Bary, the Christian convert teen who ran away from home last year alleging her Muslim parents would kill her, apparently is rejecting chemotherapy for her uterine cancer, claiming she was cured by a faith healer. She is also rejecting a reunion with her family, whom law enforcement officials say pose no threat to her safety.

The teenager became a poster child for the anti-Muslim and/or born-again religious crowd after she ran away from her Columbus home to Orlando, Florida, claiming her parents would kill her because of her conversion to Christianity three years before she fled. She eventually ended up in foster care back in Ohio.

In May, the 17-year-old Sri Lankan native was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and has since had three operations.

According to news reports, documents filed by her parents in Franklin County Court state that Bary is refusing chemotherapy because she claims she was healed at an event in Youngstown last month. She was allegedly taken there without her parents’ consent, and her parents want the court to force Bary to undergo chemotherapy if she needs it.

A judge will decide on the parents’ motion today.

Meanwhile, Bary, who turns 18 next week, has refused to meet with her family. Her lawyers say the girl fears her parents still.

[Oh, ye of little faith. But I digress.]

Adding to the complexity of this passion play is the undocumented immigrant status of the entire Bary family. Rifqa is seeking to avoid deportation so she can continue her medical treatment … which her parents say she is refusing.

Confused yet? I’ve been following this story for a year, and even I have trouble understanding it.

If things weren’t already strange enough, it seems the neo-Pentecostal Christians surrounding Bary say she has a special prophetic role to play as someone who has escaped the “evil” of Islam.

Bary made a dramatic, and somewhat disturbing appearance on a telephone prayer call last year, at a time when she was supposed to be denied access to the people who helped her run lured her away from her home.

Islamophobe Pamela Geller has been touting Bary’s situation as another case of Muslim “honor killing” for apostasy (converting to Christianity), while accusing the girl’s parents of crimes they have neither committed nor seem inclined to commit.

The religious aspect of this family drama stinks worse than the Fulton fish market, as my mother used to say. This girl is being exploited by so-called faithful people who have no real regard for her welfare. They just want her to play a part in their imaginary End Times battle between Christians and Muslims.

If the girl had been helped by some wacko cult to run away from her Christian parents, the cult would have been vilified and the girl would be home now (maybe after some needed counseling). Does the name Elizabeth Smart ring any bells?

Instead, the supposedly well-meaning busybodies who interfered with the Bary’s family life — instead of going directly to civil authorities — get free passes because they are “Christian” and the girls’ parents are distrusted because they’re Muslim and in the State illegally.

It ain’t right.

The Sri Lankan-born high school graduate has had two operations already, and awaits a third.

Bary ran away to Florida in July with the help of a Christian pastor who had befriended her. Once arriving in Orlando, the girl, who says she converted to Christianity at 13, lived with married pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz for nearly two weeks before the Lorenzes told child welfare officials where Bary was.

In interviews, Bary claimed that her parents were upset with her conversion and that she was afraid that her father would kill her if she returned home. Law enforcement officials from Florida and Ohio, however, reported there was no credible threat to her safety.

Nevertheless, Bary has lived with foster parents in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, after her court-ordered return to Ohio in October. She turns 18 in August, at which point she will be able to leave foster care.

Her conversion and flight to Florida have become a rallying point for anti-Islamic Christian polemicists, who have used Bary as a “poster child” for honor killings, though there was never any real threat to her life. Meanwhile, they have accused Bary’s parents and their mosque of being Islamic extremists, though again there is no evidence of the allegations.

The whole situation is a sad commentary on the abuse of religious belief. That a young girl is so ill is even more tragic.

In the aftermath, the Lorenzes have lost their jobs. (Their church board took issue with the Lorenzes breaking the law by harboring a runaway child without notifying the proper authorities.) Her parents have lost their privacy and a great deal of their reputation. (Law enforcement investigations found the parents posed no threat to their daughter’s safety, but Bary’s anti-Islam fans still trumpet that the girl’s life was in danger.) And Bary will likely end up with a new identity as a “persecuted Christian” who escaped the clutches of Islam — a newly minted spokeswoman for the Religious Fear-mongering Right.

You wait. There’s bound to be a book or movie deal waiting in the wings. And the obligatory appearance on Oprah.

That’s the tale told by Shayan Elahi, the attorney for Fathima Rifqa Bary’s father, in today’s Orlando Sentinel.

Rifqa Bary ran away from her home at age 16, assisted by Christian pastors and Facebook friends who enabled her to take a bus to Orlando, Florida, where she stayed with another Christian pastor and his wife for nearly two weeks before anyone notified child welfare authorities — or her parents — of her location.

Fueled by unfounded allegations that Rifqa fled her home to avoid an “honor killing,” a complete “Save Rifqa Bary” movement has blossomed from whole cloth, led by a combination of Christian activists, Muslim-haters, and otherwise well-meaning folk who think they are saving a teenage girl from certain execution.

In any other situation, had a teenager been lured away from her home by friends she met on Facebook or while unescorted by her family, assisted in her flight to a different state and housed (illegally) for two weeks, her return home would have been swift and definitive.

But, because the parties involved are “Christians,” their interference in a family’s life somehow gets a free pass. As far as I know, no one has been charged with any crime in enabling Rifqa to run away. And official sources give no credibility to the idea that Rifqa’s Muslim parents or the family’s mosque will kill the girl because she has become a Christian.

Rifqa says they will, but only after spending considerable time with her Christian helpers-with-an-agenda. The “Save Rifqa” echo chamber has amplified the girl’s possibly coached allegation into a full blown crusade, labeling her parents (and every other Muslim in Ohio, if not the world) as wild-eyed extremists bent on taking over the United States of America and wiping all Christians off the map.

But newspaper accounts paint a picture of a fairly typical middle-class American family, who just happen to be Muslim (the current mortal enemy of Christendom). Rifqa started reading the Bible at age 13. Her parents knew it, and permitted it. They didn’t cut off her hands, or pluck out her eyes. She joined the cheerleading squad at school, short skirt and all, and her parents, instead of keeping her in a floor-length shroud, have her cheerleader photo displayed in their living room. Her brother drinks beer and parties. Her mosque appears to be as middle-of-the-road as a Reform synagogue or a Methodist church.

The Save Rifqa people turned the hearings in Orlando about her custody into a small media circus. The hearings in Columbus about her removal from foster care (after three months) drew a tiny rabble outside. The blogosphere drips with hatred of Islam and Muslims.

(Just read some of the comments under the Sentinel opinion piece. I especially like the ones decrying “honorary killings.”)

Is this What Jesus Would Do? Or would he condemn the Save Rifqa people as hypocrites?

People held signs that said “Free Rifqa” and “Sharia sucks. Free Rifqa Bari. (sic)” There was a large poster that showed violence done to Muslims who have converted to Christianity, as Bary said she did four years ago. People prayed, and people spoke, and people made a controversy where none exists.

Hence, a manufactroversy.

How many people? Well, one of the organizers demagogues, Pamela Geller, says “hundreds.” The Columbus Dispatch says “about 120.”

Bary ran away from her Columbus home back in September. She and her family are Muslims from Sri Lanka, and according to newspaper accounts, her parents were perfectly OK with her reading the Bible, hanging out with Christian kids, and being a cheerleader.

But her many “supporters” — most of whom are fervent Christians — fervently believe her family, or the middle-of-the-road mosque to which they belong, will put the girl to death if she is sent back to her family. Law enforcement officers discount that likelihood, but since when do True Believers™ believe John Law?

The rally “crowd” was also upset that a family court judge has closed to the public the hearings being held to decide whether Bary is an unruly teenager, as her parents allege, and whether she can leave foster care. They also have their underwear in knots about court orders restricting the girl’s access to the Internet, email and her cellphone.

To them, it’s all some kind of sinister Islamic plot to subvert the American justice system and wage war on Christians, right there in the newly formed Islamic Republic of Ohio. If they didn’t have their heads on backwards, they might realize that closing custody issue hearings and limiting a minors’ access to possibly harmful influences are pretty routine stuff, nothing to see here, folks, just move along.

Bary took off from her home after meeting some Christians on Facebook and spending time with a pastor in Columbus. Her Christian friends helped her take a bus to Orlando, Florida, where she stayed with a rather dodgy sounding Baptist minister and his wife for nearly two weeks before anyone notified Florida’s child welfare office of her whereabouts.

Meanwhile, her worried parents had no idea where she was. But, hey, it’s OK to keep them in the dark, because they’re “evil, murdering Muslims.”

You think I exaggerate? The Dispatch says some folks at the rally were wearing T-shirts that said “Islam is of the devil.” Such warm hearted folks.

Bary, 17, fled her Columbus home last summer with the assistance of conservative Christians, who bought her a bus ticket to Orlando, where she lived for two weeks with Christian crusaders Blake and Beverly Lorenz. Several days later, the Lorenzes reported Bary’s arrival to Florida’s child protection services.

The immigrant girl from Sri Lanka has become a poster child for those Christians who believe the world is heading for a showdown between the forces of good (Christians) and the forces of evil (Muslims). Feeding on apparently false accusations that Bary’s parents will kill her for leaving her faith, rabid Christians have flocked to her cause like bears to honey.

An Ohio judge has wisely restricted the impressionable girl’s access to the Internet and her cell phone, which has led one anti-Islam nutjob to accuse the Ohio judge of enforcing Muslim sharia law.

Last month, while under foster care in Florida, Bary appeared on a telephone conference call prayer meeting, during which she manically prayed to Jesus, then abruptly stopped, leaving her handlers fellow Christians at a temporary loss for words. The conference call was scheduled to counter the sinister and cosmic influence of the Muslim Prayer Rally in Washington, D.C.

Florida’s child protection service officials have still not explained how Bary was allowed to participate in the event. The Ohio judge seems to have learned something from Florida’s cluelessness.

Bary has fallen in with an extremist set of believers, who even mainstream Christians distrust, according to the website Loonwatch. These folks variously believe that Christians — led by a “Joel’s Army” of young evangelical “soldiers” — are divinely appointed to rule the world, and that Christians must first deal with the Muslim problem. According to these kooks, Islam is a product of the devil, and Bary must be protected from the evil clutches of her parents, who by all rational accounts are loving, Americanized — and very puzzled — parents.

There are a lot of disturbing aspects to the case of Rifqa Bary, but Islam is not one of them. Her fragile understanding of her faiths (old and new), her manipulation at the hands of religious crusaders, and the unwarranted intrusion of Internet demagogues like Pam Geller are a much bigger problem.

JISHOU, HUNAN — Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teen who converted to Christianity and fled to Florida (with help), will be sent back to temporary foster care in her home state of Ohio, a Florida family court judge ruled Tuesday.

Bary, 17, ran away from home at age 16, saying she feared her parents would kill her for converting. Christian ministers helped her take a Greyhound to Orlando, Florida, where she lived with a pastor and his wife for two weeks before they finally reported the situation to local authorities and the girls’ parents.

Law enforcement officers investigating the Bary family found no indication Bary’s life was in danger, and the Florida judge assigned to her case ruled that Ohio’s child protection office is more suitable to decide her case.

Once she arrives in Ohio, Bary will be placed in temporary custody with the Franklin County Children’s Service department.

Bary made headlines recently after she participated in a conference call Christian prayer session preceding the Muslim Prayer Rally in Washington, D.C., last month. Her appearance sparked questions about Bary’s foster parents, who were supposedly keeping her separate from the Christians who had helped her flee her home.

Her story has become the latest cause celebre among fundamentalist Christians, who have adopted her as a kind of “poster child” for anti-Islam rhetoric and quasi-martyrdom. Meanwhile, her parents, who by all appearances are moderate Muslims from Sri Lanka, say they mean the girl no harm and in fact were perfectly comfortable with her Christian faith months before her departure.

It’s shameful that the same people who claim the family is next to importance to God seem so willing to tear apart a family by preying on a young girl’s confusion.