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b'Last week, Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He was never seen again. Now, Turkish officials believe Khashoggi, a longtime critic of the country, was murdered by Saudi officials. That same week, US officials visited the Saudi Arabian capital city of Riyadh and reported that the country seemed to be loosening some of its harsh religious laws, including reforming its religious police\\u2014once tasked with enforcing shari\\u2019ah law on the streets and in homes\\u2014and has instituted new government programs to quash extremism. Last fall, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced plans last October to modernize Saudi Arabia and return the restrictive Muslim country to \\u201cwhat we were before: a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world.\\u201d And while the Crown Prince, whose often known by his nickname MSB, has made real strides in advancing freedom, including letting women drive, incidents like Khashoggi\\u2019s reported death, suggest that things may be more complicated than they seem. \\u201cCritics will say that MBS\\u2019 reforms are lip service, eye candy, it\\u2019s trying to fool the West into thinking that Saudi Arabia is changing when in reality it\\u2019s still the same old, repressive, authoritarian regime it\\u2019s always been,\\u201dsaid Robert Nicholson, the founder and executive director of the Philos Project, a leadership community dedicated to promoting positive Christian engagement in the Middle East. \\u201cI actually think both are true. Anytime a woman can drive in a country and she couldn\\u2019t drive the day before is good news. I\\u2019m not going to be picky about how many other things are left undone,\\u201d said Nicholson. \\u201c...I also think it\\u2019s true that Saudi Arabia is nowhere near being a beacon of human rights and has a long, long way to go.\\u201d Nicholson joined associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss how Saudi Arabia\\u2019s relationship with Iran matters, why the few Christians in the country are likely to be migrant workers, and how Christianity first arrived in that part of the world.\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices'