The elevator doors opened and in walked a young woman dressed in the traditional veiled hijab–I’m assuming she was a Muslim–and I thought to myself, “Is she my enemy?” Looking at the reaction to my last column, there’s a whole bunch of people whose default position is to believe so–and maybe they’re right. In their minds, “Islam is the enemy. We’re at war. She shouldn’t be here.” It’s that simple to them.

But, of course, in the real world, it is so much more complicated–and ancient. Humanity has been dealing with this prob-lem for a long time. Plato addressed the theological-political problem in his Laws back in the 5th century B.C. Today, for most of us, the problem occurs in the struggle to reconcile two conflicting beliefs.

As Christians, we believe Islam is a false religion–and the belief is reciprocal.

As Americans, we believe in the free exercise of religion, including Islam–but this belief is not reciprocal.

So, how do we deal with tolerating a religion that is itself intolerant of us? Ought we to pride ourselves on our tolerance and eagerly embrace their intolerance even if it leads to our own destruction? Or, perhaps we ought to abandon our First Amendment and be intolerant of Islam while tolerating only those “acceptable” religions that we decide are “peaceful”? Or, should we intolerantly force them to abandon their religion and embrace a “moderate” replacement that we approve of?

None of these options work for me. I’m a Christian American and I want to live at peace with others, but if someone wants to kill my family, it’s a fight to the death. I don’t think we’re there, yet. Nor do I want to pass an Amendment that would legalize religious discrimination. I don’t want to adapt to them, I think they should adapt to us and embrace toler-ance–the whole “live and let live” thing. Nor do I want to force someone to change their religion against their will–how could this even be done? There’s got to be another option. But, is there?

See, the problem is, Christianity teaches the Golden Rule while Islam doesn’t. The Koran teaches that every Muslim is superior to every non-Muslim and that men are superior to women. A Muslim may treat a Jew, a Buddhist, or a Christian with respect, but they will never be considered equals, for they are dhimmis, a near-slave status in Muslim teaching. This is the fundamental reason why Islam is incompatible with democracy and thereby the West. How can you have a democracy among non-equals? Let alone the fact that half of all Muslim populations are immediately excluded from the political process simply because of their gender. Either the West will cease to be the West, or Islam will cease to be Is-lam. But the two cannot blend and remain what they are. It is the defining characteristic of each that it has almost noth-ing in common with the other.

In Islam, the world is divided into the world of believers, dar al Islam, and that of unbelievers, dar al harb. Islam is not merely at war with the West, it is at war with the world. No authority is higher than the infallible divine law contained in the closed canon of the Koran. Sharia law trumps all other claims to divine law, all natural law, and all positive law. No Muslim can be under any authority other than sharia law. To do so is to render oneself apostate and deserving of death. Reason itself is unable to inquire into the morality of the divine law. This is why the concepts of state, citizen, nation, pluralism and tolerance are alien to Islam. It is also why perhaps there is no more clear instance of the reformer’s di-lemma in all of history. To reform one must question, and to question is forbidden.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, “Americans are alarmed by the advance of Islam into our society, and properly so, for who will assimilate to whom? Could a Muslim have written the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitu-tion? Does Islam believe in the separation of church and state, that all men are created equal, that there should be no religious test for political office holders, that government ought to be secular?”

The answer, of course, is no. Continued...