If words had the same meaning for all people, then most of the people of the world would be living in freedom. That is because most nations have signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 18 of that document reads, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes the 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.”
In addition, the U.N. Universal Declaration of Humans Rights obligates each signatory nation “to ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms as herein recognized are violated shall have an effective remedy.”
Signatory nations — including Arab nations — recognize the legitimacy of religious freedom and pledge themselves to support that freedom.
Unfortunately words do not mean the same thing in different cultures. And, in this writer’s judgment, some nations simply lie. They make a show of supporting lofty statements but this practice evidences little, if any, interest in practicing such things as religious freedom.
As Christians, we understand that freedom comes from God. It is not a right granted by government or even the United Nations. When God placed His image in humanity at creation, He gave every person a dignity that no civil power can take away. No government, no political system, not even a religion can invade that sacred space between God and a human being.
Still some nations strive to limit or even deny religious freedom.
It may be a despot who fears any people thinking for themselves. It may be a political system like communism that denies the very existence of God and, thus, spurns all religion. It might even be religious zealots so convinced of their correctness that they try and stomp out any and all who disagree with them.
This latter type of oppression was displayed in Pakistan recently when the government’s Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian, was murdered by Islamists on March 2 (see page 17). It was not an isolated act. Two months earlier — Jan. 4 — Salman Taseer, governor of the Punjab province in Pakistan, was shot to death for defending a Christian woman against blasphemy charges.
The stories from Saudi Arabia where the religious police — the Mutaween — regularly persecute Christians are vile and frequent. Iran’s execution of Christians is widely known. In Yemen Southern Baptist medical missionaries were murdered by Islamists and in country after country across the Arab world, stories of religious persecution abound.
That is one reason some observers of the current turmoil surveying the Arab world wonder if these nations will end up simply exchanging one form of tyranny for another.
Those who love democracy can only rejoice when despots and dictators fall. It is encouraging to see people risk violence and death in order to be free. Democracy values human rights. Dictators do not. But will the new era be any better than what it replaces? Will the freedoms for which people call include religious freedom?
The shah of Iran was a despot but was the Iran of Ayatollah Kohmeini any better? Is the Iran of today, with its political, economic and religious oppression, the goal of reform?
Right now in Tunisia, regime change has meant new religious freedoms. Evangelical Christians report new opportunities to share their faith individually and publicly preach Jesus.
In Egypt, protesters broke into the “women only” cars of commuter traffic saying it was not freedom where women were discriminated against in such ways. In country after country, Baptist leaders have been welcomed as public leaders in protests against oppression.
Arab Baptist leaders in many nations celebrate in the accepted participation of Christians and the new publicity and new freedoms being experienced. Yet all warn that this spring of religious freedom could be short lived. They point to the clamp down on Christians after the ayatollahs replaced the shah in Iran. They mention the extremes imposed by the Taliban while they ruled Afghanistan.
Observe and look at recent announcements by the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt to impose Shariah law on all Egyptians and worry about what comes next. A survey from one North African Arab nation recently reported by Fox News found that 85 percent of respondents agreed that one who left the Muslim faith to become a Christian should be put to death.
It is hard to reconcile that cultural norm with the religious freedom explained in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Democracy is based on freedom — individual freedom reflecting the value of individual human beings. At the core of this freedom is the freedom of religion and from that first freedom comes the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly.
For the first time since the armies of Islam rolled across the Middle East and North Africa in the closing centuries of the first millennium, there is a general uprising in favor of freedom. May God grant that the final outcome is not just trading one form of tyranny for another in that part of the world and that religious freedom does not remain only a high sounding phrase on a piece of paper while citizens continue to live with nothing less than religious tyranny.
Having states that endorse events like those in Pakistan mentioned above is an outcome that is not out of the question.
God has not left Himself without a witness even in such different places. Pray for the national Christians in these countries and pray for outcomes where the gospel can be freely practiced and proclaimed in the Arab world as it was for the first 600 years after Christ and as promised in the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Share with others: