An interesting read from the Wall Street Journal:

Goodbye, West

I think that he underestimates the power of education and the ideas of Western civilization. Therefore, I find this closing paragraph especially interesting, because it's the closest he comes to addressing it.

Since the president unveiled the so-called Bush Doctrine--the plan to promote liberty throughout the Arab world--innumerable "progressives" have routinely asserted that there's no evidence Muslims want liberty and, indeed, that Islam is incompatible with democracy. If that's true, it's a problem not for the Middle East today but for Europe the day after tomorrow. According to a poll taken in 2004, over 60% of British Muslims want to live under Shariah--in the United Kingdom. If a population "at odds with the modern world" is the fastest-breeding group on the planet--if there are more Muslim nations, more fundamentalist Muslims within those nations, more and more Muslims within non-Muslim nations, and more and more Muslims represented in more and more transnational institutions--how safe a bet is the survival of the "modern world"?

I wouldn't have guessed that so many Muslims would have wanted to live in Shariah after enjoying the liberties of the United Kingdom.

Arguments such as the one above can be used to support very caloused and unloving policies toward the poor. What is the role of the Church in balancing this potential short-falling?