During his remarks made on the Feast of St. Stephen (Christianity’s first martyr), Pope Francis lamented the growing persecution of Christians, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. He strayed from his prepared remarks to say that some of today’s Christians suffer greater hardship than the first generations of Jesus’ followers, who were the frequent target of Roman persecution.
Francis’ remarks came on the day after Christmas, when three bombs in Baghdad, Iraq, resulted in the deaths of 38 Christians.
A month ago, during a meeting with leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Francis defended the right of all people, regardless of their religious faith, to dignity and freedom of worship. But he was clearly most concerned about the fate of Christians. “We should never resign ourselves to thinking of the Middle East without the Christians, who for 2,000 years confess the name of Jesus, as full citizens in the social, cultural, and religious life of the nations to which they belong.”
Indeed, given the deafening silence on this issue in the West, one wonders if most Christians here have already “resigned themselves” to the end of Christianity in the very part of the world that gave birth to it.
The year 2013 has been abysmal for Christians outside of the Americas and Europe, but not significantly worse than any year in the last decade. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, violence against Iraqi Christians has been commonplace. Churches have been burned, and individual Christians have been kidnapped, tortured, raped, and expelled from their homes. As a result, 850,000 Christians have fled the country. In September, a Taliban suicide bomb killed 85 Christians as they were worshiping at a church in Peshawar, Pakistan. Political unrest in Egypt has placed 10 million Coptic Christians in perpetual danger. For some Syrian rebels, the civil war there seems to be as much about expelling the Christian presence as about toppling an autocratic ruler. The shopping mall bombing in Nairobi, Kenya, targeted Christians. Last Easter, an attack on Christians in Nigeria left 80 believers dead. And on it goes.
And yet, aside from Pope Francis, the only major Western figure to speak out forcefully in defense of persecuted Christians is Prince Charles of England, who recently remarked, “It seems to me we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are, increasingly, being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamic militants.” He went on to observe that the Christian population in that part of the world has shrunk to just 4% and is still rapidly declining. “We will all lose something immensely and irreplaceably precious when such a rich tradition dating back 2,000 years is lost.”
A bi-partisan bill to create a special envoy from the State Department to advocate for religious minorities in the Middle East died in the Senate, but nobody seemed to notice. And I am not aware of any denominational leaders from American Christianity raising public awareness about the plight of our brothers and sisters overseas.
Why the silence? Are we just too weary from our own problems to care? Do we simply dismiss the Middle East as hopelessly chaotic?
Yes and yes. But there is also another reason. Raising awareness to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East risks encouraging religious bigotry here at home. From “Burn a Koran Day” to legislation banning Sharia law to the irrational protests against the Cordoba Islamic Center in lower Manhattan, we’ve already witnessed the intolerance of many American citizens who refuse to make any distinctions between the vast majority of Muslims and the terrorists who twist the teachings of the Koran. How easy it would be to inflame anti-Islamic rhetoric, which, in this digital age, would in turn further endanger Christians in other parts of the world.
I don’t have any answers to this dilemma, but the paucity of public dialogue on the subject squelches the possibility of any hopeful options. The struggle is not between Islam and Christianity. Both traditions must wrestle against religious intolerance in all its forms. It’s not a matter of defending one religion against another, but of advocating for religious freedom everywhere. I weep at the violence done to my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I also lament when bigotry of any kind is justified in the name of Christ.
As the slaughter of Christians continues to be met by the silence of most Western Christian leaders, I am reminded of Dietrich Bonheoffer’s warning during the Nazi regime, when the persecution of Jews was largely ignored until it was too late: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
©2013 by J. Mark Lawson
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