Christians are under attack. Not for anything that they have done, but simply for being Christians. The past few years have seen a marked increase in the persecution of Christians in every area of the Middle East, and Africa. There are millions of Christians facing harassment, discrimination, and even death for the religion they have professed for centuries. Christian villages have been a part of the Middle East since the birth of Christ. And now, because of the apathy of the worlds government and media indifference, they are under attack like never before.
A report by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church shows that in 55 of the 196 countries in the world, Christians are facing 75% of the intolerance led by ISIS and other extremists to allow no dissent to Islam. The ancestral villages of Christians, the churches that have stood since the days of early Christianity are being dismantled.
In Pakistan, a Muslim mob beat a Christian couple to death and burned them to death because of a rumor that they desecrated the Quran. Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of school girls. Northern Nigeria is in throes of a systematic destruction of the Christians there through forced conversions. In Kenya, 28 passengers were killed on a tourist bus because they could not recite the Quran. In the Central African Republic thousands have been displaced. While in Asia believers are arrested for having a Bible, Then there is the systemic brutality and oppression of Christians in Ch8ina, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. There is a campaign of the Islamic State to obliterate Christianity from the area, an area that Christians have in relative peace with their Muslim neighbors for centuries.
It has moved beyond persecution to genocide. When the Islamic State tells the followers that they will go to heaven if they kill a Christian there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. This leads to such crimes against humanity as the killing of Jesuit priest Frans van der Lugt in Syria and shot him twice in the head. This is a priest that had done humanitarian work in Homs for fifty years before he was considered an infidel and murdered. Homs was originally home for 80,000 Christians, now reduced to a handful.
Even in this country, there is a push to secularize the country. Militant atheists, acting like the arguments they make against religion are new are simplistic and naïve in mocking the Christian religion. There have been many reasons for conflict in the past, and Christianity has been involved in some, but the “reason” as has visions of master races (Nazism), enemies of the people (Socialism), and a Glorious revolution (Maoism). Atheism has also started conflicts, and with the vicious polemics of the “New Atheists” it is perceived by some as the start of another conflict. Atheists have yet to understand that Christianity grows unde persecution. The more that fight the faster if grows. They can not change or eradicate Christianity because the arguments against religion only makes it stronger. Atheism has never been the majority position of mankind. Are there good atheists? Yes, there are many who are good and moral people. But the moral code of the Judeo-Christian precepts are a part of their moral fiber as well.
Our government needs to take part in stopping this genocide, even if bypassing the President is needed. We can no longer allow instances like the Coptic Christians who came to San Francisco, wh0o had family members in the area that are being deported back to face even more terror and death. When Obama was a Senator, he spoke of the fate of non-Muslims in Iraq in order to use it against the Bush administration. He even went so far as to send letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and enter letters in the Congressional Records decrying the fate of the non-Muslims in the Middle East. Obama even went so far as to state “ severe violations of religious freedom faced by member of these indigenous communities, and their potential extinction from their ancient homeland, is deeply alarming in light of our mission to bring freedom to the Iraqi people.
This was in the middle of his Presidential campaign, and has been ignored ever since he became President. There has been nothing of any substance that has been done by the President to stop the genocide, and the media barely reports it. Chicago’s Assyrian community has talked about Obamas reaction by calling it “just talk” It is Obama, along with radical leftwing groups that have declared war on Christians. Liberal corporate interest, such as the attack against Chick-Fil-A and statements by corporate CEOs have further eroded the culture of this country in respect to religion. Taking it one step further, the entire state of Indiana was the focus of a state wide boycott for passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The purpose of the act was to protect the religious freedoms of Christians in reference to same sex marriage. The boycott was led by the NCAA, Salesforce, Angies Lits, the NBA, the WNBA, and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
There is no precedent for the judicial persecution of Christians in this country. The country has always been blessed with the ability to discern the freedom of religion was meant to create a new nation where people of faith would not have to choose obeying the law or the religion of their choice.
It is telling that the US Army and Department of Defense have classified Christians as religious extremists on par with Al-Qaeda. This information was supplied for presentations by the US Army by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a socialist organization written about before. Just days before another presentation was found by Judicial Watch to equate Evangelical Christianity with Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the Ku Klux Klan.
Again in 2013. The US Army presentation “US Army Reserve Equal Opportunity Training” listed Evangelical Christians as the number one extremist threat, even ahead of the Muslim Brotherhood. Further down the list was “anyone with a Christian identity” listed above Al Qaeda and Hamas. Individual soldiers have faced imprisonment merely for talking about their faith, and chaplains have been told not to speak about God, or lose the commissions they were awarded.
Something that needs to be discussed is the pushback that is starting to take hold. Christians will no longer accept being told they are terrorists, will no longer be forced to accept an immoral society that does not seem to care about the decay of our country. Christians will no longer obey government if it is contrary to the Christian teaching.For 2,000 years Christians have placed the law of God above the law of man. This will not change now to make those who are pagan feel better.
Comments