In C.S. Lewis’ 1945 science-fiction novel “That Hideous Strength,” a group of Christian dissidents join forces with the resurrected wizard Merlin to fight a techno-satanist conspiracy that threatens to engulf Britain and then the world.
After learning that Christianity has been “torn in pieces” and “speaks with a divided voice,” Merlin makes a bold suggestion:
“If all this west part of the world is apostate, might it not be lawful, in our great need, to look further … beyond Christendom?” he asks.
Today, in a country where progressives are rapidly mainstreaming satanism and the Oval Office is occupied by a “devout Catholic” who praises the chemical castration of children, many American Christians are asking themselves the same question.
Literally globohomo https://t.co/bPPUDqULKN
— Samirah (@SameeraKhan) May 17, 2023
Christians and Muslims disagree on whether Christ was divine, whether pork is haram and whether Muhammad was a prophet. They agree, however, that there are two genders, that euthanasia is an abomination and that first graders shouldn’t learn about gay sex. They agree that mankind’s purpose is to glorify God and obey His commands, not (as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy put it) to “define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
Six years ago, conservative Christians marched against Shar’ia law. Today, many would rather live under the Islamic Crescent than under the Pride Flag. And that may turn out to be the choice on offer. Christians are slowly, painfully learning that neutrality is a myth. There’s only Christian hegemony or your choice of dhimmitudes.
Traditional adherents of the two faiths are already making common cause in resisting progressive tyranny. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, American conservatives were more likely to post memes mocking NGO-led efforts to turn Afghan hijabis into liberated girlbosses than they were to lament the expulsion of women from the country’s universities. Far-right Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, noting the Taliban’s opposition to homosexuality and abortion, suggested that American right-wingers had been rooting for the wrong side.
Anti-feminist and anti-trans commentary from conservative Christian pundits like Matt Walsh and Candace Owens has “circulated widely among traditional Muslims,” journalist Rasha Al Aqeedi reported in a piece for New Lines Magazine.
In Dearborn, Michigan, Muslim parents shut down a school board meeting after learning that the school library included, among other titles, a guidebook explaining the “ins and outs of gay sex.”
Some figures on the right and its fringes are praising or even embracing Islam. (RELATED: Muslim Community Revolts Against ‘Sexually Explicit’ Books In Schools, Shuts Down Board Meeting)
“I would feel more comfortable raising my future children in [Saudi Arabia], Qatar, or [the United Arab Emirates] than UK, USA, or Canada,” Christian conservative rapper Zuby tweeted on May 16. “The culture is less hostile and less debased. Morality and reality aren’t being inverted in real-time.”
I would feel more comfortable raising my future children in KSA, Qatar, or UAE than UK, USA, or Canada.
I cannot lie. The culture is less hostile and less debased. Morality and reality aren’t being inverted in real-time.
The difference is so significant at this point.
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) May 16, 2023
Right-leaning French novelist Michel Houellebecq expresses a similar sentiment in his 2015 novel “Submission,” in which an Islamist party takes over France and injects some much needed steel into the country’s osteoperotic backbone. “Without Christianity, the European nations had become bodies without souls—zombies,” one character says, explaining his conversion.
Andrew Tate, a British kickboxer and masculinity influencer currently under investigation for sex trafficking, announced in October 2022 that he had converted to Islam. (RELATED: ‘Oppressed By Feminists’: It Looks Like Some Taliban Supporters Have Denounced Andrew Tate’s Arrest)
Tate, as far as anyone can tell, remains a notorious womanizer who frequently poses with tumblers of whiskey. For men like him, the appeal is not the asceticism or the theology, but the cultural politics of Islam. Christianity, the argument goes, has evaporated into a series of namby-pamby clichés that lead inevitably to open borders, puberty blockers and lawless streets. Only Islam offers an escape from the feminized dystopia that some call “the longhouse.”
Another convert, a Tate-adjacent streamer who goes by Sneako, pointed out one advantage Islam enjoys over Christianity: it’s simpler. “There’s some weird stuff in Catholicism,” Sneako said in a viral clip from a recent interview. “What the hell is the Holy Spirit? … You’re eating the body of Christ in a cracker … Is this the toe part of Jesus?”
Islam has a robust mystical tradition, but the bones of it are generally much easier to grasp. At the heart of Christianity are profound paradoxes: God is three and one. Christ is divine and human. We’re told to pray without ceasing and offer our bodies as living sacrifices.
Islam proclaims one God. Muslims pray five times a day and donate 2.5 percent of their income. No need to grapple with trinitarianism or transubstantiation.
There are, of course, forms of Christianity that offer a similarly stripped-down message, substituting the evangelical “Sinner’s Prayer” for the Muslim creed (or “shahadah”). The problem is that those seeker-sensitive churches usually fail to ramp up the demands on new converts for fear of scaring them off.
For many young people, especially young men, that’s exactly the problem. They’re tired of hearing, in schools and churches alike, to hang loose and suppress their desire for excellence.
When it comes to rigor, even Roman Catholicism isn’t what it used to be. Fasting is only required two days a year, and it’s a pretty wimpy form of fasting — no meat, one full-size meal and two small snacks. “As much as I respect Catholicism,” Muslim journalist Sarah Hagi wrote, “you can’t pretend that Lent, 40 days where you decide to not eat chocolate or whatever because it’s your vice, is not just a baby version of the 30 days a year I spend starving myself during Ramadan. Catholicism is for the weak.”
Traditionalist converts seeking a sterner form of Catholicism are forced to reconstruct the old practices for themselves in defiance of Pope Francis, who has worked to restrict the Latin Mass.
This is the same pope who placed a South American fertility idol in a Roman church, appoints abortion advocates to pontifical academies, told Joe Biden to keep receiving communion and once promised a child that his dead atheist father was in heaven. Young men seeking a “based” religion could be forgiven for looking elsewhere. (RELATED: FBI To Retract Catholic Infiltration Memo, Conduct Internal Review)
For some, Eastern Orthodoxy provides that “elsewhere,” imposing the strict fasting rules that Catholicism has dropped. Tate himself previously identified as Orthodox, praising Romanian adherents for beating up anyone who disrespected their religion. But other redpilled young seekers (especially if they’ve read their Neitzsche) conclude that Christianity is poisoned at its source.
Islam has plenty to offer such people: simplicity in its doctrine, rigor in its disciplines, traditionalism in its culture and distance from the decadent post-Christian West.
It also provides a political assertiveness that Christianity lacks. From the very beginning, the followers of Muhammad were the “ummah” (or “community”). They were a monolithic, politico-religious unit, armed to the teeth and devoted to aggressive expansion. Its laws and scriptures are written for such an entity.
Early Christianity, by contrast, was a loose network of tiny, powerless house churches scattered across the urban hubs of the Roman Empire. By the time Constantine arrived 300 years later, Christ’s followers knew what it meant to live as sojourners in a non-Christian society. Today, church and state are once again separate, and practicing Christians are once again a minority. Some are preparing to return to the catacombs, while others — they call themselves “integralists” or “Christian Nationalists” — strive to mend their faith’s total divorce from secular power.
I locked the account to calm things down and get some work down. Well, it didn’t work, so I unlocked.
A lot of new people, so here’s the book link.
— Stephen Wolfe (@PerfInjust) April 19, 2023
“Islam is politics or it is nothing,” the Ayatollah Khomeini said. Swap out the religion, and the many right-wing Christians would agree. As the Dutch pastor and politician Abraham Kuyper put it, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!'” (RELATED: Majority Of Republicans Adhere To Or Support Christian Nationalism, Survey Shows)
Islamic and Christian traditionalists will disagree about which faith ought to dominate, but they can unite in their condemnation of a materialist, individualist society that has abolished not just God, but humanity itself.
Trump won 35% of the Muslim vote in 2020 despite campaigning on an overtly anti-Muslim platform four years earlier. As the legacy of the War on Terror fades and progressivism becomes increasingly tyrannical, expect more Muslims to flock to the Republican banner. Expect the rise of conservative Muslim commentators (like former Miss New Jersey Sameera Khan). And expect a string of high-profile conversions from prominent figures on the right.
Grayson Quay is an editor at the Daily Caller.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.