Knights of the Crusades, crosses on their chests and swords held high, rushed toward a Muslim horde with violence in their eyes and scimitars raised. That image circulated on social media ahead of the Aug. 18 political march in Dearborn, Michigan — only a few miles from where I have lived my whole life, first as a Muslim, now as a Christian for the last 26 years. The image, and what happened that day, troubles me — but not for the reasons many assume.
I support Christians engaging in the public arena, politics included. But we must ask whether our engagement bears the image of Christ or confirms the caricature of Christianity we hope to overcome.
Every Christian in metro Detroit who wants to talk to a Muslim neighbor about Jesus now has the additional barrier of that crusade image and the news coverage of Christians angrily pointing their fingers.
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I understand the concerns that brought some Christians to that march; I’ve shared some of them publicly. Friends of mine were mistreated — and even arrested — for preaching the gospel at a Dearborn festival, then vindicated in court, acquitted, and awarded damages in a civil suit. More recently, Dearborn’s mayor chastised a Christian at a City Council meeting, telling him he wasn’t welcome in the city where he pays taxes. A protester was recently attacked in the streets. His attackers were arrested, and the legal system is running its course. These are legitimate causes for concern.
Those events, coupled with fears that the Muslim-controlled “no-go zones” of Europe and the UK might take root here, drove much of the support for the Aug. 18 march. Police arrested 22 people for misdemeanors (though they declined to say which side they came from). That the justice system is working gives me hope that we are not in the same place as Europe and the U.K.
Some critics say Christians should stay out of politics altogether. That swings the pendulum too far.
Faith in Christ animates action, even political action. William Wilberforce and the Clapham sect labored for decades to abolish the trans-atlantic slave trade. Black and white Christians opposed Jim Crow. Early Christians made infanticide unthinkable and emptied the gladiatorial arenas that once cheered death. Political withdrawal in the face of injustice is not Christian humility; it’s abdication.
The question is not whether Christians should engage in the public square, but what image that engagement leaves in hearts and minds. One image depicts the battle line. The other depicts uncompromised truth joined with unyielding compassion. For its first three centuries, Christianity had no political clout. Christians offered themselves instead, serving one another and their oppressors. During the Antonine and Cyprianic plagues, they stayed in the cities others fled, nursing the dying, losing their own lives in the process.
The Pagan emperor Julian the Apostate lamented to Arsacius that his efforts to restore paganism were being frustrated by Christians who served the very people who persecuted them. “It is disgraceful that … the impious Galileans support not only their own poor but ours as well,” he wrote. He ordered the Pagan priests to imitate them, because the Christians were winning over a previously resistant populace.
Christianity’s record since acquiring political clout has been checkered, marked by great heights and great depths. Still, activism that offers bandages has always fared better than fingers pointed at rallies.
Christian engagement must return to its roots, making Christ its central image. Endeavoring to mire Jesus in political controversy, the religious leaders ask whether they should pay taxes to Cesar, their Pagan occupier. Jesus doesn’t take the bait. He takes a Roman coin and points out that it bears Caesar’s image and inscription. The coin belongs to a despot whose authority is subordinate to the God who made the universe in which he lives. We, unlike the coin, bear the image of the God who made us — so we give ourselves to him (Matt. 22:15-22).
Jesus refused the polarizing framing, keeping God’s love for the whole world central. An image that pits Christian soldiers against Muslim soldiers confirms a stereotype of Christians.
Christians are to be ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), expressing what is beautiful, good, and true. I met such ambassadors during my nine-year odyssey from Islam to Christ. What persuaded me was not spectacles or confrontation, but the credibility of the gospel, conveyed by Christians who compromised on neither truth nor compassion.
As a Muslim, I fervently uttered the Takbir — Allahu Akbar — “God is great.” Many hear it and conjure images of conquest, including that of the West. I understand the concern. For most Muslims, though, it expresses their conviction that God is the Greatest Possible Being. I once thought Jesus’ crucifixion was a fiction that undermined God’s greatness. How could the Greatest Possible Being be trapped in a body that dies at the hands of sinful mortals?
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Nine years of studying the historicity of the cross and resurrection — and the philosophy, theology, and science that fortify it — answered the question. If God is the Greatest Possible Being, he would express the greatest possible virtue in the greatest possible way. The greatest virtue is love, and the greatest expression of love is self-sacrifice. But God’s love runs higher than ours at its best. We don’t naturally sacrifice for those who oppose us. The beauty that captured my heart is that God, in the person of Christ, did exactly that. “For God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The Greatest Possible Being — the one many Muslims hope to submit to — is found nowhere else.
The image that has won the hearts and minds of those outside the faith — even opposed to it — is Christians emulating, in word and deed, their self-sacrificial savior. No other image will work. In fact, it is the only image that ever has.
Abdu Murray is a speaker, author, and attorney who specializes in addressing issues where religious faith and emerging cultural trends intersect and collide. He has written four books, including Saving Truth, Grand Central Question, Apocalypse Later, More than a White Man’s Religion. His newest book, Fake ID: How AI and Identity Ideology Are Collapsing Reality―and What to Do About It, was released nationwide Feb. 3, 2026.