Robert Louis Wilken

Its primary challenge has always been the Christian faith, and it has successfully faced that challenge by way of the sword, but also through persuasion and a stubborn pressure.

Robert Louis Wilken, may he rest in peace, warned that we forget this history to our peril.

He said, "By focusing on Islamic terrorism or Wahhabism or on radical Islamists, we miss ways in which Islam is adapting constructively to a changing world." When we think of the clash of Christianity with Islam, most of us first think very apologetically of the Crusades.

Educated Catholics might even think of the great battles like Tours or Lepanto, where decisive victories pushed back the crescent flags.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, it reminds me of, you know, Robert Wilken's work on [clears throat] how the Romans saw Christians.

And, and he ends up, you know, um, he's sort of confirming the old, uh, sort of nursery rhyme that we, that I learned in Sunday school, you know.

"They'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love." Because it was the Christians were the ones who didn't kill their elders.