Morocco Rejects Criticism for Expelling Christians Accused of Proselytizing Abandoned Muslim Children [Excerpts]
The government of Morocco has launched a public relations effort to fend off criticism about its decision to expel 20 foreign Christian aid workers it accuses of trying to convert Muslims.
The expulsion order affected Christians who ran a center that has been taking in and fostering abandoned Moroccan children for 10 years.
The group issued a statement denying the accusations, and describing the wrench of 33 children being forced to say goodbye, with no prior warning, to the only parents they had known.
On Thursday the government hosted a meeting of religious leaders – Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish – who all then issued statements objecting to proselytizing, the act of seeking converts from other faiths.
“Representatives of monotheistic religions in Morocco on Thursday reiterated that the kingdom is a land of tolerance, peace and religious freedom and rejected all forms of proselytism,” the official Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP) news agency reported.
Interior Minister Taib Cherkaoui, who met with the religious figures, said the government was “thankful for their firm stand and their immediate condemnation of proselytism.”
The Russian Orthodox representative, Dmitry Orekhov, was quoted as saying, “We ourselves in Russia are facing the problem of proselytism and are willing to cooperate with Morocco to fight it.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/62681
(posted by cnsnews.com March 12, 2010)
[TBC: The Orthodox representative (as well as the others) is willing to coexist with anything except the biblical Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. His willingness to “fight” proselytizing includes no concern for the abandoned Muslim children.]
