Religious Freedom

I’ve been saving this op-ed from The Economist for a few weeks for various reasons. I probably should have included it as additional material in my recent post regarding an Ayaan Hirsi Ali article on a similar subject, but in retrospect repetition is a valuable tool in learning, and this is particularly true for unpleasant topics.

We need to take our Lord seriously when He promises something, and He promised persecution and trouble. It doesn’t help when our own human nature invites it, but that doesn’t mean that persecution is any less real. The Economist article discusses how Christianity is not only thriving but expanding rapidly among people in Africa and actually across the world of Islam, and those converts are paying the price in blood that Jesus paid.

Your Very Own Piece of the Gates of Hell

“Infidel” author and self-acknowledged Islam-born atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently wrote on Christian persecution in the Muslim world. Found on the Daily Beast website, Ali’s article may seem surprising. However, one of the reasons she has achieved such a high reputation globally is that her analysis seems to cut all ways. Her interest is for true tolerance—if we are going to advocate for religious freedom, it needs to be for everybody.

Ali coins the term “Christophobia” in response to the current politically correct war on Islamophobia in the West. She agrees that discrimination against Muslims is wrong, but asks why governments and the media are subsequently turning a blind eye to the intense persecution of the Church across the Muslim world. She proceeds to cite case after case in one nation after another where Christians are being murdered, raped, kidnapped, and so on by Muslim gangs and/or national governments.

Her stories are worth grieving over as brothers and sisters live and die in fear around the world, while we sit royally in our insulated, generally secure homes, worshiping openly in our churches. Such persecution is yet one more sin and atrocity in this fallen world calling for our collective attention, prayer and action.

We are One Body

Tonight, I came across the following article, “Muslim Persecutions of Christians: October.” While the source site is a politically based magazine and the article focuses on persecution from followers of Islam, persecutions come from many sides and take many forms. It is imperative that we lift up all of our brothers and sisters in the faith in prayer.

If we really believe that prayer moves the hand of God, and we really believe that the Church universal is one body under Christ, then how can we not? If we will lift up Aunt Bertha’s bunion in our church services, how much more must we lift up those who fear for their safety, their livelihoods and their lives because they confess the name of Christ?