Islamic jihad, in many forms, 'gaining ground'

Many in western democracies are blind to radical Islam's threat to their security and cultural values, speakers said at a day-long discussion of Islam during the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention.

"The majority of Muslims are peaceful and good citizens," Robert Edmiston, a member of Britain's House of Lords from the Conservative Party, said at the Feb. 24 event in Nashville. "But there are some that are extremists, and they are gaining ground."

The threat Islam poses stems not merely from a radical fringe but from central doctrines of the Muslim faith, some of the speakers said.

"Moderate Islam is to Islam what nominal Christianity, cultural Christianity is to Christianity," said William Lane Craig, a professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University who has studied Islam for 30 years. "It is a mere cultural set of mores that one has adopted, but it isn't representative in either case of the fundamental teaching of the original book of that religion, whether the Quran or the Bible." Keep reading

Photo credit: John A Gillis, The (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) Daily News Journal