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In this mailing:
- Raymond Ibrahim: 215,000,000
Christians Persecuted, Mostly by Muslims
- Johny Messo: Restoring
Persecuted Middle East Christians' Faith in America
by Raymond Ibrahim • January 21,
2018 at 5:00 am
- In short, the
overwhelming majority of persecution that these 215 million
Christians experience around the world — especially the worst
forms, such as rape and murder — occurs at the hands of Muslims.
- If time is on the side
of Christians living under Communist regimes, it is not
on the side of Christians living under Islam. The center of the
great Christian Byzantine Empire is now an increasingly
intolerant, rapidly Islamizing Turkey. Carthage, once a bastion
of Christianity — where one of Christendom's greatest
theologians, St. Augustine, was born and where the New Testament
canon was confirmed in 397 — is today 99% Muslim-majority
Tunisia.
- As what began in the
seventh century comes closer to fruition and the entire world
becomes more Islamic and "infidel" free, as in Iraq,
confronting these uncomfortable facts is at least a welcome
first step in countering the problem.
A militiaman
from the Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) walks through a
destroyed church on November 8, 2016 in Qaraqosh, Iraq. The NPU is a
militia made up of Assyrian Christians that was formed in late 2014
to defend against ISIS. Qaraqosh is a mostly Assyrian city near of
Mosul that was captured by ISIS in August 2014, and liberated in
November 2016. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
"215 million Christians experience high levels of
persecution" around the world, according to Open Doors, a human
rights organization. On its recently released World Watch List 2018,
which ranks the world's 50 worst nations wherein to be Christian,
3,066 Christians were killed, 1,252 abducted, and 1,020 raped or
sexually harassed on account of their faith; and 793 churches were
attacked or destroyed.
The Islamic world had the lion's share of this
persecution; 38 of the 50 worst nations are Muslim-majority. The
report further cites "Islamic oppression" behind the
"extreme persecution" that prevails in eight of the 10
worst nations. In short, the overwhelming majority of persecution
that these 215 million Christians experience around the world —
especially the worst forms, such as rape and murder — occurs at the
hands of Muslims.
by Johny Messo • January 21, 2018
at 4:00 am
- Christians, members of
the largest religion in the world, have become the most
persecuted faith group but lack a political voice.
- The White House
urgently needs to develop a clear vision of how to help
Christianity survive -- let alone thrive -- in its homeland. At
the moment, there seems to be no foreign policy based on this
vision.
Pictured:
Vice President Mike Pence making a speech at the "In Defense of
Christians" summit, on October 25, 2017, in which he said:
"from this day forward, America will provide support directly to
persecuted [Christian] communities through USAID." (Image
source: Channel 90 TV video screenshot)
Without urgent action on the part of the United States,
Christianity in biblically historic lands, such as Iraq, Syria and
Turkey, will be clinically dead before the year 2030. The current
administration in Washington has expressed, in words, that this
situation cannot be tolerated. It is time now for deeds, as well, to
reverse the previous administrations' virtual abandonment of
Christians in the Middle East to the fate of persecution at the hands
of Islamists.
In September 2007, then-Senator Obama wrote a letter
to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, expressing "concern for
Iraq's Christian and other non-Muslim religious minorities, including
Catholic Chaldeans, Syriac Orthodox, Assyrian, Armenian and
Protestant Christians, as well as smaller Yazidi and Sabean Mandaean
communities."
Obama warned:
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