A headline ripped from the pages of “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”…
Khmer Rouge Embraces Jesus
The Guardian:
The Khmer Rouge followed a harsh brand of communism, killing nearly two million people in their bid to return Cambodia to Year Zero. Now they have a new faith: evangelical Christianity.
Hundreds of former fighters have been baptised in the past year. The Khmer Rouge’s mountain stronghold, the town of Pailin in south-west Cambodia, has four churches, all with pastors and growing congregations. At least 2,000 of those who followed Pol Pot, the guerrillas’ former leader who died six years ago, now worship Jesus.
Many new converts were involved in the bloody battles, massacres and forced labour programmes that led to the Killing Fields. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge sought to eradicate religion, ripping down the country’s biggest cathedral, killing Muslim clerics and turning Buddhist temples into pigsties.
According to one pastor, 70 per cent of the converts in Pailin are Khmer Rouge. For many, it offers a hope of salvation. ‘When I was a soldier I did bad things. I don’t know how many we killed. We were following orders and thought it was the right thing to do,’ said Thao Tanh, 52. ‘I read the Bible and I know it will free me from the weight of the sins I have committed.’
(Hat tip – Kathy Shaidle at the Shotgun, who thinks this “kinda” vindicates Ann Coulter.)
I’ve always thought of socialism as a sort of religion, I guess their god has failed, been showed to fail, and they’ve decide to bet on another pony.
Of the choices, it certainly could be worse, they could be going for some particularly retrograde species of Islam. I wonder why not?
Probably too close in the “notorious failure” dept.
How interesting is it going to be to watch this social experiment for the next generation+.
At least it looks far less bloody so far.
I guess there’ll be Cambodian crusades next. Killing is killing man!
I have listened to Kerry talk about the Vietnam war and how bad it was and useless, then how can he be a democrat? It was a democrat President that got them in and a Republican that got them out.