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The Forum > Article Comments > Persecution of Christians worldwide > Comments

Persecution of Christians worldwide : Comments

By Babette Francis, published 18/12/2012

Persecute a racial minority, and the US might intervene, but persecute members of the largest religion in the world, and it is mute.

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Persecution of Christians worldwide is an indisputable fact. In India I saw it firsthand. In many third-world and Muslim countries it is blatant. In the so-called more developed nations it is present, but more subtle.

Jesus Christ predicted persecution of the Church. It was not merely a possibility, but a fact. Not a matter of whether, but of when. He told his disciples that when they are persecuted, they are spiritually blessed: "All men will hate you because of me". He warned them that they would be persecuted, hated and killed. He even suggested that when Christians are prosperous, in good social standing, and free from persecution, they are in danger of becoming complacent.

In 1999 an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two young sons, were burned to death in Orissa, an eastern state of India. These young boys were students at the school in South India that my own children attended. Ten years later I visited a small Indian village near where this tragedy had occurred, staying in the simple home of a widow who, with her son, has started up around thirty home churches in nearby villages. It was amazing to see the fruit of their labours, and the strength of faith among those leaders they had trained and sent out into the surrounding areas. I spoke on their rooftop to around eighty people who had travelled a considerable distance to meet me. Several Hindu families asked me to pray for them. Persecution has resulted in a passion among believers to spread the good news.

Persecution is usually the result of fear, or from a perceived threat to the present status. If Christianity were just one more belief-system that did not bring challenge and change, and that did not go to the very heart of our reason for existence, it would not induce fear and anger among non-believers. If it were politically correct (which in many ways it is not) then it would be regarded merely as one of many social groups that exist for the betterment of society.
Posted by elizann, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 11:22:11 AM
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There is Hope though! Sure, there is persecution and jailing of Christians in Islamic states, but in others both Faiths can come together.

In Uganda, both Christian and Muslim clerics are united in their support of a bill making open homosexuality, or being born with mixed sex anatomy (Intersex), a capital crime.

Actually, they removed the explicit "death by hangiing" provisions because of the bad PR. The punishment is now the same as for "aggravated defilement", defined in an existing law. The punishment there is... death by hanging. So they get to have their cake and eat it too.

Failing to report known homosexuals, or the birth of an Intersex baby, is also good for 5 years jail.

In Jesus' name.
Posted by Zoe Brain, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 11:22:57 AM
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"Persecution has resulted in a passion among believers to spread the good news. "

Surely you mean "from a passion"?

Christians need to feel persecuted, even where Christianity is dominant, they feel the need to be persecuted by the secular state or by the tiny minority of atheists that don't share their views.

Persecution is their 'thing', the poor dears.
Posted by Bugsy, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 11:48:51 AM
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There is one civil liberty as vital as freedom of religion.

It is freedom from it.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 11:49:04 AM
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Whilst in a more perfect world no one would be or would need to be persecuted...

"...we should spare a thought for the Christians who are suffering persecution in so many countries."

I can't stop thinking that if God can't, why should I?
Posted by WmTrevor, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 12:16:51 PM
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Babette, given that the Christian U.S. has killed between 20-30 million people since WW2 during its current imperial thrust, it is just as well it isn't wreaking death and destruction upon those who persecute Christians as well.

We would have a blood flood of Biblical proportions!
Posted by David G, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 1:48:16 PM
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one would not expect sympathy from those who hate the fact that Christ shows up their hypocrisy and pathetic attempts to explain Him away. Thanks Babette for your well written article however the rights of the bumble bee are of higher priority to the ungodly.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 2:24:50 PM
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Runner, I thought that you "christians" would look upon a Bumble Bee, as one of Gods little creatures also!
Posted by Kipp, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 2:31:24 PM
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'Even in democracies such as the US and Canada, Christians can be fined or lose their jobs for imaginary "hate" crimes, i.e. speaking about the health risks of some homosexual practices or declining to provide services for homosexual "marriages".'

Translation: people get fired for telling malicious lies or refusing to do the tasks in their job description that they are being paid to do.

Trying to pretend that Christians are persecuted in the US is like trying to pretend that elite athletes are a persecuted minority in Australia. Good luck with that. As for the attacks on Christians elsewhere, the solution is less religion, not more. Atheists are remarkably unlikely to violently attack ANYONE, Christians or otherwise. Perhaps the solution to persecution is to promote atheism for everybody?
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 2:59:05 PM
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'Atheists are remarkably unlikely to violently attack ANYONE, Christians or otherwise. '

ask the bubs in the womb or Stalin or Mao and you will see how hopelessly blind jonJ is.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 3:23:41 PM
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Runner,
And, Hitler had the support of the Roman Catholic Church. Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot didn't kill their people because they were, themselves, atheists. They did it because they were power hungry ethically deficient mad men. And, Stalin was had seminary training.

None of the many secularists, skeptics and atheists that I have as friends are in the least like those tyrants. Rather, they are competent friendly men and women with high ethical standards.

Study the following sites. Which end of the OECD social justice scale shown in the NY Times table is the end where religion is most influential? It is the opposite to what you peddle. The study by a German research group is at the first site and the chart prepared by the New York Times, based on the study results, is at the second address.

http://www.sgi-network.org/pdf/SGI11_Social_Justice_OECD.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
Posted by Foyle, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 6:24:15 PM
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@Runner: Stalin believed in Stalin. Mao believed in Mao. Neither of them were in close touch with reality and reason. And the massacres they brought about were not done in the name of atheism, but for the greater glory of Communism -- an ideology just as daft as that of any fundamentalist church.

As for 'the bubs in the womb' -- they're not 'bubs', are they? Not really, no matter how much you like to pretend they are, any more than acorns are oak trees. If a ten-week-old foetus was dropped in your lap -- blind, mute, mindless, about the size of a peanut, and squirming around in an amniotic sac -- I'm willing to bet that you'd recoil in horror and dismay at the damage to your trousers. But they can't speak, and they can't hear, and they certainly can't respond, so there's no point asking them anything, is there?
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 7:41:23 PM
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Gee, it's not so nice when the shoe's on the other foot is it?

History can tell us much.
Posted by wobbles, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 7:50:43 PM
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Ban the control of all religious beliefs from Imans, the clergy, mosques and churchs etc. Let a person’s faith be a personal thing between them and God or whatever they believe in.

When Imans, priests etc. control what millions of people believe & do then there is bound to be conflict in a country sooner or later between the government who should be in control and the clergy who are in opposing control of half the population or more.Why do people need to be led by the noses by men dressed in silly religious robes or whatever.

Have the guts to have your own relationship with a so called God if you must, but don’t blindly follow men dressed in robes with no more brains than a lump of wood in a lot of cases.

They even control your lives in the bedroom by not allowing contraception to be freely available. The Pope still declares
contraception to be a sin even in the face of certain death from aids and other transmitted diseases. Why should anyone tell anyone else
how many children they should have or what they should do in the bedroom.

Stop needing to be told what to do. Stand on your own two feet and take responsibility. Surely anyone with any common sense knows right from wrong without needing to be told by someone else.
Posted by CHERFUL, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 8:00:54 PM
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The author does make one good point: in general, it's not those Christians who are persecuted who go around persecuting others. For one thing, they don't have the power to.

Moreover, we should have the simple human decency to speak out against injustice, no matter who it's committed against, and no matter what group the victims represent.

It's not persecution of Christians per se that's so very wrong: it's persecution, period.
Posted by Zoe Brain, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 10:51:56 PM
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'As for 'the bubs in the womb' -- they're not 'bubs', are they? Not really, no matter how much you like to pretend they are, '

no JonJ just like the Nazis denied Jews being human so abortionist twist science and language in redefining what suites their lifestyles.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 11:22:54 PM
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This is obviously a very unfortunate situation.

Lets get one thing clear. Jesus was never ever in any sense a Christian - he was always and only a Jew, as were his direct disciples and those who associated with him, both male and female.

Nor did Jesus found even a minute smidgen of the religion about him, namely Christian-ISM. All of which was created by others, none of whom ever met Jesus up close and personal in a living-breathing-feeling human form. Jesus certainly could not have created any of the "death & resurrection" nonsense which became the centre-pole of the Christian delusion. Corpses are incapable of creating anything.

All of the contents of the above paragraph should be completely obvious to any sane person who has done their homework in 2012. Including any and every one who is deeply religious and Spiritual.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 7:09:03 AM
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@Runner,

Explain to me how an amorphous peanut-sized blob of flesh with a brain the size of a lentil that looks more like a pink Martian than a human being is a 'bub'; then we'll debate about who's 'twisting language'.
Posted by Jon J, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 8:02:17 AM
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Jon J

Just let science improve your search for truth instead of confirming your dogma. Microscopes show quite well what a little person looks like. Stop falling for the deceitful textbooks always trying to dehumanise humans in order to justify man's barbarity (such as abortion).
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 2:47:04 PM
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>>Microscopes show quite well what a little person looks like.<<

What? A ten-week-old fetus would be visible to the naked eye. Why are we breaking out the microscopes? And how do you plan to get your little people on the slides?

Maybe you're thinking of homunculi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preformationism

Cheers,

Tony
Posted by Tony Lavis, Wednesday, 19 December 2012 4:32:59 PM
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Oh Runner, what a load of drivel!
We have nothing in common with Stalin or Mao, yet the two children we produced have grown into fine men, and one of them is a devout Christian. The other can't make up his mind, but both of them were given free choice to choose their own paths, and strangely enough, have never asked us what we have chosen to believe or disbelieve. Maybe having good parents was enough to satisfy them.

I am sure that being either Christian or aethist, or any other faith does not automatically qualify a person to be good or bad as your post suggests.
Posted by worldwatcher, Friday, 21 December 2012 1:37:59 AM
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Cherful,
Regarding control in the bedroom by clergy who have taken a vow of abstinence. To go forth and procreate, which they promote, means more future clients for their faith. Hence more money in their coffers.

Who needs a celibate man to tell us to go do what we already enjoy doing anyway?
Posted by worldwatcher, Friday, 21 December 2012 2:02:35 AM
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Babette,

Thanks so much for starting this thread. Jesus told his followers that 'if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you' (John 15:18).

Overnight I received news from the Barnabas Fund of the persecution of Christians in Syria. Some of this information was in an editorial:

As the crisis in Syria appears to be reaching a critical phase, Barnabas Fund has charted the suffering of the Christian community in a categorised timeline to show how targeted violence against them has intensified. Will the international community take note of their plight before it is too late?

Our timeline, which begins in April 2011 as violent “Arab Spring” protests were spreading through the country, has been compiled using a combination of media reports and first-hand information from our contacts in Syria. To protect our sources, we have not been able to name many of the victims.

The timeline reveals how anti-Christian hostility has become more and more brazen as the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad has gained strength, with Islamist jihadi groups playing an increasingly influential role among the rebels.

In the early days of the unrest, Christians, who have been well treated under President Assad and are therefore more inclined to support his regime, came under pressure to join the uprising. Demonstrations in Homs, which was to become a key battleground, were staged in Christian areas to intimidate the Christian residents, while elsewhere, in Hala, Christians were given an ultimatum either to join the protests or to leave.

It was not long before intimidation turned into violent attacks. The Christian community in Homs was beset by a spate of kidnappings and killings. In November 2011, a respected Christian figure reported that more than 140 Christians in the city had been murdered. The violence has continued unabated and spread to other parts of the country. The Christian death toll from Homs has risen to around 300 while in Aleppo, over 130 Christians have been killed.
Posted by OzSpen, Saturday, 22 December 2012 7:14:47 AM
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Isn't it interesting ?
In all countries of the world there are problems with moslems.
They seem unable to live and let live.
They do not have tolerance of other religions, despite their insisting
that they do.
Even here they put up a webpage saying it was a sin to wish anyone
Merry Christmas. It was quickly taken down when a fuss was made but
if nothing had been said I suspect it would still be there.

Now they are at the heart of criminal activity in Sydney and are
running protection rakets and stolen car rackets.
They haven't shot up Lakemba Police Station recently you others in
other states may be interested to learn.
Perhaps the Police should let them go they might wipe each other out
if we are lucky. There is reputed to be a war in the making for 2013.
The younger shaven head ratbags are wanting to remove the older generation.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 24 December 2012 2:20:33 PM
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Is it a religion or a way of barbaric life.
Posted by 579, Monday, 24 December 2012 2:41:33 PM
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