Lion of Faith

By Barbara Kay

October 1, 2013

Barbara Kay reviews Andrew Bieszad's new book on the relationship between Islam and Christianity

If Bieszad's adventures in Islamo-correctness during his masters program branded him as a troublemaker at Hartford Seminary, and if his open letter about those adventures made him an academic pariah in Islamic Studies departments everywhere else, his commentaries on the history surrounding the martyrology in Lions may bring Bieszad condemnation from sources even higher up the Islamic political chain But alongside the book's objective content, Bieszad pulls no punches on Lion's mission, which is to set the historical record straight on multiple levels: to explode the multicultural myth of theological parity between Catholicism and Islam; to cast the blame for most of the human wreckage wrought by the endless confrontations between them squarely on Islam-based and Islam-guided triumphalism; and to make the case that time has not healed or custom staled Islam's revanchist grievances around Christianity, grievances that can only be redressed through jihad to satisfy Koranic justice And more important, without a collective memory of Islam's frequently iterated pattern in its relations with other cultures, Bieszad warns that "with Islam no longer an active threat, Europe forgot the danger it posed and began to romanticize about the Muslim world and Islam while forgetting history Which makes all the more welcome the recent publication of young scholar Andrew Bieszad's new book, Lions of the Faith: Saints, Blesseds, and Heroes of the Catholic Faith in the Struggle with Islam As a result, Bieszad concludes that "for Muslim students, it emboldened them to speak about Islam, and particularly against Christianity, which only solidified their unexamined beliefs

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