QUARANTINE BLOG # 419

May 23, 2021

Silence Deep as Death

“We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated. We do not know what to do, but we do not give up the hope of living. We are persecuted, but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but we are not destroyed. We carry the death of Jesus in our own bodies so that the life of Jesus can also be seen in our bodies. We are alive, but for Jesus we are always in danger of death so that the life of Jesus can be seen in our bodies that die.”

That paragraph, from the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth (4:8-11), could have been printed this morning.

Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world today. Their faith is justification for torture, their beliefs are reason for imprisonment, their trust in Jesus of Nazareth is the basis for a death sentence. It is estimated that 150 million Christians were killed in 20th century, more than the previous 19 centuries combined.

A U.S. State Department report details persecution of Christians in 78 countries.

The worst offender is the radical Islamist government of the Sudan. A jihad, a holy war, has seen more than a million die. Its focus (and this is verified in a separate United Nations report) are Christians who refuse to convert to Islam. In a region plagued by famine and sickness, food and medicine are denied to Christians. Christian children are sold into slavery – a fact documented by both the State Department and the U.N. Enslaved Christian children – as young as six-years-old – provide expendable labor, or are used as concubines. If they escape and are recaptured, they are beaten and branded.

In China more than 80 percent of all Christians are not legally allowed to meet in buildings or private homes. They are not allowed to evangelize openly. Amnesty International reports that, “Unregistered churches have been under increased government pressure and Christians have been arbitrarily detained, beaten or fined by police.” And all the while China maintains Most Favored Nation status, while for the sake of maintaining lucrative business connections, America looks the other way.

Freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia. The Los Angeles Times reports that Christians are arrested for praying in the privacy of their own homes.

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2020 report, Christians in Burma, China, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Vietnam are persecuted. These countries are labeled “countries of particular concern” by the United States Department of State, because of their governments’ engagement in, or toleration of, “severe violations of religious freedom.” The same report recommends that Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, the Central African Republic, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sudan, and Turkey constitute the US State Department’s “special watchlist” of countries in which the government allows or engages in “severe violations of religious freedom.”  

I could find nowhere any evidence that any of the nations who had been labeled “countries of particular concern” or put on a “special watchlist” had ever been sanctioned or otherwise punished by the United States.

In this nation, the most prosperous, most prominent “Christian nation” in the world, there is virtual silence. We do business as usual with governments that murder and torture pastors, burn church buildings, and assault female worshipers. Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute think tank, a leading spokesman against the persecution of Christians, and a Jew, says Christians “are the scape goats of choice” of tyrannical regimes around the world.

In 1997, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa) introduced legislation to establish a White House office to monitor religious persecution. The office would impose automatic trade, economic and political sanctions on nations found to violate religious rights (emphasis mine.) It passed the House but was never acted on by the Senate.

Every year there is an International Day of Prayer for persecuted Christians. We must pray. And we must also remember that faith, without works, is dead. A national policy based on morality, not money, would be a giant leap in the right direction. Have we forgotten that constant pressure by America in support of Soviet Jews was one of the hammers which brought down the Iron Curtain? Silence is not always golden, sometimes it is just plain yellow.

“I was sick and in prison and you visited me not,” Jesus said.

“When did we see you in prison?” the unbelievers asked.

“Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me.”

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