In U.S., Muslim Moment Meets Christian Awakening
Bible sales soar as Halal Guys reach 400 locations
America is in the middle of a Muslim moment and a Christian revival—at the same time.
Bible sales were up 12 percent in 2025 over 2024, the New York Times reports ( in print the news was buried beneath the soporific headline, “Book Sales Steady In Shifting Market.”) Television personality Rachel Maddow has publicly returned to Catholicism, and historian Niall Ferguson has left atheism for Anglican Christianity. Vice President Vance said in a December 2025 speech that “The only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation….I’m not saying you have to be a Christian to be an American. I’m saying something simpler and truer. Christianity is America’s creed.”
Meanwhile, the “Halal Guys” chain is up to 400 locations, and describes itself as “one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in America.” Lululemon is selling hijabs. And Mayor Mamdani of New York, after being sworn in on a Koran, said in his inaugural address, “I stand alongside construction workers in steel-toed boots and halal cart vendors whose knees ache from working all day.” If the halal cart vendors’ knees ache, it may not be from working, but from taking regular quick breaks to kneel on the hard ground to pray with only a piece of cardboard as padding. On January 2, 2026, the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, directed that 16 landmarks—including One World Trade Center, Niagara Falls, Moynihan Train Hall, and the Kosciuszko Bridge—be illuminated green in honor of Muslim American Heritage Month.
This could go in at least two possible different directions.
It could set up a clash, as an ascendant Islam tries to get Christians to cede power and control, or as an ascendent Christianity tries to define Islam out of the American mainstream.
Or it could set up an alliance, as the two religions work together against the common enemy of secularism.
It leaves American Jews triangulating. One approach might be an alliance with Christians and Muslims against secularism—defending kosher slaughter and halal butchering against critics who would ban them, advocating for school vouchers or tax credits to support Muslim and Jewish private schools. Another approach might be a Judeo-Christian alliance with Christians against Muslims. And another approach might be a “minority religions” alliance—Jews and Muslims against Christians.
One determining factor will be what variety of Islam dominates in the U.S. Vance tweeted today about the news that the U.A.E. is cutting back spending on sending students to British universities, concerned that the Emirati students would be radicalized by campus Islamists. As Vance put it, “Some of our best Muslim allies in the Gulf think the Islamist indoctrination in certain parts of the west is too dangerous.” Will the American Muslims be more like the ones in Abraham Accords member United Arab Emirates, whose Etihad Airways is running six flights a day from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv? Or more like the Jew-hating, America-hating Islamic extremists in British universities and, increasingly, in the House of Commons?
Another determining factor will be what variety of Christianity dominates the U.S. Will it be the Christianity of the Crusades or of the Spanish Inquisition? Or will it be the Christianity of American history, whose strength has derived in part from its voluntary, nonestablished nature?
In general religion brings community, gratitude, humility, purpose, and meaning. Sometimes it can also fuel violent conflict. So simultaneous Christian and Muslim religious revivals in the U.S. hold promise and also possible risks.
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Maybe Vance should be more humble and not say that his wife should change her religion, didn’t he vow to accept her as is? And JD, don’t play footsie with the Christian Nationalists, this here old Jew wore the Air Force uniform for almost 4 years; I did not sign up to serve a Christian Nation.