Posted by
Jason Cunningham on Thursday, July 26, 2007 6:17:10 PM
Twenty-three members of a South Korean church group were kidnapped in Afghanistan last week, and one of them was killed yesterday. The Taliban are the perpetrators, but their insane philosophy isn’t the subject of this post. Of greatest concern to me in this instance is the public outcry – against the church group.
Sure, there was plenty of outrage in South Korea against the Taliban, plenty of grief about what they’ve done to these innocent people, but as the L.A. Times says in today’s edition: “Public anger in Korea was muted by a widespread sense that the church group should not have been in Afghanistan in the first place. Internet chat forums abounded with criticism of the kidnapping victims. And the unsympathetic mood was stoked by the release of a photo to the Korean media showing three of the victims on their departure from Inchon airport flashing smiles and peace signs in front of a government poster at the airport warning against all travel to Afghanistan.”
Before I rant, let me first grant a couple concessions: Afghanistan is a dangerous place right now. Common sense says to stay away from there.
Those things being said, the group’s harsher critics should be ashamed of themselves. First, it’s still unclear why they were there. I’m certain that it wasn’t for some frivolous reason, like a vacation (“Hey, guys! Let’s go to Afghanistan this summer; I hear downtown Kabul is a blast!”). Both their church and the Korean government have said that it was not for any religious motives, which means they could have been there for humanitarian reasons. If this is true, then their critics need to start hammering all the other foreign-aid workers in Afghanistan as well. If, on the other hand, it turns out that they were there for religious reasons …
And there’s the rub: I have a strong suspicion that this issue revolves around Christian evangelism – namely that the many secularists in the world, including Liberals here in America, think it’s wrong for Christians to enter Muslim countries for the purpose of spreading the Gospel. As I read the Times story today, I was immediately reminded of the hubbub surrounding the arrival of evangelical Christians in Iraq after the fall of Saddam: “You can’t go in there! It’s a Muslim country! It would be wrong to try and convert them!” So I take it, then, that you are also opposed to the spreading of Liberal Secularism in historically-Christian America? Didn’t think so.
In addition to being further evidence of Liberals’ quiet acquiescence to the violent doctrine of Islam, these religion-related incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan illustrate their Christophobia. In the name of “respect for the beliefs of other cultures and preserving diversity,” they condemn our efforts at Christian evangelizing in Muslim countries – while at the same time working, as they have done for half a century now, to turn America’s Christian foundation on its head. This belies their true motive: the destruction of Christianity because they simply can’t stand the Biblical Jesus.