As Christendom aborts and birth-controls itself into extinction, Muslims in Africa are being encouraged to go forth and multiply. Novel idea:

The new leader of the Anglican church in Nigeria believes that Muslims are “mass producing” babies to take over Africa.

The Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, who believes that Christianity is under attack from Islam, was elected primate of Nigeria earlier this month, making him one of the powerful figures in Anglicanism.

Nigeria, where the Anglican church has 17 million adherents, is split between Christianity and Islam.

In a sermon in Beckenham, Kent, in July he spoke of African Christians being “surrounded by Islamic domination”.

In extracts quoted by The Times, he said: “They spend a lot of money, even in places where they don’t have congregations, they build mosques, they build hospitals, they build anything.

“They come to Africans and say, ‘Christianity is asking you to marry only one wife. We will give you four’.”

He went on: “That is the type of evangelism they are doing: mass-production, so if you have four wives, four children, sixteen children, very soon you will be a village.”

Meanwhile, Rowan Williams – who know something about hair mass-production since he has more in his eyebrows than Osama bin Laden does in his beard – is beating back the onslaught of Islam by positive engagement and good wishes:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has released a message for the Muslim festival Eid.

Sending “warm good wishes” to the Muslim community, Dr Rowan Williams cites recent positive examples of Christian and Muslim “engagement”.

“My great hope for the coming year is that our festivals will increasingly be occasions of mutual gladness,” he says.