Only human life is sacred, and the whole of religion and every individual religion in all its parts forfeits its claim to sanctity when it justifies violence against even a single individual child of the Divine.

Christians of course need to ask whether, from a distinctly Christian theological viewpoint, we worship the same God as Muslims.

There is a particular hubris in believing that we of the West are the only people capable of taming our passions and pursuing rational self-interest . . .

Religious freedom is the basis of freedom and democracy, not a byproduct.

One is tempted to balance this report with attacks in the Christian West on mosques and Muslims, but in reality there is no comparison in number, deadliness, intensity, and most importantly motivation.

But for Muslims some words and the images they create in the human soul are more than a way of communicating ideas. They are the indissoluble link between the human person and God.