In a powerful conversation with CBN’s Gary Lane, renowned historian and Islam scholar Raymond Ibrahim issued a dire warning: the alliance between the radical Left, political Islam, and authoritarian Gulf regimes is not only eroding Western values, it is systematically converting once-bold Christians into submissive cultural doormats.
A fellow at the Middle East Forum and Gatestone Institute, and author of six acclaimed books including Sword and Scimitar and Defenders of the West, Ibrahim has spent decades chronicling Islam’s 14-century war against Christianity. But today, he says, something more insidious is unfolding in the West: Christians are not just under siege by Islamic supremacists, they are being psychologically disarmed by their own culture.
“How did Christians—whose ancestors once wielded both the spiritual and physical sword—become convinced that turning the other cheek is the only Christian virtue?” Ibrahim asked. “It’s no accident. It’s a strategy.”
The Unholy Alliance: Leftist Ideology and Political Islam
For decades, the American Left has cast Christians as colonial villains while whitewashing Islamic imperialism, jihad, and Sharia. The goal? To invert history and reframe Muslims as eternal victims of Western aggression, even when reality proves the opposite.
“What we’re watching is fake history weaponized,” Ibrahim said. “Just like fake news distorts reality, fake history distorts morality. It turns perpetrators into victims and victims into villains.”
Nowhere is this inversion more obvious than on U.S. college campuses. Funded by billions in Qatari and Saudi petrodollars, American universities like Georgetown, Harvard, and Northwestern host Middle East studies programs that pump out pro-Islam, anti-Christian, and anti-Israel propaganda, repackaged as “social justice.”
“Why are regimes that suppress free speech, jail Christians, and behead apostates spending billions on American higher ed?” Ibrahim asked. “They’re not doing it out of love for liberal arts—they’re buying influence and planting ideological landmines.”
These landmines are exploding today. Ibrahim pointed to the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protests sweeping U.S. campuses, where LGBTQ groups now march arm-in-arm with Muslims, blind to the fact that in Gaza or Iran, they’d be jailed or executed.
“This isn’t solidarity. It’s hatred of a common enemy: Judeo-Christian civilization,” Ibrahim explained. “Islam despises everything the Left claims to stand for—gay rights, feminism, pluralism—but they make common cause because both hate the West.”
How Christians Were Neutered by Design
What explains the passive, self-loathing posture so many modern Christians have adopted? Ibrahim argues it’s not just poor theology—it’s targeted psychological warfare.
“If I were an enemy of Christianity and had money and power, I’d spend everything convincing Christians that their faith means never resisting, never judging, and never fighting back,” he said. “That’s exactly what’s happened.”
The real Jesus, Ibrahim reminds us, was no pacifist weakling. He flipped tables in the temple. He praised Roman centurions. He never told soldiers to quit the military. Early Christians, too, understood the dual nature of spiritual and physical defense. His new book, The Two Swords of Christ, resurrects this forgotten tradition.
The title draws from Luke 22:38, where Jesus’ disciples say, “Look, Lord, we have two swords,” and He replies, “That is enough.” For medieval Christians, this meant something profound: one sword for the soul, one for the battlefield. And it was the militant, devout monastic orders, Templars and Hospitallers, that embodied this.
“These were warrior monks,” Ibrahim said. “They fasted, prayed, healed the sick—but also fought and died to protect pilgrims from Islamic aggression. They didn’t see defense as un-Christian. They saw it as a duty.”
Today’s Christians, by contrast, have been culturally castrated. They conflate cowardice with piety and mistake surrender for sanctity. And the consequences are deadly.
From Dearborn to Hamtramck: The Warning Signs Are Here
Ibrahim pointed to Hamtramck, Michigan, once a Polish Catholic enclave, now a majority-Muslim community, as a case study. With help from progressive LGBT voters, Muslims were elected to the city council. Their first move? Canceling the Pride flag. The same voters who empowered them were suddenly betrayed—but the writing was always on the wall.
“The Left will empower Islam as a foot soldier,” he said, “but Islam doesn’t return the favor.”
In nearby Dearborn, residents now hear the Islamic call to prayer blasted through public loudspeakers, while church bells are restricted and Christian street preachers are harassed. In other words: Sharia gets privileges; Christianity gets policed.
And still, most Christians remain silent, conditioned to believe that resisting any of this is “unloving.”
Gulf Regimes, Global Deception, and Western Collapse
Meanwhile, autocratic regimes like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE continue pouring money into Western institutions, media, and infrastructure. They fund mosques, lobby Congress, influence think tanks, and increasingly invest in real estate, ports, and tech sectors.
“Muslims are allowed to lie to infidels in Islam if it serves the cause,” Ibrahim warned. “And like the Left, they believe the end justifies the means.”
This deception is not just tolerated, it’s applauded. Western elites, seduced by oil wealth and terrified of “Islamophobia” accusations, sell out their own civilization. And Christians, bereft of courage or clarity, stand by as their faith, heritage, and very identity are erased.
A Wake-Up Call to Christian Men
Ibrahim’s message is not just a warning—it’s a call to arms (spiritually and intellectually).
“Today, Christian men are told that to be faithful, they must be soft, passive, and nonjudgmental,” he said. “That’s not biblical. That’s not historical. That’s programming.”
His upcoming book trilogy, including The Two Swords of Christ, aims to restore the martial Christian ethos, not for conquest, but for righteous defense.
“If we don’t rediscover the second sword,” Ibrahim concluded, “we’ll have no civilization left to protect.”
