Believers around the world are dying for their faith. Where’s the evangelical groundswell for them?
Swiftly on the heels of
Christmas comes the feast of the Holy Innocents. On December 28,
churches around the world commemorate the first Christian martyrs—those
who lost their lives when King Herod ordered
the execution of all males two and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
(Greek liturgy maintains that 14,000 boys were killed, while several
medieval writers claimed 144,000. Given the small population of
Bethlehem, most modern scholars agree the number to be closer to 20.)
We consider such atrocities relegated to the ancient past, a barbaric
time of intemperate, megalomaniac rulers. In today's enlightened era of
diplomacy, such evil would not go unchecked.
And yet, Christians today are massacred on a far greater scale than
from any edict issued from Herod. According to Open Doors, which
provides support for Christians around the world, Christians are the
most persecuted religious group in the world today, with 100 people
martyred for their faith each month. The Pew Forum on Religion and
Public Life reports that Christians suffer persecution, discrimination,
and harassment in 133 countries—a full two-thirds of all countries
worldwide.
In September, 85 congregants were killed in bombing
of All Saints Church in Pakistan while a consecutive attack at
Nairobi's Westgate mall claimed the lives of 72 people. On October 21,
U.S. supported Islamic rebels invaded the Syrian town of Sadad and
carried out one of the largest massacres in the country's history.
Forty-five Christians, including women and children, were tortured and
murdered. The Syrian rebels documented the massacre in YouTube videos.
British politicians, including the Minister for Faith and Communities
and Prince Charles, have called the rise of Christian persecution a "global crisis" in which Christians are becoming extinct in the birthplace of the Christian religion.
These stories get reported in Christian media here and there, or maybe
listed in a roundup of international news. They don't get written up
viral blog posts. They don't fuel tweets and retweets. They don't get
mentioned over and over again in Sunday sermons. They don't earn
Christian leaders a commentary spot on the cable news.
This is what's happening, in our world, to our brothers and sisters in faith: Babies are being ripped apart by bombs, people are losing their lives, limbs, and homes for their faith while we in the West go about our merry business.
We're incensed when a millionaire is suspended from a reality television shows for expressing his faith in a coarse manner. We march out in support
of a multi-million dollar business when the CEO comes under fire for
expressing his views on traditional marriage. But we turn our heads and
avert our eyes when the blood of the martyrs, our fellow Christians, cry
out to us from the ground.
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