Is God Russian or Muslim? If the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyrygzstan had its way, this question would have to wait until Judgment Day before it could be answered with finality. Until then, it would seem that both the Russian Orthodox Church and the Muslims of Central Asia do not want any competion from other religious movements. All other religious groups in Kyrgyzstan are branded "sects," a term that lumps together all Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics together with the so-called "cults" of Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Hare Krishnas, and Bahais.

Throughout the history of Russia, the religion of the Tsars has competed fiercely with the religion of the Tatars. Today, an "unholy" alliance has been forged between former rivals in order to protect their "flocks" from the ravages of perceived wolves.

After almost a century of a virulent Marxist-Leninist atheism that sought to eradicate all religious belief in the Soviet Union, a renewal of spiritual enquiry has emerged from the rubble of glasnost. The renaissance of Islam has been well documented in books and scholarly journals, as well as in the archives of the national security services of Central Asian governments. The Protestant denominations have also enjoyed surprising growth following perestroika. Only the Russian Orthodox Church has not grown in the exodus of Slavic residents from Central Asia.

Today the Russian Baptists are the largest Protestant group in Kyrgyzstan, followed closely by the Pentecostals, the Church of Jesus Christ, and various denominations of Koreans and western evangelical missionaries. Roman Catholics in Central Asia, despite the refusal of the Orthodox Metropolitan of Russia to allow the Pope to visit Moscow in August 2001, nevertheless enjoyed the Pope’s visit to Kazakhstan instead. In Kyrgyzstan, the Papal Nuncio has won government concessions for the small flock of Roman Catholic Slavs who remain in the country.

Still the Russian Orthodox Church in Kyrgyzstan brands western religions as anathema, apart from the faith of "Mother Russia." The pronouncements of the church echo the Cold War fear that western globalizing influences, including the scourge of AIDS, the plague of pornography, and the heresy of "sects," will undermine the moral fabric of society in Kyrgyzstan.

On the Muslim side, the official clergy, the spiritual descendants of the muftiyya established by Catherine the Great, have tried hard to fight a war on two fronts: against Muslim extremism on the one side and Protestant encroachment on the other side. Muslim extremism, under the banner of the Hizbut Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), has become very popular with young men and women in the Ferghana Valley, where both Uzbeks and Kyrgyz practice a more conservative and traditional Islam than in the Chui Valley.

Hizbut Tahrir spokesmen teach that an Islamic khalifat (califate) must be restored in former Muslim lands to replace the Ottoman Empire, whose Sultan yielded in 1924 to the secularizing "traitor" Kemal Ataturk of the modern Turkish Republic. Extremists also claim that the califate must extend to the whole world, including the democratic free world. According to their literature, the Hizbut Tahrir believe that democracy is the footstool of Satan because it is a human system of rule and not the divine "sharia" Muslim law.

In Kyrgyzstan the organs of "official Islam" have remained silent concerning the presence of extremists in their ranks, allowing the Hizbut Tahrir to gain a stronghold in Muslim communities. In Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, official Muslim clerics are coopted into the government program of repressing extremists. Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs who convert to Protestant faiths are often beaten by family members and cast out of their communities as traitors to their ethnic identity and Muslim traditions.

How can we live together in a world of limited resources, growing populations, competing forces, and conflicting faiths? Can we afford to have different religious faiths that make unique and exclusive truth claims? Can Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists inhabit one world without clashing civilizations?

The Aslan Alliance believes emphatically in the freedom of religion as a basic human right, one that is divinely endorsed. As long as religious adherents do not violate the laws of the land and as long as the laws of the land do not seek to coerce conscience and faith, then the power of faith to do good will pour out as a blessing to the peoples. Compassion for the poor, taking care of widows and orphans, denouncing moral rot, protecting women from prostitution, offering hope to alcoholics and drug addicts, providing meaning to the random senselessness of life, these are only a few of the merits of a free and willing faith in God.

In these acts of goodness, Muslims and Christians, Orthodox and Catholics, Baptists and Pentecostals, Bahais and Mormons can all practice their belief that God is good and merciful, patient and kind. The Aslan Alliance will develop projects to promote interconfessional understanding and mutual respect for all men and women. Ecumenical councils will leave theology on the pulpit and march together into the streets to clean up the city and work with the farmers on the land to bring forth a new harvest of righteousness by sowing peace.