I was quite moved by the story of independent journalist Steven Vincent, former art critic, author of The Red Zone, who was murdered earlier this month in Basra, Iraq. His brave Iraqi female translator was wounded in the same attack. Part of her motivation for assisting Mr. Vincent was her distress that western reporters were consistently uninterested in news of how grateful the Iraqi people were for their freedom.
Some people will forever wonder why folks such as myself stress the connection between politics and faith, between the way we allow others to manage our lives and what we believe about our lives. Rabid secularists promote the fashionable yet dysfunctional belief that these two worlds need to be disconnected, and well minded spiritual people help them in their destruction, assuming this is the essence of fairness. The result is the loss of our western definition of freedom; freedom as it's flawlessly defined through the personal, atoning sacrifice of Christ. Free in Christ, we understand the true value of life. Free in Christ, we know that it is honorable to sacrifice for the freedom of others; that we shouldn't allow tyrants to mold our beautiful world into an expression of hell.
Steven Vincent was on the side of freedom, not fear. That's reason enough for Christians and Muslims who love freedom to celebrate his bravery.
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