C. Aaron Russell's Blog, page 9

Israel ‘called out’ over persecution of Christians

 

Christian Persecution in ‘Hostile’ Israel Highlighted by Evangelical Group; ‘Some May Disagree and Even Take Offense,’ Says Nonprofit

BY NICOLA MENZIE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

Barry Barnett of Jews for Jesus was recently arrested by Israeli authorities and deported for missionary activity (story @ Morning Star News)

The Voice of the Martyrs, a Christian nonprofit that highlights the persecution of Christians worldwide, has drawn its attention this month to the hostilities faced by Christians in the Holy Land, and acknowledges that some might find its “position of highlighting Israel as a hostile nation” disagreeable and offensive.

“There’s no persecution in the Holy Land … unless you share your faith,” reads the quote on the cover of The Voice of the Martyr’s February 2014 newsletter. The quote is attributed to Steven Khoury, an Arab Israeli Christian who pastors churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Pastor Khoury has spoken in the media of witnessing church members being attacked because of their faith, and of losing an uncle who was martyred.

The Voice of the Martyrs, founded in 1967 by a Jewish couple, lists Israel on its “restricted nations” map as a “hostile nation.”

The Oklahoma-based nonprofit writes of the February issue’s cover story in a Facebook post”

Christian bookstores are filled with publications on Israel — on topics ranging from the nation’s rich history to biblical prophecy and the end times. Discussions of Israel reveal varying opinions and even controversies. But rarely will you read or hear a discussion about Israel being hostile toward the followers of Christ who live there. That statement itself may evoke strong opinions.

Many Christians in Israel today live free of persecution. But those who share their faith and witness on the frontlines of the nation’s spiritual battleground face an altogether different experience. Rami Ayyad, manager of a Bible Society book store in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped and killed because of his witness for Christ.

While most persecution against Christians in the Holy Land is at the hands of radical Muslims, believers are also persecuted by anti-missionary Jewish activists. The activists sometimes spray graffiti on Christian churches in what are called “price tag attacks” (exacting a price on anything that seems to threaten Jewish sovereignty). A few months ago, they painted “Jesus is a monkey” on a church that is a major pilgrimage site for Christians…(continue reading at the Christian Post)

Toxic Church leaders: wolves among the flock

 

Toxic Leaders in Our Ranks



New Army research could inform how the church fosters healthier, godlier leadership.
Dorothy Greco, guest writer (Christianity Today)

Ten years ago, the United States Army decided to explore a previously forbidden subject: toxic leadership. What they learned could have far-reaching ramifications for their organization, but also for others, including the church.

It all started when then Brigadier General Pete Bayer sought to understand why nearly 30 soldiers stationed in Iraq committed or attempted suicide in 2009. After extensive interviews, researchers found that in each case, the victims served under a leader who classified as toxic. According to the Army’s manual, toxic leadership includes:

A combination of self-centered attitudes, motivations, and behaviors that have adverse effects on subordinates, the organization, and mission performance. This leader lacks concern for others and the climate of the organization, which leads to short- and long-term negative effects.

The toxic leader operates with an inflated sense of self-worth and from acute self-interest…. Prolonged use of negative leadership to influence followers undermines the followers’ will, initiative, and potential, and destroys unit morale.

This description contradicts the leadership modeled by Jesus and his disciples, which values servanthood, sacrifice, love, and concern for the followers’ future. While most religious leaders embody these godly qualities, more than a few of us have encountered ecclesiastical leaders who, according to the Army’s description, would be classified as toxic.

Obviously, the consequences of toxic leadership within the military are generally more costly than within the church; the worst church will never equate with the horrors of combat (sexual abuse by priests and pastors not withstanding). Furthermore, though Scripture commands us to be continually transformed into the image of Christ, not one of us will achieve perfection. As such, our expectations of what a leader should be need to adjust accordingly. That said, the Army’s willingness to admit that they have a leadership issue that needs to be addressed can embolden those of us in the church to learn how to recognize broken leaders in our own ranks. Our awareness might limit their influence before too much damage is done.

A common characteristic of toxic leaders is their tendency to hoard power and shun accountability…(continue reading at Christianity Today)

U.N. demands Vatican turn child sex abusing priests over to police

Scathing U.N. report demands Vatican act against child sex abuse

By Stephanie Nebehay and Philip Pullella (Yahoo News)

GENEVA/VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The United Nations demanded that the Vatican “immediately remove” all clergy who are known or suspected child abusers and turn them over to civil authorities, in an unprecedented and scathing report on Wednesday.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said church officials had imposed a “code of silence” on clerics to prevent them reporting attacks to police, and moved abusers from parish to parish “in an attempt to cover up such crimes”.

It said the Holy See must hand over an archive of evidence about the abuse of tens of thousands of children, and take measures to prevent a repeat of cases such as the scandal of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries, where girls were forced to work in church-run institutions.

The Vatican responded quickly, saying the Roman Catholic Church was committed to “defending and protecting the rights of the child” and promising to give the U.N. report “thorough study and examination”…(continue reading Yahoo! News)

Afghanistan President Karzai declares war of words against U.S.

 

Hamid Karzai: ‘I saw no good’ with America’s presence in Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, admits that he has not spoken to Barack Obama in seven months as he reveals the complete breakdown of trust between his country and the United States

By Harriet Alexander (The Telegraph)

The president of Afghanistan has not spoken to his American counterpart since June, he said, in an interview which showed the increasing gulf between Kabul and Washington.

Hamid Karzai, 56, has grown increasingly hostile towards Barack Obama as Afghanistan prepares to elect a new president in April. Mr Karzai will not stand again, but he is determined to emphasise his disagreements with the United States before he steps down.

“This whole 12 years was one of constant pleading with America to treat the lives of our civilians as lives of people,” he said, adding that he had not spoken to Mr Obama since June.

“We met in South Africa [at Mandela's funeral] but didn’t speak. Letters have been exchanged.”

Mr Karzai said that he “saw no good” in the American presence in his country…(continue reading at The Telegraph)

The Spiritual State of the Union

by Gary Cass

Every year the President of the Unites States gives a report on the State of the Union. While it’s good to take stock of the condition of our nation, the glaring problem of the President’s address is that it misses the important truth about the real issues we face and their root causes.

Political correctness and secularism has eviscerated our ability to speak the truth and address the real moral issues of our day. But, with God’s help, we will not succumb to those temptations today. Too much is at stake to trifle with the future of our nation, the church and the souls of man to pander and obfuscate.

America has many serious problems. Dr. D. James Kennedy outlined these problems in his Spiritual State of the Nation message back in 2003. He included in his list the epidemic of drugs, alcoholism, and rampant abortion, sexual perversion of every kind, sexual promiscuity, and STDs. “The ‘spiritual state of the union’?” he asked. “If it were a patient, it probably would have been pronounced dead on arrival—frozen in ice—no spiritual pulse at all.”

Is that true?

This is what many think. Some even find reason to rejoice over it. But we must be careful to avoid two extremes. The first extreme would be to gloss over the real problems of our nation’s spiritual condition. The second extreme would be to over emphasize how bad it is. Let’s try to stick with just the facts.

ARE THERE TWO AMERICAS?

Disgraced philandering, politician John Edwards loved to wax on about two Americas, and in some ways there are two. The Red State – Blue State divide is very apparent, especially in Presidential elections being decided by very slim majorities in the electoral college.

While there remains a majority who believe in God and who have a positive view of faith, a small but militant minority is hell bent on destroying all vestiges of our Christian heritage. Marxist / Secularists have prosecuted their 100 year Cultural Jihad to infiltrate the media, education and politics, especially the courts, and impose their secular fundamentalism. The election and re-election of Barack Obama is sobering proof of their formidable influence. President Obama even told a group of Muslims in Cairo that America is not a Christian nation!

Liberals hate God, capitalism and the natural family and any institution, like the church, that supports them. But, after five years of the most left-leaning administration in our history, the wheels are coming off. The Obama Administration has jerked the reigns too hard.

Obama-care is a disaster. Prior to Obama-care’s passage, 90% of people were happy with their insurance. Rather than addressing the 10%, the Obama administration has blown up the whole system in an attempt to impose failed, socialistic healthcare on everyone. Now scandals, incompetence and deceit have taken their toll. 2014 will bring a huge course correction to the ship of state, and the Tea-Party movement, conservatives and “Tea-vangelicals” are poised to make significant electoral gains.

ALL IS NOT LOST

In spite of decades of atheistic propaganda being shoved down our throats, polls show that Americans have remained mostly spiritual:

87% of Americans believe in God.

78% of Americans see religion as either VERY or FAIRLY important in their life.

74% of Americans self-identify as Christians.

75% say it would be a positive thing if Americans were MORE religious.

79% believe the Bible is the literal or inspired Word of God.

This obviously doesn’t mean that 79% of Americans are all committed, born again Christians. Many are Chrinos – Christians in name only. But when pressed, a supermajority of Americans self-identify with what they think it means to be a Christian. This represents both a GREAT opportunity and a great challenge.

The Good News is the majority is not hostile to what they think constitutes the Christian faith, but they may have been inoculated, exposed to just enough to make them resistant to the real thing. They do not possess what they profess: they’ve not been transformed by faith in Christ, they do not know for sure if they have eternal life, and they’ve never shared their faith because they don’t have anything to share.

The Good News is over the last forty years the percentage of people who say they are born again or evangelicals has grown from the low 20 percentile to the mid forty percentile. But, this number has not changed in the last ten years, while the number of people who have no religious preference grew from 10% to 15%, a 50% increase.

AMERICA’S MORAL SCHIZOPHRENIA

There are two issues that demonstrate the thinking of the average American is morally adrift from the truth of God’s Word, the sanctity of both life and sexuality.

Sanctity of Life

David writes of God’s hand upon each life in Psalms 139:13-14, “You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.”

Note that the Psalmist knew “very well” that he was created by God through the miracle of procreation. People intuitively know the truth about life and it’s origin because man bears God’s image. The best and latest science agrees with God’s Word that life begins at conception. Taking innocent life, no matter how small, runs contrary to our conscience and the scriptures.

Because Americans know this deep down they are morally conflicted. But in the end they show their true colors and act very pragmatic about abortion. This is probably due to the fact that so many abortions have occurred.

Statistically a huge number of Americans have either participated in having an abortion or in helping or encouraging someone to get one, or they know someone who has. This renders them incapable of taking a strong, consistent stand for life. They have no moral standing so they don’t want to play the hypocrite. Nor do they or can they condemn abortion without risking rejection by someone they know.

Roe v. Wade’s Aftermath

In the forty-one years since the legalization of abortion in 1973 over 56 million babies have died through abortion. In 2013 there were approximately 1.2 million abortions, that’s 3,300 abortions daily or 137 abortions per hour every hour, or over one abortion every 30 seconds.

The conflict over abortion is reflected in a recent poll by Gallup. Their 2013 poll showed that 48% of those polled identify as pro-life and 45% identified as pro-choice, with pro-lifers trending stronger. Another 49% of those polled say abortion is generally morally wrong.

A clear majority of Americans are unable to commit to ending this atrocity. 52% say abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, 53% don’t want to see Roe Vs. Wade overturned, and 61% say abortion in the first trimester should be legal. Then 64% will say abortion in the second trimester should be illegal, and 80% say abortion in the third trimester should be illegal.

This is clearly morally and rationally indefensible. Why does the baby some how acquire the right to life in the second and third trimester?

There is a great opportunity to bring truth to the conscience IF we will have the love and courage to save babies and warn sinners.

The Good News

Operation Rescue has concluded an exhaustive survey of abortion clinics in the United States. It has documented a record number of abortion clinic closures in 2013. 87 surgical abortion clinics halted abortions. This represents an impressive 12% net decrease in surgical abortion clinics in 2013 alone. The total number of surgical abortion clinics left in the U.S. is now 582, a 73% drop from a high in 1991 of 2,176.

While the rate of abortion is declining, even just ONE abortion is one too many.

Sanctity of Sexuality

Hebrews 13:4 says “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” God did not wear a flower in His hair and attend the “Summer of Love” in San Francisco in 1968. In fact He wasn’t invited. If He did come, it would have been to remind them that sexuality belongs in marriage between a man and a woman.

Americans are conflicted because they know that sexual immorality is wrong, but they either engage in illicit sexual activity or the know people who do so, so they don’t want to stand up against it. Homosexual activists have waged a cunning PR campaign, aided by the liberal media, using junk science, posing as victims and wrapping themselves in the civil rights movement.

So, how’s the sexual revolution working for America? According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2011 there was the largest number of cases of Chlamydia ever reported, a total of 1,412,791. The rate of new gonorrhea cases rose 4 percent in 2012 from the year before, while syphilis jumped 11 percent, mostly in men who have sex with men. The rate of HIV increased 22% among homosexuals ages 13 to 24 from 2008 to 2010.

And we still have the audacity to think we can redefine marriage and the natural family. 64% of Americans think homosexual relationships should be legal and 54% say homosexual marriage ought to be legal.

The truth is that as the family goes, so goes the nation. According to the World Bank, there is a correspondence between a nation’s faith and its birth rate. Nations with the largest proportions of unbelievers had an average annual population growth rate of just 0.7% in the period 1975-97. Populations of the most religious countries grew three times as fast.

If you have a high view of children as a blessing and an optimistic faith then you are inclined to have children. Still, evangelicals are not immune to lower birth rates because many don’t have a biblical worldview, they see children as burdens, not blessings, liabilities not assets.

The fertility rate in the US fell to a record low for the second year in a row in 2012. The fertility rate is only 63 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. 41% of those babies were born to unmarried mothers.

CHRISTIANS ARE ENGAGING

But there are signs of hope, flowers peaking up though the bleak spiritual landscape. For example, in the United States government, in 1990, we were told that there were five recognizable evangelical born-again Christians in the House of Representatives. By 2013 they were estimated it to be about well over 100 and rising.

The Tea Party caucus in Congress is even more evangelical than the rest of the House. 75% are evangelical or mainline southern Protestants. Over twice as many express their faith publically as non-Tea Party Representatives. Ted Cruz is a shining example of a Tea Party Evangelical with moral courage.

Movies and Television

Hollywood is a vacuous wasteland of immorality. Sunday’s Grammys is a prime example.

Virtually all the outspoken stars and starlets of pop culture are liberal. Conservative musicians, actors and directors are either very few or are deep undercover to protect their careers. There’s no need to innumerate all the crazy and wicked things they produce and the garbage they pump into our living rooms.

But there are also bright spots. Conservative FOX News Channel consistently out-performs their liberal competition. The recent miniseries, “The Bible,” drew 27 million viewers, a record for the History Channel. Viewership of Duck Dynasty, with its overt Christian family values that ends each episode with a prayer, has the highest ratings in Cable TV history. Even the “gay-stopo” could not force the patriarch of the Robertson family, Phil Robertson, off the air when he made clear his biblical opposition to homosexuality.

More and more Christians are entering into making independent movies that are getting good responses. ABC news recently reported that Hollywood is turning to the Bible in search of hits. Box office results consistently show the most profitable films are generally those that support Christian values.

Education

We can all agree that public schooling is on the wrong track. The Intelligencer reported this month international testing has United States students performing poorly. In 2012, students from 65 countries participated in an assessment. The U.S. rankings in science, math and reading have slumped from 2009. The U.S. was 36th in math, 28th in science and 24th in reading. One of the rising stars included Vietnam, which came in at eighth in science.

The brightest spot in American education comes from homeschoolers, who are largely Christians. Over twenty-five years of testing has shown that the average home-schooler continues to be over 30 percentile points higher than their public school counterparts.

Christian private schools, especially the classical education movement, are reforming the way we teach children. Other schools will have to reform or die.

Jesus warned anything not built on His Word will fail. Public education is imploding because it is at war with Christ.

Evolution

For the last two generations students from kindergarten through graduate school have been constantly inculcated with the atheistic, humanistic, materialistic view of evolution. This is poisonous fountain from which flows humanism in all its Anti-Christian forms; Communism; Fascism, Relativism. But the evidence from science against evolution is mounting.

Darwin’s theory that life started from simple forms and evolved into more complex forms is being refuted almost daily. The more we know, the more see even that even the simplest forms of life are irreducibly complex and filled with millions of bits of complex genetic code. Did you know the human body has approximately 60 billion bits of intricate genetic information, at least that until recently, it might be as high as 120 billion bits.

Time Magazine recently reported a research team at the University of Washington has discovered a second code hidden within our DNA written on top of the other. The first code describes how proteins are made, the second language instructs the cell on how genes are to be controlled. Do you think further research will find there to be more or less complexity?

Stephan Hawkin, one of the famous “new atheists,” concludes; “The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications.”

It’s a good thing the religion of evolution has been protected by the courts. If it had to stand on its own merits it collapses like a house of cards. It has done incalculable harm, but its days are numbered as a serious scientific theory.

Encroaching Islam

1400 years ago Mohammed declared Jihad on the world. Now we are watching them wage it against us, and thousands of Americans have been killed in the process.

Our politically correct élite will not even admit that we are fighting Islamic jihad. Both political parties take Saudi petro dollars and extend an olive branch to the Muslim Brotherhood who have established mosques in all our cities. They tell boldly tell us Jihad is their desire and dying for Allah is their dream. Our problem is we think we can reason with them.

If we are nice to them they will be nice to us? Right. Infidel, you are a fool. The only reason they use terrorism and have not waged open violent jihad is because they can’t. At the rate they are growing they will.

How can we know? 1400 years of history tells us they always have.

Fortunately there are Christians soldiers who are wise to Islam and their tactics, like our good brother Alan West. We have defeated Islam in the past, should the Lord tarry, we will have to do it again. Christians, you should have lots of sons, buy them guns, teach them the biblical doctrines of self-defense and just war along with the manly art of war.

THE CHRISTIAN’S HOPE

We could consider many other particulars problems in the United States, for they are legion. But, in the end they all boil down to just one, the ancient problem of sin and unbelief.

The good news is God has provided the solution for both! We have the only real solution: The Gospel of Jesus Christ and submission to His Word.

There are three patriotic things we can need to do to end the secularization of America:

First, pray! Pray for God to send a Third Great Awakening to America that will transform America back to a God fearing nation and end abortion.

Second, act. This year make it your goal to lead someone to Jesus Christ. They will be saved from their sin and Hell and, by the Holy Spirit’s work, they will grow in grace and righteousness and support a biblical worldview.

Third, make it your goal to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ and to think God’s thoughts after Him as you take every though captive and obedient to Christ. Then join in advancing the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ and His dominion as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.”

Our hope is the patience and long suffering of God. If God would spare wicked Sodom for the sake of ten righteous, pray God spares America for the sake of millions that have not bowed their knee to the Baals of this world. In the meantime the blood of the innocents cries out from the ground for justice. May God have mercy on America.

Gary Cass is president and CEO of DefendChristians.org.

A nation growing deaf to the cries of the poor (Video)

 

A nation growing deaf to the cries of the poor

C. Aaron Russell

Sherilyn Hurdle with sons Christian (left) and Blake (right)

In one of the world’s wealthiest nations, with the best trained physicians and well equipped healthcare facilities available anywhere, would doctors and hospitals really refuse to save a person with a life threatening condition? Aren’t there social programs such as Medicaid, and government hospitals designed to treat the poor, suffering and in need, that can’t afford private care? How much is the Church doing to help? Are Christian institutions (churches and denominational hospitals) spending much of its budget on mercy projects, or is almost all of it reserved for bigger salaries, buildings and stained glass windows?

It’s a shameful secret in the U.S. that’s been a reality for some time, long before Obamacare, which is proving to be no help either and a bureaucratic nightmare, that the sick and poor in America are often ignored. The government healthcare policy for the needy has largely been “out of sight, out of mind” as many that enter hospitals with serious medical conditions, needing treatment and surgery, are given a few pain killers and sent on their way to suffer or die in anonymity.

The division between ‘Healthcare’ and ‘Wealthcare’ is widening and more apparent than ever. Only those with costly medical insurance or available means are able to seek treatment and care, and given respect, dignity and compassion in the process. There are many with much in this life that can’t or won’t identify with those in need, preferring to stereotype and label the poor as lazy, abusing the system, or self-responsible for their plight and reaping what they sow.

It’s a convenient doctrine, to believe that those who are blessed, are so because they deserve it by creating their own good fortune through the strength of their own hands, intelligence and worthy deeds. Meanwhile, the indigent must have done something wrong or be unwilling to help themselves, to be in such a desperate position. Scripture teaches the sun rises on both the evil and the good, and it rains on the just and unjust (Matt. 5:45). If we ignore the suffering, or begin to think of the needy, the elderly, widows and orphans as burdens, that are not the responsibility of the rest of society to be cared for, then we as individuals and a nation will be reminded in our own time of need;

“Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, will also cry himself and not be heard” (Proverbs 21:13).

C. Aaron Russell — author of Lessons In Faith—learned the hard way.

Harassment of Christian students on the rise, but not from other students

Legal Group Reports ‘Dramatic Increase’ in Hostility Toward Christian Students in Public Schools (Christian News Network)

By: Heather Clark

MURRIETA, Calif. – A California-based legal organization is reporting a marked increase in hostility toward Christian students in public schools.

“We have seen a dramatic increase of phone calls nationwide as it pertains to kids in public schools who are facing hostility because of their faith,” General Counsel Bob Tyler of Advocates for Faith and Freedom told Christian News Network.

But Tyler said that the upswing in incident reports do not pertain to bullying from other students, but rather mistreatment by school officials.

“[The reports all surround] hostility from teachers and school administrators who are curtailing the students’ free speech rights simply because they’re Christians and they might express a Christian worldview,” he stated…(continue reading at Christian News Network)

The Book Thief: a story of faith overcoming fear

 

The Book Thief: Being Human in the Midst of Inhumanity

A World War II film with an unexpected theme

Jen Pollock Michel (Christianity Today)

“I’m always finding humans at their best and their worst,” concludes Death, narrator of the new film, The Book Thief, “I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.”

“I am haunted by humans.”

The Oscar-nominated film The Book Thief is indeed a haunting look at humanity, although an unexpected one for a World War II film.

The film opens in 1938 as a train barrels across Nazi Germany. Liesel Meminger and her brother are soon to be settled in a foster home. Liesel hums a lullaby, and next to her, her mother holds her younger brother’s listless body. Suddenly, he is glassy-eyed. “Mama!”

“It’s not what you call a soft opening, to meet this 10-year-old girl whose 6-year-old brother dies on page one,” says Geoffrey Rush, who plays the role of Liesel’s foster father, Hans Hubermann. “Then in the next scene, her mother’s a Communist and gets taken away. I can’t think of many films that start with a 10-year-old with a burden that’s comparable to Hamlet’s.”

Death, both as voice and violent reality, opens and closes the film. Nevertheless, some critics have called the adaptation too safe and sanitized. “The brute facts of the Second World War in Germany—Nazi oppression, hunger, people hiding in basements—have been turned into a pleasantly meaningless tale of good-heartedness,” writes Brian Denby of The New Yorker.

It’s true that The Book Thief is better on page. As a screenplay adapted from Markus Zusak’s 2007 novel, it would have benefitted from more judicious narrative selection. Some characters and plotlines remain woefully underdeveloped, and Death, as narrator, lacks the credibility it had in the book.

But despite the flaws and the film’s occasional sentimental lapse, The Book Thief is hardly meaningless. It powerfully portrays one dimension of the Christian story: the glory of humanity…(continue reading at Christianity Today)

Evangelical influence on U.S. foreign relations

The Foreign Policy Mission of American Evangelicals

Mark Amstutz looks at their longstanding involvement with issues like global poverty, sex trafficking, and religious persecution.

Interview by Timothy C. Morgan (Christianity Today)

Buy new book at Amazon

The American public often associates evangelicals with domestic political fights over abortion and same-sex marriage. But historically, they have been no less active in shaping events on distant shores. In Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press), Mark R. Amstutz, a political scientist at Wheaton College, analyzes evangelicals’ long-standing engagement on global poverty, human trafficking, international religious freedom, and Israeli statehood. CT senior editor for global journalism Timothy C. Morgan spoke with Amstutz about the motivating factors behind evangelicals’ engagement in foreign affairs.

What have you discovered about evangelical global engagement?

Churches, nongovernmental organizations, lay leaders, and missionaries have played an important part in the United States’ role in the world. Beyond preaching the Good News, missionaries built schools, established clinics, and learned about the world. They were really the first internationalists for the United States. Diplomats like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams went abroad, but it was really evangelicals—orthodox missionaries—who started it.

In the post–World War II era, we’ve seen a significant rise in missions-related organizations, groups like World Vision or, in the field of microenterprise, Opportunity International. Humanitarianism has been a very important component of evangelical action in foreign lands.

What this shows is that evangelism abroad hasn’t always been propositional. Evangelical diplomats, businessmen, and physicians want to share the Good

News in places where missionaries aren’t allowed, but the sharing of that Good News takes subtle forms…(continue reading at Christianity Today)

Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution

 

by Raymond Ibrahim

Prominent indicators confirm that the U.S. is the chief facilitator of the persecution of Christians around the world today.

According to the recently released 2014 World Watch List, which ranks the 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted, Syria is the third worst nation in the world in which to be Christian, Iraq is fourth, Afghanistan fifth, and Libya 13th. All four countries receive the strongest designation, “extreme persecution” (other designations are “severe,” “moderate,” and “sparse” persecution).

Sen. John McCain meets with “Syrian rebels,” many of whom are not Syrian, and one of which is a known kidnapper (L – Muhammad Nour)

Aside from being so closely and harshly ranked, these four nations have something else in common: heavy U.S. involvement. Three—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya—were “liberated” thanks to U.S. forces, while in the fourth, Syria, the U.S. is actively sponsoring “freedom fighters” against the regime, many of whom would be better labeled “terrorists.”

The Syrian situation alone indicts U.S. foreign policy. According to Reuters:

Open Doors, a non-denominational group supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, said on Wednesday it had documented 2,123 “martyr” killings, compared with 1,201 in 2012. There were 1,213 such deaths in Syria alone last year, it said. “This is a very minimal count based on what has been reported in the media and we can confirm,” said Frans Veerman, head of research for Open Doors. Estimates by other Christian groups put the annual figure as high as 8,000.

While most Americans are shielded from the true nature of the war by the U.S. media’s reluctance to report on it, Arabic media, websites, and activists daily report and document atrocity after atrocity—beheadings and bombed churches, Christians slaughtered for refusing to convert to Islam, and countless abducted for ransom or rape—at the hands of those whom the U.S. supports.

It’s enough to point out that “the largest massacre of Christians in Syria,” to quote a top religious leader, was left wholly unreported by any major U.S. news network.

At any rate, the statistics speak for themselves: Syria, which used to be religiously tolerant, is now, in the context of the United States’ trying to bring “democracy” to it, the third worst country in the world in terms of “extreme persecution” of Christians.

The Blaze reports that Dr. David Curry, president of Open Doors,

charged that the Obama administration has essentially declined to make the protection of religious minorities a priority . . . “There are many instances where the vacuum of leadership and spokesmanship has created a real problem,” said the human rights leader. “I would say that every significant data point on this year’s ‘2014 Watch List’ is worse—and I think a factor in it is a lack of leadership from Western governments including . . . the U.S. in terms of religious freedom.”

But it’s worse than that. Far from taking any action or providing leadership—or simply ceasing to support the terrorists responsible—the Obama administration recently tried to go to war with Syria on behalf of the “freedom fighters,” amazingly, in the name of “human rights” (Apparently the unsubstantiated rumor that Assad massacred people is enough for the U.S. to go to war, but the ongoing and well-documented massacres of Christians and other civilians at the hands of the opposition is not enough for the U.S. to stop supporting them.)

What’s worse, even the most misinformed mainstream-media-watching American today knows that the so-called “Arab Spring,” which was hailed to justify U.S. support for “rebels” of all stripes—in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood (which months ago destroyed some 80 churches); in Libya, al-Qaeda, which has turned Benghazi into a terror zone; and now the “freedom fighters” in Syria—is not what it was touted to be.

In other words, at this point, whenever the U.S. intervenes in an Islamic nation, Islamists come to power. This is well demonstrated by the other three nations to which the U.S. brought “democracy” and where Christian minorities suffer “extreme persecution”:

Afghanistan: The supposedly “moderate” Karzai government installed by the U.S. upholds many of the draconian laws enforced by the Taliban—including the apostasy law, fiercely persecuting those who seek to convert to Christianity—and, in 2011, under U.S. auspices, it destroyed Afghanistan’s last Christian church.
Iraq: After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for graphic images). Christians have been terrorized into near-extinction, with well over half of them fleeing Iraq.
Libya: Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Qaddafi, Christians—including Americans—have indeed suffered extreme persecution. Churches have been bombed; Christians have been tortured and killed (including for refusing to convert); andnuns have been threatened.

Surely a common theme emerges here: Where the U.S. works to oust secular autocrats, the quality of life for Christians and other minorities takes a major nosedive. Under Saddam, Qaddafi, and Assad, Christians and their churches were largely protected.

Moreover, while George W. Bush was responsible for Afghanistan and Iraq, the argument can be made that, back then (2001 and 2003), this pattern of Islamic radicalization that erupts once autocrats are gone was less well known than it is today. There weren’t many precedents.

Conversely, the Obama administration has had both Afghanistan and Iraq to learn from—and yet still it supports Islamists and jihadis. But by now, what happens once they assume power—religious persecution, terror, oppression—is no longer a secret.

Incidentally, those who care little for the fate of Christians or other minorities in the Islamic world would do well to remember a simple truism: Wherever anti-Christian elements come to power, anti-American forces come to power. The two are synonymous.

Put differently, Muslim persecution of Christians is the litmus test of how radical an Islamic society has become. In all those Muslim nations that the U.S. has interfered in—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt (till the Egyptians revolted, to the chastisement of the U.S.), and now Syria—the increase of religious intolerance is a reflection of the empowerment of forces hostile to Western civilization.

I am often asked, “How can we help persecuted Christians?” At this point, one must respond: “How about starting with getting the U.S. government to stop being the chief facilitator of Christian persecution?” Altruism aside, it would be in the interests of all who value freedom, religious or otherwise—and especially their descendants.

 

RAYMOND IBRAHIM, a Middle East and Islam specialist, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. A widely published author, best known for The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007), he guest lectures at universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College, briefs governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual failures that dominate American discourse concerning Islam and the worsening plight of Egypt’s Christian Copts. Among other media, he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, CBN, and NPR.