International Affairs: December 2015 Archives
Nina Shea writes of the thousands of Christians being murdered in the Middle East by ISIS. Pray for these martyrs, and pray that the Gospel of Christ will work powerfully in the region for the salvation of millions. Pray that the rest of the world will wake up to this genocide and put an end to it.
On October 1, the grim details emerged of twelve other Christians murdered, this time explicitly for refusing to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Christian Aid Mission of Charlottesville, Va., received eyewitness reports from relatives of the victims that, outside Aleppo on August 28, ISIS militants crucified a twelve-year old Christian boy and his Syrian missionary father, along with two other men with the ministry. "All were badly brutalized and then crucified," the Protestant ministry director said. The boy had his fingertips cut off, in an attempt to force his father to convert to Islam. Their bodies were left hanging on the crosses for two days, under signs reading "infidels."In a separate incident on the same day, ISIS militants publicly raped two Christian women, ages 29 and 33, in front of a crowd summoned by the jihadis, and then beheaded them, along with six men, when they refused to convert to Islam. "Villagers said some were praying in the name of Jesus, others said some were praying the Lord's prayer, and others said some of them lifted their heads to commend their spirits to Jesus," the ministry director, who had baptized some of the victims, said. According to the witnesses, "One of the women looked up and seemed to be almost smiling as she said, 'Jesus!'" Their bodies were then crucified.
Here's a sad tale about how anti-ISIS activists in the group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) view America under President Obama.
The members of R.B.S.S. are utterly frustrated with the efforts of the West to defeat both Assad, who has fended off the opposition so far, and ISIS, which has suffered recent losses in Iraq and Syria, but which has proved capable of exacting suffering from Sinai to Beirut to Paris."The problem the Syrian people have with the United States is that we are suffering for five years with barrel bombs," one R.B.S.S. journalist said. "Assad has killed so many innocents, and many people have lost hope. After Assad's chemical attack, when he crossed the so-called 'red line,' the U.S. just took the weapons. It made America look like a liar and weak.
We look that way because of President Obama.
President Obama wants more restrictions on gun ownership, and apparently he's willing to deceive people to get his way. He says that America has more mass shootings than other developed countries, but he completely neglects to account for our vastly larger population.
Let's look at mass public shootings from 2009 to the middle of June this year. To compare fairly with American shootings, I excluded attacks that might be better classified as struggles over sovereignty. For instance, I did not count the 22 people killed in the Macedonian town of Kumanovo last month.Norway had the highest annual death rate, with two mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Macedonia had a rate of 0.38, Serbia 0.28, Slovakia 0.20, Finland 0.14, Belgium 0.14 and the Czech Republic 0.13. The U.S. comes in eighth with 0.095 mass public shooting fatalities per million people. Austria and Switzerland are close behind.
In terms of the frequency of attacks, the U.S. ranks ninth, with 0.09 attacks per million people. Macedonia, Serbia, Switzerland, Norway, Slovakia, Finland, Belgium and the Czech Republic all had higher rates.
It's not politically correct to say it, but Christians are the most persecuted group in the world. Kudos to European Parliament President Martin Schulz for calling attention to the plight of Christians around the world.
In Wednesday's meeting, EP President Martin Schulz said that the persecution of Christians is "undervalued" and does not receive enough attention, which has also meant that it "hasn't been properly addressed."Schulz's concerns were echoed by EP Vice President Antonio Tajani, who warned that Europe sometimes "falls into the temptation of thinking we can ignore this task," referring to the protection Christians throughout the world who suffer persecution.
Speakers cited the work of Open Doors, a human rights organization that monitors the persecution of Christians, noting that 150 million Christians worldwide suffer torture, rape and arbitrary imprisonment. Christians in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Nigeria are among those hardest hit.
Jesus faced persecution to the point of death, and warned that his followers would also. Pray for safety and grace for persecuted believers, and pray that the gospel will be advanced by their suffering.
John 15:18-2518 "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.'"
