Saudi textbooks, religious freedom and why it matters

http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=28979

[Baptist Press News] 24 Sep 2008--A Saudi man cut out his daughter's tongue and then burned her to death as punishment for her conversion from Islam to Christianity.

That religious freedom does not exist in the Muslim Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is regrettably not a surprise. Tragically, murdering converts to Christianity is not uncommon in Saudi Arabia.

What makes this case so revealing is that the girl's father is an employee of Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice -- the very organ of the government that enforces the nation's absolute prohibition of Christianity and conversion to Christianity.

Beyond the fact that Christians are obligated to support each other in adversity and that Christians in America must be concerned for the well-being of others, and beyond the fact that Baptists are among the first champions of religious freedom for all, understanding that true religion is uncoerced, this case should matter to Christians around the world because Saudi Arabia is exporting the form of radical Islam that teaches this sort of behavior in textbooks for Muslim schools across the globe, including America.