Post by Daniel on Jan 10, 2017 20:17:41 GMT -5
The Jihadist War Against Christianity
By Wesley Smith
To hear President Obama and many other leftist luminaries talk, one might conclude that we have a real problem with Islamophobia. Following the attacks of 9/11, even then-President George Bush repeatedly stated that we were not at war with Islam in order to counter the potential for widespread fear and loathing of Muslims in western society. The repeated violent attacks by radical Islamic jihadists over the last fifteen years at home and abroad only served to further stoke the fears of a widespread backlash against all people of the Islamic faith. The fear that innocent, peace-loving Muslims would be singled out for reprisals influenced even various U.S. government agencies as they purged their training materials from even referencing “radical Islamic terrorism” or anything related to the radical religious ideology of jihad.
For anyone to single out a Muslim for persecution or attack based on their faith is absolutely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. While there may be a relative few who hold extreme positions against all people of the Islamic faith—in fact, the feared widespread plague of Islamophobia simply hasn’t materialized. While the instances in which Muslims are harassed for their faith or mosques are vandalized should be denounced in our country that has always valued religious plurality, we should also realize that there is not any systematic, state-sponsored persecution of Muslims.
What our world does currently face is a historic problem of genocide against Christians and other religious minorities. The report Genocide Against Christians in the Middle East states that the murder of Christians is commonplace in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The watchdog group Aid to the Church in Need recently released its 2016 report “Religious Freedom in the World.” Out of the 196 countries the report examined, 38 showed “unmistakable evidence” of religious freedom violations; twenty-three of those countries were placed in the top-level “Persecution” category, for their atrocities committed against Christians. The nations branded so extreme that “it could scarcely get any worse” were: Afghanistan, northern Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Syria. The clampdown on underground churches in Iran shows no sign of letting up in that Shi’a Muslim country.
continue reading
aclj.org/persecuted-church/the-jihadist-war-against-christianity
By Wesley Smith
To hear President Obama and many other leftist luminaries talk, one might conclude that we have a real problem with Islamophobia. Following the attacks of 9/11, even then-President George Bush repeatedly stated that we were not at war with Islam in order to counter the potential for widespread fear and loathing of Muslims in western society. The repeated violent attacks by radical Islamic jihadists over the last fifteen years at home and abroad only served to further stoke the fears of a widespread backlash against all people of the Islamic faith. The fear that innocent, peace-loving Muslims would be singled out for reprisals influenced even various U.S. government agencies as they purged their training materials from even referencing “radical Islamic terrorism” or anything related to the radical religious ideology of jihad.
For anyone to single out a Muslim for persecution or attack based on their faith is absolutely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. While there may be a relative few who hold extreme positions against all people of the Islamic faith—in fact, the feared widespread plague of Islamophobia simply hasn’t materialized. While the instances in which Muslims are harassed for their faith or mosques are vandalized should be denounced in our country that has always valued religious plurality, we should also realize that there is not any systematic, state-sponsored persecution of Muslims.
What our world does currently face is a historic problem of genocide against Christians and other religious minorities. The report Genocide Against Christians in the Middle East states that the murder of Christians is commonplace in Iraq, Syria and Libya. The watchdog group Aid to the Church in Need recently released its 2016 report “Religious Freedom in the World.” Out of the 196 countries the report examined, 38 showed “unmistakable evidence” of religious freedom violations; twenty-three of those countries were placed in the top-level “Persecution” category, for their atrocities committed against Christians. The nations branded so extreme that “it could scarcely get any worse” were: Afghanistan, northern Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Syria. The clampdown on underground churches in Iran shows no sign of letting up in that Shi’a Muslim country.
continue reading
aclj.org/persecuted-church/the-jihadist-war-against-christianity
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