eChurch Blog

We must continue to remember and pray for our beleaguered brothers and sisters around the world at this sensitive time:

IRAQ’s Christians will spend Christmas in “great fear” according one of the country’s leading bishops.

Archbishop Louis Sako, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Kirkuk, northern Iraq, told Aid to the Church in Need that Christians are scared of fresh attacks.

He said that it will not be possible to hold Midnight Mass because of the high security risk – all services over the festive period will be held in daylight – and Christians will not display Christmas decorations outside their homes.

Speaking to the Catholic news agency Asianews he said: “Midnight Christmas Mass has been cancelled in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as a consequence of the never-ending assassinations of Christians and the attack against Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral on 31st October, which killed 57 people.”

SOURCE

However, as I pointed out in a previous post, the ONLY place in the Middle East where the Christian population has grown since the end of WWII is Israel, and the flight of Christians from Palestinian controlled areas, such as Bethlehem, is primarily the result of persecution by the majority Muslim population.

SOURCE

This is super news folks.

On Monday, for the first time in more than a decade, the U.N. General Assembly condemned religious intolerance without urging states to outlaw “defamation of religion”.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – comprising 57 Islamic nations – have been trying for years to introduce a ‘Defemation of Religion” UN resolution. This would have only favoured Islam, violated free speech, and ushered in a dangerous global blasphemy law.

I think we have all seen how blasphemy laws are used in some Islamic nations to terrify, subjugate, imprison, and in some cases, murder religious minority groups.

I’ve blogged about the “defamation of religions” many times in the past; most recently: here, here and here.

The resolution approved on Monday declares that “discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief constitutes a violation of human rights.” It also expressed concern about the incitement to religious hatred and the failure of some states “to combat this burgeoning trend.”

The General Assembly adopted the resolution by consensus without a vote. The versions passed in previous years had enjoyed increasingly less support in assembly votes due to Western and Latin American opposition to the “defamation” idea. The resolution barely received a majority of yes votes in 2010.

The New York-based rights group Human Rights First welcomed the resolution prior to its adoption, describing the new version as “a decisive break from the polarizing focus in the past on defamation of religions.”

“Governments should now focus on concrete measures to fight religiously motivated violence, discrimination and other forms of intolerance, while recognizing the importance of freedom of expression,” Human Rights First’s Tad Stahnke said.

Earlier this year Western countries and their Latin American allies joined Muslim and African states in backing a new approach that switched the focus from protecting beliefs to protecting believers. That new approach led to Monday’s resolution.

….read all

So, the end of the Iraq war has been announced.

In the years since the operation began to ‘liberate’ Iraq an estimated 2,000 Christians have been murdered. Examples include:

3-year-old Adam murdered in a church

A 2 month old infant kidnapped, beheaded, roasted and returned to its parents on a bed of rice

14 year old Ayad Tariq decapitated because he is a “dirty Christian sinner”

A 14 year old boy crucified in his own village in Mosul

Dozens massacred in a Mass service celebrated in the Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in Baghdad

70 churches have been attacked or bombed since June, 2004: 43 in Baghdad, 19 in Mosul, 7 in Kirkuk and 1 in Ramadi.

The UN reports that although Christians comprise less than 5% of Iraq’s population, they make up nearly 40% of the refugees fleeing Iraq. More than 50% of Iraqi Christians have already left the country. In 1987, the last Iraqi census counted 1.4 million Christians, but as the war radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christian numbers have slumped to around 500,000.

Was it worth it?

Gosh this looks like it was close call:

In an exclusive splashed across the front page of the daily Taraf newspaper, contents of an official indictment against 11 alleged Al Qaeda militants arrested in July revealed the homegrown terrorist cell’s alleged plans to attack Ankara’s churches as well as their Christian clergy.

[.....]

Among the CDs, detailed maps, sketches and building diagrams, police also discovered lists of the names and home addresses of Christian clergy and other church workers residing in Ankara.

The news took Christian leaders in Ankara by total surprise, according to one Turkish Christian leader in Ankara.

“No one has had any news about this until now,” he said.

In addition to chapels on Ankara’s British, French, Vatican, Italian and Greek embassy grounds, the capital city has several international churches as well as a handful of Turkish Protestant congregations.

[.....]

Police seized 700 kilos (1,500 pounds) of explosives, along with assault rifles, ammunition, bomb-making instructions and detailed maps of Ankara.

….read all

Thank God they were rumbled.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has expressed concern over an upsurge of violence against Christian minorities in the Middle East and North Africa.

“One of the most symbolic tendencies of our time is a mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East and North Africa, caused by an unprecedented increase in violence against religious minorities in the region,” Patriarch Kirill said at a meeting with international conference participants in Moscow.

The Middle East is the cradle of the world’s three key religions, which “historically explains the presence of followers of each there,” he said.

However, ongoing events make the possibility of Christians being squeezed out of this region “quite realistic,” he added.

Christians have become “hostages of big politics”, and their situation is growing much worse as a result of foreign intervention in the affairs of the region’s states, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said.

“The term christianophobia has been present in the political vocabulary only for the past few years. It is not accidental because, as observers have noted, it is the Christians who are becoming the most persecuted religious group in the world today,” he said.

Driving Christian minorities out of the region will open the door to “extremism preachers, who will create an unknown enemy’s image quite successfully,” Patriarch Kirill said.

“We again call for the creation of a viable mechanism to protect the rights of Christians and Christian communities, which could be developed through open dialogue involving representatives of other religious communities,” he said.

SOURCE

A few links I personally found interesting for one reason or another:

Society for Christian Psychology: Mediation: Moving from Unforgiveness to Forgiveness

Naming His Grace: Critiquing the theologies and connections of some pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel leaders: a series # 2

Melanie Phillips: From Red Toryism to Blue Labour, social renewal depends on Christian principles

Countercultural Father: Mindfulness…

Get Religion: Evolution and Islam

Vatican Insider: Year 2011: Less atheists, more believers

Assyrian International News Agency: Thousands of Muslims Attack Christians in Egypt, 2 Killed, Homes and Stores Torched

Significant Truths: When we walk in darkness – I’ve had plenty of opportunities to be depressed – I just haven’t taken them!

Mehdi Hasan, senior political editor of the New Statesman, has written a polemic little piece in the Guardian in which he attacks – amongst others – Barnabas Aid’s International Director, Dr Patrick Sookhdeo.

I’m sure I’m not alone in appreciating the work of Barnabas Fund in highlighting the plight of Christians in Islamic lands.

Anyway, the Guardian have published an edited version of Dr Patrick Sookhdeo’s rebuttal, but I wanted to highlight his full response, which can be found here, and is well worth a read.

Another day, another martyr in Islamic lands.

I’ve also read today that Sudan’s president has confirmed plans to adopt an entirely Islamic constitution and strengthen sharia law, raising the threat level for Christians in the country.

Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.

The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.

The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.

“I personally know this family as Christians who used to have secret Bible meetings in their house,” he said.

Based on talks with the boy’s parents and their neighbors, the source said al Shabaab members arrived at Muktar’s home at 6 a.m., when his parents, whose names are withheld for security reasons, were already at work at their retail space at the Hamarweyne market on the outskirts of Mogadishu.

The extremists found Muktar as he was preparing to go to school, he said.

“The neighbors heard screaming coming from the house, and then it immediately stopped,” the source said. “After awhile, they saw a white car leaving the homestead.”

….continue

Well, this is all going rather well isn’t it folks. Apparently the only places of Christian worship are now on military bases:

There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.

This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.

[....]

In recent times, freedom of religion has declined in Afghanistan, according to the State Department.

“The government’s level of respect for religious freedom in law and in practice declined during the reporting period, particularly for Christian groups and individuals,” reads the State Department report.

“Negative societal opinions and suspicion of Christian activities led to targeting of Christian groups and individuals, including Muslim converts to Christianity,” said the report. ”The lack of government responsiveness and protection for these groups and individuals contributed to the deterioration of religious freedom.”

Most Christians in the country refuse to “state their beliefs or gather openly to worship,” said the State Department.

….read all

Is there possibly a pattern emerging? We invade a country and the Christian population flees or goes underground? Could there be a correlation perhaps?