This reminds me of a scene from Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz's adventure novel "In Desert and Wilderness", where the protagonist, a brave Polish and devoutly Christian boy of fourteen, is brought before Muhammad Ahmad, the madman Mahdi of Sudan in the late 19th century.
The zealot leader asks the boy if he'd ever heard of the teachings of Islam, to which the answer is no, he's not familiar with them. Then the Mahdi threatens the boy to convert to Islam on the spot or be executed immediately.
The boy, always polite, responds: "Your Eminence, as I've just said, I'm not familiar with your religion. Were I to accept it upon myself now, it would be not out of an informed choice, but out of fear of the death you threaten me with; and it would be the act of a coward. Is this the kind of people you want to enter into your faith - cowards?" The prophet is stumped by that retort, and finds no answer.
Well, for all of the self-righteous, condescending point the author was trying to get across, it's not much of a surprise that Christians themselves are ultimately not too bothered by the prospect of conversion through coercion and compulsion. Means to an end, after all.
