Coo-Coo for Christ

A brief follow-up to my last blog regarding Abdul Rahman, the 41 year old Afghani who converted to Christianity sixteen years ago, and is being tried for this crime against Islam. If convicted he could be executed.

Sarinwal Zamari, a state prosecutor, says that Mr. Rahman may not be mentally fit to stand trial. On what grounds is his sanity being questioned? On the grounds that only a madman would convert to Christianity. Is this the democracy we so proudly hail in Afghanistan? Is this what we fought and died for? Is this the best we can hope from the President Bush’s “crusade” (his words) against militant Islam? True, I believe that the President and many if not most in his party would love to establish their own theocracy in this country, but that just makes the Muslim theocracy in Afghanistan all the more painful.

My wish is that the Afghan government makes a bold and clear statement about the centrality of religious freedom to democracy, and rescinds all laws that limit this freedom. Of course that will never happen. Most likely the Afghan courts will find Mr. Rahman mentally incompetent and hope to Allah that the infidels in America drop the matter.

Having said this, I have to agree with Mr. Zamari: Abdul Rahman is insane, but not because he converted to Christianity, but because he was stupid enough to go back to Afghanistan and announce it.

What was Rahman thinking? Did he imagine that no one would notice when he invited his Muslim family over for baked ham on Christmas? Did he think being the only guy ordering take-out during Ramadan would go unnoticed? Did he think that buying pirated copies of “The Passion of the Christ” to give to friends on Easter was a good idea? If he did, then he is insane. If he didn’t and did these things anyway, he is even more insane.

I sympathize with Mr. Rahman and hope he is freed. But I also have sympathy for his neighbor in Kabul who said, “There is no way we are going to allow an Afghan to insult us by becoming Christian.” Insanity knows no bounds. So I guess I should also have sympathy for our President who thinks that establishing a Muslim theocracy in Afghanistan is somehow in the interest of the United States. Talk about insanity!