I’m hesitant to write about a topic which I addressed only last September, but it is a duty for all Christians to do and say what’s needed when the rest of the world is silent.  The facts printed below are from the English magazine called The Spectator.  It applies even more to us than it does to the Brits because the U.S. has more influence and responsibility.   The silence of the powerful people in America says a lot about what kind of country and culture we are beyond the issue of the ongoing mass murder of Christians in the Middle East.

1)  The killing has begun, and could get worse. In Iraq, about two thirds of its 1.4 million Christians have now fled — being firebombed by the Jihadists. Last year, gunmen entered a Baghdad church and killed 58 parishioners. To go to church in Iraq, which Christians have been doing for two millennia, now means risking your life. Baghdad’s Jewish community has now been almost eliminated — by some estimates, half a dozen remain. Tunisia’s Arab Spring has also let the Jihadists loose: a Polish priest was executed recently, and they’re turning on its ancient Jewish community too. This has spread to Egypt, where Coptic Christians have lived in peace with Muslims for generations — until now, with 25 dead in October. Syria’s 1.5 Christians have suffered from the Assad regime as much as anyone, but they now pray for its survival, fearing it will be replaced by Islamic fundamentalists who will start persecution in earnest.

2) The Arab Spring has unleashed the demon. The last few years have seen the toppling of a long list of dictators: with the aid of Western military (Iraq, Libya) or Arab Spring revolutions (Egypt, Tunisia and maybe Syria). For all their evil, these secular tyrants treated victims equally whether they wore the cross, skullcap or niqab. But there has been no Vaclav Havel figure, no Walesa, to fill the post-revolutionary void. The situation has developed almost exactly along the lines that John R Bradley predicted in his Spectator cover story in February. Power has gone not to the most popular, but the best-organized. This means the hard line Salafis, who follow the same mutant strain of Sunni Islam as al-Qaeda.

3) This is a war within Islam. The situation is more complex than the Muslim vs. Christian ‘clash of civilizations’ narrative to which we’re accustomed. The majority of Muslims are appalled at these Christian pogroms. After the Egyptian Copts were attacked last year, Muslim elders sat in the pews when they celebrated their (January) Christmas, acting as human shields. Egyptians changed their Facebook picture to a new logo — the crescent and the cross — to show unity. But the Facebook crowd have lost power to the Holy book crowd: the hard line Islamists are filling the void. The Muslim Brotherhood is well on its way to a new constitution which looks terrifyingly similar to that of Iran.   

That last point, about good Muslims doing the right thing is important, because those are the people that U.S. foreign policy should empower.  Instead, it is the violent and intolerant elements of Islam which are repeatedly give a seat at the table.  The article concludes with a quote, not from a Christian clergyman, but a Jewish Rabbi.

Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks:

’It was Martin Luther King who said “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”. That is why I felt that I could not be silent today. As a Jew in Christian Britain, I know how much I, my late parents and, indeed, the whole British Jewish community owe to this great Christian nation, which gave us the right and the freedom to live our faith without fear. Shall we not therefore as Jews stand up for the right of Christians in other parts of the world to live their faith without fear?’

I’ll close with the appropriate Bible verse:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights

of all who are destitute.”  Proverbs 31:8