A few years ago, when jihadis attacked AFDI’s Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas, some Christians castigated me for co-sponsoring and speaking at the event. They said that Pamela Geller and I, as co-organizers of the event, were being needlessly provocative, poking Muslims in the eye, goading them, etc. They said that Christians should instead be deferential to others’ religious sensibilities. At the time, I responded to these people by explaining that giving in to violent intimidation (our event was a response to the jihad murder of the Charlie Hebdo Muhammad cartoonists in Paris) would only encourage more violent intimidation, and that given the fact that Muslims frequently found even basic expressions of Christian faith to be “provocative,” they were effectively cutting the ground out from under themselves and their children, making it impossible for them to practice Christianity in the future.

Here is proof that this was correct: “Muslims in the town accused the Christians of mocking Islam by publicly saying Jesus was the son of God….Muslims dismissed the allegations and said they warned their Christians neighbors not to make provocative statements that offend them. ‘We have now declared a jihad against them,’ said Abubakar Yusuf, 55, a Muslim teacher. ‘We are not going to allow anybody to despise Islamic teachings at their church or crusade. We will seek revenge.'”

Note, however, that the act of despising Islamic teachings to which Abubakar Yusuf refers is the public proclamation of Jesus as the Son of God. The Muslims are saying that the public expression of the Christian Faith mocks Islam and despises Islamic teachings. So if the advice of the comfortable, suburban Western Christians who were excoriating me for the Garland event is to be heeded, Christians should make no public expression of their faith at all, and convert to Islam, so as to avoid mocking, provoking, and offending Muslims, and poking them in the eye.

And what it comes to it, that is most likely the exact thing that those Christians will do.

“Ugandan Christians live in fear of minority Muslims on quest for conversions,” by Tonny Onyulo, Washington Times, December 24, 2018: