Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians

Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians.  By Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea; Thomas Nelson (Publishing House), 2013.

 

The average American is bombarded with news, yet most people are woefully under-informed about what is going on in the world.  There are multiple reasons for that.  A lot of people just don’t care about the news.  Others do not have the time (or at least believe they don’t) to read the newspaper or news websites, or to watch television news.  Others choose not to, simply because they find the content too depressing.  Other people, like myself, follow the news closely in a variety of media, but find themselves sadly under-informed nonetheless.  Most of the news is filled with misleading advocacy journalism, shallow puff pieces, frivolous “celebrity news,” and in any case, most newspapers and television news shows have neither the time nor the space for in-depth coverage of many subjects.  Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians tells the shocking stories that the major media outlets almost never see fit to cover– the widespread anti-Christian violence around the globe.

 

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “When the real revolution happens, it won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.”  That sentiment holds true for some of the most grievous human rights abuses around the world– millions of people are suffering and enduring terrible indignities, but the mass media has chosen to ignore it.  Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians seeks to fill a very large gap in Western society’s collective psyche.

 

The book opens with the following dedication:

 

“We dedicate this book to the great principle of religious freedom, known to Americans as the “first freedom,” both because of its placement as the first clause of the First Amendment in the US Constitution, and because it is the core freedom, essential to the fulfillment of other rights and freedoms, as well as to the preservation of human dignity and the flourishing of the person.  This freedom, in all its fullness, includes, but is not limited to, the freedom to worship.  It encompasses the freedom to choose one’s religion, and the freedom to manifest one’s religion– either alone or in community with others, and in public or private– in teaching, practice, worship, and observation.”

 

Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians goes around the world illustrating the areas of the world where Christians face major dangers to their lives and safety.  In the Western Hemisphere and Europe, Christians tend to be in the majority and have legally protected freedoms (though recent court rulings and government actions in these regions are cause for concern), but in certain parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, being a Christian means doesn’t mean wearing a cross on one’s chest so much as wearing a target on one’s back.  This book focuses on how the remaining Communist countries see Christians as a threat to their existence, how the former Communist nations continue to attack all manifestations of Christianity within their borders, how certain religious groups in South Asia seek see Christians as aliens who have no place in their society, and how being a Christian means forever being consigned to second- or third-class citizen status in sharia law-ruled Muslim nations.  Many Americans falsely assume that their freedoms are universal, when in fact the American First Amendment rights are the exception globally, rather than the rule.

 

“Western Christians enjoy numerous blessings of religious freedom.  Our rights, while sometimes challenged, are many.  We speak freely about our faith, our churches, our denominational preferences, and our answered prayers.  We treasure, read, and write comments in our Bibles, and share our beliefs with others without fear of danger.  Our churches can have religious schools and broadcasts.  We wear crosses around our necks, and our bishops, priests, ministers, monks, and nuns dress in a broad array of distinctive styles.  Our Christianity doesn’t require us to keep looking over our shoulders, unsure if we will be arrested for praying or attacked for having a Bible.”

 

The authors have managed to hit precisely the right tone in writing this book, making the reader feel extreme sympathy for the victims and distress over the hostile environment they live in, while never crossing into stridency or harshness.  This is a report, not a screed.  Longer and more exhaustive tomes might be written focusing on the atrocities in a single country, but this book is meant to serve as a guide and overview to the matter, particularly for people who are currently unaware of the extent of the problem.

 

“Our book focuses on an underreported fact: Christians are the single most widely persecuted religious group in the world today.  This is confirmed in studies by sources as diverse as the Vatican, Open Doors, the Pew Research Center, Commentary, Newsweek, and the Economist.  According to one estimate, by the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, 75 percent of acts of religious intolerance are directed against Christians.”

 

In many forms of mass media and discourse, Christians are viewed as the de facto villains and aggressors.  Granted, there have been numerous instances throughout history where Christians have not been any credit to their religion, but to whitewash the fact that Christians are being deliberately targeted for discrimination and repression around the world is to turn one’s back on the major human rights abuses of our time.  Geopolitical pundits frequently also fail to understand the increasing role of Christianity in the developing world as a social, cultural, intellectual, moral, and political force.

 

“Many people are unaware that three-quarters of the world’s 2.2 billion nominal Christians live outside the developed West, as do perhaps four-fifths of the world’s active Christians.  Of the world’s ten largest Christian communities, only two, the United States and Germany, are in the developed West.  Christianity may well be the developing world’s largest religion.  The church is predominantly female and non-white.  While China may soon be the country with the largest Christian population, Latin America is the largest Christian region and Africa is on its way to becoming the continent with the largest Christian population.  The average Christian on the planet, if there could be such a one, would likely be a Brazilian or Nigerian woman or a Chinese youth.”

 

The following is a lengthy quote, but it is quoted in its entirety due to its ability to describe some of the various forms that persecution takes, as well as put a human face on some of the people suffering today all over the world.  The following bulletpoints provide brief profiles of four of the most infamous cases of people who have been targeted for no reason other than their Christianity:

 

“Unfortunately, most of the world’s Christians don’t share these circumstances.  Their experiences are not just dissimilar to ours; they are unimaginably different.  Clearly we needn’t feel guilty for our religious freedoms, which are God-given.  But sometimes we have to be reminded about what life is like for Christians in other countries, whose everyday lives bear so little resemblance to ours.  These men, women, and children of courage and faith are scattered in large numbers all across the globe.  Even now, as these words are being written:

 

•A Christian pastor sat in a squalid prison cell in Iran for three years.  Day after day he waited for the final word to come down from the authorities: “Tomorrow morning you will hang.”  The pastor was condemned for converting to Christianity from Islam, called apostasy in Iran, and sentenced to death.  Still, he did not recant his Christian faith.  Under international pressure, Iran finally acquitted him of apostasy, sentencing him to the lesser crime of “evangelizing Muslims.”  Released on September 8, 2012, the loving father and husband remains at mortal risk from Islamist death squads.  His name is Youcef Nadarkhani.

 

•In Pakistan, a woman awaits the day of her execution.  She is ill, weak, and weary, and she misses her five children intolerably.  She, too, has been sentenced to death because of her Christian faith.  She has been tried and convicted of blaspheming the propher Muhammad– a capital crime in Pakistan.  Her name is Asia Bibi.

 

•In China, friends and loved ones await word of an elderly Roman Catholic priest who was abducted, never to be heard from again.  He is frail but faithful to his beliefs and his church.  But in his faithfulness, he has offended China’s Communist Party regime.  No one is sure whether he is dead or alive.  Nearly eighty years old, his name is Bishop James Su Zhimin, and he is known to all as Bishop Su.

 

•In Nigeria, surviving Christians can still smell the smoke and the burning flesh in their village.  At least eleven worshippers were burned to death when terrorists firebombed a church in early 2012.  More than twenty others were horribly injured.  Christians in the surrounding area are running scared, even while wanting to be courageous and faithful.  They are well aware that they also are targets.  There are so many victims in Nigeria that only local people know the names of the dead.”

 

The Afterword to the book is written by the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, who declares that “we are living in an age of intensifying anti-Christian persecution.”  Some pundits in the mass media sneer when Christians complain of persecution, and indeed, some of the hostility the Western World’s Christians face pales in comparison to those of other cities, but as this book proves, there are many believers in the world who have to live in a state of permanent fear.

 

The one disappointing aspect of this book is that it does not provide any information as to how concerned people can do something to help the millions of persecuted Christians around the world.  There are many organizations that seek to protect these people, such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide (http://www.csw.org.uk/home.htm), and websites that report information about the sufferings of Christians, such as Asia News (www.asianews.it).  Unfortunately, there is little that can be done to help these suffering Christians aside from regime change and reformed societal attitudes, other than educating more people about what is going on around the world.

 

Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians performs a crucial public service by educating its readers about the many atrocities being committed around the world today.  The book is sad, but also scary, not just because so many horrible acts are being committed around the world, but because so few news sources deign to report this disturbing news. Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians tells its readers that something is desperately wrong with the world. Now all concerned people of good will need to band together to do something about these grievous violations of human rights around the globe.

 

 

–Chris Chan