Mariam Ibrahim, the Sudan woman who escaped a death sentence imposed for renouncing her faith, says she wants to campaign for others who face religious persecution.
You just knew that you hadn't heard the last of this remarkable young woman and rightly so. She considered her time in prison as a test from God, a test she obviously passed. God can accomplish great things through people with faith like hers. It will be interesting to see what they do.
Speaking to the BBC in the US, where she is seeking asylum, Ms Ibrahim said she hopes to return to Sudan one day.
Ms Ibrahim earlier received an award from a US Christian foundation.
Her sentencing - by a Sudanese court that did not recognise her Christian faith - sparked outrage this year.
Born to a Muslim father, she was raised a Christian by her mother and married a Christian man.
Under Sudan's version of Islamic law, however, her father's religion meant that she too was still technically a Muslim. A court found her guilty of apostasy, or renouncing one's faith.
Sentenced to hang, she gave birth to her daughter while shackled in prison. Under intense international pressure, her conviction was quashed and she was freed in June.
She told the BBC that she had been threatened by the guards while she was in court.
"The judge told me that I needed to convert to Islam," she said. "And so these warnings made me anticipate I would be sentenced to death."
"It wasn't easy, I can't describe it," she said, of her time in prison. "But there are others who are in worse conditions in Sudan than those I was in."
"Sadly, this was all under the guise of the law. So instead of protecting people, the law is harming them."
On Saturday night, Ms Ibrahim received an award from a gathering of evangelical Christian conservatives in Washington, who see her treatment in Sudan as an assault on their values.
I'm not sure what to think of this last phrase (underlined just above). Somehow I feel a little insulted by it, being a conservative Christian. There is no byline on this BBC article, but I think we can assume that it was not written by a conservative Christian.
The term 'an assault on their values' is very curious, and, I think, demeaning. The treatment and near-martyrdom of this courageous young woman had little to do with anyone's values but her own. She is Catholic, which, although Christian, often have very different values than conservative Christians.
In the final analysis, a Christian is a Christian, is a Christian. Those who have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ are Christians; those who do not are not Christians regardless of whether they have been baptized, are members of a Christian church, are 'good' people, Catholic or Protestant. All 'genuine' Christians have remarkably similar values regardless of whether they are Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic or Orthodox.
The thousands of Catholic priests who have sexually abused children were not, and are not, Christians unless God has done a major work in them since. Indeed, I question whether those Bishops and Archbishops who covered-up and enabled the pedophile priests to continue their "Satanic Mass", as Pope Francis called it, are bonafide Christians. They certainly have much to answer for when they stand before Christ.
No, we conservative Christians don't see that Meriam's ordeal was an attack on our values, we see that it as an attack on Jesus Christ and His church. We see it as a Satanic attack! It has nothing to do with values and everything to do with the age-old battle between Good and evil - between Christ and the devil.
You just knew that you hadn't heard the last of this remarkable young woman and rightly so. She considered her time in prison as a test from God, a test she obviously passed. God can accomplish great things through people with faith like hers. It will be interesting to see what they do.
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| Meriam and Daniel |
Ms Ibrahim earlier received an award from a US Christian foundation.
Her sentencing - by a Sudanese court that did not recognise her Christian faith - sparked outrage this year.
Born to a Muslim father, she was raised a Christian by her mother and married a Christian man.
Under Sudan's version of Islamic law, however, her father's religion meant that she too was still technically a Muslim. A court found her guilty of apostasy, or renouncing one's faith.
Sentenced to hang, she gave birth to her daughter while shackled in prison. Under intense international pressure, her conviction was quashed and she was freed in June.
She told the BBC that she had been threatened by the guards while she was in court.
"The judge told me that I needed to convert to Islam," she said. "And so these warnings made me anticipate I would be sentenced to death."
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| Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag and her two children in Rome on their way to the US Mrs Ibrahim's daughter Maya was born in prison in May |
"Sadly, this was all under the guise of the law. So instead of protecting people, the law is harming them."
On Saturday night, Ms Ibrahim received an award from a gathering of evangelical Christian conservatives in Washington, who see her treatment in Sudan as an assault on their values.
I'm not sure what to think of this last phrase (underlined just above). Somehow I feel a little insulted by it, being a conservative Christian. There is no byline on this BBC article, but I think we can assume that it was not written by a conservative Christian.
The term 'an assault on their values' is very curious, and, I think, demeaning. The treatment and near-martyrdom of this courageous young woman had little to do with anyone's values but her own. She is Catholic, which, although Christian, often have very different values than conservative Christians.
In the final analysis, a Christian is a Christian, is a Christian. Those who have a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ are Christians; those who do not are not Christians regardless of whether they have been baptized, are members of a Christian church, are 'good' people, Catholic or Protestant. All 'genuine' Christians have remarkably similar values regardless of whether they are Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic or Orthodox.
The thousands of Catholic priests who have sexually abused children were not, and are not, Christians unless God has done a major work in them since. Indeed, I question whether those Bishops and Archbishops who covered-up and enabled the pedophile priests to continue their "Satanic Mass", as Pope Francis called it, are bonafide Christians. They certainly have much to answer for when they stand before Christ.
No, we conservative Christians don't see that Meriam's ordeal was an attack on our values, we see that it as an attack on Jesus Christ and His church. We see it as a Satanic attack! It has nothing to do with values and everything to do with the age-old battle between Good and evil - between Christ and the devil.
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