We’ve been learning all sorts of things about living in this culture – specifically about operating as a follower of Christ in this culture.
There are just things that we don’t have to deal with in the States, because the underlying culture is so different. For instance, a young man that they old team was discipling asked Bryce one day – in our hearing – what would happened if he decided to become a Muslim again. He wanted to know what the Christians would do to him. Bryce asked him, “Well, Josh, what would you do if I became a Muslim?”
Josh, who can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen years old, looked him straight in the face and said, “I would kill you.”
For Josh, who has grown up in the Muslim faith that permeates this region, that was simply the obvious answer. If someone is abandoning their faith, you are honor bound to deal with the heretic, even if it means killing them.
Bryce had to try and explain that, when Jesus said that we are to love our enemies, that means not killing them, even when they do something as “unthinkable” as changing faiths.
Conversely, this area is unique in that, although 98% of the population is Muslim, believers, so long as they come from traditionally Christian tribes and are not Muslim converts, are allowed to carry Bibles openly and meet and worship however they desire without being harassed.
There is actually an unofficial “network” between the sheiks and the pastors that is designed to prevent any religion based violence from cropping up in the area. The level of peace between the two, without either feeling like they are compromising their convictions, is actually quite incredible and totally a God thing.
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