A former Muslim said that Christians must love Muslims in a speech at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Leadership Summit at the end of March.
Afshin Ziafat was born in Houston, but moved to Iran with his family at age two. They returned four years later during the Iranian Revolution. Ziafat is now a Christian pastor. In the speech, Ziafat said: ‘Racial reconciliation is not just a good idea because racial equality is a politically correct idea, but it’s because the reconciling message of the gospel is at stake.’
Ziafat shared the hardships his family faced for being an Iranian family in the US. He said: ‘It was not easy in 1979 to be from Iran living in America. We had rocks thrown at our window in Houston because people knew our family was from Iran. In high school, kids threatened to beat up my brother and me; my parents’ car tyres were slashed’.
