But this kind of “in your face” tactic isn’t limited to Korean Christians. Just look at the Dok do movement, enough said. I know mainland Koreans are villifying the church and Christianity, but we know better. This is very much a “Korean” issue.

Some rebuke Christians for trying to convert afgan people. And, I realize that is an unlawful activity there. But I’d like to say that spreading the gospel is not an act of coercion, if achieved through debate and presentation of ideas. Christian missionaries (goods ones, anyways) don’t subject “heathens” through inquisitions and torture when they refuse to take our faith. They’re overly aggressive, perhaps. But we don’t blow ourselves up or take anyone hostage for not succumbing to our religion. It is, in fact, radical muslims who still subscribe to middle age religious barbarism, which liberals so readily associate Christians with.

In a free society, a Christian (or followers of other religion) would exercise their right to convert a non christian, as much as a salesman has the right to sell the merits of a vaccum cleaner to a customer. We’d be allowed to assemble or choose our approach to that end. Of course, you must recognize the other side as well.

Afghanistan isn’t there yet. By law, there can be no religion other than Islam there. The commenters in the Aljezeera board are upset that the missionaries broke the status quo that wouldn’t be allowed to so much as BREATHE under our constitution. They agree with a state with no religious freedom, and they’re offended by those who apprarently challenged it? I’m pretty sure the south fought hard against desegregation in yonder years. Technically the Korean missionaries are at fault, of course. But I find some muslims who take the high road over this to be hamstrung. OK, Christians giving out candies to kids in exchange for a minute of praise might be demeaning, but it’s not anything a civilized nation couldn’t take. Americans make Asses out of themselves all the time, AND EVEN profit out of it, they have the right to do that. No one goes to jail in America for depicting the Virgin Mary with manure.

IT’s true that AFG doesn’t NEED Jesus, in the sense that evangelizing per se won’t offer immediate tangible change. It’d mean that they’re willing to accept religious freedom however. If other tenets of freedom that conflict with muslim law are muscled out, and those who come to propose such ideas are lashed out against, who will that country ever escape the dark ages?

Unless the ROK delivers a good ass-whipping to somebody over this incident, then no ROK citizen should feel safe travelling anywhere in the Muslim world.

All of this, to include the half-baked efforts of the church to send short-term (read: useless) missionaries to a part of the world where people take their own religion seriously, points to the fact that Koreans really don’t understand the off-peninsula world.

The taliban understands violence, and they preach and practice it every damned day. They don’t engage in ‘constructive diplomacy’, they kill whoever they think God is telling them to kill. So forget about the utility of holding hands and singing Kumbaya around the campfire with the taliban. Diplomacy is not something they understand. You would have better luck trying to teach your dog how to program the DVD player while talking to it in Norwegian.

What the taliban does understand is ruthless mayhem, and the last time I checked, the ROK Army had all of the tools to speak with some authority. So the faster the ROK puts away its copy of that “We Are the World” sheet music and pick up another tune, the better. In other words, the taliban is Ted Nugent, and all the ROK’s know is Celine Dion.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E9A36960-AB5A-43E7-A637-4628328249EB.htm?&choice=3&dgDiscID=176&dgPoolID=44d6675c-5a2d-480b-98a7-93850375218b&loc=10&pagesize=10&group=1

the US would not be negotiating with these idiots even americans were held so what give you the idea we would for non-us citizens!