toledoblade.com --

THERE is a widespread belief in the Muslim world that President Bush, under the guise of war against terrorism, is in fact waging a latter-day Crusade against Islam and Muslims. In the waning days of this administration, it is becoming more and more evident that there is some truth to that assumption.

An article published in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago outlined a disturbing relationship between the Department of Defense and Christian evangelists. The DoD has been delivering "Freedom Packages" to U.S. soldiers in Iraq containing proselytizing material both in English and Arabic as well as the apocalyptic video game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces." In the video, the soldiers of Christ hunt down enemies.

The packages were supplied by Operation Straight Up, a fundamentalist Christian ministry. This group was also planning to hold a series of entertainment programs for the troops called, symbolically, Military Crusade.

According to the same article, another evangelical group, Christian Embassy, has had unprecedented access to DoD facilities and personnel for making a documentary. Their cozy proximity to DoD led one high Pentagon official, Air Force Maj. Gen. John Catton, to assume the group was a quasifederal agency.

Proselytizing by Christian missionaries has a long and checkered history. Burning with zeal to save people around the world, these do-gooders descend with Bible in one hand and loaf of bread in the other to prey on the most vulnerable and needy. Be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, or India, the modus operandi is the same. Almost a century ago, Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of religious harmony and pacifism, urged Christian missionaries to stop proselytizing in India. To Gandhi, most conversions had little to do with religion and a lot to do with hunger.

Freedom of religion does not include freedom to convert others. I would defend anyone's right to practice his or her religion but oppose any overtures to convert. For the missionaries to believe they have a God-given right to save others is not only arrogant, it reduces human spirituality to a cookie-cutter, one-size-fit-all concept of salvation. It tends to turns sublime into profane.

Most major religions carry a Himalaya-size chip of superiority on their shoulders. Each religion thinks it has the answer to life here and a recipe to secure the hereafter. One wonders what goes through the minds of religious leaders when they gather for their interfaith powwows. They profess equality while holding hands but sing a different tune to their flocks back in their churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Unless one is a hypocrite, it is just not possible to be equal and superior at the same time.

The recent capture and subsequent release of Korean missionaries in Afghanistan is a case study in ignorance and hypocrisy. Why would these young people risk their lives in a strange and dangerous land rather than putting all their efforts back in their own country? After all, South Korea, a nation of 49 million, still has 36 million non-Christians to convert.

And how about here in America? If every Christian denomination thinks it has the key to salvation, why don't they, in the spirit of love thy neighbor, try converting other Christians to their brand of Christianity? One would think Christian evangelists would first work to save their own before embarking on saving the rest of humanity.

At a recent interfaith seminar at Lakeside, Ohio, a pastor told me that proselytizing is an integral part of Christianity and therefore it may not be possible for most Christians to accord equality to other religions. While this might be a formidable barrier for some, it has not prevented a great majority of believing men and women of all religions from using faith and reason to move forward from the unattainable goal of painting the entire world in one color. All they have to do it to come down from their celestial high horses.

In a civil (and civilized) society, one should have the right to convert but only out of one's own free will. The government has no right to favor one religion over another and use the instruments of the state to facilitate proselytizing to a captive and captured people in occupied lands.

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