A couple of paragraphs I read recently quite caught my attention.

There are, with the best will in the world, profound differences between the religions. Here is a passage taken from a mid-twelfth-century Syrian text, taken from the new biography of Saladin by Anne-Marie EddÈ (quoted in a review in The Spectator):

The most amazing thing in the world is that the Christians say that Jesus is divine, that he is God, and then they say that the Jews seized him and crucified him. How then can a God who cannot protect himself protect others? Anyone who believes his God came out of a woman’s privates is quite mad; he should not be spoken to, for he has neither intelligence nor faith.

This is, we should say, quite sensible. Wrong, of course, but quite sensible, and not just from the Muslim’s point of view. It helps to remember this, for the memory helps Christians be thankful that we have been given the grace to see something the sensible man may think quite mad.

First Things, March, 2012 While We’re At It