Muslims have the reputation of being extraordinarily resistant to evangelism, but, according to the data in this article, the Holy Spirit is changing that, with millions of Muslims coming to faith, despite the death penalty for doing so. From Muslims Leaving Islam in Droves, quoting a Muslim scholar:

In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.

Much of this is happening in Africa, as Christianity is booming at the expense of Islam. But the article cites outbreaks of faith in other Muslim enclaves, as well:

Allam, author of numerous books and deputy editor of Milan’s Corriere della Sera [the man the pope recently baptized], joins a list of converts from Islam which includes many other public intellectuals and millions of average people from all over the world. This is more than the normal flow between two large religious communities. Islam can point to little in the way of recent conversions. Its claim to be the world’s fastest-growing religion stems mostly from the high birth rate in Islamic countries, whose infant mortality rates have been cut by the introduction of Western medicine. Christian growth is based on adult conversion. As leading Christian evangelist Wolfgang Simpson writes, “More Muslims have come to Christ in the last two decades than in all of history.”

Although al-Qataani points to Africa, there is another phenomenon based on repulsion from Islamist dictatorship, corruption, and terrorist violence. In Iran as many as 1 million people have surreptitiously converted to Evangelical Christianity in the last five years. Pastor Hormoz Shariat claims to have converted 50,000 of them through his U.S.-based Farsi-language satellite ministry. He contrasts the upswing to the efforts of evangelical missionaries in Iran between 1830 and 1979, whose 149 years of work built a Christian community of only 3,000. One Iranian religious scholar believes youth are abandoning Islam because it is identified with the corrupt Iranian government. Now the Iranian Majlis (parliament) is debating the death penalty for conversion. . . .

In southern Russia the same pattern is emerging. According to Roman Silantyev, executive secretary of the Inter-religious Council in Russia, freed from atheist control, two million Muslims converted to Christianity. Repulsed by bloody terrorist attacks, those living in areas such as Beslan have converted to Christianity in the greatest numbers of all. As many as 100,000 have converted to Christianity in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.

After decades of Islamist war, evangelicals report thousands of sub-rosa converts in rural areas of Kashmir. Says one churchgoer: “I am interested in this religion. I hate violence. I hate fundamentalists in Islam. I come here to seek peace.” An Indian newspaper headline reads: “Urban Muslim Youth Out to Junk Faith.”

Following decades of terrorist rule, Palestinians are being quietly converted, holding in-home services to avoid detection. Says one evangelist: “I’ve been working among these people for thirty years, and I promise you I’ve never seen anything like this.”

M. Z. Hemingway, who wrote that Wall Street Journal piece on the “Issues, Etc.” controversy is now blogging at Augsburg1530 on the subject, with much more to say.

Save the LCMS crunches some disturbing financial data.

Great lines from Anthony Sacramone at First Things:

It takes a lot to get Lutherans to shift into activist mode. We pretty much believe if you’re agitated about something, you’re probably a Baptist. And any kind of ventilation (like breathing) is frowned upon for fear of a charismatic renewal. So believe me, Issues, Etc. is going to come back in some form, somewhere. It’s just not a good idea to get Lutherans angry. Last time this happened, historians ended up calling it the Thirty Years War.

And Kelly draws a simply devastating cartoon.

The theologian Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a piece during the last presidential election entitled The Only Vote Worth Casting in November arguing that not voting for either of two candidate can be a positive moral action. The first paragraph:

When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives. These are propositions which in the abstract may seem to invite easy agreement. But, when they find application to the coming presidential election, they are likely to be rejected out of hand. For it has become an ingrained piece of received wisdom that voting is one mark of a good citizen, not voting a sign of irresponsibility. But the only vote worth casting in November is a vote that no one will be able to cast, a vote against a system that presents one with a choice between Bush’s conservatism and Kerry’s liberalism, those two partners in ideological debate, both of whom need the other as a target.

MacIntyre is coming from that “consistent pro-life” position, maintaining that we need to be pro-life (which disqualified Kerry) AND pro-economic justice (which disqualified Bush). But if all such ideological purists refuse to get into the fray, wouldn’t that just mean that they are standing up for neither?

HT: Rod Dreher