Considering Christ and Mohammed. . .

Those who would equate the sins of Christianity with the sins of Islam might think better. . .

‘Mohammed and his immediate successors were warlords who, when chance offered, massacred their non-conforming prisoners; Jesus was not, and did not. Mohammed specifically wanted to assimilate the state to the kingdom of God; Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world. Although a number of Muslims argue that Islam respects the value of all human beings, religious history shows that Islam neither did so nor has learned to do so; some would argue that Islam would cease to be Islam if it was prepared to accept pluralist liberal democracy. And the word “pluralist” matters: many Muslims (as in Egypt) may accept a “democracy” amounting to dictatorship of the majority, but not that pluralist democracy whereby other religions are even tolerated where there are Muslim majorities. It seems thus far apparent that in the real world the larger the number of Muslims in the population, the more killings for blasphemy, apostasy, proselytizing by non-Muslims, there will regularly be. Which is not to suggest that the number of the violent is necessarily large: rather that the number of condoners, whether or not intimidated, is very substantial.

from a recent review of Miroslav Volf, Flourishing:  Why we need Religion in a Globalized World (Yale U.P. 2015)  by Professor John Rist

There are those who insist that a moral equivalence exists between Jesus and Mohammed, though all might agree that the followers of both are perhaps worse than either.  Such a conclusion rests upon a fallacy.  Jesus never calls on His followers to act as judge and jury and sentence those who will not believe to death on earth before they meet their heavenly Judge.  No, indeed.  Yet this is exactly what the Quran requires of those who would faithfully follow Mohammed.

While there are those (including former Pres. George Bush) who would insist that Islam has been hijacked by those who turned it into a religion of violence, the deafening sound of silence from the so-called "moderate" Muslims in the face of atrocity after atrocity cannot be ignored.  While we in the West might live in fear, the truth is that the worst of the violence Islam has perpetrated has been against Christians living in the Middle East and against those who wear the name of Mohammed but belong to the wrong "denomination."  One might expect some difficulty in moderate Muslims when it comes to condemning violence against the West but surely it would expected that those who live under the umbrella of Islam would find it in their hearts to condemn the violence against their own brothers and sisters in the faith?

Christianity is a missionary religion and those who embrace Christianity do so not under the veil of fear and threat but from the love that reaches out through the cross to all people.  Islam is also a missionary religion but it pursues the unbeliever with threat and fear.  The two are not equivalent in any way, shape, or form.