Bernard Lewis continues to impress me in his accounts of Islam, especially the parallels that emerge between Christian and Muslim objections to the modern West. Here’s one example:

For the modern Westerner, religious freedom is defined by the phrase “freedom of worship” and means just that. But the practice of Islam means more than worship, important as that may be. It means a whole way of life, prescribed in detail by holy texts and treatises based on them. . . . It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid — that is, to exercise authority. The same principle applied in general to the holy law, which must be not only obeyed but also enforced. Thus, in the view of many jurists, a Muslim not only must abstain from drinking and dissipation, but also must destroy strong drink and other appurtenances of dissipation. For this reason, in any encounter between Islam and unbelief, Islam must dominate. . . .

There are some who followed this argument to its logical conclusion and maintain that an authentic Muslim life is possible only under a Muslim government. There are other who reject this extremist view and admit the possibility of living a Muslim life under a non-Muslim government, provided that that government meets certain specific requirements. (Lewis, Islam and the West, 52-53)

To read this and not think of the various critiques of two-kingdom theology (whether theonomic, neo-Calvinist, or Christian American) is difficult. Of course, simply because some Christians in opposing 2k views sound like Muslims does not make them wrong automatically. But as Lewis also observes, the origins of Christianity and Islam politically are almost the opposite, with Jesus dying a sacrificial death in which offered no resistance and Muhammad establishing himself through military conquest.

So Lewis does imply indirectly that 2kers are the better heirs of Christ and the apostles if only because 2k critics do such a good impersonation of the Turks.