The Christian Minority in Islamic Nations - Muslims Are Doing Unto Christians as Christians Do Unto Others

As noted in a the previous post, whenever a majority gets to define the rights of a minority in its midst - including sometimes the minority's very right to live - ugly things typically happen to the minority group. A piece in Newsweek at the plight of Christian minorities in Muslim majority nations and the bloodshed that is sadly resulting. For the record, I abhor seeing anyone innocent being wrongfully persecuted and/or killed, but even more so when the driving force behind the persecution is something as ridiculous and non-immutable as religious belief. The irony, of course, is that conservative Christians in this nation lament what is being done to their brethren in the Muslim world even as they themselves persecute gays, non-Christians and often racial minorities in this country. It seems to me that too often the abuse, marginalization and murder of others is perfectly fine with the conservative Christian set as long as it is the Christians who are doing the persecution. Here are highlights on the horrors being done in the Islamic world in the name of religion, one of the greatest forces of evil in the world today:

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

[A] fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.

From blasphemy laws to brutal murders to bombings to mutilations and the burning of holy sites, Christians in so many nations live in fear. In Nigeria many have suffered all of these forms of persecution.

The Christophobia that has plagued Sudan for years takes a very different form. The authoritarian government of the Sunni Muslim north of the country has for decades tormented Christian and animist minorities in the south. What has often been described as a civil war is in practice the Sudanese government’s sustained persecution of religious minorities. This persecution culminated in the infamous genocide in Darfur that began in 2003.

[T]he violence isn’t centrally planned or coordinated by some international Islamist agency. In that sense the global war on Christians isn’t a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities.

Christian minorities in many majority-Muslim nations have “lost the protection of their societies.” This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity—and government inaction often proves them right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks—that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens)—has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression.

Instead of falling for overblown tales of Western Islamophobia, let’s take a real stand against the Christophobia infecting the Muslim world. Tolerance is for everyone—except the intolerant.

The author of the article makes good points and underscores why religious freedom should extend to ALL citizens everywhere. Meanwhile, it would be a good start to see Christians in America begin to practice the respect and tolerance that they want for themselves and Christian minorities. The differences between the so-called Christophobes, Islamophobes and the homophobes is not so very great. They all seek to impose their beliefs on everyone and persecute those who refuse to knuckle under. If there is a difference, it is only a matter of the level of violence they are willing to use against those who do not adhere to their professed religious faith. I cannot help but note that here in Virginia, the Republican controlled General Assembly and its full blown jihad against LGBT Virginians is providing a toxic role model for anti-Christians overseas.