.... "because they had the guns"

1) FOX News journalist Steve Centanni and photographer Olaf Wiig have been freed in Gaza after agreeing to convert to Islam at gunpoint in a videotape..........Militants in the Gaza Strip released two kidnapped journalists on Sunday after the men appeared on a videotape saying they had converted to Islam, Fox News reported.

2) FNC Journalists Centanni and Wiig Relased in Gaza
Coerced to Convert to Islam at Gunpoint, Both in Good Condition
By Steve Schippert
FOX News journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were released in Gaza, two weeks after their abduction by a group calling iself the Holy Jihad Brigades. As part of their conditional release, Centanni and Wiig were required to make a statement on video tape that they denounced the US and Israel and accepted Islam as their faith, sure to be used for propaganda purposes.

3) The terrorist group had demanded that the United States release Muslim prisoners in exchange for the reporters — the United States refused the demand — and further claimed the hostages had converted to Islam while in captivity.

4) Both men in the tape were dressed in traditional Arabic clothing and the captors proclaimed the pair had converted to Islam.

5) Shortly before their release, a new videotape of the reporters was released by their captors, saying the two had converted to Islam.

The two men were shown separately sitting cross-legged, reading statements announcing that they had converted to Islam.

At times in the video they were wearing long Muslim robes.

6) Centanni later told CNN by telephone from Gaza City that they felt that they had to convert to Islam. "I have the highest respect for Islam, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns and we didn't know what the hell was going on," he said.

........And on and on and on, for every news story of their release, this brief statement is made, and brushed off as a if it is a bit of fluff in the entire account of their captivity and release after 13 days of captivity.

But I wonder... is it fluff? Is this REALLY an unimportant aspect of this story, or should there be much more focus on it? "Convert or Die!" Isn't that what we learned in History class so very long ago of the spread of Islam across North Africa and into Europe?

I just do not think that this is an unimportant piece that should be ignored, and I wish someone on one of the news stations would pick it up and GO with it. And I wonder how many others have... converted in place of dying while they were captives?

And if they DID convert only for saving their lives, I wonder how it will go over when they do not follow through on the 'conversion'. Will they also then be treated as Infidels or Apostates?

I have no idea what I would do in their situation, and would pray that I had enough courage to die for my Faith, if that is what it would come to. I do not fault them in any way. But it does worry me about what their captors will do if they felt that they released fellow Muslim believers...who had no real intention of conversion.

This is one of the things about this 'religion of peace' that has worried me for a long time.... and we have seen it passed off in news stories as if it meant nothing, like an incidental piece of the story. I am not convinced it was a small and unimportant aspect of the story in the least bit.

I think that we are missing a huge part of what is really going on over there!

I think that it is time that we wake up.

God bless