religious coercion...
Monday, May 21, 2007
I received an email from a friend in Pakistan about 'this' a week ago, but did not post anything about it for fear of making an already threatening situation worse by putting a 'private' prayer request into the public domain. However, seeing that the story has hit the news anyway, it seems right to draw attention to it.Extremist threats such as this one are very real for minority Christian communities, and they have to be taken seriously if past track record is anything to go by. The Christian community in Charsadda is literally living in fear of imminent attack, causing some to flee their homes in search of safety. As Michael John, the head of Pakistan's Catholic Church and a minority Christian parliamentarian, says: "We are in great danger and need protection".
It does beg the question... what kind of religious belief and fervour causes one human being to treat another in this way? I, for one, cannot recognise an action like this as being in any way fuelled by a 'divine decree', no matter what faith is being observed (and there are a fair few skeletons similar to this in the 'Christian' closet too). As I've requested on more than one occassion before... pray for the peace of Pakistan.
read the full BBC report 'here'
I'm Malcolm Chamberlain
from Liverpool, United Kingdom
. I'm married with two young children and, in addition to Liverpool, have lived in Leicester (for the first 18 years of my life), York, Peshawar (Pakistan), Oxford and Walsall. I've been actively involved in the emerging church since 2001, as a founding member of Dream in Liverpool City, and coordinator of the Dream network. I'm currently engaged in research into emerging missional communities, and work as a parish priest and pioneer minister.
