A Princeton University professor and a prominent Muslim American figure, as well as five other religious freedom advocates, are offering to take 100 lashes each for imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi who was sentenced by Saudi Arabia to 1,000 lashes for insulting his country’s clerics.
In a letter to the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., Robert P. George, a Princeton professor and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, urged the immediate release of Badawi.
The Saudi blogger was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes after criticizing the country’s powerful clerics on his blog. Badawi received the first of 20 weekly floggings almost two weeks ago. The second flogging, which was scheduled for last Friday, was postponed on medical grounds.
George and Jasser wrote in the letter that if Badawi is not released, they will volunteer to receive 100 lashes each. The letter included five other signatories: Mary Ann Glendon, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Daniel Mark, assistant professor of Department of Political Science at Villanova University, Hannah Rosenthal, CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Eric Schwartz dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and, Katrina Lantos Swett, president of Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice.
The group of seven religious freedom advocates described Badawi’s sentence as a “grave injustice” in their letter and called on the government toshow mercy.
“Compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as ‘suffering with another.’ We are persons of different faiths, yet we are united in a sense of obligation to condemn and resist injustice and to suffer with its victims, if need be,” the letter reads. “We therefore make the following request. If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him.”
“We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured. If your government does not see fit to stop this from happening, we are prepared to present ourselves to receive our share of Mr. Badawi’s unjust punishment,” the group said.
HT: Sandra Corbitt
Not that this would be the same thing that Jesus did. This man is innocent. We are guilty. But it goes beyond that. Today we are hearing critiques that it isn’t right for God to punish his kid for what we did! That would be cosmic child abuse!
But the key to the Atonement is the Trinity. The Father and the Son are equally part of the Godhead. So it would be as if the Judge himself takes the punishment of the condemned. But what we are describing can only be taken on by God. In the Cross, God takes not only our punishment but, in an incomprehensible way, our sins into Himself. Christ became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). God takes His own wrath into Himself. In addition to bearing the world’s sin and evil, “he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). He took the world’s sufferings into Himself. In the Cross, in the Atonement, we find the resolution to the problem of evil and the problem of suffering.
But still, the Cross does manifest the heart of the Christian ethic, to sacrifice oneself for others. So what Prof. George and these others are offering is indeed a sublime icon of the Cross.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In