The World-Wide Persecution of Christians by Mrs Vera West

A very good article by Greg Sheridan (“Western Media Shuts its Eyes to Persecution of Christians,” The Weekend Australian, August 6–7, 2016, p. 21), needs to be noted.

Sheridan quotes research by the Pew Research Centre, which states that Christians are the most persecuted minority in the world, being persecuted in 108 countries in 2014. The worst offender is the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and by Boko Haram in Nigeria. In Iraq, for example, the Islamic State systematically killed Christians, primarily males, and subjected the women to sexual slavery. There was once 1.5 million Christians in Iraq, but only 10 percent of that figure are there now. This is only one part of a trend to drive Christians out of the Middle East by “severe harassment and discrimination.” One hundred years ago there were about one in seven people in the Middle East Christian, but that figure is now less than one in 25 and falling, fast.

Harassment and persecution of Christians continues in China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. In Indonesia Christian churches are often burned and the state forbids the building of new Christian churches.

Sheridan observes that in Australia the Christian churches are placed in the villain category by the Left/ABC. He cites the example, of an anti-discrimination complaint being made against the Catholic Archbishop of Hobart, for a pamphlet defending the traditional view of marriage, but there was no parallel complaint made against a senior Islamic imam who supported “the death penalty for public acts of homosexuality in Muslim societies.” Sheridan concludes:
“It looks as though the gay lobby has decided that Muslims are fellow inhabitants of the victim category and therefore cannot be criticised, but Christians are part of the oppressor category and therefore must be criticised in all cases.”

One would have thought that with eternity at stake, and recognising the brevity and wretchedness of life, in a world of original sin, as  Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) well expressed it in his Pensées, Christians would have been putting up more of a fight. Or, any fight at all. But all is quiet in the Church, and not even the sounds of mice-men’s tiny feet scampering on the dusty floor boards, can be heard.