"When we arrived in Kabul, we felt the power of evil very strongly," says Christy Wilson, a Christian missionary, in his book More to Be Desired Than Gold. An unwittingly hilarious volume of strange and macabre tales which includes the story of a Californian dog possessed by demons in Kabul and the perils of satanic ouija boards, the book is about a group of Christian missionaries in Afghanistan of the 1960s and 1970s.
Kabul of that period is famously associated with the flower children, their rugs, drugs and sheepskins while little is known about the equally strange, but drug-free parallel universe inhabited by missionaries who were from the same parts of the world as the hippies.
Yet it was in this period that a small group set up base in Afghanistan, opening a church in Kabul in 1970. The triumph of having founded a church at the heart of an exceedingly religious Muslim community was short-lived. News of conversions soon reached the Afghan government, leading it to demolish the church three years later.
According to Wilson, Afghan officials took the term "underground church" literally, digging in vain for a secret church underneath the building. By then a handful of Afghans had already converted to Christianity, among them a blind teenage boy who gained fame among missionaries as Saint Paul of Afghanistan.
With conversion an extremely dangerous decision amounting to a death wish, the early history of Afghan converts has its fair share of what missionaries called Christian martyrs. The irony of Afghanistan as a birthplace of both Muslim and Christian modern-day martyrs is lost on the sanctimonious in both camps, but it nonetheless shows the powerful appeal of the country over the religious imaginations of people from radically different places, from the dry deserts of Saudi Arabia to the green pastures of New Zealand. The attraction is peculiar, given that Afghans themselves tend to regard their country as a Godforsaken place where Satan, rather than God, came to get some rest.
Be that as it may, conversion to Christianity hasn't stopped since the early days of missionary activity described in Wilson's book. Judging by the fact that Afghan churches have sprung up in places as far apart as Scandinavia and California, the number of converts must have increased drastically since the days of the "early martyrs".
According to a reliable source, missionary activity is particularly evident in northern Afghanistan where Christian concepts are subtly sneaked into instruction materials. So for example, students in computer classes are encouraged to create folders named after Christian theological concepts such as the Trinity, or Christian saints and prophets.
The fear of losing people to other religions has regularly led to protests in the Afghan parliament. A more sinister version of such protest occurred when the owner of a private TV station, desperate for viewers, secretly filmed – and then broadcast – a Christian sermon delivered in Kabul. Led by a disabled man, the congregation was a sorrowful sight, composed of the poor and the starved. But if the missionaries were cynical in luring starving Afghans into conversion with offers of cakes and fruit juice, so was their opponent, the TV presenter. For the sake of self-promotion, the Afghan presenter put lives at risk, taking advantage of the sensitivities associated with conversion.
Most Afghans tend to regard such conversions with scepticism, given that becoming a Christian equates to a full stomach and, at times, a fast track to Canada on the grounds of religious persecution. But even though there might be a degree of truth in this suspicion, it is equally true that in contrast to the past, Afghan Christians have become more open and vocal about their existence.
They have their own online TV channel, with presenters possessing a remarkable command of their native language. Equally striking is their use of religious terminology to spread their Christian message which draws upon vocabulary usually associated with Islam. Hence, the community members refers to themselves as "mumenin" (believers) and use the Islamic term "din" to describe their faith.
The bravest among the converts have moved a step further, outing themselves publicly, and offering conversion testimonies in Dari. Reading them, it becomes clear that it is inconsolable grief caused by war combined with the unappealing experience of Islam in its legalistic guise that has driven some of the more sensitive souls away from Islam and into the fold of Christianity.
This same brand of legalistic Islam in recent history proved an impediment to progress, leading the Afghan government to create a new class of Egyptian-educated imams from al-Azhar University in the 1960s. Co-opted by the government, fluent in Arabic and well-versed in scripture, the properly-trained imams were crucial in allowing progressive laws to enter the 1964 constitution. They used a reformist Islamic theology to argue for progress against reactionary, traditional mullahs.
Needless to say, the war interrupted progress towards religious reform, leaving Afghans vulnerable to proselytizing Christians and Muslims alike. The bold recent entry to the city of Herat of the global pietist movement, Tablighi Jama'at, which already has massive support in Pakistan, is a recent example. There, confident young Tablighi missionaries marched into shops, pressing their pamphlets into the hands of irritated shopkeepers.
Given this context of international competition over Afghans' souls, Christian converts appear to be part of a wider pattern of religious change. The country has become an international spiritual bazaar where religious identities are offered to Afghans alongside equally popular Viagra pills and Korean soap operas. As elsewhere in the world, globalisation in Afghanistan has turned out to be, as it were, a mixed blessing.