Around the world: the Cross is in the crosshairs

Christians Attacked Across the World

Owning a Bible is a death sentence in North Korea and going to Mass is a suicidal act (Nigeria).

Unfortunately, this doesn't attract the attention of the homegrown media, because we in the West have a problem seeing religious folk as victims. (We also find Miley Cyrus and her impersonation of a slut to be much more interesting.)...

Tragically, there is no balancing in some parts of the world, particularly when it comes to Christians. In the 21st century, the cross is in the crosshairs, and the most brutal attacks are reserved for those who follow Jesus. This is not to diminish the historical persecution of Jews, which is, perhaps, the only similar template that we have for deadly intolerance. The Holocaust is the single worst incident of religious-based violence in modern memory (with the possible exception of the extermination of Armenians by the Turks.)

But as Archbishop Charles Chaput observed in an afterword to the book Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians, "We are living in an age of intensifying, anti-Christian persecution." Again, it is hard for the average American to understand how perilous it is for a Christian to openly profess his faith in a place like, for just one deadly example, Iran. Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani sat in a jail cell for years under a death sentence because he converted from Islam to Christianity. In Iraq, Catholic students were murdered on their way to school. In China, an elderly priest was abducted, never to be heard from again. In Pakistan, a woman was given a death sentence for insulting Muhammad.

And this past month, Egypt's Coptic Christians saw their worst fears realized as the persecution that had begun decades ago increased exponentially as the Arab Spring became a summer of hell. Churches were burned, nuns brutalized, worshippers murdered, and the rest of the world called it a "political problem."

This is not about politics. This is about human rights. Westerners need to realize that just because we prize our "freedom from religion" and stand on top of that euphemistic wall screaming "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries," people in other parts of the world are dying for their faith. And most of them are dying at the hands of people who subscribe to a twisted vision of Muhammad's prophecy, one that feels threatened by believers in Christ. It is the same mentality that motivated Hitler to destroy God's chosen people, the same diseased rationale that led Stalin to burn the churches and imprison its children. ...

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The cross of Christ is so important - check out why in my new book Killing Christ HERE

full article Here

Obama is throwing Syria’s Christians “to the lions"

Syria’s Christian city of Ma'loula fallen to rebels.Christians beheaded.One of world's oldest churches sacked and burned.

 

Their incursion into the town, led by extremist Islamists, reinforces the worst

fears of Syrian Christians and could bolster President Bashar al-Assad’s claims that he is the Christians’ protector....

Most of the town’s residents have fled, and Maaloula, one of the last places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken by Christians and some Muslims, has become a one-word argument against Western support for the rebels — at the worst possible time for Mr. Obama and the opponents of Mr. Assad.

Syrian-Americans lobbying against the proposed American missile strike flooded Congressional message boards with appeals for Maaloula. A common refrain was that Mr. Obama was throwing Syria’s Christians “to the lions.”

It was a powerful accusation in a region where a decade of unrest and rising sectarianism, from Iraq to Egypt, has threatened and displaced large sectors of the Middle East’s Christians, a population that had already shrunk significantly through emigration over the past century....

But the encounter with the rebels had done little to reassure the nuns that in the long run Syria’s Christians would retain the peaceful existence they had long enjoyed.

“If Maaloula survives, it will be a miracle,” Mother Sayaf said. “Maaloula is empty. You see ghosts on the walls.”

...More than 450,000 Christians have fled their homes, church leaders say, during more than two years of war.

On the battlefield ... sectarian killings and references to non-Muslims as infidels further intimidate Christians. In Maaloula, according to fighters, the rebel attack was led by members of the Nusra Front, a group with ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq, even after local fighters affiliated with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army tried and failed to dissuade them.

Last week, as the battle began, opponents of American military action in Syria circulated a recent video of a Syrian Christian woman accosting Senator John McCain, a proponent of military action, accusing him of abandoning Christians. “I could trace my family’s name to the Bible,” she said. “We refuse to be forced to leave.”

The nuns huddled in monastery rooms tunneled under the cliffs. About 25 fighters entered, including some who appeared to be Saudi, Mother Sayaf said, and one who did not understand Arabic. But one fighter, a local worker, gave his phone number and told the nuns to call if they needed help.

A rebel video shows Mother Sayaf flinching at the crash of shells but otherwise calm — at one point answering the phone, “We’re in a meeting,” and saying all is well. That statement angered some residents who fled to Bab Touma, a Christian enclave in the old city of Damascus, said Abu Tony, a leader of a neighborhood militia there. He said three residents were taken hostage and others were told, “Convert to Islam and you’ll be safe.” ...

keep reading the NY Times article HERE
-------------------------- The solution: conversion. Muslims coming to the Prince of Peace - Jesus. See my book for the reasons Killing Christ HERE