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’.
His Christian English tutor treated him differently than other Americans, with love and respect. She gave Ziafat his first Bible and promised that one day they would be able to read it together. The pastor became a Christian ten years later.
‘Had any other American given me that New Testament, I would have thrown it away. Because I didn't trust them. You want to win a Muslim for Christ? I believe you have to earn the right to be heard. And she did it by the way she was loving me’, Ziafat said.
‘I am so thankful for this one Christian, when for everyone else it was totally right and natural to hate people from Iran, she went against what’s natural and did the gospel move.’
