Daily Mail: The New Roman Lions

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

The New Roman Lions

Abdul Rahman, the 41-year-old Afghani man who was threatened with execution for his conversion from Islam to Christianity, has had his case dismissed due to "lack of evidence" and considerable international pressure. The Afghan parliament voted to keep him in the country as a show of disapproval at his release, but he is now in Italy. The case has done much to highlight the problem of Christian suffering at Muslim hands around the world. Or has it? The sad fact is that the Rahman case is far from unique. Everyone knows about Christians being fed to lions in the early centuries A.D., but the practice has spread well beyond the Coliseum. There are currently at least 40 countries around the world in which Christians face serious (including imprisonment, beatings, confiscation of property, death) consequences for their confession of Jesus Christ. The actual numbers are hard to come by since Muslim apostates hardly "advertise," and the persecutors are often not the governments themselves, but "unofficial" angry mobs and the like allowed by the governments.
Still, if we recognize that the problem goes far beyond one man in Afghanistan, the Rahman case has helped. On persecutionblog.com todd_nett speculates:

"Imagine if two weeks ago we'd have taken up a collection and raised a million dollars, then went to Afghan authorities and offered them that money in order to broadcast the testimony of a Muslim convert to Christianity on Afghan TV. What would they have said?

They might have told us that there were no Afghan Christians. And they would have told us there was NO WAY they would allow an Afghan Christian to share his testimony on national TV.

Then Abdul Rahman was taken into custody, and the national television broadcast his answers to questions about his faith:
"I am not an apostate. I believe in God...I believe in the Injil (New Testament) and love Jesus Christ."

How amazing is that? What we couldn't have purchased for a million dollars, God arranged to have happen for free. And it is bearing fruit: workers in Afghanistan report that many Muslims are asking questions about Christianity and Jesus."