Republican Christianity is undeniably modern—after all, it’s a defining force of our contemporary era. Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood’s interpretation of Islam is modern, being very much a product of the 20th century. Now, whether they meet your personal standards for what qualifies as “modern” is another matter entirely, but from a historical perspective, they are relatively new phenomena.

That said, the irony is hard to miss: if members of the Muslim Brotherhood were magically transported back to Saladin’s time, they’d likely find themselves branded heretics and promptly executed. Similarly, Republican Evangelicals wouldn’t last long if dropped into Alfred the Great’s Anglo-Saxon England—more likely than not, they’d be denounced as heretical upstarts and meet an equally grim fate. Modernity, it seems, isn’t always a ticket to historical compatibility.