...any color you want, as long as its black.


Turkey describes itself as a secular nation. Its constitution claims to guarantee religious freedom and many Turks are proud that there is no state religion in Turkey. On the other hand, the government writes the weekly sermon for mosques across the country. National ID cards have a line for religious affiliation, which actually means religious heritage since it is determined at birth. The salaries of mosque officials are paid by the state.

Turkey's "secularity" is unique, if not questionable, and the issue of religious freedom is a particularly tense point. Turkey claims to protect religious freedom for its citizens, yet that freedom is often curtailed, especially for those who leave Islam for Christianity. The government harasses individuals who apply to change the religious status on their identity cards; petitions for churches to meet legally are often denied; and the government restricts or forbids the work of missionaries in the country. It seems to me that a government cannot claim to protect human rights while at the same time restricting evangelism and missions within its borders.

Since religious freedom is an essential component of human rights, people must be free to choose their religious beliefs. In order to be able to make choices with regard to religion there must be reliable access to accurate information about religion. In other words, unless a government is ensuring that its people have unrestricted access to this kind of information, then the government is failing to preserve human rights. And religious freedom isn't "actual" unless there are viable religious options being presented. And unless the truth of the gospel can be demonstrated by real people, Christianity can't be said to be "presented" adequately. So, when a Christian missionary goes to a Muslim country, he is actually an agent of religious freedom, and therefore, of human rights. If people do have a right to choose with regard to religion, then missionaries are necessary to actualizing that right.

Unless there are missionaries living out and presenting another religious option, there aren't any religious choices, so there isn't actually religious freedom. Evangelism is a human rights issue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Martyrdom.

The text from a recent message. The Impact of Martyrdom on the 21st Century Saturday April 19th 2008 I was invited to speak on the topic of martyrdom. Specifically its impact on the 21st century. Of course, my own experience with martyrdom is very narrow. So this is going to be a very personal account of the impact of martyrdom in the 21st century. It struck me that very little has changed since the first century. In the first century if you slit the throat of a Christian he died a painful death. His body was eventually collected and buried. His friends and would talk about his death and try to find meaning in his sacrifice. And I’m sure that most of you are aware of the events of last year in Malatya in Eastern Turkey. A year ago yesterday, in fact, three of our friends were killed, their throats slit. This is likely to be a difficult story for me to tell, even a year later. I apologize for that. Malatya is a city of 500,000 people. And it is almost entirely Muslim. We moved to Malaty...
Read more

Christian Fasting

Christian Fasting Ryan Keating I love good food. I love to cook good food and to eat good food. I spend a lot of time thinking about food and I have found that food has an important role in bringing people together. Good food is a manifestation of grace and God's abundance, in the same way that bad food is an expression of corruption and brokenness. But, Christians are asked to remember that food isn't what ultimately sustains us. We are dependent on God for our existence and we choose to depend on him to sustain us in every way. This truth is the foundation of fasting as a Christian discipline.  The Bible contains dozens of examples of fasting. Patriarchs and prophets like Moses and Daniel fasted in the Old Testament. And fasting continues as a spiritual discipline throughout the New Testament because Jesus also fasted. In Matthew chapter four Jesus is fasting when he is led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by Satan. When Satan tells him to turn stones in...
Read more

...But we like them

Image
Last week we moved out of our old city and we are now settling into our new home. With all of the news coverage here about the three martyrs in Malatya, many people in our old neighborhood had been treating us differently. Some people stopped greeting us on the street, some stopped answering their phones when we called, some made excuses why they couldn't see us. Our neighbors also stopped coming by and some of them even began looking at us with fear and contempt. I suppose some of them were afraid that having Christians close by might mean that something terrible might happen in their own building, others were afraid of being associated openly with Christians. They became more worried about what the other neighbors would think of them. And still others became convinced that we were part of a grand Christian conspiracy to undermine Turkey somehow... During this time, I was walking with my three year-old daughter down the apartment building stairs one afternoon. A middle-aged, conse...
Read more