Afghanistan--Where Becoming a Christian Can Be (Very) Bad For Your Health

The AP story is neatly summed up in the first paragraph:

An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.

Abdul Rahman was turned in by his family last month. He has confessed to have become a Christian while working in Pakistan 16 years ago and says he has no intention of returning to the Muslim faith (read my earlier post on this subject here).

The end of the story carries an interesting statistic, noting that 99% of Afghanistan's population is Muslim with a small percentage of Hindus mixed in.

The charges against Rahman seem to offer some explanation as to why virtually everyone in Afghanistan is Muslim. You see, if one of them became something else, they would be killed and, as a result, would not show up in the statistics.

Pray for Abdul Rahman. Pray that his trial judge will be lenient in his sentencing and spare him the death penalty.

And, by the way, someone should write to the Afghani legislature and remind them that Article 18 of the International Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948) reads as follows:

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.

Note as well that Rahman did not publicly reveal himself to be a Christian. One can only wonder how many thousands, ten thousands or even hundreds of thousands of similar "Muslims" are secretly Christian converts, living double lives out of fear for themselves and their families.

We may not know . . . but God does.

Pray for them, too.