Thursday, October 11, 2007

Now THIS is fidelity and commitment

From Catholic World News:

Conversions reported on the rise in Yemen

Yemen, Oct. 11, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Palestinian newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi is reporting 2,000 conversions from Islam to Christianity in Yemen.

Many of the converts are reportedly living abroad in fear for their lives. Yemen adheres to Shari'a law, which forbids conversions from Islam on pain of death.

The World Muslim League has appealed to Yemen’s government to stem the tide of conversions, placing the blame on schools administered by foreigners.


When one reads stories such as this, which bring home to us that there are Christians in some parts of the world who live daily with the possibility of paying with their lives for their adherence to Jesus Christ, how ashamed ought we not to be of ourselves at how lukewarm and insipid we are, we who live in peace and comfort in an indifferent democratic society, where the worst we might have to fear for our witness is the ridicule of our peers and the scorn of the media!

Yemen is a Mohammedan state. There is no such thing as ‘religious liberty’ in such societies. We in the west tend to take our freedom for granted. We can change our religion as we change our clothes, at our pleasure. But under Shari’a law, any Muslim who leaves the religion of Mohammed for any other faith may legally be put to death. Muslim converts face not just the hostility of their former co-religionists; they must leave everything behind, and must almost always flee abroad for fear of being killed.

“And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting. And many that are first, shall be last: and the last shall be first.” — Matthew 19:29-30.

This witness by our brothers and sisters in Mohammedan lands is true commitment. Melancholicus is intrigued by the reported figure of 2,000 conversions. Over what period of time did these conversions take place? It is a remarkably high figure. It may be, that as Mohammedanism grows ever more militant and repressive, gentler souls will find in the profession of Christianity that repose which their own brutal religion cannot give, and be called to Christ.

And we in the easy, comfort-loving west must not let them down.

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