© 2013 The Wired Word
www.thewiredword.comSadly, this singling out of non-Muslims for persecution and death is no isolated incident in the Middle East and some parts of Africa today, and many Christians are among the victims. In fact, Christianity itself is often under attack throughout the region, to the point that some observers are now talking about the coming extinction of Christianity in the Middle East. Western churches, however, have said little about the slaughter.
Writing last week for the British magazine The Spectator, Ed West, deputy editor of the Catholic Herald, said, "The last month and a half has seen perhaps the worst anti-Christian violence in Egypt in seven centuries, with dozens of churches torched. Yet the western media has mainly focused on army assaults on the Muslim Brotherhood, and no major political figure has said anything about the sectarian attacks."
West went on to note that both the American and the British press are among those that have under-reported this persecution.
While there have been stories of Muslims protecting Christian neighbors, in some predominantly Islamic lands, Christians continue to be prime targets. Two weeks ago, Taliban suicide bombers in Peshawar, Pakistan, killed at least 85 worshipers at All Saints' Church, which had been in that city since 1883. The result of such attacks is often that other Christians flee the country. One report says that two-thirds of Iraqi Christians have now vanished from that country, either murdered or having fled for their lives. Testifying before Congress in 2011, Nina Shea, an international human-rights lawyer, said that starting in 2004 in Iraq, "Christians ... have been raped, tortured, kidnapped, beheaded and evicted from their homes."
In Syria, bad as Bashar al-Assad is, many Christians fear what will happen to them if he falls. There are reports that some rebel Islamic groups are killing Christians.
Speaking at Britain's National Liberal Club last month, historian Tom Holland said that we are now seeing the extinction of Christianity and other minority faiths in the Middle East. As reported in The Spectator, Holland described this as "the culmination of the long process that began in the Balkans in the late 19th century, reached its horrific European climax in 1939-1945 and continued with the Greeks of Alexandria, the Mizrahi Jews and, most recently, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians of Iraq." Holland added that the Copts may have the numbers to hold on, as do the Jews of Israel, but he wondered out loud if any other minority-religion groups can.
Some observers are now raising the question of why churches in the West have been largely silent about this persecution. It appears not even to have the attention of Christians in America, Britain and other Western countries. Christians have been too busy with other things or "just too frightened of controversy to raise [the issue of] Muslim-on-Christian violence."
According to a PBS news report last year, the only Middle-Eastern country that has a growing Christian population is Israel. "There are no more Christians in Algeria, in Tunisia, in Libya, where there was a majority of Christians 700, 800 years ago. They're gone. There's ... no one," Mary-Jane Deeb, head of the Africa and Middle East division of the Library of Congress told PBS last year. "In the rest of the region, that will also happen as more Christians are emigrating. They're leaving."
Writing last week in The Daily Beast, columnist Kirsten Powers commented, "It's no surprise that Jews seem to understand the gravity of the situation the best. In December 2011, Britain's chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, addressed Parliament saying, "I have followed the fate of Christians in the Middle East for years, appalled at what is happening, surprised and distressed ... that it is not more widely known." Sacks added, "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 I could not be silent today."
Yet churches in America remain quiet on the matter.
More on this story can be found at these links:
A Global Slaughter of Christians, but America's Churches Stay Silent. The Daily Beast
The Silence of Our Friends -- the Extinction of Christianity in the Middle East. The Spectator
Persecution Against Christians Increases in Many Parts of the World. Washington Times
Testimony ... on Recent Attacks Targeting Minorities in Iraq and Egypt. US Commission on International Religious Freedom
Eyes Gouged Out, Bodies Hanging From Hooks .... Daily Mail (UK)
The Big Questions
1. Why do you think American churches have been largely silent about the bloody persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Islamic countries? Do you think our lack of response means that American Christians are self-centered? Do you think it is because we have enough problems of our own? Could it mean we aren't really that committed to Christianity?
2. Is our silence about such persecution justifiable on the basis that there's little we can do to prevent it? Is that even true? Why or why not? How much of our silence has to do with the fact that Christians who live abroad do not speak the same languages, dress the same, share our cultural assumptions? How much is due to this sort of news seldom being reported? Is there a relationship?
3. Should we consider Christians in the Middle East to be our spiritual brothers and sisters? Why or why not? If yes, what does it actually mean that they are our spiritual family members? What message do we send by remaining uninvolved?
4. At what point does our silence about the persecution of Christians in distant places become sinful? At what point does our silence about the persecution of members of other religious minorities in distant places become sinful? Name one way you can become involved as a class, either directly with individuals overseas, or in your congregation, parish, district, etc.
5. Once Christians have been either murdered or driven out of a specific country, that means there are no representatives of our faith in that land to be witnesses for Christ and offer fellowship to converts. Should that concern us? Is Christian witness and fellowship from a safe distance via technology sufficient?
6. We Christians in the United States are not usually persecuted because of our faith -- and nowhere near to the extent of these overseas examples. Many of us are barely even inconvenienced for it. Does that put any special responsibility on us regarding Christians who are severely persecuted because of their faith? Where should we establish the boundaries of our involvement? In some instances in the U.S., does the lack of persecution indicate that something is lacking in the life or witness of many Christians?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Judges 5:23
Curse Meroz, says the angel of the LORD, curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they did not come to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty. (For context, read 5:19-23.)
Judges 5 contains the "Song of Deborah," the words she sang after the Israelite victory over the Canaanites, led by Deborah and Barak. The song is mostly celebratory, but the lines above are a curse directed at the town or clan of Meroz, a group of Israelites who declined to send any soldiers to help in the fighting against Israel's enemy. Deborah says the curse comes from "the angel of the LORD." Whether anything bad befell Meroz as a result is not known, but clearly, the song proclaims a dim view of people who refused to come to the aid of their fellow Israelites.
Questions: Ought we to feel any obligation to help persecuted Christians in other parts of the world? Why or why not? What form can that help take? What combination of prayer, financial, political and/or physical presence and support should it take?
Esther 4:14
For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this. (For context, read 4:1-17.)
The book of Esther contains the story of a royal decree that Jewish people living in the Persian Empire were to be killed, and how Queen Esther, a Jew herself, though the king didn't know it, saved them by intervening with the king (a dangerous act, depending on the king's mood). The line above is spoken by Esther's relative Mordecai, suggesting that maybe the whole reason Esther had been selected by the king to be his queen was so she could be in the right place to avert the crisis and save her people.
Mordecai says that if Esther chooses not to act, her "silence" will not keep help from arising from "another quarter," but his implication is that her silence at such a time would be wrong.
Questions: What are some specific situations where the "silence" of Christians -- either saying nothing or doing nothing -- is actually sinful? How might we overcome "silence" about the persecution of Christians today? Mordecai speaks of "such a time as this." Is there a special urgency about this particular issue? As a group, rank where this issue stands for you in comparison to other local and national concerns of faith.
Luke 21:17
You will be hated by all because of my name. (For context, read 21:7-18.)
Jesus said this to his disciples in the first century, but it remains true in many places yet today.
Questions: Jesus implies that some persecution is inevitable. What are the dangers of accepting inevitabilities? For instance, does it make us complacent about such matters? What might these words of Jesus say to us if we are not feeling particularly persecuted?
1 Corinthians 16:1-3
Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. (For context, 16:1-4. Cf. Romans 15:25-27, 30-33; 2 Corinthians 8-9; Galatians 2:10.)
The New Testament contains no example of a church being asked to stand up on behalf of Christians elsewhere to stop persecution, but the "collection for the saints," which Paul and his coworkers were soliciting from the churches throughout the Roman Empire to aid Christians in Jerusalem shows a similar precedent.
We don't know the details about need in the Jerusalem church, but Acts 11 refers to a famine that required relief to be sent to "the brothers and sisters in Judea" (vv. 28-29), the province that included Jerusalem. The ancient historian Josephus mentions a famine in Palestine during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, which coincides with the time of Paul's ministry. This may have been the famine that triggered the offering.
Even though the Christians in the distant churches didn't know the Jerusalem Christians, they recognized the common ground in Christ sufficiently that they gave to help their brothers and sisters in the faith.
Questions: When has someone given you unsolicited but welcome help? What made it helpful? Note that the apostle assumes that economic assistance, prayer and action are all tied together, and that assistance to other Christians is essential. What does your church consider essential to its survival? Does your church consider the well-being of other Christians essential to its larger ministries and identity?
For Further Discussion
1. One TWW team member remembers that at a denominational assembly earlier this year a Nigerian bishop told how one of his Christian churches was burned to the ground by extremists. Some of the young people in his church retaliated by burning a mosque. He sent them back to rebuild the mosque, in order to demonstrate that Christians do not retaliate, and that Jesus calls on us to love our enemies and to do good for those who hate us. This bishop had earlier told the assembly that "Muslims and Christians are in agreement about certain social issues and work together where there are great needs." Consider the following questions:
• Do you have the courage of your Christian convictions to actually live out the words of Jesus even when they seem impractical and dangerous?
• This bishop said that even though there is a good deal of violence directed toward churches and mosques, Christians and Muslims found they could work together on issues where they shared the same vision and saw the same concerns that needed to be addressed. How might this be translated usefully into American life? into U.S. politics?
2. Comment on this, from a German pastor named Martin Niemoeller following WW II:
In Germany, they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.
3. Respond to this: Historically, the intensity of persecution has been geared to the intensity and faithfulness of the witness given by Christians. The brighter Christians burned with faithfulness to Jesus, the more likely they were to be persecuted. In some parts of the world today, however, merely being identified as a Christian seems sufficient to make one a target for persecution.
4. Discuss this, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Germany who resisted Hitler and was executed by the Nazis: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Responding to the News
This is a good time to find ways you can help persecuted Christians worldwide. Start by checking with your denomination to see what efforts it already has underway.
There are also organizations concerned specifically with the persecution of Christians. Two we are aware of are International Christian Concern and Open Doors.
Additionally, there is a federal body that "monitors the conditions of religious liberty abroad and recommends policies to the President, Secretary of State and Congress to advance this most precious right": United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Freedom House is a human-rights organization that also promotes freedom from religious persecution.
Closing Prayer
O God, thank you for the promise of the crown of life to all those who stay faithful through persecution. Enable us to find ways to strengthen, encourage and help the persecuted in the name of Jesus. Let us not be sinfully silent. Amen.According to an Associated Press report of the terrorist attack on the mall in Nairobi, Kenya, last month that left more than 70 people dead, the Somali Islamic militant group "separated Muslims from other people and let the Muslims go free." Witnesses said that the gunmen determined which shoppers were Muslim by asking the captives questions about Islam. If they couldn't answer, they were shot or tortured to death. Kenyan soldiers reported bodies with eyes gouged out and hung from ceiling hooks, castrated men, fingers removed with pliers, hands sharpened "like a pencil" and other horrors.
Sadly, this singling out of non-Muslims for persecution and death is no isolated incident in the Middle East and some parts of Africa today, and many Christians are among the victims. In fact, Christianity itself is often under attack throughout the region, to the point that some observers are now talking about the coming extinction of Christianity in the Middle East. Western churches, however, have said little about the slaughter.
Writing last week for the British magazine The Spectator, Ed West, deputy editor of the Catholic Herald, said, "The last month and a half has seen perhaps the worst anti-Christian violence in Egypt in seven centuries, with dozens of churches torched. Yet the western media has mainly focused on army assaults on the Muslim Brotherhood, and no major political figure has said anything about the sectarian attacks."
West went on to note that both the American and the British press are among those that have under-reported this persecution.
While there have been stories of Muslims protecting Christian neighbors, in some predominantly Islamic lands, Christians continue to be prime targets. Two weeks ago, Taliban suicide bombers in Peshawar, Pakistan, killed at least 85 worshipers at All Saints' Church, which had been in that city since 1883. The result of such attacks is often that other Christians flee the country. One report says that two-thirds of Iraqi Christians have now vanished from that country, either murdered or having fled for their lives. Testifying before Congress in 2011, Nina Shea, an international human-rights lawyer, said that starting in 2004 in Iraq, "Christians ... have been raped, tortured, kidnapped, beheaded and evicted from their homes."
In Syria, bad as Bashar al-Assad is, many Christians fear what will happen to them if he falls. There are reports that some rebel Islamic groups are killing Christians.
Speaking at Britain's National Liberal Club last month, historian Tom Holland said that we are now seeing the extinction of Christianity and other minority faiths in the Middle East. As reported in The Spectator, Holland described this as "the culmination of the long process that began in the Balkans in the late 19th century, reached its horrific European climax in 1939-1945 and continued with the Greeks of Alexandria, the Mizrahi Jews and, most recently, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians of Iraq." Holland added that the Copts may have the numbers to hold on, as do the Jews of Israel, but he wondered out loud if any other minority-religion groups can.
Some observers are now raising the question of why churches in the West have been largely silent about this persecution. It appears not even to have the attention of Christians in America, Britain and other Western countries. Christians have been too busy with other things or "just too frightened of controversy to raise [the issue of] Muslim-on-Christian violence."
According to a PBS news report last year, the only Middle-Eastern country that has a growing Christian population is Israel. "There are no more Christians in Algeria, in Tunisia, in Libya, where there was a majority of Christians 700, 800 years ago. They're gone. There's ... no one," Mary-Jane Deeb, head of the Africa and Middle East division of the Library of Congress told PBS last year. "In the rest of the region, that will also happen as more Christians are emigrating. They're leaving."
Writing last week in The Daily Beast, columnist Kirsten Powers commented, "It's no surprise that Jews seem to understand the gravity of the situation the best. In December 2011, Britain's chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, addressed Parliament saying, "I have followed the fate of Christians in the Middle East for years, appalled at what is happening, surprised and distressed ... that it is not more widely known." Sacks added, "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 I could not be silent today."
Yet churches in America remain quiet on the matter.
More on this story can be found at these links:
A Global Slaughter of Christians, but America's Churches Stay Silent. The Daily Beast
The Silence of Our Friends -- the Extinction of Christianity in the Middle East. The Spectator
Persecution Against Christians Increases in Many Parts of the World. Washington Times
Testimony ... on Recent Attacks Targeting Minorities in Iraq and Egypt. US Commission on International Religious Freedom
Eyes Gouged Out, Bodies Hanging From Hooks .... Daily Mail (UK)
The Big Questions
1. Why do you think American churches have been largely silent about the bloody persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Islamic countries? Do you think our lack of response means that American Christians are self-centered? Do you think it is because we have enough problems of our own? Could it mean we aren't really that committed to Christianity?
2. Is our silence about such persecution justifiable on the basis that there's little we can do to prevent it? Is that even true? Why or why not? How much of our silence has to do with the fact that Christians who live abroad do not speak the same languages, dress the same, share our cultural assumptions? How much is due to this sort of news seldom being reported? Is there a relationship?
3. Should we consider Christians in the Middle East to be our spiritual brothers and sisters? Why or why not? If yes, what does it actually mean that they are our spiritual family members? What message do we send by remaining uninvolved?
4. At what point does our silence about the persecution of Christians in distant places become sinful? At what point does our silence about the persecution of members of other religious minorities in distant places become sinful? Name one way you can become involved as a class, either directly with individuals overseas, or in your congregation, parish, district, etc.
5. Once Christians have been either murdered or driven out of a specific country, that means there are no representatives of our faith in that land to be witnesses for Christ and offer fellowship to converts. Should that concern us? Is Christian witness and fellowship from a safe distance via technology sufficient?
6. We Christians in the United States are not usually persecuted because of our faith -- and nowhere near to the extent of these overseas examples. Many of us are barely even inconvenienced for it. Does that put any special responsibility on us regarding Christians who are severely persecuted because of their faith? Where should we establish the boundaries of our involvement? In some instances in the U.S., does the lack of persecution indicate that something is lacking in the life or witness of many Christians?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Judges 5:23
Curse Meroz, says the angel of the LORD, curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they did not come to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty. (For context, read 5:19-23.)
Judges 5 contains the "Song of Deborah," the words she sang after the Israelite victory over the Canaanites, led by Deborah and Barak. The song is mostly celebratory, but the lines above are a curse directed at the town or clan of Meroz, a group of Israelites who declined to send any soldiers to help in the fighting against Israel's enemy. Deborah says the curse comes from "the angel of the LORD." Whether anything bad befell Meroz as a result is not known, but clearly, the song proclaims a dim view of people who refused to come to the aid of their fellow Israelites.
Questions: Ought we to feel any obligation to help persecuted Christians in other parts of the world? Why or why not? What form can that help take? What combination of prayer, financial, political and/or physical presence and support should it take?
Esther 4:14
For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this. (For context, read 4:1-17.)
The book of Esther contains the story of a royal decree that Jewish people living in the Persian Empire were to be killed, and how Queen Esther, a Jew herself, though the king didn't know it, saved them by intervening with the king (a dangerous act, depending on the king's mood). The line above is spoken by Esther's relative Mordecai, suggesting that maybe the whole reason Esther had been selected by the king to be his queen was so she could be in the right place to avert the crisis and save her people.
Mordecai says that if Esther chooses not to act, her "silence" will not keep help from arising from "another quarter," but his implication is that her silence at such a time would be wrong.
Questions: What are some specific situations where the "silence" of Christians -- either saying nothing or doing nothing -- is actually sinful? How might we overcome "silence" about the persecution of Christians today? Mordecai speaks of "such a time as this." Is there a special urgency about this particular issue? As a group, rank where this issue stands for you in comparison to other local and national concerns of faith.
Luke 21:17
You will be hated by all because of my name. (For context, read 21:7-18.)
Jesus said this to his disciples in the first century, but it remains true in many places yet today.
Questions: Jesus implies that some persecution is inevitable. What are the dangers of accepting inevitabilities? For instance, does it make us complacent about such matters? What might these words of Jesus say to us if we are not feeling particularly persecuted?
1 Corinthians 16:1-3
Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come. And when I arrive, I will send any whom you approve with letters to take your gift to Jerusalem. (For context, 16:1-4. Cf. Romans 15:25-27, 30-33; 2 Corinthians 8-9; Galatians 2:10.)
The New Testament contains no example of a church being asked to stand up on behalf of Christians elsewhere to stop persecution, but the "collection for the saints," which Paul and his coworkers were soliciting from the churches throughout the Roman Empire to aid Christians in Jerusalem shows a similar precedent.
We don't know the details about need in the Jerusalem church, but Acts 11 refers to a famine that required relief to be sent to "the brothers and sisters in Judea" (vv. 28-29), the province that included Jerusalem. The ancient historian Josephus mentions a famine in Palestine during the reign of the Emperor Claudius, which coincides with the time of Paul's ministry. This may have been the famine that triggered the offering.
Even though the Christians in the distant churches didn't know the Jerusalem Christians, they recognized the common ground in Christ sufficiently that they gave to help their brothers and sisters in the faith.
Questions: When has someone given you unsolicited but welcome help? What made it helpful? Note that the apostle assumes that economic assistance, prayer and action are all tied together, and that assistance to other Christians is essential. What does your church consider essential to its survival? Does your church consider the well-being of other Christians essential to its larger ministries and identity?
For Further Discussion
1. One TWW team member remembers that at a denominational assembly earlier this year a Nigerian bishop told how one of his Christian churches was burned to the ground by extremists. Some of the young people in his church retaliated by burning a mosque. He sent them back to rebuild the mosque, in order to demonstrate that Christians do not retaliate, and that Jesus calls on us to love our enemies and to do good for those who hate us. This bishop had earlier told the assembly that "Muslims and Christians are in agreement about certain social issues and work together where there are great needs." Consider the following questions:
• Do you have the courage of your Christian convictions to actually live out the words of Jesus even when they seem impractical and dangerous?
• This bishop said that even though there is a good deal of violence directed toward churches and mosques, Christians and Muslims found they could work together on issues where they shared the same vision and saw the same concerns that needed to be addressed. How might this be translated usefully into American life? into U.S. politics?
2. Comment on this, from a German pastor named Martin Niemoeller following WW II:
In Germany, they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.
3. Respond to this: Historically, the intensity of persecution has been geared to the intensity and faithfulness of the witness given by Christians. The brighter Christians burned with faithfulness to Jesus, the more likely they were to be persecuted. In some parts of the world today, however, merely being identified as a Christian seems sufficient to make one a target for persecution.
4. Discuss this, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Germany who resisted Hitler and was executed by the Nazis: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Responding to the News
This is a good time to find ways you can help persecuted Christians worldwide. Start by checking with your denomination to see what efforts it already has underway.
There are also organizations concerned specifically with the persecution of Christians. Two we are aware of are International Christian Concern and Open Doors.
Additionally, there is a federal body that "monitors the conditions of religious liberty abroad and recommends policies to the President, Secretary of State and Congress to advance this most precious right": United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Freedom House is a human-rights organization that also promotes freedom from religious persecution.
Closing Prayer
O God, thank you for the promise of the crown of life to all those who stay faithful through persecution. Enable us to find ways to strengthen, encourage and help the persecuted in the name of Jesus. Let us not be sinfully silent. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment