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Fighting the Faithful

A Closer Look at the Escalating Persecution of Present-Day Christians

by Mark DeYoung

There are 2.2 billion Christians on the planet. According to Open Doors, a large international non-profit organization that broadly tracks persecution of Christians on the world stage, 100 million are seriously threatened or persecuted because of their faith. Another non-profit, the World Evangelical Alliance (whose Religious Liberty Commission publishes a great deal of stats on religious persecution) puts that number closer to 200 million, and believes another 400 million face “non-trivial restrictions on their freedom and the loss of many basic human rights, simply because they choose to love and follow Jesus Christ.”

There are more than sixty countries where persecution of Christians is a real problem. Open Doors publishes an annual World Wide Watch list that ranks the fifty worst perpetrators. In its latest ranking, eight of the ten worst countries are Muslim, and on the whole, 35 of the 50 countries have Muslim majority populations. Following the recent murders of eight Christians in Mosul, Iraq, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, addressed this growing problem of Islamic extremism against Christians. He declared that these grave injustices are not a result of “hatred of the West or of foreigners, but [hatred] of the Christian community.” Unfortunately, there does seem to be a rise of newsworthy violence against Christians by Muslims, often within countries where governments look the other way or officially participate in the persecution.

In addition to the tragic recent events in Mosul (that have driven nearly 1,500 Christian families out of the area), there have been brutal and shocking examples of Muslims’ persecution against Christians in many countries. Since mid-January of this year, more than 100 Christians have been killed in a series of violent riots between Muslims and Christians in Jos, Nigeria. Non-profit organization Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), which tracks the situation from the ground, say the riots were triggered by a Muslim assault on a Catholic Church. According to one VOM leader, “It appears to the Christians here that elements inside the Nigerian Muslim community actually prepare for events like this and then look for an incident which they can then escalate into a crisis. The intent is to drive Christians out of this area down to the south.”

In Egypt, six Coptic Christians were killed while worshipping at a Christmas Eve service. This violence continued when Christian-owned homes, cars and businesses were looted and torched.

In Malaysia earlier this year, ten churches were attacked by Muslims mobs after a court ruled that Christians could use the word Allah in reference to God.

Early last month, a Christian man in Pakistan watched as a group of Muslims burned his house to the ground (the same group is suspected of killing the man’s son a year earlier). Advocacy group International Christian Concern states that Pakistani Christians are being subjected more and more to “various forms of persecution, including violent attacks, forceful land seizures and raping of Christian women” by Muslim radicals.

While the more extreme and violent forms of persecution are on the rise, subtle prejudice, slanderous media campaigns, public intimidation and state-sponsored bias also take a large toll on the community of believers in Muslim lands.

Back in Iraq, Sunni terrorist groups mount public campaigns of intimidation to drive Christians from their lands. This can include hate literature, public threats warning Christians to leave and destruction of property, including physical violence and even murder if Christians don’t comply. Iraq has seen a 350% decrease of the Christian population over the last twenty years, with a dramatic fall since the US invasion in 2003.

In Uzbekistan, the public television station hosted a program that referred to Christians as Satanists who convert Muslims with drugs. In Algeria, newspapers published stories of a priest who they say tries to convert Muslims and regularly insults the Prophet Mohammed, in a call for local Muslims to take justice into their own hands.

In Iran, a court recently forced a Christian woman (who converted from a Muslim background) to sign a confession that states she is mentally unstable and was placed under three months of house arrest. This same woman was told by authorities that her 10-year-old child would be taken if she continued to speak about her choice to follow Christ.

In Pakistan, Taliban leaders demand jizya payments from their Christian neighbors. Jizya is a poll tax, described in the Qur’an, which Jews and Christians must pay for the privilege of living in an Islamic state.

Official government policies also play a significant role in the persecution. In Iran, Islam is the official religion, and anyone who leaves the Muslim faith is subject to the death penalty. In Saudi Arabia, all non-Muslim public worship is criminalized, and the government forbids the building of any Christian church properties.

Turkey, a precarious historical ally of the West, is now controlled by an overtly Islamist government, and anti-Christian sentiment is growing among the people. A recent Pew poll found that 46 percent of Turks see Christianity as a violent religion, and 43 percent said they would not accept Christians as neighbors.

What does all this spell for Christian communities around the world? It may be the beginning of what many experts call a “creeping genocide” of those who follow Christ. It also means forced exodus for a great number of believers who find themselves in Muslim nations (the Christian population in the Middle East decreased by 400% in the last one hundred years).

It is time for the international community (the United Nations and other regional bodies), as well as Western nations, to acknowledge the widespread abuse of Christians that is taking place at the hands of extremist Muslims. To look the other way and suggest such persecution and violence is only the result of secular indicators like ethnic strife and political unrest is to ignore the coming reality. We may be entering one of the fiercest periods of Christian martyrdom in all of human history.

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)