Forced conversion

Catez over at allthings2all recently posted on his blog about the release of two Fox News reporters by terrorists in Gaza. As you may have heard, the two reporters "converted" to Islam as part of the agreement to release them. This got me and Catez thinking about what we would do if faced with the same situation. Check out the post here.

I'm not going to debate whether Wiig and Centanni made a bad decision for themselves, because I don't know whether either of them is a Christian. I started wondering what I would do in the same situation, and whether it would be wrong to falsely claim that I had converted to Islam to escape death. I agree with Catez that the ability to stand up and say, "NO" would only be possible through the Holy Spirit. The early Christians faced the same dilemma in the Coliseum though - renounce your faith and bow to Caesar and go free, or be torn apart by lions. Whether or not those early believers would have truly abandoned their faith in their hearts had they capitulated could be a matter of debate, but there was no debate in their minds over whether bowing to Caesar was a sin. I am afraid that publicly declaring one's conversion to Islam, forced or not, to escape terrorists would be a sin for a believer as well.