Insane for God

The current case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan citizen who is on trial for converting from his native Muslim faith to Christianity has some interesting parallels in the Bible. According to the Afghan clerics, Afghanistan’s four-year-old Constitution (based on Shariah Law) makes converting to another religion a crime punishable by death.  However, the outcry from the U.S. and other western nations that helped free Afghanistan from the Taliban and establish a supposedly democratic government has caused the Afghan high court to seek a way to drop this case without contradicting their Shariah Law system.  One of the options they have considered is to declare Rahman insane and thus unfit to undergo trial.  Prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari told the Associated Press, "We think he could be mad.  He is not a normal person.  He doesn't talk like a normal person.”

That’s an interesting statement to contemplate.  At first thought, I am stricken with astonishment and wonder.  I think, “Rahman is probably the only sane person among them.”  If he is truly living out his Christian faith, then no doubt he faces his angry accusers with a sense of calm and reason.  He looks at them not with hatred and anger, but with a sense of love and forgiveness.  He is courageously willing to accept whatever penalty they deliver, as was the apostle Paul who said,  “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (2 Tim 1.12).  Meanwhile outside the courtroom and around the country the masses are going nuts in calling for his death.  But he’s the insane one!

However, this should not astonish us.  Jesus’ own people similarly claimed, “He has lost his senses” (Mk 3.21).  Later, the Jews said of Jesus that he has a demon and is insane (Jn 10.20).  Festus likewise accused the apostle Paul (Acts 26.24).  Paul’s response, however, was, "I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I utter words of sober truth.” (vs.25).  What we know to be sober truth appears as insanity to the world.  And not just to the Muslim world.  There have been those in Western society who have sought to have Christians declared insane.  The message of a crucified Savior, a man who claimed to be God, has always been offensive to the world.  To the Jews it was a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishness (1 Cor 1.23).  And it is not only what we believe, but our lifestyle as well that appears abnormal to the world (1 Pet 4.4).

In a sense, the charge is true.  If we are truly living the Christian life, we should not be “normal” -- which, by the way, is Webster’s definition of “sane”.  Could anyone say of us, “We think he could be mad.  He is not a normal person.  He doesn't talk like a normal person”?  Hopefully so.  But then, “…if we are beside ourselves (insane), it is for God” (2 Cor 5.13).

 © 2006  Randy Hohf