Would you convert, to save your life and win your freedom?

(Many comments have been added to this entry.)

Most readers are probably aware that hostages Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig didn’t have guns pointed at their heads, pronounce the words, “There is no Allah but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet,” and that was that. The conversions appear to have taken place that way, but after their conversions they sat before a camera cross-legged and read statements announcing their conversion. Centanni said: “I changed my name to Khaled. I have embraced Islam and say the word Allah.” Wiig called on leaders of the West to stop “hiding behind the ‘I don’t negotiate with terrorists’ myth.”

The website Debka takes an understanding view of their conversion:

On the face of it, conversion to Islam would appear to provide a painless escape device for any hostage who happens to fall into fundamentalist terrorist hands. After all, once free, the hostage can always revert to his real faith or non-faith. It is hard to blame the two Fox News journalists, the American Steve Centanni, 60, and the New Zealander, Olaf Wiig, 36, for taking that path on to buy their way out of an uncertain fate at the hands of Palestinian terrorists – especially as they later reported they were forced to make the gesture at gun-point.

And, indeed the two journalists were released from 13 days of captivity in Gaza three hours after announcing their conversion on a new videotape released by the kidnappers in Gaza.

If conversion wins your life and freedom, and refusal to convert leaves you a hostage facing likely murder, would you convert? Personally I think that if I were in such circumstances, I would sooner die than convert to Islam. Of course, it’s impossible to be certain about such a thing, without actually facing the life-or-death, freedom-or-imprisonment situation in which these men found themselves. It’s possible the desire for life would overcome my utter revulsion at becoming a Muslim and the total violation of everything I believe, of my very selfhood, that this would involve. But I don’t think so.

However, I suppose one could also take the view that one’s captors are savages, and that the words one speaks to savages to get them to let one go, words spoken under threat of death, don’t mean anything and are not binding.

But this raises another question. What about the people who have been captured and beheaded in Iraq, starting with poor Nick Berg? Did Zarqawi and his fiends give their victims the opportunity to convert and save their lives? I haven’t heard of any such conversions. (Jill Carroll’s captors put pressure on her to convert, which she rejected, and apparently they did not make it a life-or-death matter.) Does that mean that in each case of a beheading, conversion was demanded and bravely refused, or that conversion was not demanded, because the fiends just wanted to kill? But since the fiends were so into the Koranic thing of striking the heads from the unbelievers, wouldn’t they also be into the Koranic thing of offering the unbelievers the chance to convert and save their lives?

* * *

Chris L. writes:

I have been thinking about that and I hope that I my response would be an emphatic “NO!” or more colorful expression. The problem with Centanni and Wiig is that they were only captive for 13 days, suffered the usual threats and rough behavior, and basically surrendered their values. The men were not obviously broken or shattered to the point that they would have done anything to end their predicament. It appears that they were not physically abused in an excessive manner. At what point do we say Western man needs to do better than that? That there is more to life than living? That integrity, honor, and beliefs are more important than one’s life?

I would hope that I could give a better account of myself than that when the time came.

Charles G. writes:

I would say whatever they wanted me to say about “Allah” in order to be set free. I say this because I believe theirs is a false religion. There is no Allah. The Koran is the work of a psychopathic madman, not God’s word. It would mean little or nothing to fake a conversion if the fools who had kidnapped me would release me. What damage could it possibly do me to mouth some meaningless phrases and then be set free? I would then publicly repudiate what I had said and throw in a few choice curses for my captors to boot. What would it prove if I were to be defiant and then needlessly lose my life to a bunch of savages? Imagine the same scenario playing out on some remote island full of cannibals who had captured you. If they offered to free you after speaking some “magic spell,” you’d do it, right? Of course you would. You treat children like children. Tell them what they want to hear, then get the hell out of their way and never put yourself in a situation where you might fall under their power again.

LA replies:

These are tough questions. What if the savages required you to pronounce the words, “I renounce Jesus Christ”? What if they weren’t savages but Romans?

Ben writes:

This question is hard to answer because of the ruling ideology of liberalism. What I mean is the whole concept of honor is no longer cared about in the west. For example, in past western civilization, converting to Islam would have been the ultimate disgrace and morale destroyer. For example during the crusades, converting to Islam to save yourself would be like dying anyway. They would have preferred death over facing their brothers and the shame that would have come from that act. How your civilization looks at cowardice and believes in honor will shape a lot of the way people make life and death decisions.

In our modern age, dying for Christianity seems foolish so if for example Centanni had spit in their face and declared Jesus king of kings and then was killed, the west would look upon that act as stupidity.

Having said this though, I agree with Chris L.

Michael Jose writes:

Does anyone know what faith they were before their “conversion?”

All this talk of whether or not they should have refused seems to assume that they were members of another faith, and were devout enough that such a renunciation would be a major betrayal of their beliefs. But if they had no strong beliefs about God, there is no reason why they would feel it a slight to their honor to claim conversion. If I were an atheist, or a universalist Unitarian, or one of the more liberal Episcopalians, I wouldn’t have strong enough feelings about a particular view of God to worry about insulting Him.

Van Wijk writes:

I suppose it depends on your belief system. If a true Christian were placed in such a situation, he would likely think about how refusing the conversion and proclaiming Christ as the son of God would result in his recognition as a martyr if he were subsequently killed. Perhaps he would also think about how his death might possibly bolster the Christian faith around the world and strengthen Christian resolve against the hordes of Islam. Provided the story got enough media time, of course.

Since liberals value absolutely nothing over their own lives and pursuit of pleasure, they can be expected to convert 100 percent of the time.

Charles G. writes:

LA wrote: “These are tough questions. What if the savages required you to pronounce the words, “I renounce Jesus Christ”? What if they weren’t savages but Romans?”

The scenario we’re discussing is the capture of two journalists who were already in a Muslim country. If I were a tourist or business person in a Muslim country, I’d have no hesitation in going along with their silly mumbo-jumbo to save my skin and return to civilized life. Such a “conversion” would be less than meaningless to me. I would probably renounce my own mother to pacify the stupid brutes. But if we’re talking about a situation in which Muslims in my own country were to begin a terror campaign against Christians, then that is a completely different situation and my guess is that I would be more ready to die because of the desperation such a confrontation would imply. In other words, if placed in a situation where I would be a “soldier” in a civilizational conflict, then yes, death would have prescient meaning. But over there in their backyard…. ? As a tourist/business person? No way. What would be the point? I could come back home and hold a press conference and ridicule the whole concept of “conversion” at knifepoint and make a far bigger point about the savage nature of Islam. Those journalists had the chance to do that but chose not to. And that’s scary to me. They’ve been compromised.

LA replies:

Without necessarily agreeing with Charles G’s specifics, I agree with his overall approach, which is that the question of what one would do in such a situation cannot be answered apart from the particulars of the actual situation in which one finds oneself.

Brian O. writes:

I would convert to Islam if I had a gun pointed to my head, and I would do it enthusiastically. Get the prayer rug out and let’s gab about Allah’s greatness and how we abhor the infidels!

Seriously, I would convert because I could not take my kidnappers seriously. Conversion because some mentally disturbed idiot is waving a gun in front of me means nothing to me and should mean nothing to my family and my nation.

If I were a solider in a war that did not involve pistols, but involved swinging swords or releasing arrows from a bow, then maybe, if I was captured, refuse conversion, because, at least, the enemy that captured me is something actually worthy to defeat. My death means that he gains one less convert. One less convert living in fear for his life means that there is one less person to convert the nation. A worthy opponent needs an equally worthy force against it, and in that case, it is weighing death or conversion.

But, in the age where any idiot can wave a pistol in your face and demand you convert to their quacked-out religion, instead of being fearful, we should find the hidden humor in it. This opponent is not a worthy opponent; he just happens to be behind the pistol this time. Not only that, he is taking not a warrior from the offending side, but he is taking a civilian. Basically put, he does not deserve the pleasure of taking my life. He deserves a mockery of his strange, foreign beliefs by following me through with my “conversion.” It not only saves my life, but I get to walk away from a really awkward situation laughing at my kidnappers and the state of the world where fools like him can intimidate anyone not by sword and sheer strength, but a pistol; a pistol held in the hand of a mentally disturbed person with a god who compels him to act like the idiot that he is showing himself to be.

Mark J. writes:

You asked “What if the savages required you to pronounce the words, “I renounce Jesus Christ”? What if they weren’t savages but Romans?”

My feeling is that words are simply sounds unless they are representative of something you truly mean. Your faith in Jesus Christ is in what you mean in your heart, not what sounds come out of your mouth. In addition, I do not believe that you owe the truth of your feelings and intentions to an enemy.

Someone holding a gun to your head is your enemy. I would have no more feeling of obligation to tell him the truth than I would if it were the Gestapo interrogating me about some activity of the underground. I would lie as convincingly as possible if that would help me to live to fight this enemy another day in a more advantageous manner. If he is stupid enough to take my words spoken at gunpoint as evidence of a genuine conversion to his religion, that is his problem.

Therefore if I were a Christian being threatened by a Roman unless I said “I renounce Jesus Christ,” I would mentally make a prayer to God letting Him know that what I was about to say was only a necessary subterfuge, and then I would say it. The difference lies in whether the words are truly representative of your inner feelings and are freely spoken, or whether they are coerced and thus meaningless except as a strategic gambit versus an enemy. Among one’s own people, one should always speak the truth. Enemies, however, are not owed and do not deserve the truth. In fact it would be stupid to stick rigidly to a determination to speak the truth among enemies as among friends.

Of course, if you are about to be killed anyway then there is no opportunity for subterfuge and one might as well speak what is truly in one’s heart.

That was not the case for Centanni and Wiig, and they were right to say the magic conversion words if it helped them get out of the hands of an enemy.

The fact that Muslims might actually believe them is one of their strategic weaknesses that we should note and exploit when possible.

Edward D. writes:

Ben has an excellent point in his response to your article:

“This question is hard to answer because of the ruling ideology of liberalism. What I mean is the whole concept of honor is no longer cared about in the West. For example, in past Western civilization, converting to Islam would have been the ultimate disgrace and morale destroyer. For example during the crusades, converting to Islam to save yourself would be like dying anyway. They would have preferred death over facing their brothers and the shame that would have come from that act. How your civilization looks at cowardice and believes in honor will shape a lot of the way people make life and death decisions.

“In our modern age, dying for Christianity seems foolish so if for example Centanni had spit in their face and declared Jesus king of kings and then was killed, the West would look upon that act as stupidity.”

What would happen to a Moslem if he were taken hostage by a Christian and forced to renounce Islam, deny Allah, and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior. Would he do it? I can’t imagine he would, because upon setting foot among his own people, this guy would probably be murdered for apostasy, even if it wasn’t a heartfelt conversion and was done under duress. Read the story on Fabrizio Quattrocchi. While this is not a matter of forced conversion to Islam, it still is a matter of retaining one’s honor in the face of death at the hands of savages. I’m disappointed, but not surprised with the lack of praise and acknowledgment for his deed. If I actually did “pull a Centanni,” I know I couldn’t live with myself without later taking public vengeance upon Moslems.

Jake F. writes:

I’m fundamentally an undisciplined coward, so I don’t know what standard I’d live up to in that situation. I have to say, though, that most of the people arguing in favor of pronouncing “meaningless words” are just flat wrong.

Even if I accept the notion that the words are “meaningless” (which I doubt), the act isn’t. The act says that if you get a gun in front of me, I will capitulate. It follows—not perfectly, but no symbolic act ever represents its object perfectly—that if I live under the constant threat of the gun, I will never attempt to rise against you. Even if the words are meaningless, the act is an acceptance of subjugation.

More: the early Christian martyrs (and no doubt many that continue to be martyred today) were strengthened by those who were martyred before them. Without someone standing up for the truth, people will sit down and shut up. What starts as a matter of convenience becomes a matter of conscience—your descendants will not know that you prayed an apology before offering your service to Islam; they will eventually know only that they are Muslims, like their forefathers before them.

Some seem to think that things would be different if they found themselves in a “civilizational struggle.” How can they not see that they already are? If they are “tourists or businessmen” in the Muslim world, they have simply ridden to the enemy’s camp. The enemy may let them go if they lie, and if few enough people capitulate to them then it may not make any difference to the war overall, but their arguments give me no reason to believe that they would do anything different if the crazy people lived in New York instead of Baghdad. “Capitulate to the crazies so they won’t kill me” was probably the motto of more than one Jew living under Nazism—and that of more than one non-Nazi gentile German, too.

Sorry to rant. It just disturbed me to see what I saw on a site from which I expect more backbone. I don’t accuse you of being spineless, of course, although if you had agreed with Charles G’s specifics I would have been very disappointed; it was the opinions of the others that bothered me.

LA replies:

I haven’t figured this out in my head and I’m thinking that one cannot decide even theoretically how one should act unless one were confronted with a specific situation. I am sympathetic to the view that when one is threatened by a subrational savage brute, one simply gets out of his way, not engage in a principled confrontation with him. At the same time my gut instinct (though in modesty I can’t promise that I would follow my instinct in a life-threatening situation) remains what it was when I wrote the initial blog entry: I would rather die than say, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet,” or “I renounce Jesus Christ,” under any circumstances.

Jake writes:

LA said: “I am sympathetic to the view that when one is threatened by a subrational savage brute, one simply gets out of his way, not engage in a principled confrontation with him.”

I am also sympathetic to that view, but what about when the subrational savage brutes are the natural and inevitable offspring of a civilization that is at war with you? They’re not cavemen, they’re Muslims.

LA replies:

I am also sympathetic to that view. :-) But again it depends on specifics. If the condition of escaping the clutches of the subrational brute is that I perform some ridiculous act or utter some meaningless syllables, I would probably do it. If the condition of escaping the subrational brute is that I declare that I renounce Jesus Christ, there is something within me that would not allow me to do that.

That’s not a promise. I’m describing a powerful disposition in myself. But like anyone else, I cannot say in honesty, sitting here in front of my computer, whether I would remain true to that disposition if I were facing torture or death.

Ben writes:

I agree with Jake.

He’s 100 percent right.

This is a tough discussion though because like Mr. Auster said, it’s hard to know exactly what you would do until it happens to you. However, if our civilization were still strong in its Christian roots, then this discussion would have already been decided in our hearts and minds. I don’t mean this in a condescending way to say that it is self evident to be brave and to have courage to face a horrible death. What I am saying is that if we lived in a civilization which still embraced its culture as something worth preserving and worth dying for then even though it would be ok to feel fear in our hearts, we could not display fear or doubt publicly for the sake and strength of our civilization. We would have to for the sake of morale for our religion and civilization, declare death is better then capitulation.

For these reasons, liberalism does not have the capacity or tools to help our civilization cope with Islam and its murderous ideology. It cannot help our men rush enthusiastically in battle in defense of their civilization knowing that it can lead to possible death or torture because liberalism gives us nothing worth dying for except empty ideas and stupidities. Liberalism cannot inspire men to fight because it believes in appeasement. This is how you get crying generals instead of righteous men with integrity and honor (like George Washington) who inspire us to rise above our fears and die for our civilization if need be.

This is why I believe only a strong Christian West (liberals can be included in this, but not modern advanced liberals) can truly defeat Islam and keep it contained. A secular modern liberal culture does not have the conviction or courage to have anything worth dying for or defending since it has sucked the life force away from the host civilization.

Matthew H. (not the American in England) writes:

Ben noted Centanni’s saying how he highly respected Islam even when he was freed. This suggests to me that these men have been badly violated by their shotgun “conversion.” This is what Islam is and has always been. A violator. It has long been standard procedure for Muslims to violate their hostages. The physical violation is a technique for effecting a spiritual submission. The prisoner is unmanned and can no longer stand up against the violator’s will.

Something similar has happened to the two Fox reporters. They are permanently bent by having to submit to Allah at gunpoint. 9/11 was an attempt by Muslims to similarly spiritually cripple us at the national level. It was successful to some degree: They actually hit the Pentagon and the proud Manhattan skyline is permanently maimed. They did it to make us flinch at the mention of Islam. It is enough for them to see us weep as Centanni did when he hugged his Lebanese associate.

David B. writes:

Some years ago, I read something about what the Israeli military tells its men to do if caught by their enemies. Israeli military personnel are instructed to “sign anything, say anything,” to keep themselves alive. When and if released, they will be understood.

I agree with that approach. Why should you be truthful with your mortal enemies? If you manage to save your life, you can fight another day.

Jake F. writes:

David B.’s comment is a concise and reasonable-sounding expression of his opinion, but when I read it I struggled with a gut feeling that said, “but that’s not the same thing.” I’m trying to tease out why I feel that way.

David B.’s comments relate to Jewish Israeli soldiers who are engaged in war as part of their role. I would expect them to engage in any deception necessary to get out of a bad situation, and I would presume that any capitulation they made would be tactical and false rather than real. They already have an agreement among themselves to be false. When they get out of the situation, they’ll still presumably be back on the front lines of the war. It’s more important for them to be true to each other than to speak the truth to their captors.

Non-Jewish, non-Israeli civilians aren’t engaged in war as part of their role. Being true to each other may mean not giving in to their captors. Certainly I feel demoralized by the two reporters’ “conversion” in a way that I wouldn’t if I had heard the same news about two Israeli soldiers.

I rewrote that last sentence using “two Jewish civilians,” “two Israeli civilians,” “two American civilians,” and “two American soldiers.” The emotional responses were instructive.

Knowing that the Israelis have a deal among themselves nullifies the conversion and just makes it an act of subterfuge.

The same doesn’t work for any of the others. There’s more of a sense of betrayal in each of them. I’ve been through the training that Americans get on the law of war and the Code of Conduct (available here) and I know there’s no “deal” like the Israelis apparently have. And I’ve heard too many stories about POWs from Vietnam: would capitulating have made things better? Perhaps, if “better off” means less pain; but would orderly, fully subjected dining halls in which Americans were in complete servitude to the Vietnamese been better than the squalid conditions in which defiance dwelt? I can’t answer, but I’d want to pose that question to some POW’s before saying that capitulation would have been the right tactic.

I know this places me in the uncomfortable situation of wanting more sacrifice from civilians of all types and from American soldiers than from Israeli soldiers, but at this point that’s how it feels.

Pray that we never face this choice directly!

Ben writes:

“I agree with that approach. Why should you be truthful with your mortal enemies? If you manage to save your life, you can fight another day.”

Israel’s “live to fight another day” mind set is there because the West has lost any sense of itself and is a shadow of its former self. Everything is pure rational, intellect, and what makes sense logically. It believes words have no meaning and do not hurt the morale of the host country since the host country itself has also lost any sense of a religion or reason to exist other then total freedom and equality. This means living to make another dollar or go on another vacation is considered righteous and moral.

Israel is secular and has lost all sense of its God just as the West has. Islam however, does not have this problem. Taking the moral high ground of accepting conversion to live is looked highly upon in our liberal society. In a strong Christian society or Jewish, converting to the other religion would be the death or your heart and soul and a life not worth living. To see a better example of a Israelite forced into conversion, look no further then Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.

Right now we have the luxury of making a fake conversion and being praised for it, so it’s easier to make that decision. If we we’re living in a civilization which revered the word of God, most of us would think twice rather then show cowardice. I believe it was easy for Centanni to make a conversion for two reasons. One because he is probably not a Christian and two because he knew he would be praised for it and looked highly upon for surviving the horrible ordeal. If this was 1200 A.D. he would be living in shame in a cabin on a mountain for the rest of his life.

The 1200 A.D. scenario may be considered harsh by today’s liberal standards but that was a civilization who not only were able to drive the Muslims out of their land, but then took the fight to the enemy with absolutely no hand wringing about it.

Roland D. writes:

There are two fundamental changes in Western society which make the question you ask even possible, in the first place. A mere six decades or so ago, it would’ve been a non-sequitur.

1. The lack of sincerity in Christian belief amongst those who identify themselves as Christian.

Poll after poll purports to show that the majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian. But, what does this really mean? After all, look at the violence- and filth- laden culture these very same Americans have created, have condoned, and apparently revel in without a second thought?

What does it mean, to identify oneself as a Christian today, in America? I don’t think it means the same thing as it did six decades ago, to most people.

Instead of faith, the predominant mode is “spirituality.”

Classic Christian belief by definition includes a belief in eternal life. Most of the discussion around this subject seems to be centered on what’s acceptable to do/ say in order to save one’s life, as if that’s the highest aspiration one can have. Which leads us to the second point …

2. The death of the concept of personal honor.

The mantra of the West seems to have become, “There’s nothing worth dying for, period.” This correlates directly to the lapse in belief in an afterlife, as well as an embrace of moral relativism. If this is all we have, and if everything is relative, what is the point of making a stand, especially if making a stand involves inconvenience, discomfort, and possibly death?

There are numerous examples in history of men and women who would rather die than sully their personal honor, quite apart from questions of religion. Moyse in China (“The Private of the Buffs”) is just one example. Certainly a committed Marxist-Leninist of the old school would rather have died than been forced to convert to -any- religion (of course, his Marxism-Leninism itself is a form of secular gnosticism, but that’s another discussion).

But, in this failed age we inhabit, we’ve conditioned ourselves to ignore any slight, bear any insult, profess any lunacy, as long as we can continue to gratify our senses and maintain the facade of non-judgmentalism (another, related shade of secular religion) without interruption. We allow fast-food clerks, bureaucrats, and elected politicians alike to treat us as serfs, without any consideration of civility nor courtesy; why would we balk at saying whatever it takes to save our skins?

I can tell you right now, I’d rather die than allow myself to be compelleed to acknowledge Islam as a valid religion, purely out of a sense of personal honor, not to mention as a matter of faith. How those two Fox reporters can now look themselves in the mirror, I’ve no idea.

I forgot to mention two other fundamental changes in Western society:

3. The feminization of men, and the masculinization of women.

What were historically considered to be manly and martial virtues are roundly derided and reviled at all levels of our culture; in the name of “empowerment,” feminine honor and deportment are likewise denigrated. These things have nothing to do with keeping the franchise nor the right to work from women, nor with excluding them from private life; rather, with acknowledging that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, and that those differences exist for a reason.

4. The joint enshrinement of Mammon and ego as the deities of the age.

The ego is now all; everything which feeds the ego, such as the emphasis on faux “self-esteem” in the public policy realm (especially in education) and which increases perceived material prosperity (open borders for cheap labor, free trade for cheap consumer goods produced by slave labor in Communist China, etc.) is deemed a positive good, and anyone who objects is branded a fool, a racist, etc.

Tom D. writes:

In reading about the forced conversions of the journalists, I ran in my mind examples throughout the centuries of those men and women who at gunpoint or under the sword or through fire refused to recant their allegiance or switch sides. Whether for political or religious purposes, these courageous people maintained their commitments and faith. Too many examples of steadfastness to cite…

What does the shallow conversion of these journalists say about our civilization? How credible is their reportage now when their word means nothing?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 28, 2006 04:20 PM | Send