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A Case Study On Religious Persecution

Should we dedicate ourselves to creating a new nation that has a long record of the most vicious persecution of its Christian population? Should we use our nation's influence to create a new nation dedicated to the proposition that its Christian population should be murdered and discriminated against in every conceivable way and driven into exile if they manage to survive? Should we help finance and create this Christian-persecuting nation that has managed by its policies to take a city that was once 85 percent Christian in 1948 and transform it into a city of only 15 percent Christians, where Christians who have to live in constant fear, under threat of murder and worse? To give more detail to this, for now, hypothetical situation, consider a few of the specifics of what this would-be nation has been doing: * A Baptist church in one of its major cities has been attacked with Molotov cocktails 14 times. Its church vans have been burned. On five occasions, the church was broken into and defaced with graffiti. The church's pastor was also shot. * A cab driver in this city had a crucifix hanging from his windshield. He was beaten by a band of those who objected to his Christianity. The cab driver said he experienced persecution "every day." * Two sisters, age 24 and 28, were shot to death by gunmen who objected to their religion. Their brother said, "Their crime was to be young, attractive Christian women who wore Western clothes and no veil." In addition to this murder and violence, Christians in this land are also subjected to extortion and threatened with violence from official sources. Here are a few examples: * One pastor of American descent said he had been threatened by a government official in this land (which wants to be a nation), who demanded $30,000 in protection money to ensure his safety. * The pastor is blind and was told he would be crippled for life if he did not comply. * The trouble started after the church held prayer sessions for some Palestinians. The pastor has since fled this land. * There have been many other reports of extortion, demands for protection money, seized properties, vandalized homes and shops, widespread rape of Christian girls, honor killing and murders of converts to Christianity from Islam. * The owner of a Christian bookstore, who had received repeated threats, was found stabbed to death. A Muslim leader commented, "I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace." As you might have guessed, this is not hypothetical at all but a report of the Christian persecution that now goes on every day in the West Bank and Gaza in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, those lands that want to be transformed into a nation. (The city that has gone from about 85 percent to 15 percent Christian is Bethlehem.) It strikes me as moral insanity to take a land that is rampant with the most dangerous and genocidal forms of religious persecution against Christians, Jews and all other non-Muslims and give it the added power of a nation state. For what purpose? So it can more effectively murder and persecute its minorities? So it can commit more murder and rape of Christian women and other minorities? So it can have more ability to practice hatred, persecution and genocide, which it so constantly preaches from its mosques, government publications and all other forms of its communication with its own people? This persecution is not new. It has been documented not just in Gaza and the West Bank but in many nations around the world. Isn't it about time we fight it with our full moral force rather than encourage it by creating a nation dedicated to everything we have opposed from our nation's birth? For the factual basis of the above account I am indebted to Lela Gilbert, one of the nation's leading authorities on religious persecution, especially of Christians. The facts come from her most recent article entitled "Bethlehem Beyond the Christian Calm," published in the Jerusalem Post (Dec. 23) and available at www.jpost.com. She also co-authored with Paul Marshall one of the standard references on modern persecution of the Christians, Their Blood Cries Out. She works as an adjunct fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute, and she is headquartered in Jerusalem. What can be done about this outrageous and unacceptable epidemic of religious persecution in the Middle East? For starters, remember that nation-donors have pledged $7.4 billion to the Palestinian Authority to help in its rebuilding and its striving for nationhood. At the very least, strings should be attached to that money. Here's the way Justus Reid Weiner, resident scholar of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, put it: "Perhaps it's time that strings were attached to this enormous influx of money. Those strings should include, among other things, a demand for provision and protection for the Christian minority in the Palestinian territories." I'd also suggest a moratorium on any consideration of statehood for the Palestinians until they stop inciting hatred and until they stop their Nazi-like religious persecution of Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims. Haven't we learned anything from the Holocaust? Don't we really mean, "Never again"? Haven't we learned that defamation of any religion leads to violence against its practitioners? Haven't we learned that allowing the practitioners of persecution and violence toward a religious group to get away with it leads to larger and less manageable problems unless it is fought and stopped as early as possible? Finally, I'd suggest that in this season of giving, donors look for organizations that fight religious discrimination such as the Hudson Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and uphold American values such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute. And I'd suggest that they cut off giving to the many institutions of higher education that seem to have an anti-American, anti-religion, anti-family-value bias such as Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. It's time we say, "Enough is enough," whether the persecutors and murderers go by the name of Nazis and Hitler or by the names of Hamas, Hezbollah and governments in Gaza and the West Bank. It's time we demand reform and fight discrimination instead of seeking to empower it by creating a new nation and by financing that source of hatred, bigotry, persecution and genocide. You might wonder why you haven't seen stories and columns on the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the slow elimination of Christians from nations stretching from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. It is a mixture of the sickness of the mainstream media and the biased, fraudulent, and dishonest journalism that characterizes so much of it: the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, Time and Newsweek to name just a few. Something is radically wrong when the mainstream media ignores or downplays the persecution of Christians in many nations around the world, and you should wonder why you should support such media outlets with your subscription and advertising dollars. You also have to wonder why the over 2 billion Christians, making up the most widespread and populous religion in the world, are so silent in the face of relentless and endless persecution of their co-religionists in so many parts of the world. Where is the voice and power of Christianity and its leadership when it is needed most? For more information on the persecution of Christians in particular and of other religious groups in general go to www.crf.hudson.org (the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom), www.persecution.com (the voice of the martyrs, servants of the persecuted church) and www.compassdirect.com (Compass Direct News: News from the frontline of persecution). Also try reading some of the alternatives to the mainstream media such as the National Review and the Weekly Standard. And if you should by some chance see a report on persecution of Christians in the mainstream media, send me a copy. Herb Denenberg, a former Pennsylvania insurance commissioner and professor at the Wharton School, is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the National?Academy of Arts and Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.

14.01.2008. 22:39

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Prayer for All the Deceased
By Thy resurrection from the dead, O Christ, death no longer hath dominion over those who die in holiness. So, we beseech Thee, give rest to Thy servants in Thy sanctuary and in Abraham's bosom. Grant it to those, who from Adam until now have adored Thee with purity, to our fathers and brothers, to our kinsmen and friends, to all men who have lived by faith and passed on their road to Thee, by a thousand ways, and in all conditions, and make them worthy of the heavenly kingdom.
Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen. |Letter of St. James|

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A Case Study On Religious Persecution

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