James Vincent Schall, a Jesuit priest, offers an interesting possibility on the future of Islam. The religion, as Father Schall sees it, is based on a document with fundamental flaws. Almost as an aside he mentions that the Qur’an “did not come into existence until a century or so after Mohammed,” although of course Islam teaches that it was revealed directly to Mohammed. He also insists that the ideas in the Muslim scriptures find their roots in the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity, not in the mind of Allah.

With a reference to the unexpected and ultimately almost automatic collapse of the Soviet Bloc, Father Schall continues: ”. . . the grounding and unity of its [Islam's] basic document are highly suspect. Once this becomes clear, Islam may be as fragile as communism.”

But is this true?

Since at least the time of the Enlightenment academia has attacked Christian faith on the basis of what it perceives to be the religions inferior ideas, logic and rationality. In response, Religion has retreated from the shores of Europe, but Christian faith is by no means diminished in the world. On the contrary, some sources believe Christianity is the fastest growing religion on earth. It certainly remains world’s largest religion, three and a half centuries after Voltaire.

In the case of Christianity, history teaches that attacks actually tend to foster growth. After all, the religion’s fast period of exponential growth was during the first two or three centuries of the Roman Empire’s campaign to stamp it out.

We believe Father Schall’s critique of the Qar’an is accurate, however we doubt that the result of an attack on Islam’s book from the ivory towers of academia would have the result that he predicts. It’s far more likely that Muslims would ignore it, just as Christians do.

Furthermore, given Biblical prophecy, we are not convinced Christianity will persevere in terms of the sheer number of believers. On the contrary, the Bible seems to indicate a coming time when people fall away from Christ by billions. But if Islam ever is conquered by Christianity, we know it will not be by force of logic or ideas. It will be the same way we ourselves were conquered: by force of love.