam from taking over the world.

Spencer gets to reply to Derbyshire here.  The Derb responds here, and Spencer gets the last word here.

But maybe it doesn’t matter.  After all, the nation of shopkeepers beat back the challenge of militant secularist France. Commercial empires US and Britain beat back nationalist and then national-socialist-German-workers Germany.  The US beat back the militant communist Soviet Union.

So maybe it isn’t a question of Christianity vs. Islam.  Maybe it is a question of whether “we” really want to push back on militant Islam.

Whoever “we” are.