"Executing Christians": A Response to Richard

Richard S. writes, in response to my post about the possible execution in Afghanistan of a convert to Christianity:

On the other hand, it would be a great tragedy for the integrity of the Afghan conscience for them to put fear of the USA, or (worse) desire to be liked by world opinion leaders, ahead of what they conceive to be God's command. As long as they are not convinced that the Quran permits converts to live, they must seek to kill him.

Hopefully, that tradition can be reinterpreted from within to permit conversion. But if not, I suggest that we must be careful to use methods to protect converts which do not involve getting the Afghans to pledge allegiance to something above Allah (e.g. international human rights). To think that one has betrayed God should make one sick unto death, a fate clearly worse than martyrdom.

I disagree. It is one thing to say -- and I imagine that Richard and I would both say this -- that we need to be careful about imposing our contested and contestable understandings of international human rights, by force or otherwise, in contexts where those understandings threaten the religious consciences of those who disagree with us.  It is another thing, though, to say that what Christians must regard as a monstrous and objective evil -- i.e., the killing by the public authority of a human person for becoming a follower of Christ -- is to be excused, or even tolerated, on the ground that to do otherwise might burden the consciences of the would-be killers.  Obviously, one would hope that these would-be killers would abstain, or change their minds, for reasons other than a "desire to be liked by world opinion leaders." 

I do not mean to be flip, but it seems to me that Sir Charles James Napier  got it right.  Napier was the British commander-in-chief in India, and he prohibited the Hindu practice of sati ("suttee"), i.e., burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands.  When some Hindu leaders objected, Napier is said to have replied:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Now, of course, my point is not to endorse British colonialism, or cultural imperialism, or hanging people.  It is to say, though, that intentionally killing people who convert to Christianity, or who are widowed, is immoral, period, and it is appropriate, period, for the public authority charged with -- or, in the current case, stuck with? -- promoting the common good and protecting human life to forbid and prevent it.