Point of View

Among the dignitaries at Pope John Paul II’s funeral was Iranian President Muhammad Khatami. His presence, along with reports that he might have shaken hands with Israeli President Moshe Katsav, raised hopes for a “new beginning” in Iran’s relationship with its neighbors. While that would be welcome news, I can think of another group of people who need a “new beginning”: Iran’s Christians.

While Khatami was preparing to travel to Rome, Hamid Pourmand sat in an Iranian prison awaiting trial in an Islamic court. He has been charged with apostasy from Islam and proselytizing.

Earlier this year, an Iranian military court convicted Pourmand of concealing his Christianity from his superiors. Iranian law prohibits non-Muslims from commanding Muslims. Pourmand, who converted to Christianity twenty-five years ago, insists that his superiors knew of his conversion before he became an officer.

That didn’t help. In addition to being discharged, losing his pension, and having his family immediately removed from their home, he was sentenced to three years in prison. And that was only the beginning. Iranian officials have charged that Pourmand, a lay pastor, belongs to “an ‘underground’ church through which ‘many Muslims’ had deserted Islam and become Christians.”

In a theocratic state like Iran, these charges are worse than treason. Apostasy from Islam is, along with murder, rape, and drug trafficking, a capital offense in Iran. Add the charge of proselytizing to the mix and, at the very least, Pourmand faces an agonizing choice: As one Iranian Christian put it, “Either he will be forced to return to Islam … or he will face a very big problem now.”

“Very big problem,” indeed. Since 1990, “several ex-Muslims who converted to Christianity have been either assassinated or executed by court order, under the guise of accusations of spying for foreign countries.”

While Pourmand’s is the most high-profile case, it’s hardly unique. Iranian evangelical Christians are required to “carry membership cards, photocopies of which must be provided to the authorities.” They are used in identity checks conducted around churches. And, to make doubly sure that every Iranian Christian is accounted for, church officials must inform the government before “admitting new members to their congregations.”

And in case you doubt the resolve of Iranian authorities, just last September police raided a meeting of Assemblies of God ministers and arrested eighty pastors. While all were eventually released, it’s a reminder of the precarious situation faced by Iranian Christians.

To its credit, the European Union has formally protested the treatment of Iranian Christians as an “infringement of the freedom of religion or belief.”

Unfortunately, our own government hasn’t been as forceful in its response. All the State Department has done is to mention the situation in a report.

That simply won’t do. If religious freedom is the fundamental right that we claim it is, it follows that conversion shouldn’t be punishable by death.

Our government ought to express its unwavering and uncompromising commitment to this basic truth. If Iran executes a man for his Christian faith, does it really matter whose hand its president shakes?

Copyright © 2005 Prison Fellowship. Used with permission.