Former U.N. Ambassador, John Ashcroft, once succinctly delineated a key distinction between Christianity and Islamism, stating, “Islam is a religion in which god expects you to send your sons to die for him. Christianity is a religion in which God sent his son to die for you.”

Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, is most celebrated for her novel, “A Handmaid’s Tale,” in which she constructs a dystopian narrative formed around a puritanical community controlled by the patriarchy where women’s rights and freedoms are trampled. I once heard a commentator claim that Atwood constructed her account on Islamic societies, but I could not verify this through my research online. Given Ms. Atwood’s apparent animus toward the Christian faith, her desire to smear Christianity would not be surprising. Leaving this aside, I think a few points from the novel would be worthwhile to consider based on the competing traditions uniquely adopted by Islam:

• The women are all expected to dress the same and wear full-body and facial coverings due to their duty to not entice men and beating await any woman who fails to do so
• Women being treated as baby-producing machines is something far more attributable to the Islamic system that has upheld polygamy
• The Islamic practices of honour killings and, to keep things family-friendly, what has been referred to as “female circumcision” show a complete disregard for the value of women
• The diminished status of women under Sharia law (where 2 women are needed to reach the status of the testimony of 1 man and where women are denied Driver’s Licenses)
• The ease of divorce under the talaq where a man needs only thrice declare, “I divorce you” to end a marriage
• Islamist radicals show their disdain for women in general, including their wives, in that they routinely capture – often Christian women – to use as sex slaves

These are simply a few examples as my intent is not to do a deep dive into Islam since I don’t consider myself an expert, but want to pivot to drawing a contrast between Christianity and Islam’s kindred spirit as embodied in the progressive left. In a final thought on this novel, I will say that, if Atwood did wish to lampoon Christian oppression, she missed the mark. On the other hand, if her temerity over indicting Islam by choosing Christianity as a “safer” target is a stunning irony and indictment of the entirety of her apocalyptic premise.

In that same spirit of Ashcroft’s critique of Islam, I think a fitting credo to attribute to the progressivism would be, “secularism is a religion that demands that the rest of society must sacrifice our rights, freedoms and lives for their beliefs.” This reveals a rather disturbing correlation between the radical left and radical Islam in that both believe in vicarious sacrifice while staying committed to their own quest for power, influence and other equally self-serving objectives.

The fact is that these ideologies are both dangerous in different ways. This was recently brought to light through the evacuation of troops in Afghanistan by Presidential candidate, Joe Biden. I’d like to engage in a brief comparison and contrast between these two forces using this event as an object lesson.

The secular left and Islam both carry utopian notions about the governance of a society; with demands that oblige the rest of the world to submit to their worldview. Islamists want to corral everyone under their one-world caliphate under the headship of Allah, Mohammed, and the prophesied twelfth Imam. The leftists desire a world under socialism where a centralized state manages the lives of everyone. These two entities have a common enemy in those from the Judeo-Christian faith. Their worldviews converge in the need to subjugate the church and compel everyone to live under their requirements or face punishment for failing to fall in line.

These authoritarian ideologies, however, do diverge – and this fact poses a significant problem particularly for the progressive left. While they may sincerely believe in the justness of their cause, they lack the brazen tenacity that is characteristic of Islamists. This was revealed in the Afghanistan debacle whereby a 20-year campaign to civilize a country characterised by tribalism and perpetual war in order to impose their zealously-held religious goals was eradicated in a matter of days. The Taliban is now calling the shots and the U.S. has been shamed into seeking permission while their enemy has claimed billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware, weaponry and Black Hawk helicopters. They are currently killing Afghan Christians and allies using facial recognition technology left by the U.S. to identify their targets.

While leftists, like Ms. Atwood, tiptoe around those who are a genuine threat to their mutable moral beliefs, they don’t mind taking to the streets to exterminate those who peacefully and respectfully dissent from their whimsical assumptions. Their strategy was to engage in a long march through the institutions to remove all vestiges of Christianity and bestow their anointed vision through increasingly draconian methods. It’s one thing to release antifa and BLM to take over the streets to loot and burn down businesses with the complicity of a transformed police force; but quite another to walk into the midst of an encampment with a bomb strapped around one’s waist to demonstrate your full-on commitment to the cause. When one group is willing to sacrifice their own life and limb as well as yours to bring about their utopia, the side that thrives on ganging up against peaceful Christ-followers for hurting their feelings isn’t going to fare very well.

Both the radical leftists and Islamists lack an understanding of human nature, but know that intimidation and threats are effective when used against those who won’t retaliate in kind. The Islamists have the edge, however, since they also know that victory can be achieved when going up against those who lack the stomach for battle or the courage of their convictions. After all, most of the tenets of the progressive left are utilitarian and not driven by core convictions. The appeal of critical theory and social justice is that it is the antithesis of the Christian worldview. They have the heart of the authoritarian, but the flaccidity one would expect from those who need safe spaces and fret over being triggered.

This is, in fact, why those who reject God perpetually insist that everyone hand over their liberties and weapons to a powerful state only to trade them for shackles, starvation and misery. Their arrogance and lack of conviction softens them up for tyranny; especially when unprincipled opportunists rub their bellies for their capacity to parrot nonsensical beliefs.

A social experiment was carried out by a man named Milgram whereby he paired up adult males and assigned one with the role of teacher with the partner assigned to be the learner. While the premise was that the roles were picked at random, the learners were all part of Milgram’s team. An “expert” dressed in a lab coat provided a series of questions and the teachers were to give an electric shock to “learners” for every incorrect answer – and wrong answers were built into the experiment.

Voltage ran from 15 to 450 (lethal) and 300+ being in the danger zone. If the teacher was hesitant to administer a shock, there were 4 levels of firm prompts to convince the reluctant to continue. Of the group, a full 65% went all the way to 450 volts while 100% made it to 300 volts. This was to test compliance and how far people would go to follow orders and the results were, to say the least, disturbing.

Mark Dice is a conservative who often does “man on the street” experiments – usually exposing Americans’ lack of knowledge about their national history. In recent videos, Dice approaches several men and women of various ages to get them to sign petitions. One was to repeal the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, so that people could be charged for “hate” or “racist” speech in private and public conversations. In another, the petition was to imprison anyone who claimed that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. The final petition called for the jailing of anyone not vaccinated until they agreed to take the injection. All got a large number of signatories.

Like Islamists, secular progressives are on a dangerous trajectory where the rights of “the other” are inconsequential to them. Chances are that many of them have friends and family who hold to conservative or Christian views or adopt countercultural views.

In addition to their commitment to killing Christians, Jews, and other infidels (i.e., atheists), radical Islam is dedicated to wiping out moderate Muslims and those who don’t hold to their Koranic interpretation. Similarly, the net of the secular left is entrapping former stalwarts including Bill Maher, J.K. Rowlings, and Naomi Wolf.

The reasons Christianity stands in such stark contrast with both Islamic and leftist values are:

• Our duty to love our enemies and endure persecution rather than causing it or demanding that society conform to our preferences
• Foundational principles that do not mutate to accommodate the prevailing zeitgeist
• Individual responsibility for our actions rather than corporate obligations that are imposed on others
• Defending the rights of even those we disagree with since ours is a God who allows us to choose or reject his free gift of grace
• Granting primacy of authority, not to a state or formal religious system, but to God alone

What distinguishes a godless socialist world order from an Islamic one is down to a choice of tyrannies. You can either be a willing soldier bent on the destruction of your enemies by carrying out jihad in your delusional quest for 72 virgins in the afterlife, or become a slave of the state after turning in your ideological enemies until finally the guns are trained on you.

It’s not as though there was no telling what would happen when leftists and jihadis clash in the real world. In July of 2018, a group of cyclists from the U.S. and Europe decided to venture into Tajikistan. They did not accept the premise that Islamists posed a true danger to those who posed no threat. Four of the group of 7 cyclists – 2 from the U.S., one from Switzerland, and one from the Netherlands – were brutally killed by members of ISIS. It is perhaps a sad irony that the Danish biker’s name was Dr. Wokke.

In actuality, this is what happens when secular humanism is confronted by its own ideological assumptions. Similarly, John Lennon, who penned the ultimate anthem to atheism, was similarly killed despite his non-threatening demeanor. He championed love and peace, but alas, his assassin did not feel the same way.

For another disturbing and under-reported glimpse into what can happen when one goes to war against God, just look into the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, her son, Garth and granddaughter, Robin. O’Hair had waged war to get prayer and Bible study out of the public schools and pushed for Christianity to be ejected from the public sphere. In what was surprising only to atheists, her assailants were not evangelical Christians, but committed atheists with the killer having worked at the “American Atheists” association which O’Hair founded. O’Hair, son Garth, and the killer, David Waters, had all embezzled money from the organization and money was the motive for the entire scheme.

If she read her Bible rather than shredding it, she might have read something about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil.

I don’t raise these examples to mock, but to point out the inadvertent dangers that the left rains down on themselves and everyone else. If they were guided by the biblical principle of having compassion for all – including your enemies – they would spare everyone a great deal of hardship and might achieve unity rather than turning friends and neighbours into adversaries. Alas, their inability to grasp the true nature of Christ and his followers is what has brought us to where we are.

While the U.S. has stood steadfast against their captors in Washington taking their guns, this does not show promise that the nation will return to its former glory. You can’t cede ground on the culture wars only to take a stand against the final tyranny. After all, Biden again said the quiet part out loud by commenting that citizens would need “F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons to go up against the government.” Keep in mind that the U.S. government is no longer just disarming citizens, but arming those who hate us to the teeth. We need to cling neither to guns nor religion in the war ahead, but the creator God who controls and knows all things and who promises us a future beyond this life.