Organizations on the religious right raise funds just like any other interest group – they scan world news for the most egregious example of whatever it is they’re fighting against, tart the story up a bit and spam it out to their mailing list as a fundraising letter. Since their mission basically entails increasing the incentives for people to practice Christianity, evangelical fundraisers love a good religious persecution story in the same way that environmentalists milked the Valdez disaster and NARAL will name the next wing of their headquarters after Bill Napoli.
For evangelical groups the fundraising letters don’t come more pre-written than this:
An Afghan who has renounced his Islamic faith for Christianity faces the death penalty under Afghan law in a throwback to the brutal Taleban regime.
…Mr Rahman converted to Christianity over 14 years ago, but his situation was bought to the attention of the authorities after he tried to gain custody of his daughters who had been living with their grandparents. His parents then denounced him as a convert and on arrest he was found to be carrying a Bible.
“The Attorney General is emphasising he should be hung. It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulating his family by converting,” Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case, told The Times.
“He was a Muslim for 25 years more than he has been a Christian. We will request him to become a Muslim again. In your country two women can marry I think that is very strange. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished,” said the judge.
But here’s the downside to politicizing religion. Fundamentalist evangelical groups (yes I know that there’s a distinction) made the decision to firmly hitch their wagon to George W. Bush’s horse, and they’ve been gunning all eight cylinders on his behalf ever since*. This sort of remark, made during one of those exhaustively-screened fellate-the-president sessions, doesn’t seem unusual:
I have a comment, first of all, and then just a real quick question. I want to let you know that every service at our church you are, by name, lifted up in prayer, and you and your staff and all of our leaders. And we believe in you. We are behind you. And we cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done to shape our country.
This puts the fundraisers in a bit of a bind. If they highlight the plight of Mr. Rahman they indirectly suggest that all is not 100% right in Afghanistan, which reflects badly on the guy whom they’re supposed to be lifting up. But these guys are pretty smart and I predict that sooner or later the siren song of fundraising cash will lead them to the growing rightwing meme that middle easterners may just be too backwards to save, no matter how goshdarned hard we try, and kudos to the great president for at least giving it a go.
Let us know in the comments if you have already received any fundraising letters regarding Mr. Rahman. It will be interesting to see whether we get silence, the response that I predicted or we find out that I’m full of, as they say, hot air.
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(*) Allergy warning – this blog may contain mixed metaphors.