Monday, March 27, 2006

WORLD Magazine | Weekly News, Christian Views

WORLD Magazine Weekly News, Christian Views

The link is an article on Muslim persecution of converts to Christianity.

Thankfully the current crisis in Afghanistan is resolved peacefully, without the execution of the convert. But the continued hostility to Christian conversion in Islamic nations is unacceptable.

One of my colleagues suggested today that perhaps as a sanction, public Islamic proselytization should be forbidden in the rest of the world.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The persecution of Christians in both Afghanistan and Iraq(See Lawerence Kaplan's article in the New Republic about the persecution of Chaldean Christians in Iraq)illustrates an important lesson about the notion that Democracy can be imposed on transitional societies.

The neo-conservative view is that new political structures can be imposed on other cultures. The Marxists and economic conservatives look at economics as the foundational element of any society.

The recent experience in both Afghanistan and Iraq offer new support for the view that culture itself is foundational to society in general and the political system in particular. The "cult" in culture reflects the fact that religion is itself foundational to culture.

Different view concerning the nature of God and our relationship with Him are perhaps the key ingredient in understanding differences in political environments. A culture which encourages the notion of the "priesthood of the believer" will present different notions about justice, liberty, and equality than a culture where the faithful are seen as servants of an impersonal God whose dictates represent pure will.

The current threats against believers in the Middle East expose the falsity of the notion that a "one size fits all" political solution will solve the problems confronting this part of the world.

We must pray for those who face death merely for their belief in Jesus Christ. We must also not pretend that Sharia law is somehow compatible with religious liberty which is itself foundational to any hope for democracy in the Middle East.