While Islam is growing in many parts of the world, Diamand Dog at Freedom Dogs has some very good news.  The Dog notes:

Muslims are converting by the thousands to Christianity.

According to the website Islam Watch, in Russia, some two million ethnic Muslims converted to Christianity last year. Ten thousand French Muslims converted, as did 35,000 Turkish Muslims. In India, approximately 10,000 people abandoned Islam for Christianity.

In his book Epicenter, author Joel Rosenberg details amazing stories of Muslims converting to Christianity. In Algeria, the birthplace of St. Augustine, more than 80,000 Muslims have turned to Christ in recent years. This, despite the stiff opposition from Islamic clerics who have passed laws banning evangelism.

In Morocco, newspaper articles openly worry that 25,000 to 40,000 Muslims have become followers of Christ in recent years.

There’s plenty more – read the whole thing.

And DD adds:

Osama bin Laden may be the greatest catalyst the world has ever seen to convert Muslims to Christ.

Here’s the thing I think is interesting; these conversions are largely happening in places where people can see the differences between the faiths and their effects on peoples’ lives and societies, face to face.

I’ve pointed this out for years; none of the 9/11 hijackers were from India, Bosnia, Senegal, Mali, Turkey, Albania, or any other place where Moslems live in social pluralism, relative economic as well as political freedom, and exposed to more than one point of view about the world, society and faith.  This isn’t to say that there aren’t extremist Madrassas in any or all of those countries.  But the extremism and militancy that breed jihadism are tempered by exposure to the notion that other societies not only have validity, but work pretty darn well.

Whether that means people convert to Christianity (something Christ bade me to work, pray and hope for – and I do) or merely justs files off the edges of the militant extremism that plagues Islam in less-pluralistic parts of the world, it’s all good.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 am and is filed under Faiths And Their Followers, History And Its Making. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.