AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE (Review)

An Unholy Alliance: How Progressivism Brought About an Islamist Invasion by Michael Youssef is an upbeat book. By ending on a high note, it shows you the problem but doesn’t leave you to despair. The problem? It is described in the book’s title.

It was the book’s title that attracted me. What Christian, watching the current invasion of Islamism into Western nations has not wondered why Progressivism is so accommodating?  Dr. Youssef spells it out where he says, “Whenever you take in news, remember that the so-called main stream media or legacy media – Reuters, the AP, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and so forth – are all part of the Omnicause, the Red-Green Alliance. The far-left media is fully allied with Hamas and other Islamist groups, no matter what crimes they commit. Why? Because the media shares the Islamists’ hatred for Western civilization.” p. 159.

Dr. Youssef utilizes Ayaan Hirsi Ali of the Hoover Institute’s descriptions of ‘Mecca Muslims’ and ‘Medina Muslims’ to differentiate between mainstream Muslims and a smaller subset of Islamists mentioned in the following, “I want to say this very clearly: Islamists – Muslims who want to impose Islamic law upon all society – represent only a small fraction of the global Muslim population.” p. 145. Apparently, they number, quoting Ali, “well over 1.6 billion [people], or 23 percent of the globe’s population.” p. 145. However, “If the proportion in the Islamist world is as high as 25 percent, that means that there are 400 million Islamists in the world – and that’s a troubling thought.” p. 146. “The ambition among political Islamists today remains one of totalitarian control over the life of not only every Muslim but every human being.” p. 69. “Mainstream Muslims do not speak out against the excesses of the radicals because to do so means risking punishment and death.” p. 63.

As witnessed by the “rape-gang crisis in Great Britain … The politically correct dogmas of the secular left still compel officials to ignore child rape, torture, and even murder if these crimes are committed by Muslims. The officials worry more about being called ‘racists’ than they care about the destruction of innocent young lives.” p. 26. “Progressives will do anything to prove how ‘enlightened’ and ‘inclusive’ they are. Progressives are scared to death of being labelled ‘Islamophobic’ and so, out of cowardice, and an obsession of ‘political correctness,’ join forces with the jihadists who seek to destroy us.” p. 53.

Those Christians in the Dispensational Premillennialism camp (invented by John Nelson Darby, 1800-82, and popularized Cyrus Ingersol Scofield, 1843-1921, in his ‘Scofield Bible') will especially enjoy the chapter under the heading, Islam, the End Times, and the Antichrist. Though he says, “I'm a ‘pan-tribulationist.’ I’m waiting to see how the future ‘pans out,’ Dr Youssef clearly identifies with Dispensationalism. That being so, he goes on to identify many similarities between this view and Islam. “…Islamic scholars specifically identify as the Mahdi the man Christians [sic.] identify as the Antichrist … When he appears, all Muslims will be required to give their loyalty to him … And who is the Mahdi? He is unmistakably the Antichrist of the Bible, and when this counterfeit ‘savior,’ the Antichrist, arises to impose his iron rule upon the world, Muslims will have been thoroughly prepared to meet him.’ pgs. 135-6.   

An Unholy Alliance: How Progressivism Brought About an Islamic Invasion is a timely book that will help alert Christians and will help equip them to understand and counter the Islamic invasion and its symbiotic relationship with Progressivism. The book’s main takeaway is that both Islamism and Progressivism “share the same hatred for Western civilization.”