Religious Freedom?

By now, you have probably heard about the man in Afghanistan who is being tried for converting to Christianity. If convicted he'll be put to death. The testimony this man has is amazing...or is it ordinary? Is the faith of this man, Abdul Rahman, the kind of faith that is natural of a Christian? I digress. To learn more about Rahman and Afghan Christians, check out this site. The US Commission on International Religous Freedom has weighed in with President Bush as well.

Of course most of us know that this is not the first time nor will it be the last time that a Christian is persecuted for his/her beliefs. It happens everyday across the world. This current situation dovetails with recent talk in the media regarding words spoken by Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson. Both men essentially stated that Islam was a wicked religion. Several in the media and liberal Christianity have questioned those thoughts, stating that they incite violence...even calling Graham and Robertson warmongers. Albert Mohler was on O'Reilly the other night speaking on this topic...O'Reilly wasn't too pleased with Mohler's belief that Islam is indeed an evil religion (after all, isn't anything that leads people away from Christ evil?). To watch a portion of this interview, click on over here (of course, this particular blogger is critical of Mohler). Another blogger, who disagrees with Mohler on just about everything, claims Mohler is bigoted for following the teachings of the Bible with regards to other religions. Needless to say, it is not a popular thing in our culture to speak against Islam. I'm waiting on condemnations of the belief system that advocates the death of those who choose to believe differently. I don't think it's a coincidence that Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan are both Islamically governed countries and make it illegal to either convert to other religions, practice other religions, or both practice and convert to other religions.

Finally, think politics and government are boring and shouldn't be your concern? Have a look at this article written in 2003 when the Afghan constitution was being drafted. Paul Marshall sounded the alarm bells early. Had the Afghan constitution been written differently, this trial might not be going on today.