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His argument, published on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is considered by many to be an attempt to minimize fundamental differences between the two religions while ignoring the threats that political Islam poses to Western civilization.
The author of the controversial piece is Oliver Wintzek, professor of dogmatics and fundamental theology at the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Mainz and a priest at the Jesuit church in Mannheim.
The article, entitled ‘The Islamic Creed Is Not So Different After All’ and published by Catholic news portal katholisch.de, begins by recalling the Christian victory over the Ottoman army at Vienna in September 1683, when forces commanded by Polish King John III Sobieski ended the city’s second Ottoman siege.
However, Wintzek uses the historical example to argue that Islam should be understood as part of Germany and Europe, invoking former interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s 2006 declaration that ‘Islam is part of Germany and part of Europe. It is part of our present and part of our future.’
His central theological argument draws on the Christian theologian John of Damascus, who lived in the 8th century, when Islam was expanding rapidly across North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.
Against this historical backdrop, it is hardly surprising that John of Damascus himself classified Islam as a Christian heresy rather than a separate world religion.
According to Wintzek, John understood Islam as an ‘alternative form of Byzantine Christianity’, offering its own interpretation of Jesus, the son of Mary.
The professor also emphasizes the Quran’s references to Jesus, whom it identifies as the Messiah, the son of Mary and a word from God.
However, John of Damascus himself challenged the Islamic interpretation of these teachings, pointing out that the Quran presents Jesus as a prophet and servant of God rather than the divine Son of God, rejects the Trinity and denies his crucifixion.
He regarded these differences as fundamental contradictions of Christian doctrine, rather than grounds for treating Islam as a legitimate alternative form of Christianity.
‘According to Wintzek, John understood Islam as an “alternative form of Byzantine Christianity”’
Wintzek’s piece generated considerable attention and intense criticism, precisely because it ignores the fact that Islam explicitly rejects central Christian doctrines, such as the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Indeed, the Catholic Church’s own declaration Nostra Aetate, issued during the Second Vatican Council in 1965, recognizes common ground with Muslims but explicitly states that they do not acknowledge Jesus as God.
Responding to Wintzek, Lutheran theologian Jürgen Henkel argued that the Christian understanding of Jesus and the Trinity cannot be reconciled with Islamic doctrine. Henkel also criticized the timing of the article, published on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Beyond theology, Wintzek’s argument also has a political dimension, attacking Germany’s most popular party, the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which recently won two state elections in less than two weeks and simultaneously reached 30 per cent in nationwide polling for the first time in its history.
Wintzek rejects AfD’s characterization of Islam as a political ideology incompatible with Germany’s constitution, disputes its interpretation of minarets as symbols of Islamic domination and dismisses warnings about Islamization.
As evidence, he cites Saxony-Anhalt, where Muslims reportedly account for just 2.7 per cent of the population. That alone, however, offers a limited picture of Germany’s wider demographic reality.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees estimated that between 5.3 million and 5.6 million Muslims lived in Germany in 2019, representing 6.4–6.7 per cent of the population.
In Berlin alone, the city government reported more than 300,000 Muslim residents in February 2025, accounting for over 8 per cent of the capital’s population.
The community’s growing electoral significance was illustrated by Berlin’s September 2026 state election, in which 51 per cent of Muslim voters backed Die Linke, up 36 percentage points from 2023, helping the party finish first with 25.7 per cent of the overall vote.
Separately, Berlin’s domestic intelligence agency identified 2,590 individuals associated with Islamist extremism in 2025, up from 2,440 the previous year.
The federal domestic intelligence agency explicitly distinguishes Islam as a religion, which enjoys constitutional protection, from Islamism, which seeks to subordinate the country’s political and social order to religious principles.
The BfV defines Islamism as including non-violent movements pursuing political influence, not merely jihadist terrorism.
‘Islamist movements do not advocate religious equality but seek to establish an Islamic political order to which non-Muslims would ultimately be subordinate’
The security threat posed by Islamist extremism to Europe and broader Western civilization is also supported by data from recent years.
A July 2026 study published by Spain’s Ministry of Defence identified 18 jihadist attacks in Germany between January 2015 and June 2025, killing 25 people. Of the 19 perpetrators examined, 14 were from outside Europe, including 13 asylum applicants.
While Wintzek acknowledges the existence of violent Islamism, he fails to address how its ideological foundations challenge his portrayal of Muslims as Christianity’s ‘younger siblings’.
Islamist movements do not advocate religious equality but seek to establish an Islamic political order to which non-Muslims would ultimately be subordinate.
The hierarchical relationship also has historical foundations in Islamic law, under which Christians and Jews could practise their religions but were subject to Muslim rule and special taxation.
By reducing the disagreement to competing interpretations of Jesus, Wintzek leaves this political dimension largely unexamined, despite its direct relevance to his dismissal of concerns about Islamization.
He concludes the piece by suggesting that the two religious communities come closer together over ‘döner and baklava’, which he presents as being just as much ‘part of Germany’ as he believes Islam is.