"I have a mustard seed, and I'm not afraid to use it": Spengler on the "threat" Christianity poses to Islam

I'm still here, and still battling my bad neck, so that's why there isn't much blogging going on.

Today I read this interesting opinion piece by Spengler: "The Pope, the President and the Politics of Faith".

I just love his line on Pope Benedict's "threat" to the world: "I have a mustard seed, and I'm not afraid to use it." You can just imagine the Holy Father striding into town and saying "Go ahead, make my day."

But I was somewhat surprised at one of his opening remarks:

Muslims suspect that the pope wants to convert them, a threat they never have had to confront in Islam's 1,500-year history.

What does he mean by that? Surely we, as Christians, have been "threatening" to convert Muslims for centuries?

But Spengler, as always, thinks a little differently from received opinion. His point is that

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.

He concludes his essay with:

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.

Yes, it just might. Even yet.