A Christian On Trial - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 03-20-2006, 10:31 AM

A CHRISTIAN ON TRIAL

Via VOA News http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-18-voa7.cfm

Quote:

An Afghan man who recently admitted he converted to Christianity faces the death penalty under the country's strict Islamic legal system. The trial is a critical test of Afghanistan's new constitution and democratic government.

The case is attracting widespread attention in Afghanistan, where local media are closely monitoring the landmark proceedings.

Abdul Rahman, 40, was arrested last month, accused of converting to Christianity. Under Afghanistan's new constitution, minority religious rights are protected but Muslims are still subject to strict Islamic laws. And so, officially, Muslim-born Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and not for practicing Christianity.

Appearing in court earlier this week Rahman insisted he should not be considered an infidel, but admitted he is a Christian. He says he still believes in the almighty Allah, but cannot say for sure who God really is. "I am," he says, "a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ."

Rahman reportedly converted more than 16 years ago after spending time working in Germany. Officials say his family, who remain observant Muslims, turned him over to the authorities. On Thursday the prosecution told the court Rahman has rejected numerous offers to embrace Islam. Prosecuting attorney Abdul Wasi told the judge that the punishment should fit the crime.

He says Rahman is a traitor to Islam and is like a cancer inside Afghanistan. Under Islamic law and under the Afghan constitution, he says, the defendant should be executed. The court has ordered a delay in the proceedings to give Rahman time to hire an attorney. Under Afghan law, once a verdict is given, the case can be appealed twice to higher courts.

This is the first case in which the defendant has admitted to converting and is refusing to back down, even while facing the death penalty.

Here, via the Middle East Times, is the "evidence" against Rahman that may lead to his execution:

Quote:

Christian convert faces execution in Afghanistan

Quote:

March 19, 2006

THE EVIDENCE: Supreme court judge Mawlavizada on March 19 holds a Bible that belongs to Abdul Rahman, who converted from Islam to Christianity.
(REUTERS)

KABUL -- An Afghan man faces the death penalty for converting to Christianity, an Afghan supreme court judge said on Sunday.

Supreme Court Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada said that Abdul Rahman, who converted from Islam to Christianity, is in police custody and that he could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim again.

Abdul Rahman was detained two weeks ago after his relatives reported to the police about his conversion which is forbidden under Islamic Sharia law.

"Yes that's true, a man has converted to Christianity. He's being tried in one of our courts," Supreme Court judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada said, adding that his trial began early last week.

He said the man could face the death penalty if he refused to revert to Islam as Sharia law proposes capital punishment for any Muslim who converts to another religion. Afghanistan's constitution states: "No law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam."

If sentenced, the man will be the first to be punished for conversion since the ouster of the Taliban who introduced and implemented tough Sharia law.

The hardline Taliban regime was toppled by a US-led invasion in late 2001 for not handing over Al Qaeda chief, Osama Bin Laden, wanted for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

http://www.metimes.com/articles/norm...9-072838-8361r

Jolie Rouge · 03-21-2006, 12:39 AM

ABC News is covering the story and adds new details:

Quote:

Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.

Human rights workers have described the case as an unsettling reminder that the country's post-Taliban judiciary remains deeply conservative, and they have called on President Hamid Karzai to intervene. During Taliban times, men were forced to kneel in prayer five times a day, and couples faced the death penalty for sex outside marriage, for example. Reform efforts have been slow, say experts, since there are so few judges and lawyers with experience.

The U.S. State Department is watching the case closely and considers it a barometer of how well democracy is developing in Afghanistan. "Our view … is that tolerance, freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."

A number of Christian nonprofit groups do humanitarian work in Afghanistan. Dominic Nutt of Christian Aid calls the Rahman case a step backward for the country, especially if Rahman is executed. Nutt, who has spent time in Afghanistan, tells ABC News "few practitioners are used to the concept of democracy and toleration … [many] are educated only in Islamic law."

Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah tells ABC News a medical team was checking the defendant, since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.

This is deeply, deeply troubling. Junkyard Blog gets to the heart of it:

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Mr. Rahman’s plight deserves attention. He deserves religious freedom. Afghans deserve freedom to woship as they please and should not be subject to the laws of a religion they don’t serve. Writing Islam into Afghanistan’s constitution—and Iraq’s—may yet undo all the good work our troops have done in both.

Write the embassy of Afghanistan:

Ambassador Said T. Jawad
Embassy of Afghanistan
2341 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
info@embassyofafghanistan.org

Contact the State Department:

U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Main Switchboard:
202-647-4000

International Christian Concern calls on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to pardon Rahman:

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The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org is calling on Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai to defend religious freedom and freedom of conscience in his country by pardoning Abdul Rahman. Rahman is facing the death penalty for apostasy (rejecting Islam).
Rahman, who is about 41 years old, converted from Islam to Christianity over 16 years ago. He was turned in to authorities last month by his own family for rejecting Islam. Afghanistan’s new constitution declares that no law can be contrary to the religion of Islam, which radical Muslims say demands the death penalty for any Muslim who abandons their faith. However, Afghanistan’s constitution also demands that the state protect the liberty and dignity of all people, and affirms the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article 18:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

As we do not believe the people of Afghanistan would have ratified a constitution that contradicts itself, ICC urges the government of Afghanistan to consider that Islam is not in conflict with this portion of the UN’s Declaration on Human Rights. In fact, the Qur’an itself supports freedom of conscience in view of Allah’s absolute authority as judge:

Surah 2:256 – “There is no compulsion in religion…”
Surah 16:82 – “Then, if they turn away, your duty (O Muhammad) is only to convey (the Message) in a clear way.”
Surah 42:48 – “But if they turn away (from Islam). We have not sent you as a Hafiz (watcher, protector) over them (to take care of their deeds and to recompense them). Your duty is to convey (the Message)…”
Surah 88:21-22 – “And so, (O Prophet!) exhort them, your task is only to exhort; you cannot compel them to believe.”

If even Muhammad was commanded not to carry out punishments on those who turned away from Islam, how much less should Afghanistan’s courts prosecute anyone who decides freely to convert to a different religion?

The Afghani authorities should drop this case immediately. Afghanistan has already had enough of religious extremism under the Taliban. The world is watching to see if Afghanistan has entered the 21st century. We urge Afghanistan not to return to the days of the Taliban.

Jolie Rouge · 03-21-2006, 11:36 AM

The Chicago Tribune is paying attention to Abdul Rahman, the Afghan man facing the death penalty for being a Christian convert. The paper provides background on Rahman's troubled relations with his family, which has spurned him and accused him of mental illness. Jail officials and prosecutors are bloodthirsty: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true

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Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.

Now, in a major test of Afghanistan's fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country's justice minister.

"We will cut him into little pieces," said Hosnia Wafayosofi, who works at the jail, as she made a cutting motion with her hands. "There's no need to see him..."

...Prosecutor Abdul Wasi said Rahman had been told repeatedly to repent and come back to Islam, but Rahman refused. Wasi called Rahman a traitor.

"He is known as a microbe in society, and he should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed," Wasi told the court.

Rahman said he had surrendered himself to God. "I believe in the holy spirit," he said. "I believe in Christ. And I am a Christian."

Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizada, who is handling the case, said he normally takes two months to decide on cases. But because this case is so serious, he expected to hold another hearing within the next week and make a decision.

Mawlawizada, who kept Rahman's green Bible on his desk, said he respected all religions. He emphasized that he did not favor the aggressiveness of the Taliban, who cut the hands and feet off criminals in a soccer stadium. But he said Rahman had to repent. "If he doesn't regret his conversion, the punishment will be enforced on him," the judge said. "And the punishment is death."

The Globe and Mail also reports more new details:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...International/

Quote:

"It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulting his family by converting," Judge [Alhaj Ansarullah Mawawy] Zada said. "The Attorney-General is emphasizing he should be hung."

Prison officials refused requests to interview Mr. Rahman, but one of his cellmates said he was resolute. "He is standing by his words," said Sayad Miakel, 30. "He will not become a Muslim again."

Another cellmate said Mr. Rahman seemed depressed. "He keeps looking up to the sky, to God," said Khalylullah Safi, 31.

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU06C14&f=PG03I03

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The Bush administration assured us late last year that the new Iraqi constitution would not threaten religious liberty. This, despite the provisions saying no law could be passed that was "inconsistent with Islam." Our concern that such promises of religious freedom will be meaningless in light of Islamic law is once again justified by religious persecution in Afghanistan. The Afghan constitution, adopted after America liberated that country from the Taliban, has a provision similar to that of the new Iraqi constitution. Now, we receive a horrifying report of Abdul Rahman, 41, who is on trial for his life in Kabul, Afghanistan. Rahman's crime? He has admitted converting to Christianity. That there should even be such a trial is an outrage.
How can we congratulate ourselves for liberating Afghanistan from the rule of jihadists only to be ruled by Islamists who kill Christians? Such a "trial" is a flagrant violation of Article 18 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights--which the current Afghan government even incorporated into its constitution. Article 18 reads: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." President Bush should immediately send Vice President Cheney or Secretary Rice to Kabul to read Hamid Kharzai's government the riot act. Americans will not give their blood and treasure to prop up new Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Democracy is more than purple thumbs.

Jolie Rouge · 03-24-2006, 11:40 PM

b]WAKE-UP CALL [/b]
(via AP/WaPo): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032301545.html

Quote:

Senior Muslim clerics demanded Thursday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed, warning that if the government caves in to Western pressure and frees him, they will incite people to "pull him into pieces."

..."Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.

...On Wednesday, authorities said Rahman is suspected of being mentally ill and would undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial.

But three Sunni preachers and a Shiite one interviewed by The Associated Press in four of Kabul's most popular mosques said they do not believe Rahman is insane.

"He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian," said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque.

"The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed," Hamidullah said.

Raoulf, who is a member of the country's main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, agreed. "The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled."

"Cut off his head!" he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left."

...Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country.

"If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can too," he said. "We must set an example. ... He must be hanged."

..."We are a small country and we welcome the help the outside world is giving us. But please don't interfere in this issue," Nasri said. "We are Muslims and these are our beliefs. This is much more important to us than all the aid the world has given us."

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The case of an Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity is ``appalling,'' Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.

``We're putting the lives of Australian soldiers on the line and this sort of thing is allowed,'' Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW today. ``When I saw the report about this I felt sick.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=australia

In Afghanistan at Friday Prayers, Muslim clerics prayed for murder
(via NYTimes): http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/in...rtner=homepage

Quote:

Afghan clerics used Friday Prayers at mosques across the capital to call for death for an Afghan man who converted to Christianity, despite widespread protest in the West.

As the international pressure on Afghanistan grew, the clerics demanded the execution of the Afghan, Abdul Rahman 41, if he does not convert back to Islam. His conversion 15 years ago was brought to the attention of Afghan authorities as part of a child custody dispute...

...One speaker, Mawlavi Habibullah, told more than a thousand clerics and young people who had gathered in Kabul that "Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws.

"The prophet says when somebody changes religion, he must be killed" he said.

Jolie Rouge · 03-26-2006, 01:38 AM

Religious freedom Afghan-style is no freedom
By Tony Perkins
Fri Mar 24, 3:00 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Efforts by the US soldiers deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom to help the Afghan people throw off the oppressive Taliban government appear not to be complete. A 41-year-old Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, is being tried for converting to Christianity 16 years ago. If found guilty by the Afghan court he faces the death penalty. The judge in the case, Ansarullah Mawlazezadah, has commented to ABC News, "We will ask [Rahman] if he has changed his mind about being a Christian. If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."

Is this what Americans have fought for in the frigid mountains of Tora Bora? Americans of all religions strongly supported Operation Enduring Freedom. The Taliban regime was an Islamic fundamentalist government that harbored Al Qaeda, murdered women, oppressed its people, and blew up historic statues of Buddha. The entire world joined in condemning the Taliban. Even Europe joined us in fighting against these sponsors of terror.

But we will have gained nothing if we allow another Islamic fundamentalist regime to arise in Kabul. This is not a minor matter. If the government of Hamid Kharzai - which is receiving billions in US aid - cannot stop this travesty of justice, it will be too weak and compromised to resist the terrorists.

Our State Department is presently wringing its hands over the fate of Abdul Rahman. "It's important ... that the Afghan authorities conduct this trial and proceedings that lead up to it in as transparent a manner as possible," said spokesman Sean McCormack. "Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy and these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."

Where is the outrage? It's not just an "immature" democracy that is on exhibit in Afghanistan. The new Afghan Constitution incorporates the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights. That declaration's Article 18 specifically recognizes the right of all people to change their religion. Even to prepare a trial for a person who has committed this "crime" is a gross violation of that declaration, and of the new Afghan Constitution as well.

My concern is not only for Afghanistan, but also for Iraq. We raised the issue with the State Department about similar language in the newly adopted Iraqi Constitution that granted "religious freedom" but clearly stated that new laws could not conflict with sharia law. What we are seeing in Afghanistan is that the Afghan people are indeed free to choose their religion, as long as they choose Islam.

Religious liberty is not the icing on the cake. It's not the tree topper, nor an "element" of democracy. It is fundamental. If the Afghan people do not learn now that they cannot resolve differences of conscience by violence, by judicial murder, then they have no future as a democracy. The entire democracy project will fail. And all that President Bush has accomplished and hopes to accomplish in the Middle East will be threatened.

Yes, I write as a Christian. But my stance would be the same if I were an adherent of a different religion. Rabbi Hillel said it well in the Talmud eons ago: "If I am not for me, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?" America went to war in 1999 to protect Kosovar Muslims who were being "ethnically cleansed" by Serbs who were nominally Orthodox Christians. Most of us thought that was just.

Who can claim it is a just war that results in reestablishing a radical Islamic fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan? And what else can you call it if Christian converts are killed, or confined to mental institutions, Soviet-style, as the Afghan authorities are now reportedly considering? For freedom to endure it must first gain a foothold, and that foothold may well depend on the fate of Abdul Rahman.

• Tony Perkins, a former marine who served in the Gulf War, is the president of the Family Research Council.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060324...A2BHNlYwM3NDI-

Jolie Rouge · 03-26-2006, 08:08 PM

Death to Justice[i]
Democracy, tolerance on the line in Afghanistan
March 25, 2006[/b]

Afghanistan cannot have it both ways -- professing to be a democratic society and imposing a death sentence on a man for changing his religion.

President Hamid Karzai must choose, unequivocally and soon, for the sake of his government and the life of Abdul Rahman, the 41-year-old medical aid worker who is to be beheaded for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Adding to the absurdity of this situation, Rahman's conversion actually happened 16 years ago but came to light recently during a custody dispute. Afghan authorities immediately charged him with rejecting Islam, a crime punishable by death under the country's strict Sharia law.

But with the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan, the crime in this case seems more clearly one of religious persecution. Under the country's post-Taliban constitution, Afghanistan pledged to embrace the United Nation's human rights conventions that expressly protect freedom of worship.

Islamic conservatives insist that while democracy may be the choice of Afghanistan's executive branch, it has no place in the courts that control Rahman's fate.

That logic alone should compel Karzai to do something, and the U.S. government ought to be squarely and loudly behind him -- because it is the right thing to do and because Congress is unlikely to be too enthused about military or economic aid for a country that practices the lethal persecution of Christians.

President George W. Bush has said that he is "deeply troubled" by Rahman's looming fate. A phone call to Karzai from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice followed.

America, which freed Afghanistan from the brutal intolerance of the Taliban regime, has an obligation to do more, or that first counterstrike in the war on terrorism will appear to have accomplished little.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...603250311/1068

Jolie Rouge · 03-28-2006, 10:46 AM

Afghan Convert Vanishes After Release
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity quickly vanished Tuesday after he was released from prison, apparently out of fear for his life with Muslim clerics still demanding his death.

Italy's Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said he would ask his government to grant Abdul Rahman asylum. Fini was among the first to speak out on the man's behalf.

Rahman, 41, was released from the high-security Policharki prison on the outskirts of Kabul late Monday, Afghan Justice Minister Mohammed Sarwar Danish told The Associated Press.

"We released him last night because the prosecutors told us to," he said. "His family was there when he was freed, but I don't know where he was taken."

Deputy Attorney-General Mohammed Eshak Aloko said prosecutors had issued a letter calling for Rahman's release because "he was mentally unfit to stand trial." He also said he did not know where Rahman had gone after being released.

He said Rahman may be sent overseas for medical treatment.

On Monday, hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting "Death to Christians!" marched through the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif to protest the court decision Sunday to dismiss the case. Several Muslim clerics threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying that he is clearly guilty of apostasy and deserves to die.

"Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it," said senior Cleric Faiez Mohammed, from the nearby northern city of Kunduz. "The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion."

Rahman was arrested last month after police discovered him with a Bible during a custody dispute over his two daughters. He was put on trial last week for converting 16 years ago while he was a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws.

The case set off an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. President Bush and others had insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said Rahman has asked for asylum outside Afghanistan. "We expect this will be provided by one of the countries interested in a peaceful solution to this case," he said.

Fini, the Italian foreign minister who is also deputy premier, will seek permission to grant Rahman asylum at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Fini had earlier expressed Italy's "indignation" over the case. Pope Benedict XVI also appealed to Karzai to protect Rahman.

Italy has close ties with Afghanistan, whose former king, Mohammed Zaher Shah, was allowed to live with his family in exile in Rome for 30 years. The former royals returned to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban regime a few years ago.

Asked whether the U.S. government was doing anything to secure Rahman's safety after his release, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that where he goes after being freed is "up to Mr. Rahman." He urged Afghans not to resort to violence even if they are unhappy with the resolution of the case.

The international outrage over Rahman's case put Karzai in a difficult position because he also risked offending religious sensibilities in Afghanistan, where senior Muslim clerics have been united in calling for Rahman to be executed.

___

Associated Press Writer Daniel Cooney contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060328/...kxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Quote:

"His family was there when he was freed, but I don't know where he was taken."

Wasn't it his "family" that turned him in to the police, knowing the DP was attatched ??

Jolie Rouge · 03-28-2006, 10:51 AM

The West in an Afghan mirror
By Spengler

Death everywhere and always is the penalty for apostasy, in Islam and every other faith. It cannot be otherwise, for faith is life and its abandonment is death. Americans should remove the beam from their own eye as they contemplate the gallows in the eye of the Muslims. Philistine hypocrisy pervades Western denunciations of the Afghan courts, which were threatening to hang Christian convert Abdul Rahman until the case was dropped on Monday.

Afghanistan, to be sure, is a tribal society whose encounter with the modern world inevitably will be a train wreck. The trouble is that the West has apostatized, and is killing itself. There turned out to be hope for Rahman, but there is none for Latvia or Ukraine, and little enough for Germany or Spain. That said, I wish to make clear that I found the persecution of Rahman deplorable.

The practice of killing heretics has nothing to do with what differentiates Islam from Christianity or Judaism. St Thomas Aquinas defended not just the execution of individual heretics but also the mass extermination of heretical populations in the 12th-century Albigensian Crusades. For this he was defended by the Catholic philosopher Michael Novak, author of learned books about the faith of the United States of America's founding fathers (see Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy, November 23, 2004).

Western religions today inflict symbolic rather than physical death. One's local priest does not like to preach such things from his post-modern pulpit, but the Catholic Church prescribes eternal hellfire for those who come into communion with Christ and then reject him. Observant Jews hold a funeral for an apostate child who is spiritually dead to them (retroactive abortions not being permitted).

The last heretic hanged by the Catholic Church was a Spanish schoolteacher accused of Deist (shall we call that "moderate Christian"?) views in Valencia as recently as 1826. Without Napoleon Bonaparte and the humiliation of the Church by the German and Italian nationalist movements, who knows when the killing of heretics would have stopped?

"Where are the moderate Muslims?" sigh the self-appointed Sybils of the Western media. Faith is life. What does it mean to be moderately alive? Find the "moderate Christians" and the "moderate Jews", and you will have the answer. "Moderate Christians" such as Episcopalian priests or Anglican vicars are becoming redundant as their congregations migrate to red-blooded evangelical denominations or give up religion altogether. "Moderate Jews" are mainly secular and tend to intermarry. There really is no such thing as a "moderate" Christian; there simply are Christians, and soon-to-be-ex-Christians. The secular establishment has awoken with sheer panic to this fact at last. In response we have such diatribes such as Kevin Phillips' new book American Theocracy, an amalgam of misunderstandings, myths and calumnies about the so-called religious right. [1]

The tragedy of Abdul Rahman also is the tragedy of Western religion. Islam differs radically from Christianity, in that the Christian god is a lover who demands love in return, whereas the Muslim god is a sovereign who demands the fulfillment of duty. Christian prayer is communion, an act of love incomprehensible to Muslims; Muslim worship is an act of submission, the repetition of a few lines of text to accompany physical expression of self-subjugation to the sovereign. The People of Christ are pilgrims en route to the next world; the People of Allah are soldiers in this one. Contrary to all the ink spilled and trees murdered to produce the tomes of Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, Christianity and Islam call forth different peoples to serve different gods for different reasons.

But the fact that Christianity and Islam educe different peoples for different gods should not obscure that one cannot be either Christian or Muslim without belonging to a People of God in flesh as well as spirit. Christianity demands that the gentile, whose very origin is redolent of death, and whose heathen nature is sinful, undergo a new birth to join God's people. Whether this second birth occurs at the baptismal font for a Catholic infant or at the river for an evangelical adult is another matter. The Christian's rebirth is also a vicarious death - the death of the Christian's heathen nature - through Christ's sacrifice. No vicarious sacrifice occurs in Islam; the Muslim, on the contrary, sacrifices himself (The blood is the life, Mr Rumsfeld!, October 5, 2005).

Where is the moderation? The Christian either joins the People of God in its pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Heaven, or he does not; the Muslim either is a soldier of the ummah, or he is nothing. Religious conversion is not mere adaptation to another tradition. It is a change of people. If God is "able of these stones to raise children of Abraham" (Matthew 3:9), Christians are the Gentiles made into sons of Abraham by miracle. In Islamic society, the convert to Christianity instantly becomes an alien and an enemy.

God may be able to raise sons of Abraham from stones; that is not necessarily within the power of earthly churches. European Christianity, as I have argued often in the past, made a devil's bargain with the heathen invaders whom it made into Christians in the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the conversion of the Balts. It permitted them to keep one foot in their national past and another in the Catholic Church, under the umbrella of universal empire. The peoples revolted against church and empire and reverted to their pagan roots, and then fought one another to a bloody standoff in the two great wars of the 20th century.

In parallel to Christianity, but in a different way, Islam made its own compromise with the nations it absorbed. It would defend the pure traditional society of tribal life against the encroachment of the empires that encircled them: first the Byzantines and Persians, then Christian Europe, and now America. Traditional life inevitably must break down in the face of globalization of trade and information, and the ummah closes ranks to delay the time when the descendants of today's Muslims will look with pity upon ancestral photographs, as they turn momentarily from their video game.

Europe's Christians could not summon up the "moderation" necessary to tolerate their Jewish neighbors until after 1945, when Europe was conquered and rebuilt by the Americans. Once the ambitions of Europe's peoples were crushed in the world wars, European Christianity became "moderate" indeed, so moderate that Europeans no longer bother about it. They also do not bother to reproduce, so that the formerly Christian populations of Europe will disappear, starting with the captive nations of the former Soviet Union.

No Christian People of God emerged from Europe. In a century or two, few European peoples will exist in recognizable form. Americans, by contrast, arrived in the New World with the object - at least in the case of the Massachusetts Bay Colony - of becoming a new People of God in a new Promised Land.

((continues))

Note : 1. American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips. Viking, US$26.95, 462 pages.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC28Df01.html

Jolie Rouge · 03-28-2006, 10:53 AM

In a December essay in First Things titled Our American Babylon, Father Richard John Neuhaus argues that the United States itself is not the Promised Land or the Kingdom of God; it is still another place of exile. In Christian theological terms that is quite true. But the stubborn fact remains that if the English Separatists who founded Massachusetts had not deviated from Christian theology, and set out to become a new chosen people in a new Promised Land, we would not be talking about the United States of America to begin with. Christianity drew the notion of a People of God from the Jews, upon whose trunk it proposes to graft the reborn Gentiles. But the graft did not take except where radical Protestants emulated the Jews, and set out to make a new people in a new land.

Kevin Phillips, author of American Theocracy, warns that America's religious right is "abetting far-reaching ideological change and eroding the separation of powers between church and state", giving the Republican Party "a new incarnation as an ecumenical religious party, claiming loyalties from hard-shell Baptists and Mormons, as well as Eastern Rite Catholics and Hasidic Jews". On the face of it, this is a nonsensical statement, for how can a coalition of Baptists, Mormons, Catholics and Jews oppose separation of church and state, a doctrine promulgated by dissenting Protestants to protect their own religious practice against the persecution of an established church?

The fact that the US boasts roughly 200 major Christian denominations, none of which can aspire to a plurality of members, ensures that no possible theocracy ever could emerge. When Phillips uses the word "theocracy", he simply means the emergence of a religious vote on such issues beloved of the secular left as homosexual marriage, abortion, or censorship of pornography. But there is nothing theocratic in people of faith forming occasional coalitions to impose what the law calls community standards.

American Christians are migrating en masse to denominations that preach Christ crucified and the saving power of his blood, eschewing the blancmange Christianity of the old mainline sects ('It's the culture, stupid', November 5, 2004). But the United States is unique among the nations, an assembly of individuals called out from among the nations, where Christian identity is compatible with a secular definition of peoplehood. Even in the US Christians find that one cannot be half-pregnant: either one is saved, or one is not.

Islam does not know moderation or extremism: it only knows success or failure. Unlike Christianity, which prevailed only through the improbable project of abandoning its old center to create a new land altogether, Islam cannot exist outside of traditional society, which by definition knows no doubt. Nowhere else but in the United States has personal conscience rather than religious establishment succeeded as the guiding principle of Christianity. "Moderate Islam" is an empty construct; the Islam of the Afghan courts is the religion with which the West must contend.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC28Df01.html

YNKYH8R · 03-28-2006, 09:57 PM

You know at one point Myself or someone like me commented that the type of democracy we would see in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan would be like this. And people here said it was okay because it would be their version of how democracy woiuld be not necessarily how 'we', Americans, envision it. This is what happens.

Jolie Rouge · 10-19-2006, 12:26 AM

Afghan kidnappers 'want convert'

The kidnappers of an Italian journalist in Afghanistan have offered to free him in exchange for a Christian convert who fled the country, an aid agency says. Photojournalist Gabriele Torsello was seized last week while travelling on a bus in southern Afghanistan.

The kidnappers will free Mr Torsello, a Muslim convert, if Abdul Rahman returns from Italy where he was granted asylum earlier this year, the aid agency says.

Mr Rahman had escaped a possible death sentence for becoming a Christian. He had been charged with rejecting Islam and released this March after being deemed mentally unfit to stand trial on a charge of apostasy.

'Not a spy'

Mr Torsello's kidnappers placed their demand in a phone call to the head of security at a hospital in southern Afghanistan run by Italian aid agency Emergency, said the Italian-based PeaceReporter website which is linked to the agency.

Christian convert Abdul Rahman took up asylum in Italy

The kidnappers demanded the exchange of the two men should take place before the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which falls early next week, the website added.

The foreign ministry in Rome has not commented on the demands, but an Italian politician who helped obtain asylum for Abdul Rahman ruled out any exchange.

"It is not a demand that a decent human being would ever consider," the politician, Rocco Buttiglione, told the BBC.

"We are not ready to offer one human life for another human life... It is barbarian, inhuman, and it grinds against any accepted convention on human rights."

Media rights body Reporters Without Borders said it was "very concerned" about the fate of Mr Torsello.

"He is not a spy or a bargaining chip, but a courageous journalist," a statement said.

Taleban link?

It is still unclear whether the kidnappers belong to any group.

Mr Torsello, himself a Muslim convert who is based in London, was reportedly kidnapped while travelling in a bus between the restive provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

He phoned a local hospital to say he had been kidnapped on Thursday and did not know where he was, an Italian newspaper reported.

An Afghan news agency says it called his mobile phone and was answered by a man claiming to be from the Taleban.

Helmand and Kandahar have seen fierce fighting between Taleban militants and Nato-led foreign troops.

The Pajhwok news agency quoted Mr Torsello's travelling companion Gholam Mohammad as saying that he had been seized by five gunmen.

A Taleban representative who spoke to Reuters news agency distanced himself from the kidnapping, blaming it on criminals.

Gabriele Torsello says in his online CV that he is a "photojournalist specialising in war zones and hostile environments, mainly in Jammu and Kashmir and Islamic countries/areas".

Two German journalists were shot dead by unknown attackers in northern Afghanistan earlier this month.

Karen Fischer and Christian Struwe, two freelances working for Deutsche Welle, are believed to have been the first foreign reporters to be killed in the country since 2001.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6061236.stm

Fearless truth-teller Robert Spencer excoriates the ignorant and the deceivers on the apostasy issue: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013634.php

Quote:

Abdul Rahman, you may recall, converted from Islam to Christianity and was spirited to Italy when Afghanistan's brave new democratic government determined to obey Muhammad's command to kill those who leave Islam (cf. Bukhari 4.52.260). Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

And meanwhile, Islamic apologists in the U.S. blandly claim that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, and call me "Islamophobic" for pointing out that it actually does (Salam Al-Maryati of MPAC did this to me on the Medved show not long ago, and it has happened elsewhere also). This illustrates the hollowness of the arguments we hear all the time about how we must support self-proclaimed moderate Muslims by refraining from noting the flimsiness and weakness of their presentations. While we're being polite to alleged "reformers," Muslim hardliners are cheerfully implementing the elements of Islamic law that we're nodding our heads and agreeing don't exist.