Abdul Rahman and Democracy*
Well, the good news is that the man ready to die for his faith is safe: Italy Welcomes Man Who Fled Afghanistan. Still, the case highlights some tough questions for the current US Administration's Wilsonian foreign policy.

"What is 'democracy'?" asks Pat Buchanan, noting that

Christianity does not seem to be faring much better in that other new democracy, Iraq. Under Saddam, Christians practiced their faith in peace and security. But, three years after liberation, their churches are being bombed, and Christian families are being threatened with massacres. They are fleeing to Syria, the new Christian sanctuary.

Our neoconservatives are, of course, anxious to "liberate" and "democratize" Syria, too. If they succeed, God help the Christians there. No one else will.

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"Is Anything Worth Dying For?" asks Paul Hein, citing the only character worthy of praise in this whole drama:

So far, the only person whose behavior in this matter has been consistent and straightforward is Rahman himself. He declared himself a Christian, and as far as he’s concerned, that’s that. What the government did was up to the government, which, being headed by a Bush stooge, was caught on the horns of a dilemma. What IS important, anyway?

For Rahman, the question was simple: He is a Christian, and intends to remain one. If that results in his death, so be it. For the state, it’s not so simple. Sure, the laws of the state, based upon Muslim law, require punishment for Muslim converting to Christianity. That’s almost open-and-shut. On the other hand, there was the need to curry the favor of the United States and other powerful governments, which didn’t want to see Rahman executed.

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Finally, Becky Akers gives us Rahman in Retrospect, reminding us that Islam is much more than a religion; it is a political system as well (in short, it is a theocracy):

Mr. Rahman is the Christian convicted of converting from Islam in Afghanistan. This "crime" hurts the state rather than his fellow man and therefore carries the death penalty. However, thanks to international pressure, Mr. Rahman will likely escape execution, though he has courageously confessed both his creed and his crime throughout his ordeal: "I believe in the [H]oly [S]pirit. I believe in Christ. And I am a Christian." Given that joyous proclamation and the lessons in democracy America has been teaching, the Islamic Leviathan assumes it has every right to kill him: after all, as the prosecutor persecuting him explained, "He is known as a microbe in society, and he should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed." "The people," democratic theory's highest authority, agree. One of the guards at the jail where Mr. Rahman was imprisoned wants to "cut him into little pieces."

But then there's the money. Lots of American money. Leviathan calls it "foreign aid."

Vox populi, vox Dei, indeed. Such theocracy or Cæsaropapism is unheard of in the Catholic West (but not the north where the princes opted for Protestantism). Even the Papal States (aka the States of the Church), whom the Popes agreed to rescue from anarchy, were never theocratic, as temporal power was clearly divided from eternal, so much so that the Popes recognized the right of neighboring Catholic states to wage war in good faith against him as head of state not head of Church.

Essential reading on this issue is Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope?

*See Democracy: The God That Failed