Was Rifqa Bary, who converted to Christianity and fled her Muslim home, saying her father told her he would kill her, brainwashed? Is she really just a wayward teenager covering up for her indiscretions?
More on the Rifqa Bary case. “Dad Claims Brainwashing As Muslim Girl Fears He”ll Kill Her,” by Pamela Geller at Newsmax, August 17:
Rifqa Bary says she ran to Florida to save her life: “I was threatened by my dad.” She says that her father told her, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you”re dead to me. You”re not my daughter. I will kill you.” But now her father is trying to regain custody of Rifqa, and he and the Islamic Society of Central Florida say she has been “kidnapped” and “brainwashed” by a “cult,” and that she’s a “rebel,” a “troubled teen.”
Well, which is it?
“This is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away,” claims Mohamed Bary, Rifqa’s father.
She hitchhiked to the bus station and took a Greyhound from Ohio to Florida. How is that a kidnapping?
Brainwashed by a cult? Which is the cult? Is it the group that silently approves of the murder of a daughter who shames her family by not wearing the proper head dress (like Aqsa Parvez), or by wanting live a free life (like Hatin Sürücü), or by dating the wrong boy (like Amina and Sarah Said), or by choosing another religion (like Rifqa Bary)? Or is it the group that offers sanctuary to a poor threatened girl?
Rifqa Bary”s father is also claiming that she was “brainwashed” by the pastor of the Global Revolution church in Orlando. Pastor Blake Lorenz denies that, saying, “she has been a Christian for four years, long before we ever met her.”
Let’s look at the facts.
Rifqa’s MySpace page, to which she last logged in two years ago, shows that she had already converted by then. Rifqa told Lorenz she converted four years ago; her MySpace page is evidence that she was a Christian at least by 2007.
There is more evidence on that same MySpace page. Rifqa chose a “Christian layout” and says that her favorite movie was “A Walk to Remember” “” a good Christian flick. The movie is about a pastor’s daughter, a good Christian girl who changes the life of a popular but rebellious teenage boy through her indomitable spirit, purity, and goodness. Reviewer Jeffrey Overstreet said in Christianity Today: “The main character is portrayed as a Christian without being psychopathic or holier-than-thou.”
Further, under Rifqa’s favorite book, there is a small icon of a page from the Bible. The passage highlighted? Love is patient. Notice how it’s all done cryptically, as if she is hiding. “My Savior is JC,” she writes “” JC, of course, is Jesus Christ. The movie is a Christian movie. The book is the Bible. And Rifqa wrote all this in 2007….