DECEMBER 14, 2025

“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind.  To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”

–Calvin Coolidge.

When pressed by a reporter on whether Islam threatens Christianity or whether Europeans should fear its growth, Pope Leo XIV said those worries stem from opposition to immigration, and encouraged Catholics to be less fearful. The Pope held out Lebanon–a failed terrorist State–as a model for Europe and the United States.

“All of the conversations that I had during my time both in Turkey and in Lebanon, including with many Muslims, were precisely concentrated on the topic of peace and respect of people of different religions.  I know that as a matter of fact, that has not always been the case.

I know that in Europe, there are many times fears that are present, but oftentimes generated by people who are against immigration and trying to keep out people who may be from another country, another religion, another race.  And in that sense, I would say that we all need to work together.  One of the values of this trip is precisely to raise the world’s attention to the possibility that dialogue and friendship between Muslims and Christians is possible.

I think one of the great lessons that Lebanon can teach to the world is precisely showing a land where Islam, Christianity are both present and are respected and that there is a possibility to live together, to be friends.  Stories, testimony, witnesses that heard even in the past two days of people helping each other, Christians with Muslims — both of them had their villages destroyed, for example — of saying, we can come together and work together.  I think that those are lessons that would be important also that we heard in Europe or North America that we should perhaps be a little less fearful and look for ways of promoting authentic dialogue and respect.”

My goodness, it seems that the Pope has been dipping rather heavily into the Sacramental Wine. Lebanon, in the past and present, has hardly been a model of Christian-Muslim harmony. While moments of peaceful co-existence have occurred, persistent sectarian tensions, numerous political rifts, and episodes of violence routinely undermine any semblance of peace, especially in the wake of the Israel–Hamas war.

Christianity and Islam: An irreconcilable divide

By:         Kevin Finn, The American Thinker (December 8, 2025).

Despite leftists’ views to the contrary, the U.S. and the western world emerged from a distinctly Judeo-Christian understanding of the human person, law, and authority. Christianity proclaims a God who is love (1 John 4:8), who became man and died to redeem humanity (John 3:16), and who grants salvation as an unmerited gift received through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). This produced a political philosophy that locates dignity in every individual, as we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), limits the state’s power, and insists that legitimate government exists to secure inalienable rights rather than to enforce divine commands.

Islam begins from the opposite premise. Allah is absolute will and sovereignty, not relational love. The Qur’an explicitly rejects the Trinity (4:171), the incarnation, and the crucifixion (4:157), reducing Jesus to one prophet among many, and subordinating him to Mohammad. Salvation is earned by submission (islām) and weighed on scales of deeds; there is no assurance of grace, only hope that the number of good works outweighs the bad. This theological framework shapes an entirely different view of law and governance: Sharia is Allah’s immutable decree, covering every aspect of life from worship to criminal punishment, and no human authority — parliament, court, or constitution — may overrule it.

The political consequences are direct and inescapable.

Sharia is theocratic by definition. Classical scholars and modern authorities alike insist that sovereignty belongs to Allah alone (Qur’an 12:40). Lawmaking by elected representatives is therefore illegitimate; it constitutes neglect — associating partners with God. In contrast, a constitutional republic derives its powers from the consent of the governed.

These two sources of authority cannot be reconciled.

The American and Western legal tradition, rooted in Christian equality (Galatians 3:28), demands equal protection under the law. Sharia institutionalizes inequality: non-Muslims are “dhimmis” subject to “jizya” and legal disabilities (Qur’an 9:29); a woman’s testimony is worth half a man’s in financial cases (Qur’an 2:282); apostates and blasphemers face death in all the major schools of Islamic law. “Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him” — Sahih al-Bukhari 6922. These are not aberrations but core rulings still enforced in multiple Muslim-majority states and advocated by bodies such as the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

Jesus invited voluntary belief (“whoever believes…”); Mohammad waged war to expand and defend the faith. Freedom to change or critique religion is foundational to the West; it is capital treason under Sharia. Blasphemy laws in Pakistan, Sudan, and Iran, and the death fatwas against Salman Rushdie and others, are not medieval relics — they are mainstream applications of texts Muslims regard as eternal.

Western law evolves through reason, precedent, and democratic process. Sharia, as the literal command of Allah, admits only limited interpretation within strict boundaries set by 7th-11th century jurists. Attempts to square this circle — “Sharia-compatible” constitutions in Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan — have repeatedly collapsed into theocracy or civil war as soon as Islamists gain sufficient power.

This pattern has repeated throughout history. Wherever Muslim populations have become politically dominant, demands for Sharia accommodations follow: separate family-law councils in Britain, blasphemy resolutions at the UN pushed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, no-go zones in European cities where police hesitate to enforce national law. These are not the actions of a faith content with private devotion; they are the predictable first steps toward establishing Allah’s rule on earth.

Christianity transformed societies by persuasion and example, producing hospitals, universities, and the concept of limited government. Islam expanded by conquest, oppression and governance, from the Ridda wars to the gates of Vienna, and its texts still enjoin believers to “fight those who do not believe” until they pay jizya “in willing submission” (Qur’an 9:29).

A constitutional republic animated by Christian anthropology can tolerate the private practice of Islam, just as it tolerates any religion. But it cannot adopt Sharia as a parallel or superior legal system without committing suicide.

One cannot serve two ultimate authorities — one derived from “We the People” under God-given rights, the other from a 7th-century revelation that claims exclusive sovereignty. The two systems are not just different; they are mutually exclusive at the deepest level of first principles.

GFK