October 11, 2011, 2:57 AM
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On Sunday night, Egyptian Copts staged what was supposed to be a peaceful vigil at Egypt's state television headquarters in Cairo. The 1,000 Christians represented the ancient Christian community of some 8 million whose presence in Egypt predates the establishment of Islam by several centuries. They gathered in Cairo to protest the recent burning of two churches by Islamic mobs and the rapid escalation of state-supported violent attacks on Christians by Muslim groups since the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February.
According to Coptic sources, the protesters Sunday night were beset by Islamic attackers who were rapidly backed up by military forces. Between 19 and 40 Copts were killed by soldiers and Muslim attackers. They were run over by military vehicles, beaten, shot and dragged through the streets of Cairo.
State television Sunday night reported only that three soldiers had been killed. According to al-Ahram Online, the military attacked the studios of al-Hurra television on Sunday night to block its broadcast of information on the military assault on the Copts.
Apparently the attempt to control information about what happened worked. Monday's news reports about the violence gave little indication of the identity of the dead or wounded. They certainly left untold the story of what actually happened in Cairo on Sunday night.
In a not unrelated event, Lebanon's Maronite Catholic Patriarch Bechara Rai caused a storm two weeks ago. During an official visit to Paris, Rai warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that the fall of the Assad regime in Syria could be a disaster for Christians in Syria and throughout the region. Today the Western-backed Syrian opposition is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Rai cautioned that the overthrow of President Bashar Assad could lead to civil war and the establishment of an Islamic regime.
In Iraq, the Iranian and Syrian-sponsored insurgency that followed the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in 2003 fomented a bloody jihad against Iraq's Christian population. This month marks the anniversary of last year's massacre of 58 Christian worshippers in a Catholic church in Baghdad. A decade ago there were 800,000 Christians in Iraq. Today there are 150,000.
Under the Shah of Iran, Iran's Christians were more or less free to practice their religion.
Today, they are subject to the whims of Islamic overlords who know no law other than Islamic supremacism.
Take the plight of Yousef Nadarkhani, an evangelical Protestant preacher who was arrested two years ago, tried and sentenced to death for apostasy and refusal to disavow his Christian faith. There is no law against apostasy in Iran, but no matter. Ayatollah Khomeini opposed apostasy. And so does Islamic law.
Once Nadarkhani's story was publicized in the West the Iranians changed their course.
Now they have reportedly abandoned the apostasy charge and are sentencing Nadarkhani to death for rape. The fact that he was never charged or convicted of rape is neither here nor there.
Palestinian Christians have similarly suffered under their popularly elected governments.
When the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Christians made up 80 percent of Bethlehem's population. Today they comprise less than 20% of the population.
Since Hamas "liberated" Gaza in 2007, the area's ancient Christian minority has been under constant attack. With only 3,000 members, Gaza's Christian community has seen its churches, convents, book stores and libraries burned by Hamas members and their allies. Its members have been killed and assaulted. While Hamas has pledged to protect the Christians of Gaza, no one has been arrested for anti-Christian violence.
JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world.
For instance, at the time of Lebanese independence from France in 1946 the majority of Lebanese were Christians. Today less than 30% of Lebanese are Christians. In Turkey, the Christian population has dwindled from 2 million at the end of World War I to less than 100,000 today. In Syria, at the time of independence Christians made up nearly half of the population. Today 4% of Syrians are Christian. In Jordan half a century ago 18% of the population was Christian. Today 2% of Jordanians are Christian.
Christians are prohibited from practicing Christianity in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, the Christian population is being systematically destroyed by regime-supported Islamic groups. Church burnings, forced conversions, rape, murder, kidnap and legal persecution of Pakistani Christians has become a daily occurrence.
Sadly for the Christians of the Islamic world, their cause is not being championed either by Western governments or by Western Christians. Rather than condition French support for the Syrian opposition on its leaders' commitment to religious freedom for all in a post-Assad Syria, the French Foreign Ministry reacted with anger to Rai's warning of what is liable to befall Syria's Christians in the event President Bashar Assad and his regime are overthrown. The Foreign Ministry published a statement claiming it was "surprised and disappointed," by Rai's statement.
The Obama administration was even less sympathetic. Rai is now travelling through the US and Latin America on a three week visit to émigré Maronite communities. The existence of these communities is a direct result of Arab and Islamic persecution of Lebanese Maronite Christians.
Rai's visit to the US was supposed to begin with a visit to Washington and meetings with senior administration officials including President Barack Obama. Yet, following his statement in Paris, the administration cancelled all of its scheduled meetings with him. That is, rather than consider the dangers that Rai warned about and use US influence to increase the power of Christians and Kurds and other minorities in any post- Assad Syrian government, the Obama administration decided to blackball Rai for pointing out the dangers.
Aside from Evangelical Protestants, most Western churches are similarly uninterested in defending the rights of their co-religionists in the Islamic world. Most mainline Protestant churches, from the Anglican Church and its US and international branches to the Methodists, Baptists, Mennonite and other churches have organized no sustained efforts to protect or defend the rights of Christians in the Muslim world.
Instead, over the past decade these churches and their related international bodies have made repeated efforts to attack the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population has increased in the past 60 years - Israel.
As for the Vatican, in the five years since Pope Benedict XVI laid down the gauntlet at his speech in Regensburg and challenged the Muslim world to act with reason and tolerance it its dealing with other religions, the Vatican has abandoned this principled stand. A true discourse of equals has been replaced by supplication to Islam in the name of ecumenical understanding. Last year Benedict hosted a Synod on Christians in the Middle East that made no mention of the persecution of Christians by Islamic and populist forces and regimes. Instead, Israel was singled out for criticism.
The Vatican's outreach has extended to Iran where it sent a representative to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's faux counter terror conference. As Giulio Meotti wrote this week in Ynet, whereas all the EU ambassadors walked out of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denying speech at the UN's second Durban conference in Geneva in 2009, the Vatican's ambassador remained in his seat. The Vatican has embraced leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the Middle East.
It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday's events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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Thank you for this. Thank you. You've laid out exactly what Yeshua said in Matthew 25:31-46... that when we forget our brothers, we forget Him.
And, yes, by ignoring the persecution by Muslims, the Western world will reap a Muslim whirlwind. We are seeing it already, particularly in Europe, as old churches sit decommissioned and mosques are built. I'm not sure the United States understands what it's in for.
A minister in England, David Pawson, has already said that, much like God raised the Babylonians to cleanse Israel in the ancient days, Islam is rising to cleanse the Christian church. (Habakkuk)
The good news is, like in days of old, the God of Israel will save the world from the invading force. ALL -- Jew and gentile alike -- who call on the name of the LORD will be saved. (Joel 2:32)
It is not surprising that the Christian world turns a blind eye. They are immersed in the teachings of political correctness and quite frankly eons of antisemitism. (As an aside....Could be why the majority of Jews of the United States do not take the world of the Christian-right as truth that they support Israel or that they respect the Jewish people.)
It is just so much easier to do nothing, embrace evil and blame the typical scapegoat for problems.That is afterall the Christian leadership's pattern since Peter set up the Church. Could be that the Antichrist, that the Christian world has feared for 2000 years, is already here, in the guise of church elders. Just a thought by the way...
Lets not forget the elephant in the living room that has made so much of this possible.
The no longer great but shameful superpower America is responsible for the plight of Christian's in Iraq,Lebanon,Bethlehem and Egypt
because of it's incessant wars of occupation interference and meddling.
US led NATO forces took the side of Muslims against Serbia and helped al Qaeda linked Islamic terrorists overthrow Libyan dictator Qaddafi.
Under Iraq's brutal dictator Saddam Hussein,Christian in Iraq had freedom without fear of themselves and their Churches being blown up and murdered on a regular basis for being Christian.
Then President Bush came along and united the Shiites of Iraq and Iran and made the Middle East an even more dangerous place under the delusion of democracy in Islam dominated countries.
The U.S. restraint against Israel which kept the IDF from defeating Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009 has only made things worse in Lebanon and in Gaza for Christians.
The US push for their diabolical 2 state Final Solution and blind support for the Palestinian Terrorist Authority has made Bethlehem extremely dangerous for non Muslims.
With Obama's call for Mubarak to step down,Egypt has become a simmering cauldron of Islamic death and despair where Egypt's Christians are in real danger.
Arrogant meddler America will be repaid in kind for her great evil but especially for pushing the division of Israel and Jerusalem !
No one ,especially the Europeans will stand up for the Egyptian Christians,they don't have any oil.
If only Israel was a bold and forceful voice in this barbaric neighborhood instead of the voice of retreat and appeasement to this gathering storm and growing darkness.
Bottom Line : If Israel does not stand up against Islamic tyranny no one else will.
It's time for Israel to stop looking for others to lead and take this bull by the hands and neuter it before it does any more damage.
It is worth noting that the great superpower ,America Babylon
is responsible for the plight of Christian's in Iraq,Bethlehem and Egypt because of it's incessant interference and meddling.
Thank you for your honesty and integrity in reporting the plight of the Christians of the East. As an evangelical pastor who does support them, as well as a stauch supporter of the nation of Israel, I thank God for you. Bless you!
Thank you for bringing the plight of the Copts to the fore. Our help, and yours as well, is in the Name of the Lord. Perhaps, He will resend the 10 plagues to Egypt or this time in the form of a nuclear bomb. These Muslims and their inhumanity to their fellow man deserve it.
"What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow." Or what goes around, comes around. The general indifference of the Christian establishment to the Holocaust was a moral blow from which the Church has never recovered. Today its trendy hostility to Israel in Europe (see the Archbishop of Canterbury with his pro-sharia and anti-Israel volubility) goes hand in hand with its accelerating irrelevance to European citizens. Interestingly enough, the only branch of modern Christianity that prospers is the American Evangelicals who champion Israel.
Caroline, I did not expect any differently from our Muslim neighbors. This is all part of the plan to systematically destroy the "infidel." I would have expected more from Christian groups in the US. After all they have enjoyed full freedom which to many groups in the world is a luxury. Unfortunately once again Barack Hussein Obama is showing his true colors. It is generally the leadership of a country that sets the precedent for treatment of her citizens. That Obama has used his energies toward elevating Muslims to a special status says it all. That most Christian groups do not practice the standard of fellowship with their Christian brothers, a standard that has been in the forefront of religious values since time immemorial shows how low we have sunk in our appeasement of people who only want us to obey their dictates or disappear. It is indeed a very frightening state of affairs.
This is such a great article. Caroline, I appreciate how faithfully in so many of your other articles you draw attention to Christian support of Israel. As a leader of a Christian Zionist org myself, I am thankful that you have educated Israelis on how much American Evangelical Christians are doing to prove that support. But this article stands out to me for another reason. Now you have so perfectly articulated why Christians need to support other Christians! Thank you for this.
Shelley Neese
The persecution of the Christians in the Islamic world, simply demonstrates the principle that those who refuse to defend themselves, get annihilated. There are Christians who will remain sanguine in the face of the deadliest of aggression.
However, this is a misinterpretation of the scriptures. Christians only have to have sufficient certitude in their faith, vis-à-vis ridicule, etc., and be prepared to rebuild churches and reprint destroyed bibles (many thousands of them shredded every year, in Saudi Arabia, as a matter of official, state policy), in order to satisfy their commitment to the faith.
As for the Copts and their Christian counterparts v. The Islamists, there is proportionality of response: An eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth. Or, as per Deuteronomy 28:7: The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. Or, as those old Romans would say: Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Christians in egypt suffer and need americans to push the senate and american government to threat of stoping aid. Do you agree of giving aid to kill chirstians in other countries????
It seems to me that the simple answer to why the Western World ignores the plight of Christians persecuted by Muslims is that the "liberal" West has got itself locked into the propoganda that the Muslims are the victims (both of Western racism and of Israeli "colonialism"), therefore anything that contradicts that idea MUST be wrong.
Thank you for this article. Yes, there is a failure of leadership in America. Sadly, people are in real danger. I pray they can somehow persevere. Though it is not a surprise what muslims are capable of, and more are waking up to that, every death is a tradegy.
It is sad to see what is happening in the world today. But we must remember that our Savior said these things must happen and that when we see these things begin to happen, to look up because our Redemption draws near.
It is thru many trials and tribulations that we will enter His kingdom. {Acts 14:22}The Western Christians think that they will be whisked away to heaven and not have to suffer persecution. But our Savior said that if we belong to Him, we will suffer persecution for His Name's sake.
I use to one of the Christians who believed we would not suffer persecution either cuz the thought of going thru the Tribulation Period terrified me.
But then Yeshua, the Hebrew Name for our Savior said to me in my spirit one day, not to fear those who can kill our body, but to fear Him Who can cast our soul and body into hell and also that He will be with us until the end of the age, which means, even through the Tribulation Period and the AntiChrist arising.
Besides, there are so many more Scriptures that show we will go thru the Tribulation Period.
Matthew 24, especially 29-31
Our Savior constantly warned us not to be deceived. If He was coming in a Pre-Trib rapture, He would have told His disciples that, but He told of all the horrible things would happen and then immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days, His angels would gather the elect from one corner of the earth to the other.
1 Corinthians 15:52
We ALL will be changed at the LAST shofar/ trump, not before even the first trump is sounded!
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3
Paul warned not to let ANYONE DECEIVE you that our gathering to our Savior has taken place until two things happen: {1} the Apostasy or falling away from the faith {2} the man of sin or the AntiChrist is revealed. So we will be around to see the AntiChrist arise on the scene!
Revelation 1:7
EVERY eye shall see Him, not just those in a secret Pre-Trib rapture.
The one that Yshua brought to my mind was:
Acts 3:21 - Yshua must stay IN heaven UNTIL the
Restoration of ALL things.
If there is a Pre-tribulation rapture, then He would be leaving heaven before the Restoration of all things and before the first shofar/trump is sounded much less the LAST shofar. He would be going against His Word that He must stay in heaven until the Restoration of all things and all things must be fulfilled. Some things can only be fulfilled in the Tribulation Period.
What things? The Temple must be rebuilt... The AntiChrist must arise and demand that everyone take his mark in their right hand or forehead...The Tabernacle of David must be rebuilt with all TWELVE tribes reunited together so that Yeshua will rule over them...
We in the West think we are so special cuz Jesus would never allow that because we are His Bride... hmmm...
Has not His Bride suffered persecution and death all thru the centuries? Are we so special that we think we will leave our Jewish brethren in Messiah behind to face the antiChrist?! How arrogant and proud! Our time is coming! I hope you are preparing for it!
1 Peter 4:17 states "For the time has come that the Day of Judgment must begin in the House of Yahweh {the church as Christians call it}, and if it first begins with us, what shall be the end of them who do not obey the Gospel of Yahweh? And if the righteous are barely saved, where shall the wicked and sinner appear? {Or what will happen to them?}
No the Tribulation Period is to purify and cleanse us to make us ready for His kingdom, just as the Bride must prepare herself for her wedding day, so must we.
Not every believer will be part of the Bride of Messiah. You must prepare yourself for your wedding day with your Savior and Bridegroom...
I would apologize that this was so long, but, will not. There may be someone who may never read this again and needs to see it.
Hope to see you in His kingdom!
Anna
Please excuse me for not having any kind of sympathy for the Copts. Their leaders are as antisemitic as it gets.
I wonder when we'll start having waves of Christian refugees - and I mean real refugees - coming in from all over the Arab world to Israel. If they are as antisemitic as the Copts are, I'm pretty sure they won't come at all, but it would be funny if they did.
Ah..you just gotta love that "arab spring". We live in an age where Christianity and Judaism are the enemies and not Islam.
As for the brave Obummer, he's no more a Christian than my Orthodox Grandfather Dovid was-he's a muslim.
Thank you Caroline Glick, for your exellent analysis and comment. We are many christians working for these groups using political pressure, supporting them economically and praying for them. You jews are a very intelligent and gifted people,thank you for using your brave analysis in this very important issue. Christians have to be ashamed of misinterpretation the scripture, Gods promise to Israel is literary, your country will stay for ever. We have to keep on telling the truth, "God did not give us a spirit of timidity(of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but of power and love and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control" (2.Timothy 1,7).
Ah, those peace loving muslims...aren't they great? The Lord Jesus will destroy them with the breath of his mouth and I sure hope I can witness that wonderful day! As for Israel, Almighty God promised them ALL that land forever. Period. End of arguement. Every friggin' muslim can come against them militarily all they want, but they will never, 'wipe Israel off the map.' God told Abraham, "I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you." This Christian American completely supports Israel and I am proud, as Paul wrote, that I have been grafted onto the Jewish vine. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!!!
America's blind eye towards Islamic persecution of Christians is of a piece with Obama's indifference to the continuing assault on Israel by muslims. He is no friend of Israel and has no concern for Christians in Muslim lands. By all reckoning, he is a champion of Islamic supremacism. Deference to Iran, bows to the Saudi king. Half the Jews in the world are under threat of annihilation and he prattles on about settlements. Yet a majority of American Jews still support him. Do they want four more years of official U.S. hostility to Israel and possible Ammageddon? Madness.
Caroline Glick , I always admire your'e articles. They are so accurate without the usual political correctness so common in America. Israel is our only true friend & free country in the middle east. When will learn to stand with our friends?