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CNN reported last week that 17-year-old Rifqa Bary absconded from her family home in Columbus, Ohio after she alleges her father threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Ms. Bary ran away in July, where she initially resided in the Orlando, Florida home of the Reverend Blake Lorenz , pastor of Global Revolution Church. The teen became aware of the church through a Facebook prayer group.
According to Ms. Bary’s sworn affidavit statement:
… her father, Mohamed Bary, 47, was pressured by the mosque the family attends in Ohio to “deal with the situation.” … Rifqa Bary stated her father said, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!” The teenager claims her father added, “I will kill you!”
Mr. Bary denies the allegations, telling CNN that he knew his daughter had Christian affiliations, and that he would never do her harm.
“I have no problem with her practicing any faith,” he said, but Bary admitted he would have preferred his daughter to practice the Muslim faith first.
In August, an Orlando judge put Ms. Bary in foster care “while the Florida Department of Children and Family investigated the threat allegations against the parents.”
The young woman’s attorney is John Stemberger, president of Christian advocacy org Florida Family Policy Council. On Monday, Stemberger claimed in a court filing that Ms. Bary’s parents’ mosque — the Noor Islamic Cultural Center — is involved with terrorism and radical Islam. (The Center denies this accusation on its website.)
Stemberger says that not only has Ms. Bary endured physical abuse in the past — she was allegedly punched in the face for being ashamed to wear a hijab – he is certain his client will face death if the courts return her to her parents:
“She is a person who is ripe for apostate killing or mercy killing. I’m not going to let my client slip away in the night by going back.”
Rifqa Bary’s mom’s attorney claims the filing is meant “to inflame the community and the court” — adding that Mr. and Mrs. Bary allowed the teen to be a cheerleader in Ohio “and what Muslim extremist would allow his daughter be a cheerleader?”
I can’t imagine a young woman fleeing across the country unless she felt a genuine fear — still, the involvement of advocacy groups makes me wary of an imposed agenda. Bottom line: People should be able to practice any religion they like without fear of oppression or death.
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There sure are a lot of unconfirmed facts in CNN’s story. Everything against the family at the moment is just an allegation from Stemberger. In terms of the girl running away, well that is something teenagers who disagree with their parents often do. It’s hard to say whether it is because she is afraid or not.
I would hate to think that the Stemberger is trying to utilize some sort of form of American paranoia about terrorism in order to win a case for his client.
That’s exactly what I wanted to say.
Exactly. Claims on both side, especially the claims coming from Stemberger, are incredibly fishy. Might the teen be in a house where she’s abused or her parents are too religiously strict? Sure, maybe. Does that mean her parents are terrorists and would ‘honor kill’ her? That sounds pretty sketch. Also, the fact that allegedly, her father sounds like he knows very little about Christianity. ‘This Jesus?’ Any Muslim knows who Jesus is, and probably wouldn’t have disdain for his followers simply for that reason.
What I think happened: a Muslim girl changed her religion after being taught by American media that Islam is inherently shameful, her parents disapproved, and possibly reacted in an inappropriate way. Then some lawyer who knows how xenophobic the general population is took the story and spun it out of control.
If memory serves the Koran actually says that christians are OK because they are close to muslims in terms of love or something like that. I forget, it’s been a long time since I read it. It’s very unlikely that a true muslim would kill his child because she converted to christianity.
It really does seem fishy that they’d allow her to be a cheerleader then threaten to kill her for being a christian. Unless the family suddenly decided to become a whole lot stricter and crazy to boot then I think there’s a lot more to this story.
Define “true Muslim.” I’m not saying you’re wrong, but the definition of true Muslim is pretty sketchy (just as a true Christian is).
I’ve never heard anything about the Koran saying anything about Christians being “close in love” or any such thing. However, seeing as how the two groups spent the better part of the Dark Ages slaughtering each other, I somehow doubt that the Muslims would say that Christians are cool…
Muslims are not supposed to forcibly convert Christians or Jews ( or Zoroastrians, in Shia) and to let them practice in peace. However, if a Muslim tries to abandon Islam, it is punishable by death in Sharia.
Muslims also generally accept Jesus as a prophet.
Also, Matrim: in arguing anything about Christianity OR Islam, it’s kind of moronic to use the Crusades as evidence of anything. That happened hundreds, a thousand years ago. It has very little bearing on the modern world. Both religions have changed SIGNIFICANTLY. Also, true Islamic beliefs condemns killing or attacking any other Muslim, Christian, or Jew, because they are really all glorified branches of the same religion (that’s my way of saying it. Officially, they’re all ‘People of the Book’). It is a pretty shitty Muslim who’d kill a Christian.
This is such a weird story. The girl met this pastor on Facebook, and then ran away to hide out in his house? I may watch too many soaps ( or dateline) but I kinda suspect that she may have been having an affair with him and is using the ” evil muslim” card to get away from her parents.
I understand it may sound a little strange but I’m a Christian also and I chat with my youth pastor on Facebook. I’ve communicated with pastors and missionaries from around the world whom I find inspirational through Facebook also. I’ve even heard many stories about teens from troubled homes moving in with their pastors; as Christians, we’re supposed to lift people up and help people out when hardships arise in another persons life.
That makes sense, but there are still some details about this that weird me out. Why didn’t the Lorenz’s inform the police about her? They had an out of state, unrelated minor living with them and they didn’t tell anyone until the police tracked them down? And the church creeps me out a bit too. I found this “statement of values” on their home page:
1. We believe in a presence-based church where people genuinely and authentically encounter God.
2. We believe in the radical “Sermon on the Mount” lifestyle.
3. We believe in a spiritual revolution that will ignite the transformation of our culture.
4. We believe in leadership based on sound Biblical principles.
5. We believe in global preparation for the return of Jesus Christ, especially through 24/7 prayer and worship and through raising up end-time messengers.
6. We believe in building a spirit-led organization into true excellence.
7. We believe in building a Biblical family culture, nurturing parents and children alike, and ushering them into the presence of God.
8. We believe in building the body to be the bride of Christ – without spot, wrinkle or blemish.
9. We believe Israel is the prophetic key to the return of Jesus Christ.
10. We believe in signs and wonders that confirm that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Whew, that was longer than expected. Now , I don’t know , I’m Catholic, so maybe this is standard Evangelical fare , but #s 3,5,8, and 9 creep me out a bit. Do any non Catholics wanna help me out? Is this normal or culty?
Is it bad that the second I read she ran away to live with a pastor she met on Facebook then read the name of the church that I immediately thought “CULT! the totally brainwashed her!”?
I agree with the whole creepiness factor to those 4 points, but yeah, some Christian denominations get really crazy with small things the Bible says, like the “bride” of Christ is just a figure of speech used a few times in the Bible, and all of the stuff about Jerusalem is exaggerated; but not to say we shouldn’t take what the Bible says literally and seriously. For #3, it’s just that we think our culture here in America (and the world in general) is really messed up and needs to change for God, and we shouldn’t merely live for money, success, ourselves ect. Number 5 is pushing it; we shouldn’t be so insanely concerned with Jesus’s second coming, though we should constantly be aware of it and simply live our lives to make everything worth it, because who knows when He is coming or even when our time in this world will end another way? Because of this, we should love *all* people and try to lead them to God. As long as the people in this situation believe in having a relationship with God, letting Him truly change them from the inside out and use them to do amazing things for Him, live and love for God alone; I believe they’ve got it right. I believe in a radically life changing relationship with God; not a religion.
I was raised Catholic, but we had a religious studies class when I was in high school, and most of my extended family is Protestant. 4, 7, and 10 are pretty standard, and 1 seems to be (although I’m not totally sure I understand the wording). The rest, I haven’t encountered in general Christianity. However, the non-Catholic Christians I know are generally NORMAL people in NORMAL denominations, and not cults. The other points could PARTIALLY be part of a normal Christian sect (waiting for the second coming, being without sin as much as possible, etc) but they way they stress ‘radical’ and ‘24/7′ pushes it from ‘normal old Evangelical blah-de-blah’ to ‘creepy.’
It all makes me wonder if this issue would have come up if she’d decided she was Catholic or Baptist or something.
Well, I’m Lutheran, and some of this seems a little weird even to me.
The Koran specifically states that muslims should not befriend Christians or jews because they are “infidels”. You people need to get your heads out of your collective asses, this poor girl’s life is in danger from her family and the mosque community. We have seen this sort of thing before.
Umm.. no, it doesn’t. Its ironic that you’re telling people to get their heads of their asses when your own head is evidently so far up its in your small intestine. Muslims are allowed to marry Christians and Jews, the prophet was married to Christians and Jews who never converted. I don’t know what kind of shitty marriage you have but most people are friends with their spouses. Oh, and can we put a moratorium on using infidel to describe non-Muslims from an Islamic perspective, considering that infidel was originally applied to Muslims by the crusaders.
If she were escaping Centennial Park your attitude would be very different. It’s amazing how people like you make excuses for the ugly side of Islam but are so quick to condem Christianity. The Islamists are the ones that insist on using the term “infidel” to describe non-muslims so why don’t you ask them to stop using the word?
If this girl was trying to flee a secretive community that was actively campaigning to have polygamy decriminalized, my attitude would be the same. But she wasn’t. She ran away from her parents who let her go to public school , be a cheerleader, and have a Facebook account. That seems pretty normal. And I have never, ever heard Osama bin Laden say “infidel” in his little videos, seeing as how he doesn’t speak English. For some reason they always put that word in the translations.
No one’s making excuses for the ugly side of Islam. No one says ‘we think that al Quaeda are just misunderstood.’ We say ‘people like you who get their information on Islam from MySpace bulletins based on mishearings of Fox News broadcasts are idiots and need to go to an actual school.’ Education is a GOOD thing, honey.
Syd why don’t you stuff it? Your bigotry is so evident with your need to define anyone with an opposing viewpoint as “racist” or “uneducated” not to mention the usual tripe about Fox news. Your education has clearly done nothing for your life but given you a boatload of excuses for your personal failures and a complete inability to think for yourself. You sound like a thousand other internet posters regurgitating the same stale expressions over and over. Clearly you are not educated but rather a victim of indoctrination by radical forces in the University system.
And YOU sound like all the other uneducated rednecks who get their information from myspace bulletins and urban legends instead of actual facts. Please, Lisa, tell me, when as the last time you actually read a passage from the Koran? And frankly, I didn’t learn these things at a liberal university, but instead, at a fairly conservative Catholic high school. The difference between my statements and yours? Mine are based on facts, yours are based on alarmist propaganda.
george bush used the word “infidel.” just saying…
Wrong.
My daughter is married to a devout Muslim – she is a devout Christian. He goes to church with her, celebrates all holidays with our family – but still observes his faith, including the prayers several times a day.
He explained to me that his faith only requires that the spouse believe in God, that we all worship the same God, just in different ways.
Seems to me that you may need to rethink what you have been told.
Someone has clearly not even looked at the cover of a Koran, let alone read any actual passages from it.
I’m so torn, because at that age it could be an emo ‘I hate my parents’ schtick, or she really could be abused. A teenager fleeing over a thousand miles away says something, but perhaps she’s the extreme one?
At the very least, there’s some sort of underlying family issue there that they need to address.
This story is so creepy.
My sister goes to a fundamentalist Christian church and they had kids trying to leave their parents so they could live with their pastors. The pastors would totally brainwash the teenagers into thinking their parents were “persecuting” them for their beliefs.
I think that’s what is happening here. There is something really fishy about this whole story.
This is my theory too. This story sort of reminds me of those little segments on the 700 club ( I don’t try to actively watch it, I just have a lot of older relatives in the midwest and for some reason they like it as background sound) where they boast about their Christian recruitment efforts in other countries.
I grew up in the Bible-belt. There was a girl in my high school band class who always carried around this little pamphlet that explained how the Church of Christ was/is not a cult.
I tried to explain to her if you have to explain yourself that way, then that = Christianity: UR DOIN IT WRONG.
She didn’t get it.
That crossed my mind too. I do think they need to investigate for abuse (she’s not saying that for nothing, but then again, I know just about every teenager I know would cry abuse at some point between ages 13 and 19 if they’re pissed off enough), but the situation isn’t healthy wherever she went either.
But if she signed up for radical Islam and decided to adopt the Burqa I’m sure you would defend that as some feminist choice.
Radical? No, radical Islam (not unlike radical anything else, including Christian cults) tends to pretty much suck. If she wants to wear a burqa, however, it’s her damn business. Would it be feminist? I don’t know, but it’s not very feminist to tell her what she can and can’t wear.