By Allie Martin
September 21, 2001

(AgapePress) - A Christian who once lived in Afghanistan believes the recent terrorist attacks are causing many Muslims to search for the truth.

John Marion is director of the Virginia-based Center of Peace and Hope in Christ for Afghanistan, a ministry that focuses on getting the gospel of Jesus to the people in that country. He says the U.S. is dealing with a different enemy in the war on terrorism. He says a small group of Muslims are responsible for last week's deadly terrorist attacks.

"For the Muslims, there's no guarantee that they will go to heaven except in the case of dying in a 'jihad' [a holy war]," Marion says. "So for these guys that perpetrated this act, they did it under the belief that they would enter paradise -- so they [may have] had ... personal motivation for doing it, on their twisted theological framework."

Marion, who lived in Afghanistan for two years, says the Nation of Afghanistan is much like Iran was in the late 1970s. "I think of the country of Iran, when Ayatollah Khomeini came into power in 1979 -- many Iranian Muslims started seeking out the truth," he says. "In the first ten years of [Khomeini's] rule, more Muslims came to faith in Jesus Christ ... than [during] the previous 100 years. I think we're living at a time like this for the Nation of Afghanistan."

Since 1995, Marion has distributed New Testaments and Jesus videos to Afghans in the Washington, D.C., area. He says many Christians are working full-time evangelizing Muslims in the United States.

Church Pacifism
Historians say that while all faiths of the nation are coming together in the name of patriotism, things may be different if America goes to war.

According to The Washington Times, Pastor Douglas Strong, a church historian at Wesley Theological Seminary, says there have been arguments among the churches in every one of America's wars. Strong says that in the past, Christians have opted either for pacifism or a belief in a just war, when faced with the moral implications of Americans going into battle.

Until World War II, churches such as Mennonites, Quakers, and Brethern had stood alone for a doctrine of pacifism. But Douglas Jacobsen, a church historian at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, says liberal mainline Protestant leaders today sound increasingly as non-belligerent as the older pacifist churches.

Pacifist Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish leaders are signing by the hundreds a "Deny Them Their Victory" statement which offers a word of restraint as the nation decides what its response will be to the attacks on September 11.

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