Christians There and Muslims Here

Buried slightly in this article about how evangelical Christian groups, usually vocal and ready supporters of Israel, have been quiet about Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah, is something I believe is a more compelling story.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the evangelical association, insists the inaction is not a criticism of Israel, but reflects a new caution about the risks for Christians living in Muslim countries. After the Sept. 11 attacks, American evangelicals came out strongly against terrorists, with some calling Islam a violent religion. That created a backlash overseas.

Haggard said Israeli embassy officials called him several times a day during the first two weeks of the conflict, asking for a public expression of support. He declined.

“Our silence is not a rejection of Israel or even a hesitation about Israel. Our silence is to try to protect people,” said Haggard, pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. “There’s a rapidly growing evangelical population in virtually every Islamic country. Much of it is underground in the countries that are more radicalized, and many of the Christians survive based on their neighbors just ignoring the fact that they don’t go to mosque.”

Here is a truth: Christians who live in Muslim-governed nations face the very real risk of death while Muslims who live in so-called “Christians” nation do not.

That’s important to remember. John Cole slings around a phrase like “American Taliban” or P.Z. Myers decries us as “god-soaked sheep” and Andrew Sullivan wails about “Christianists” and gin up fear of a New Puritanism where those who do not hew to the Old Time Religion will be cast into stocks or beaten in the streets.

In Muslim nations that is actually happening. People are being killed because they profess a faith other than Islam.

Do you remember an Afghan man named Abdul Rahman? He was once a Muslim but converted to Christianity (the article doesn’t say to which religion he converted) 16 years ago. He was arrested after authorities found a Bible in his possession and faced a death penalty because he would not recant his Christianity and convert back to Islam.

Let me say that one more time. He faced death because he possessed a Bible and refused to deny his Christianity to authorities.

His only escape from that death sentence was for his lawyer to claim that he was insane for professing Christianity. Eventually, he was granted asylum in Italy thanks to the personal intervention of the Afgham President, Karzai.

Rahman’s case is a very present reality for hundreds of thousands of Christians in Muslim countries. They face a reality that no Muslim in the United States will ever face, no matter how many hysterical quotes Andrews Sullivan writes or how virulently John Cole or P.Z. Myers write about Christians.

We have a unique nation here. We are free to practice our religion free from imprisonment, torture, or death. We have gone so far as to grant the Koran a special protected status that no other religious text enjoys, such is our deference toward religious freedom. The extent of our freedom is greater than any other nation on the planet.

We ought to remember that there are a great many places in the world where being a Christian means risking death every single day of your life. No Muslim faces anything similar here.

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Category: The Good Old US of A