Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Good won a battle this past month in India.

For those who haven't been keeping close tabs on national elections in the planet's most populous democracy, that's understandable. I didn't see much on American cable news, though I would hazard that the BBC did a more thorough job. Suffice it say, over seven hundred million citizens qualified to cast a vote made India's recent elections the largest in human history. Much was at stake. Some would say India's very claim to be called a democracy.

Battling it out for supremacy were the subcontinent's two most powerful political parties. The 'UPA' or Congress party ran on a platform of a secular, democratic India with guaranteed freedom and protection for religious minorities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s platform's has been simple, unwavering and distressingly popular. 'Hindutva', or a forced return to Hinduism and caste rule.

Orissa area village

A decade ago, the BJP dominated India's federal government. In 2004 the UPA knocked them out of national power. But their control of states like Orissa led to the violence this past year that left hundreds of Orissa Christians dead, upwards of 100,000 burned out of homes, and virtually every Christian institution from churches to schools and orphanages razed to the ground (see Orissa Burning). So concerned Christians inside and outside of Orissa have been watchfully monitoring Indian elections.

And praying.

But even those with great faith and hope were stunned by this last week's announcement of election results. In parliamentary elections, the UPA won 2-1 over BJP, giving the moderate secular party a sweeping majority. Meanwhile in Orissa itself, not a single BJP candidate won a seat at either state or national level! What is significant is that neither India's Christian community nor its sizeable Muslim minority combined has a voting bloc large enough to determine the outcome of the elections. BJP's sweeping defeat was only possible because India's 80% Hindu majority voted overwhelmingly against 'Hindutva' extremism and for a secular state.

Orissa area church service

So today Christians--and Muslims--are breathing a little easier in India. Which doesn't mean all concerns for continued violence are gone. Just in the last two weeks, Hindu extremists have attacked Christians within Orissa's remaining refugee camp. Two days ago in Nepal, a Hindu monarchy declared a democratic republic just last May, a church bombing killed two and injured dozens more. Still, the decision of India's voters at the ballot box has been a huge step forward for true democracy and freedom for all its 1.2 billion citizens.

Orissa pastor's wife, husband arrested by Hindu extremist authorities

About the same time, another incident received a whole lot more North American media attention. Whether good, bad, or ugly won, you'll have to decide. It was a book burning. Not just any books. A collection of Bibles. No, the bonfire was no action of Hindu or Muslim extremists. It was carried out by orders of U. S. government personnel. You may have followed the case. An American church, unaware it was against military regulations, raised funds for Bibles in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's most common languages. The Bibles were shipped to a church member serving on Baghram Air Force Base north of Kabul, command center for U. S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan.

When the soldier showed the Bibles to a chaplain, he was informed of regulations against U.S. military personnel handing out Bibles or any other action that could be construed as proselytizing of Muslims. The soldier turned them over to the chaplain, the chaplain to his own commanding officer. Which would likely have been the end of it except someone in the vicinity was filming the whole thing on the camera phone. It got out to the Islamic news service, Al-Jazeera. At which point the U. S. military quickly assured the world the confiscated Bibles had been safely converted to ash.

So why burn the Bibles instead of simply returning them to their donors? Two reasons were given:

1) Regulations require all discarded trash on U. S. military bases to be burned (I.E: brand-new Bibles are trash).

2) If the Bibles were returned to the donors, they might be given away to some other Dari or Pashto readers (Now I am wondering, back when the CIA was arming Afghan mujahedeen to bring down the Soviet empire, wasn't part of their justification that the Soviets were denying basic human rights like praying, worshipping, reading as you choose to its citizens? Why was it okay to encourage those under communist rule to defy a totalitarian regime, but Americans are now actually helping Islamic regimes deny those freedoms to their own people?).

What is more interesting was the official basis for confiscating and burning said volumes at all, something called a 'force protection measure'. Put briefly, if Muslims even suspected Western coalition soldiers of giving away a Christian holy book, they might be provoked to kill more American soldiers. So let's not only burn the Bibles, but make sure the Islamic world knows, so we're not accused of recycling them. Ironically, in Western news coverage, I saw far more outrage at a U.S. church daring to send Christian literature to Afghanistan than over U.S. military forces aiding and abetting a totalitarian regime in controlling what its citizens can or can't read.

Left unspoken, perhaps because it's a no-brainer, is that no one in all of this has expressed any worries that millions of outraged Christians around the world might resort to rioting, looting, and murder to avenge the burning of their Sacred Scriptures. Imagine instead a Muslim mosque, say, in Egypt, sending a few Korans over to one of its military personnel enrolled in any one of the many Allied Officers exchange programs run on U. S. military bases. I've met plenty of these Muslim-bloc officers, and they have no problem discussing their own faith freely, so this is hardly a far-fetched image. In fact, Saudi Arabia has paid for the building of mosques and dispersal of millions of Korans all over the world.

Now imagine those Korans being seized and burned so as not to offend American Christians. Imagine those responsible announcing this to the entire planet so that no one will get the erroneous idea that a single Koran has survived.

Imagine the world-wide chaos that would ensue!

If that's a hard stretch for the imagination, it's because it just wouldn't happen. Meanwhile, has burning Bibles and then carefully announcing that burning across the entire Muslim world really made our own troops safer? I don't think so--and here's why! In so doing, the American military has sent the entire world--and especially the Muslim bloc--two disastrous messages:

1) Western leadership will bend over backwards to show respect for Islam's holy book, but has none at all for the Book considered sacred by a majority of its own citizens.

2) The greatest military power on earth, that won with such ease in Afghanistan and Iraq, is so petrified of Muslim aggression, it will burn its people's own 'holy book' to appease it. Which in local culture is not interpreted as a conciliatory gesture, but weakness and lack of moral fortitude.

Now personally, while I regret the Bible burning, my outrage is moderate. Why? God's Word cannot be destroyed by burning paper and ink. Totalitarian regimes of all stripes have been burning Bibles clear back to King Jehoiakim torching the prophet Jeremiah's scrolls (Jeremiah chapter 36). The Bible is still here. More Dari and Pashto copies will be printed, regardless of U.S. or Islamic government objections.

Which is precisely why you don't see Christians rioting around the world. I believe with all my heart that such capitulation places our military in more danger in the long term, because Muslim extremists have been encouraged once again that Americans have no moral strength. But I can see why military personnel might feel it was the easiest way out at the time.

Orissa Bible conference, February, 2009

Which in itself is the point. There was an 'easier' way to handle the Orissa situation as well. The BJP, after all, offered Orissa Christians a peaceful solution to their crisis. All they had to do was renounce their faith, reconvert to Hinduism, and promise never to speak of or worship Jesus Christ again, and they would be free to return to their villages and lives.

They chose instead to endure the loss of homes, churches, jobs, lives. They did so without resorting to retaliatory violence. They did so without knowing their steadfast faith and resolve in the face of persecution would send a watching nation to the ballot box to demand an end to extremism.

One has to wonder, judging by recent decisions, if current Western leadership had to trade places with the Orissa Christians, what kind of choice would they make?

While We Were Sleeping

The first non-English language into which my political-suspense novels were translated was Dutch. The Netherlands is a delightful country with its canals, houseboats and tall, skinny buildings. A nation of readers. The first place I was ever served raw meat as a main dish--and enjoyed it!

The Netherlands is also famous for its laissez faire attitude towards moral issues Americans take seriously like drug use, prostitution, euthanasia. So I was disturbed to have the Netherlands pop up recently on my 'freedom of speech' watch-list.

In synopsis, a supreme court has just ruled that a Dutch politician may be prosecuted criminally. Not for trying to sell a parliament seat. Nor hiding bribe money in a freezer. Nor indulging in inappropriate conduct with interns.

No, the charge is 'insulting Islam'.

It is a charge that across the Islamic world has sentenced countless journalists, moderate Muslim scholars, and Christian converts to prison. Only this time the ruling did not come from a sharia court, but from a Dutch appeals court. Politician Geert Wilder had stated publicly his belief that Islamic 'sharia' law is a fascist totalitarian ideology that poses a threat to Western democratic freedom.

At issue is a film documentary Wilder produced juxtaposing Koranic verses calling for armed jihad against images of that jihad actually being carried out. Was the film tastefully produced? Have all Wilder's statements been PC? I couldn't say, not having seen the film. It may be that I myself would not appreciated the final product.

FITNA: "This 15-minute film, which drew millions of viewers since its release Thursday, contains footage of Muslim clerics and protesters calling for the slaying of Jews, verses from the Koran, videos from scenes of suicide bombings and executions, illustrations of the demographic increase in the number of European Muslims and archive material from the Dutch media about Islamic terrorism-related incidents."

But what sends chills up my spine is that the veracity of Wilder's position has not been made an issue. After all, sharia law imposed currently by Islamic regimes across the planet proscribes freedom of speech, religion, association, and self-determination. Meanwhile Islamic leaders make no bones that the Koran's ultimate command is a global 'caliphate' ruled by sharia theocracy. So Wilder isn't the only one who might consider 'totalitarian' or 'fascist' a not unreasonable characterization.

The Dutch court's ruling addressed a much simpler issue. To question or criticize Islam is offensive to Muslims (of course it is! By sharia law, it's punishable by death!), therefore making Wilder's public debate 'hate speech', a criminal offense. It seems the Dutch haven't forgotten the worldwide violence and destruction that followed Danish cartoons lampooning Islam. And if you think the Dutch are alone, Wilder was just banned from travel to Britain. Why? Because his presence might incite violence among British Muslims.

Is anyone as concerned as I am by this ruling in a Western democratic nation? When was the last time questioning the tenets of Christianity was made a criminal offense? Oh, yes, something called the Inquisition. And why has not our media, so protective of its rights, jumped to speak out at this erosion of freedom of speech? The abridgement of public debate or criticism on any topic should have every human rights activist across the free world on their feet.

If I am passionate about freedom of speech, it is because I have seen firsthand the consequences of its denial. I grew up in Latin America at a time when too many who spoke up against oppressive regimes became one more 'desaparecido' or 'disappeared one'. In Afghanistan, where I traveled recently, a 23-year-old journalist in prison for downloading an internet article, has been joined by two other journalists who translated the Koran into local Dari vernacular.

They thought they were doing something good, since few Afghan Muslims read the Arabic of the original Koran. After all, the Christians have translated their Holy Book into Dari. An Afghan court judged it blasphemy and handed down a death sentence. Working in recent years with ministry partners in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, and many other countries, I have seen the bludgeoning club of 'anti-conversion' laws use against those who would choose their own faith or share it with others.

Among them more than 50,000 Christians burned out of churches and homes this past year in Orissa, India. I have shared in earlier blog entries about the refugee camps our own ministry organization, BCM International, established on the Orissa border to shelter the 62 pastors [see group picture; faces blurred for security] and their families of our own Orissa churches, all of whom had lost home and church to Hindu extremist mobs.

We recently hosted a BCM medical team, including dentist and ophthalmologist, at the camp. Along with their services, the team was able to give to each family a set of dishes and pans[see photo below].

The reason is that our refugee camps are closing at the end of this month. The government camps are already closed. These Christians have lost homes, jobs, loved ones. Now they are being sent back to the same villages that burned them out. The government is insisting they can maintain order. The Hindu extremists have announced that returnees must convert to Hinduism or be killed.

Meantime some of our pastors have already returned to burned-out ashes of their churches. Below is an excerpt of a recent letter from our Orissa regional director, Rev. Nayak [his phrasing]:

"It is worthy to praise the work of our BCM pastors during this tough time of hazardness. Pastor Tuna of Bataguda boldly went to their village and gathered the scattered out believers from different places of the area and started worship service in his church in spite of dreadful fear. He encouraged to others that they are serving the living God. He said to others that we are already dead in Christ, no need to fear any more to anyone. If they die, they die for Christ and their eternal place is heaven. This very thin and short BCM pastor shows a strong faith, and looking to his braveness, other pastors also have been taken the steps, among them Pastor Bimalraj and Pastor Lubara Mallik. Pray for these
pastors who could be the example for others."

It is easy to make a stand on freedom of speech sitting in my current comfortable swivel chair in front of my computer monitor. It is another to raise one's voice and refuse to be silenced under threat of death. And I am reminded as I see the courage of penniless Orissa Christians on one hand, while on the other a well-armed democratic state knuckles under without a fight on their own freedom of speech, that freedoms can be lost far more easily than they can be won. Freedom of speech and religion as we know it today is less than 250 years old. Current events in the Netherlands are a frightening object lesson of what may be in store if erosion of those freedoms is allowed to continue unchallenged.

Meanwhile, my own upcoming Afghanistan release, Veiled Freedom, explores just what it means to be an Islamic 'democracy' without those accompanying freedoms. And I have to ask myself, having written in its pages truth and only truth, is Veiled Freedom one title of mine that will not be welcome in its Dutch translation?

The Reason for the Season

If there's one holiday gripe I've developed since arriving Stateside from overseas, it's the bombardment of programming and commercials determined to reduce the 'reason for this season' to some nebulous 'Christmas spirit'. From observation to date, this consists in renewed belief that Santa will finally bring an outdated toy you've been obsessing over since childhood. A taste for red and green, well-decorated house, hot cocoa and cookies. Extreme shopping in order to prop up a faltering economy. And as a sop to something other than rank materialism, the usual punch-line that celebrating with family and friends, and being cheerful and kind are maybe even more important than getting that item Santa forgot thirty years ago.

It isn't just the absence of a baby named Jesus born in a manger in this equation. As the Grinch put it so succinctly, Christmas is a WHOLE lot more. Around our world, Christians are celebrating, not stockings and presents and 'things bought in a store', but public testimony to God's ultimate gift. The birthday of the King of Kings. Emmanuel. God come to man as a baby--and Savior. Some celebrate freely. Others in courageous defiance of hostile neighbors. Still others in secret under death threat. For the follower of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christmas is a proclamation of faith that though the battle still rages on this planet Earth, the final victory is assured. The King of Kings will triumph. Isn't that more worthy of excitement--and belief--than childhood wishes coming true thirty years down the road?

Now lest I be accused of grinchiness (is that a word?), let me hasten to add I see no problem with enjoying the trappings of stockings and gifts and Christmas tradition, as God supplies. This year I confess to wallowing in family planning, shopping, decorating, baking--and, yes, cocoa (though no past-life toys). The reason: God has blessed our family this Christmas with the best gift possible outside the birth of His Son. For the first time in five years, all three of our adult sons came home for the holidays. My Navy son Steve (21) flew in from Sicily. My oldest son Mike (26), who works with homeless men and underage illegal aliens in Seattle, made it out from the worst winter storm to hit SeaTac airport in a decade. My middle son Josh (22) arrived from Wyoming with new daughter-in-law and six-week old first grandson. Our daughter Ellie (17) was ecstatic to have her big brothers all home. It has truly been a wonderful Christmas from beginning to end.

During Christmas Eve and Day, my husband kept email and Skype online to keep abreast of happenings among our Christian refugees in Orissa. The good news: though Christmas celebrations were low-key, the holiday passed peacefully without new attacks. In the two refugee camps our ministry sponsors for pastors and families under death threat, Christmas was celebrated with a worship service, gifts of clothing and other needed items, and a special Christmas feast. All made possible by donations that have come in, not just from North America, but the Ukraine, Peru, Ireland. A number of our children's and family camps from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, even other provinces in India took special offerings out of their own scarcity for their brothers and sisters in Orissa. Isn't the family of God a wonderful thing when we work and love together?

Now my family has scattered again, the reason you are hearing from me. Forgive me for inflicting pictures of a proud mother and first-time grandma. But, hey, this is my blog--and these are my first family pictures in years. A Happy New Years 2009. My wish for you and yours is that you may rejoice as much as I have this holiday season in family, friends, faith, and the 'happy ending' to mankind's story that Christmas foretells.

Dancing in the Storm

Growing up as a daughter of missionaries in Colombia’s equatorial zones, I’ve always loved storms. Monsoon rain thundering on roof tiles loud enough to drown out sibling squabbles. Furious tossing of the jungle canopy like surging waves on some wild, green sea. That fresh, earthy scent of raindrops exploding against hot dirt. Mud-brown floodwaters lapping at the concrete edging of our elevated verandah.

The greatest fun came as the storm tapered off. Pulling on bathing suits (unlike the neighbor kids for whom clothing restraints were optional), my siblings and I joined our friends outdoors. Who needed swimming pools when the dirt street outside was now a river rapids ride? Mud was easily dealt with by standing under the rainspout, the downpour itself as tepid as Caribbean surf.

Though small and helpless against nature’s fury, I remember no fear, only joyous delight in a power far greater than myself. Somewhere up there in the thunder and lightning and rain, God was playing with His creation.

I realize now that my delight in the storms came from my own position of safety. My home was built like a fortress, the brick-and-concrete walls, metal roof, barred shutters and heavy doors that kept our expat family safe from thieves, riots, or guerrilla insurgents impervious to the worst tropical deluge.

Since those days, I’ve been exposed to storms less friendly. Traveling twenty-eight hours in a Canadian blizzard, the highway drifting shut at the heels of our carload of Bible college students. My first hurricane during a sojourn in Miami. This time I wasn’t living in a fortress. My husband and I hunkered down in the dark with our children (hurricane shutters were up and the power out), a 120-mile-per-hour wind tearing at our roof and slamming neighbors’ possessions against the walls. I was sure one more huff-and-puff would blow our house down.

And yet there was that delightful moment when the gale died down and we gathered courage to step outside into the storm. The rain was warm and no longer blowing straight sideways. The earthy freshness of a sudden gust across my face carried me back to those jungle monsoons. Despite broken palms, ripped-off roofs and blown-down fences, I felt safe--though I knew it wouldn’t last long.

The eye of the storm had settled over us.

Since those halcyon childhood downpours, I’ve learned more than I wished about storms. Foremost, that all storms aren’t acts of weather. I've now met political and economic storms, gale winds of war. Storms of loneliness and separation. Storms of personal failure and temptation. Of grief and pain and betrayal.

Worse, storms that shake not me, but those I love. An adult son with a new baby recently lost his job in the auto industry. The ministry of which my husband serves as president, BCM International, has 16,000 churches in India, including many in Orissa province where one year ago on Christmas Day, Hindu extremists launched an on-going assault against Christian churches and homes that has left hundreds dead, more than 50,000 displaced, and virtually every church building destroyed. A dear BCM co-worker, Pastor Dasarath Digal, was jailed for murder when one of the mob destroying his church fell to his death while tearing the cross from the roof. In renewed violence a few months ago, his twenty-four year old son was killed by a mob (Read More at Orissa Burning). Another co-worker's beautiful teenage daughter died of medical complications while fleeing the attacks. I can face my storms with equanimity, but I find my mind screaming and heart weeping at the injustice of theirs.

These days I find myself more often than ever before in storm-tossed corners of our planet. Guatemala. El Salvador. India. Sri Lanka. The Philippines. Afghanistan (keep an eye out for my new Afghanistan novel, Veiled Freedom, coming from Tyndale House Publishers June, 2009). Sometimes traveling with others, often alone. "Aren't you afraid of what could happen?" I'm often asked.

Have I learned to fear the storms?

Only when I lose sight of where and whose I am. I belong to the Almighty Creator of the Universe whose weather antics delighted me as a child, whom Scripture describes as riding on the wings of the wind, making storm clouds His footstool, thunder and lightning His playthings. He is King of Kings--and my heavenly Father who loves me passionately. And He loves and cares for those I love far beyond what I ever could. Whatever tempest shakes my world brings no cause for fear but joyous dancing. Why? Because at the eye of every storm is my heavenly Father's almighty hand, where I am lovingly and safely cradled.

Merry Christmas! I hope you will come back and visit this blog again. Drop me a line. Dance with me in the palm of our Creator's hand. Join me in the adventure of joyous living in the eye of life's storms. And in this Christmas season may you and yours know the immeasurable love that prompted the Creator of the Universe to take on humanity in the form of a baby born to a peasant refugee family in a dark and war-torn moment of history in order to draw His lost creation back to Himself.