The Spirit and the Sword

Less than 100 years after Christ, the Christian faith had spread throughout the Roman world, turning it upside down as tens of thousands embraced it. This was despite well-documented official opposition, both local and Imperial in nature. So intense was the opposition that the phrase arose "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

Just over 110 years after Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina, the Muslim faith had spread by conquest throughout the near East, creating an empire that reached into Europe. Only in 732, at the battle of Tours, France, did the tide crest, then receed.

Those outside of both faiths often point to perceived similarities between Christianity and Islam: monotheism, individual devotion and a dedication to converting others to the faith. The teachings of both have been abused by malicious people to inflict suffering. Yet this surface analysis does not delve nearly deeply enough. The two worldviews are based on very different foundations which lead to very different outcomes and possibilities.

In those early decades, one often became a Christian knowing that doing so could bring an official sentence of death. In the early decades of Islam one became a Muslim, at least on the outside, to avoid a sentence of death or a second-class status. One faith starts from the heart and works outward, gradually expanding influence over every aspect of the believer's life. The other tends to enforce outward conformity, regardless of inward motivations. When the outward pressure is relaxed, the conformity ends.

According to the Bible, Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world in return for His worship. But the kingdom of Christ was not to be of this world. Citizenship is by invitation, not coercion. The Christian equivalent of the Dar al Islam is within the human heart, not on a map. There, it can only be advanced by the working of the Spirit. Those Christians who try to advance it any other way are on a fool's errand.