In January, a trial opened for Faleh Almaleki. Mr. Almaleki is an Iraqi immigrant accused of murdering his 20-year-old daughter, Noor. Noor’s father was upset that his daughter dressed and behaved like a Westerner. He was angry that she was about to marry, not the man he had chosen for her, but an American. And, so, on October 20, 2009, he ran over her with his Jeep in a Peoria, AZ., parking lot and injured her so badly that she died.
Noor’s father killed her because she had dishonored her family. Her murder is called an “honor killing.” It is justified by Muslim tradition.
Abigail R. Esman, a self-defined “liberal,” wonders why her liberal peers, journalists and activists, are not reporting this “honor killing” as well as thousands of others. Esman writes, “U.N. statistics of 5,000 honor killings per year are generally recognized to be grossly understated. In the Netherlands alone, the official number of honor killings per year stands at 13, or more than one every month — and that does not include the growing trend of ‘honor suicides’ — girls and even boys who take their own lives knowing that if they don’t do it, others will, that they’ve been marked for death. In England and Germany, the numbers are about the same.”
Esman continues, “These are not — as often is claimed — your standard cases of domestic abuse. Honor violence, unlike the domestic abuse we know, is often supported, sanctioned and even encouraged by the local Muslim community. Indeed, parents frequently feel they have no other choice.” (The Washington Times Weekly Edition, 2/14/11)
There is another way.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life . . . (Deuteronomy 31:19-20).”
Jesus Christ does not call us to “honor killings.” He calls us to honor Him with our defense of human life, no matter the circumstances. No matter the failures or disappointments. No matter the inconvenience. No matter the embarrassment. After all, He died in our place — to remove the failures, disappointments, inconvenience, and embarrassment. To remove the stain of sin.
We disobey our Father with our daily sins, but He does not attempt to kill us. Instead, He has mercy on us. His mercy is new every morning. It is given and shed for us.
Jesus sacrificed Himself on our behalf. We are created, loved, and redeemed by God. We are treasures of great value. For this reason, Jesus says:
Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
Ezerwoman's Blog 
An Agnostic Responds (Hope Abounds!)
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged biology, Christianity, decadence, decency, evil, evolution, hope, morality, purity, society, wrestling on March 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It’s important that you hear from this gentleman, not only because he agrees that “equal” does not mean “the same,” or that he encourages me to continue mentoring Biblical manhood and womanhood, but because he proves that Christians help build bridges for the benefit of the human race when we ask questions that help people think. When we enter into dialogue on moral and ethical issues. When we appeal to what was once called “common sense.”
This gentleman wrote, “I am an arrant agnostic — a self-styled poet-philosopher-canary-priest-with my spiritual roots in nature. But I could not agree more vigorously with your objections to the decadence — as in Roman — of allowing (or more accurately) of forcing boys to wrestle girls. I have been following this issue for at least ten years.”
It was obvious that Bill had carefully studied the most physically intimate of all contact sports. He offered many sane and sensible reasons why boy/girl wrestling is a terrible idea. He is concerned that civilization is wounded by such foolishness. He wrote, “I believe in self-sacrifice for others, in kindness, in consideration for others before myself. I remember the mantra of our YMCA boys’ camp: God first, others second, me third. Today, as we watch boys and girls in violent combat on wrestling mats, that mantra seems to have become ‘Me first, me second, me first.'”
Then, he really caught my attention. “The values you mention in your blogs are simply ignored in our modern culture,” wrote Bill. “Even as an agnostic biologist, I think your Christian values are essential to any civilization that wants to live above the animal level of material-sensual gratification.”
I thanked Bill for taking the time to write me. He responded with a second e-mail, explaining that he had become a writer after leaving the scientific community. But, after some time passed, he wanted to get back in touch with biologists. For a few months, he subscribed to the blog of an evolutionist. Bill found the site “instructional in professional matters,” but disappointing in its Christian bashing. “Christianity was dismissed as sheer stupidity without any redeeming value.” Bill explained to me that he felt “uncomfortable in this steady current of arrogant meanness,” so he unsubscribed. He didn’t agree with such hatred being poured upon an institution (Christianity) “that embraced all of life, from birth to death, from reason to faith, from beauty and goodness to ugliness and evil.”
Then, wrote Bill, “this wrestling incident occurred, and because the young man cited his Christian faith, it catapulted the small, cloistered world of wrestling into the national spotlight and presented to view the grotesque, distorted values that have evolved there. It seems like a microcosm of society at large and the moral decadence we have enshrined as moral good. And against all this, the best aspects of Christianity began to emerge from the smoke — the dignity, the calm, the pure, measured decency of 2000 years of Christian ‘evolution’ (can’t help myself!). Anyhow, just wanted to express this to you.”
Thank you, Bill. You remind me that Christianity is needed in this hurting world as much today as yesterday. I’m so sorry that we Christians do such a poor job of following Jesus Christ and are more easily influenced by false teachings.
But, I am encouraged to stay the course by a secular biologist who sees that good and evil, right and wrong, morality and decadence really do exist. Each rises from a core belief. Each has a consequence.
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