Please take a moment to
visit and log in at the subscriber
area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this
information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your
area.
The
Existential Elephant in the 'Christian Persecution' Room
by Raymond Ibrahim
CBN News
January 17, 2014
  Be the first of your
friends to like this.
Open Doors USA recently
released its widely cited 2014
World Watch List—a report that highlights and ranks the 50 worst
nations around the globe persecuting Christians.
The one glaring fact that emerges from this report is that the
overwhelming majority of Christian persecution around the world today is
being committed at the hands of Muslims of all races, languages, cultures,
and socio-political circumstances: Muslims from among America's allies
(Saudi Arabia) and its enemies (Iran); Muslims from economically rich
nations (Qatar) and from poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); Muslims from
"Islamic republic" nations (Afghanistan) and from
"moderate" nations (Malaysia and Indonesia); Muslims from nations
rescued by America (Kuwait) and Muslims claiming "grievances"
against America (fill in the blank __).
A common denominator, a pattern, exists, one that is even more extensive
than Open Doors implies. According
to that organization's communications director, Emily Fuentes, "of the
50 worst nations for persecution, 37 of them are Muslim," or 74%.
In fact, while this number suggests that the other 13 countries making
the top 50 are not Muslim—for example Kenya and Ethiopia—those doing the
persecution there are.
In other words, those persecuting Christians in 41 of 50 nations are
Muslims; that is, a whopping 82% of all persecution around the globe is
being committed by the adherents of Islam—sometimes in Christian majority
nations; for example, the Central African Republic which, after the 2013
Islamic takeover, now ranks #16, "severe persecution" (the
Christian-majority nation did not even appear in the previous year's top
50).
As for the top ten absolute worst nations, where, according to the 2014
World Watch List, Christians suffer "extreme persecution,"
nine—that is, 90%—are Muslim. (Indeed, Open
Doors' global map of Christian persecution can easily be confused with
a global
map of the Islamic world, with the exception of China (ranked 37,
"moderate persecution") and some sporadic countries dominated by
crime and godless tyranny, Columbia, North Korea, etc.)
Similarly, a recent Morning Star News report listing
2013's ten most horrific anecdotes of Christian persecution around the
world finds that nine out of ten—again, 90%—were committed at the hands of
those professing Islam.
Still, considering that the 2014 World Watch List ranks North
Korea—non-Islamic, communist—as the number one worst persecutor of
Christians, why belabor the religious identity of Muslims?
Here we come to some critically important but blurred distinctions.
While Christians are indeed suffering extreme persecution in North Korea,
these fall into the realm of the temporal, the aberrant, even. Something as
simple as overthrowing the North Korean regime would likely end persecution
there almost overnight—just as the fall of Communist Soviet Union saw
religious persecution come to a quick close.
In the Islamic world, however, a similar scenario would not alleviate
the sufferings of Christians by an iota. Quite the opposite; where
dictators fall—Saddam in Iraq, Mubarak in Egypt, Qaddafi in Libya, and
ongoing attempts to oust Assad in Syria—Christian persecution rises.
The reason for this dichotomy is that Christian persecution by
non-Muslims (mostly communists) is often rooted to a temporal regime or
ideology. Conversely, Muslim persecution of Christians is perennial,
existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler. It is part
and parcel of the history, doctrines, and socio-political makeup of
Islam—hence its tenacity; hence its ubiquity.
Still, the significance of all this is often overlooked. Thus, "Dr.
David Curry, CEO and president of Open Doors USA, told The Blaze 'Not every
circumstance is the same. For example, in North Korea, you have a
quasi-Stalinist government that is the most difficult place to call
yourself a Christian on the planet — and has been for the last 12 years,'
he noted. But while North Korea's government is the real culprit, in places
like Iraq, 'roving extremist groups' are waging attacks against Christians,
while government officials are seemingly powerless to stop the carnage, he
explained."
True; but atheistic Stalinism/communism is a relatively new
phenomenon—about a century old—and, over the years, its rule (if not
variants of its ideology) has greatly waned, so that only a handful of
nations today are communist.
On the other hand, "roving extremist groups" (also known in
other contexts and countries as "Islamists,"
"terrorists," "mujahidin," "mobs," "radicals,"
"people-with-grievances," etc.) attacking and killing
"infidel" Christians have been around since the dawn of Islam. It
is a well-documented, even if suppressed, history.
To further understand the differences between temporal and existential
persecution, consider: Russia, once a staunch Orthodox Christian nation,
led the communist movement and persecuted its own Christians; yet today, a
century later, it is becoming more orthodox again, prominent among Western
nations for showing
support for persecuted Christians.
North Korea—where its leader, Kim Jong-Un, is worshipped as a god and
the people are shielded from reality, including outside their borders—seems
to be experiencing what Russia did under the Soviet Union and thus living
in a delusional state.
But if the once mighty USSR could not persevere, surely it's a matter of
time before tiny North Korea's walls also come crumbling down, with the
resulting religious freedom that former communist nations have experienced.
(Tellingly, the only countries that were part of the USSR that still
persecute Christians are Muslim, such as Uzbekistan, ranked #15,
"severe persecution," and Turkmenistan, ranked #20, also
"severe persecution.")
Time, however, is not on the side of Christians living amid Muslims;
quite the opposite. Since the 7th century, when Islam came into
being, Muslims
have been invading and conquering Christian lands, so that more than
half of the territory that was once Christian in the 7th
century—including all of North Africa and the Levant—are today the heart of
the "Muslim world."
Muslim persecution of Christians exists in 41 nations today as part of a
continuum that started nearly 14 centuries ago. As I document in Crucified
Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians, the very same
patterns of Christian persecution prevalent throughout the Muslim world
today are often identical to those from centuries past. The facts speak for
themselves.
A final consideration: North Korea, the one non-Muslim nation making the
top ten worst persecutors list, is governed by what is widely seen as an
unbalanced megalomaniac (hence the "aberrant" persecution);
conversely, the other nine nations are not dominated by any
"cults-of-personalities" and are variously governed, including
through parliamentarian democracies (Iraq), republics (Maldives, Pakistan,
Somalia, Syria, Yemen), Islamic republics (Afghanistan, Iran), and
monarchies (Saudi Arabia).
The common denominator is that they are all Islamic nations.
Thus, long after North Korea's psychotic Kim Jong-Un has gone the way of
the dodo, Islam will still be here and—short of a miraculous
"reformation"—still treating Christians and other
"infidels" like it did for centuries.
Confronting this understandably discomforting and better-left-unsaid
fact is the first real step to alleviating the sufferings of the
overwhelming majority of Christians around the world.
Unfortunately, however, while some are willing to point out that
Christians are being persecuted around the Muslim world—why that is
the case, why 82% of the world's persecution is committed by Muslims
from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances—is the great elephant in
the room that few wish to address. For doing so would cause some long held
and cherished premises of the modern West to come crashing down.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again:
Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (Regnery, April, 2013) is a
Middle East and Islam specialist, and a Shillman Fellow at the David
Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related
Topics: Anti-Christianism
| Raymond Ibrahim This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral
whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author,
date, place of publication, and original URL.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment