Parallels

If I were to embrace Islam today, what would be the parallels to the experience of the first Christians 2,000 years ago when they abandoned their old ways and embraced the New Teaching?

Would I be despised? Would my family be uncomprehending? Would I face discrimination and possibly be killed, just as Shaima Alawadi was recently killed in California? Would I then become a martyr?

I think investigating such an experience would be very effective in separating our true relationship with the Holy from the incidental demands of social existence. There is God, and there are crowds and social pressures, and for the most part we do not discriminate between the two. That strikes me as idolatrous and pagan: in effect, to pray to one's society as being a facet of divinity.
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