Yet, in my lifetime I’ve seen brave individuals move the seemingly immovable. I’d say that this lady, living under the threat of death, has earned her right to dream and hope without being called silly.

Especially for people from non-Western backgrounds, religion and culture are practically one in the same. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an extreme example of an integrationist immigrant.

When she applied for amnesty in the Netherlands, she did so with full knowledge that she was permanently severing all ties to her homeland, her community and even her family. For someone like that, renouncing religion is not the same as it is for many others. It’s like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend who hasn’t been treating you well. And it was only natural for her to want to become 100% Dutch — what other choice did she have once she forever renounced her old Somali identity?

So I’m skeptical she has as much of a window into the experiences of Muslim immigrants in Europe as she may like to think. Most came to Europe wanting to retain cultural and, yes, religious ties to their communities in circumstances different from those of Hirsi Ali. Asking them to convert from Islam is like asking them to turn their backs on their communities — most simply will not consider it.

Jews have always remained a strong and proud minority within Europe despite sometimes horrific levels of persecution and Muslims seem to show the same feeling of identity and solidarity. I simply don’t think it is realistic to expect people to give up part of their identity so easily.

Nor is it realistic to think converting them into churches that have not been attracting many new recruits in developed countries for some time is a viable strategy.

So obviously, these two religions will never give up fighting for higher market share in the business of souls.

If her position seems less than consistent, it might be that she’s not entirely settled, but is in mid-journey. Or maybe it’s just that from the outside she better sees the kinship between Christianity and Western secular thought that is often missed from the inside–so that by embracing one, she has necessarily somewhat embraced the other.

Just one problem: these churches have not been very good at converting anyone for quite some time. The number of Catholics in the U.S. has held steady due to immigration from Latin America and not from fresh converts replacing all those who have left the church. Mainline protestant numbers have also, to my recollection, been falling.

Another problem is simply that past efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity simply have not succeeded. Indeed, I think Muslims would be of a similar mind to Jews in that many would regard specific attempts to convert them to Christianity as highly offensive and patronizing.

It is a rather tone-deaf suggestion. If “secular” Christianity provides a way out of Islamic radicalism, why doesn’t the mostly “secular” version of Islam practiced among the educated Muslim populations of places like Bosnia, Istanbul or Bombay provide a similar way out? Salman Rushdie once defined a Bombay Muslim as a middle-class merchant of ostensibly Islamic upbringing whose main object of worship was money and commerce.

I mean, it’s one thing to say that Christians should convert Muslims (and I would agree). But coming from a non-Christian who clearly just has a vendetta against Islam rather than any recognition of the truth of Christian doctrine, such a claim becomes quite odd. Yes, let’s build “Christian centres” next to every mosque when Europe really needs reevangelization of baptized Christians already.