Christians worldwide begin 2008 with eyes on their brothers and sisters in Pakistan, taking sides on the controversy surrounding Benazir Bhutto. Some say her assassination is a serious setback to religious freedom, while others believe her candidacy was irrelevant to the real needs of the persecuted church in Pakistan.

Christians are a marked minority in the hard-nosed Islamic country, making up 2.5 percent of the 165 million, mostly-Muslim population. Sections of the Pakistan Penal Code condemn non-Muslim “blasphemers” to imprisonment and death.

Nasir Saeed, United Kingdom coordinator for the Centre of Legal Aid Assurance and Settlement (CLAAS), hoped Bhutto’s leadership in the non-Muslim Pakistani People Party (PPP) would allay intense religious persecution in Pakistan: “She was the most enlightened and moderate politician and struggled hard to bring real democracy to the country. The Christian minority in Pakistan has suffered a great loss and now fear that they will never be able to replace Ms. Bhutto of whom they held great hopes for an end to fundamentalism and persecution.”

Critics like Imaduddin Ahmed counter that it’s false to idealize Bhutto as a promoter of free democracy. Ahmed argues that Bhutto’s participation in Pakistan’s “affected elections” aligned her with the country’s infamously oppressive government and “yanked the rug from under the feet of those who pushed for a semblance of democracy.”

Some Christians doubt that a scandal-ridden political figure like Bhutto can address the true needs of the Pakistani church. Kevin Kimball, 23, a Washington native who recently returned from four months in the city of Peshawar in Pakistan’s Northwestern province, told WoW that Christians and Muslims alike seemed “disappointed with government in general”.

Kimball, who spent time teaching English to Muslim students, said Pakistani youth are hungry for leaders: “If the next generation doesn’t have any one to teach them there just won’t be any progress.”

Although the efforts of individuals do not garner as much attention as the spotlight campaign of a political figure like Bhutto, Kimball believes they are ultimately more effective: “The real solution is to give courage back to Christians.”

Thinking it was safe, Newsweek published its 2007 obituary of “Famous in Life, Noted in Passing” in its January 7, 2008 issue, everyone from Brooks Astor to Jack Valenti. Who knew that former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan would render the tally unprescient by her December 27^th assassination? The fact of it underscores what we all know but like to pretend we don’t — that history and the future will never proceed according to script.

You can dispatch Condoleezza Rice on her if-it’s-Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium globe trotting, you can throw $10 billion in aid to Musharraf in the war against terrorism, as the U.S. Congress did. And some guy with a will and a way will still snake through the crowd in Rawalpindi and change the equation of power in the Middle East.

What next? Will the anti-government unrest ignited by the murder escalate? Will a broad-based coalition government rise from the ashes to tackle extremists? Will the centrifugal forces on regional divisions worsen? What will happen to Karachi, that hotbed of violence and power base of the Bhutto family?

“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish” (Psalm 146:3,4).

Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan turned opposition leader, was assassinated early yesterday during what the papers are calling a campaign rally. Bhutto, who returned from exile in October to stage a political comeback, was attacked with gunfire and explosives when she looked out of her vehicle to wave to supporters. Bloggers in her hometown of Karachi are sharing stories of the mayhem that overtook the city at the news (panic, fire, and looting), while just about everyone else in the blogosphere is predicting mayhem and, in all likelihood, a stint of martial law.

Bhutto was a complex woman, inspiring a predictable array of both worshippers and critics. By all accounts, she was courageous; in her twenties, she spent five years in prison for confronting the cruel general who sentenced her father to death. After her climb to power, she continued her bold habits, driving Christopher Hitchens through the slums of Karachi and stopping to push back the crowds by standing on the roof of her vehicle and shouting some firm words into her bullhorn. Even after several attacks diminished public shows of support, thousands still flocked to her appearances, raucously vocalizing their adoration: “Long live Benazir!”

Her critics have always been quick to point out that she masks her own agendas beneath ceremony and the backing of Western leaders. A string of corruption charges plagued her and her husband while she held office. Last month, the New York Times reminded readers that Bhutto carried “a legacy among Pakistanis as a polarizing figure who during her two turbulent tenures as prime minister, first from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996, often acted imperiously and impulsively.”

Educated at Oxford and Harvard and confident as a woman in power, Bhutto picked up enemies from Taliban leaders to the current Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf. Her no-nonsense response to terrorism has led to widespread speculation that terrorist groups, likely al Qaeda or the Taliban, are responsible for her death. (A deadly attack on the day of her return to Pakistan reportedly bore the marks of Taliban commanders, who had previously threatened Bhutto.) “I am what the terrorists most fear,” she told Parade magazine in an exclusive interview that was scheduled to run January 6, “a female political leader fighting to bring modernity to Pakistan. Now they’re trying to kill me.” President Musharraf, in a statement late yesterday, called the attack “the work of those terrorists with whom we are engaged in war.”