I saw the above headline last week and read the ensuing article. A nineteen year old woman received a phone call from a man telling her to meet him. He threatened to tell her family that they were having an affair if she did not come. Once at the place he specified she was taken by force to another place and then raped by 7 men. Afterward they took pictures of her nude body and told her to not tell anyone what had happened. If she told they would print the pictures and she would be disgraced.

For the next five years, she did not tell her family, due to being afraid of what the men would do. She did attempt to commit suicide. Eventually the events came to light and the men were given from 10 months to 5 years in prison. However, the woman was sentenced to 90 slashes for meeting a man, not related to her, in private.

This goes to show one of the differences between Islam and the Bible. Jesus, in speaking to the Samaritan woman by the well, broke the cultural norms at that time. At that time and in that culture women had very few "rights". They were essentially treated as property. Later on, He spoke to the woman caught in adultery as a person and not as an inferior being, John 8. If the woman was to be punished by stoning her to death, then the men should receive the same punishment. The law of Christ applies to men and women alike, Galatians 3.28. The next time somebody starts to blast the Bible for being sexist and discriminating against women, point out to them the value and importance the law of Christ gives to women. Husbands are to love them as their own body and value them as the weaker vessel.