Christians are in danger of being wiped-out, namely in the Middle East according to a release published yesterday by Civitas, Institute for the Study of Civil Society and reported by the Paulding County Republican Examiner.
In the release, Civitas stated, “Christianity is in serious danger of being wiped out in its biblical heartlands because of Islamic oppression, according to a new report from a leading independent think-tank. But Western politicians and media largely ignore the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the wider world because they are afraid they will be accused of racism.”
“They fail to appreciate that in the defense of the wider concept of human rights, religious freedom is the “canary in the mine”. The refusal of young Christians in the West to become “radicalized” and mount violent protests against the attacks on their faith also helps to explain the “blind spot” about “Christianophobia” in influential liberal Western circles.”
The release referred to the report, Christianophobia, written by journalist Rupert Shortt and published by Westminster think-tank Civitas that presented the scale of vendettas against Christians across the globe.
In the report, Shortt said, “Across the world as a whole, some 200 million Christians (10 per cent of the total) are socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.”
“Exposing and combating the problem ought in my view to be political priorities across large areas of the world. That this is not the case tells us much about a questionable hierarchy of victim-hood.”
The report surveys in detail the extent of Christian persecution in seven countries – Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, Burma, China and India. And it cites findings from the Freedom House think-tank report to highlight the way that Muslim-majority countries are the most hostile to Christians.
“They impose the greatest curbs on religious freedoms and make up 12 of the 20 countries judged to be “unfree” on the grounds of religious tolerance. Of the seven states receiving the lowest possible score, four are Muslim, “said Shortt.
Mr Shortt illustrates the mounting hostility to Christians by quoting the Salafist website “Guardians of the Faith”, which published an article saying “Being a Muslim girl whose role models are the wives of the Prophet, who were required to wear the hijab, is better than being a Christian girl, whose role models are whores.”
After the U.S. coalition invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, Shortt said that Iraq has witnessed the decimation of its Christian community amid frequent bombings, shootings, beheadings and kidnappings, especially since the invasion of 2003.
He said, “In 1990 there were between 1.2 to 1.4 million Christians in Iraq. By 2003, there were only around half a million. Today there is less than 200,000.”
Shorrt also said that Christians are also under pressure in non-Muslim countries such as China but he also did not exclude that Christians sometimes in the past have committed violent acts against those of other faiths.
However, no other religion is bent on wiping out Christians across the globe with their jihad agenda than the Islamists.
Shortt said, “The prognosis for the rest of the Middle East is hardly encouraging: there is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands.”
He also said in his report, “Anthony O’Mahony of Heythrop College, London, echoes other scholars in estimating that between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the region have left or
been killed over the past century. Comparable tragedies have unfolded elsewhere.”
“About 100,000 Catholic civilians in East Timor were murdered by agents of the Suharto regime during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, for example; and two million Christians and other non-Muslims perished in Sudan’s civil conflict during the period 1985–2005.”
“There is a theory that the idea of jihad is more deeply embedded in Islam than related notions in the other world religions, and therefore that Islam is more susceptible to violent extremism – because of the martial context in which Islam took root, ”said Shortt.
Shorrt said that it took Christian societies many centuries to evolve a tradition of tolerance towards other faiths. He expressed the hope that Islam might eventually reach the same destination.
The report can be found here.
Concerning the dangers of Islam in America against Christians, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy created an on-line course in understanding Islam in America this past April.
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