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Christmas Persecution

Christmas Persecution
By Dean Olson

As we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and give Him thanks for the blessings of salvation through faith, family, friends, safety and comfort it is important to remember our brothers in sisters in Christ. Many Christians around the world face unprecedented levels of persecution and death, especially in Muslim lands and atheist countries.

christmaspersecutionThe watchdog group Defense of Christians describes the fate of believers in the Middle East this Christmas as “defenseless under the yoke of genocide.” Savage attacks like the suicide bombing of St. Marks Cathedral in Egypt on December 11, 2016 killed at least 25 and wounded more than 50 mainly women and children who had gathered simply to worship.

The Open Doors organization tracks Christian persecution around the world. It publishes an annual “World Watch List” documenting attacks on Christians and ranking the most hostile national environments for believers. The 2016 report documents an unprecedented escalation of violence against Christians making it the most violent in the modern history of the church.

In atheist countries like North Korea an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in labor camps. That totalitarian nation bears a particular hatred for Christians who are a constant reminder of accountability to a higher power than the state. Christians are routinely forced to renounce their faith or flee under threat of death. Life in the labor camps is particularly brutal and harsh with many of the confined dying from beatings, exposure, overwork and starvation.

As in prior years the vast majority of countries experiencing acute Christian persecution are Muslim nations. In 2015, nine out of the top ten countries where Christians suffer extreme persecution had populations that are at least 50 percent Muslim, a phenomenon repeated in 2016. Watchdog groups describe Islamic extremism as by far the most significant source of persecution of Christians in the world today.

The horrific suffering of believers in Muslim nations like Iraq and Syria include forced conversions to Islam, rape and murder. In one particularly evil form Islamist terrorists of ISIS gang-raped Christian girls to “convert” them to Islam claiming that if an infidel was raped by ten or more Muslims they would automatically become Muslim. The UN cites ISIS persecution of minority groups, including Christians, to include executions by shooting, beheading, bulldozing over, burning alive, grinding up in an industrial bread dough mixer, and throwing people off the top of buildings.

In Pakistan Christians are routinely harassed, raped, forcefully converted or murdered. Christian businesses are often pillaged and burned. Jealous business competitors often claim that Christian business owners have blasphemed the prophet Muhammad to incite their co-religionists into destroying the business. Indifferent police, primarily Muslims in the Muslim majority country, simply ignore the crimes or make feeble and ineffective half-efforts to investigate the crimes.

All of the top ten countries in Christian persecution are Muslim. But the problem is truly global in nature. Watchdog groups describe the problem as acute and no longer restricted to a few isolated regions. Persecution of Christians occurs “in every continent in every country.” Open Doors reports, “The levels of exclusion, discrimination and violence against Christians is unprecedented, spreading and intensifying…Christians, longing to stay in their home countries, are being forced to flee for their lives and for their children’s lives…”

Jesus prophesied the increase in persecution we are witnessing today, “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.” (Matthew 24:9.) As we celebrate Christmas this year it is important to remember our suffering brothers and sisters in Christ and to remember them in our prayers.

Dean Olson
[email protected]

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