Hot on the heels of the article I penned yesterday about the revival of crucifixion in Muslim nations, and how the Arab Spring is turning into a Christian Winter, comes this horrific story of a young girl getting the full treatment from the ‘religion of peace’.
Here is how one news report begins the story: “A Christian girl with Down’s Syndrome has been arrested on blasphemy charges in Pakistan, accused of burning pages inscribed with verses from the Koran. Police arrested Rimsha, who is recognised by a single name, on Thursday after she was reported holding in public burnt pages which had Islamic text and Koranic verses on them, a police official told AFP.
“A conviction for blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan. The official said that the girl, who he described as being in her teens, was taken to a police station in the capital Islamabad, where she has been detained since. Angry Muslim protesters held rallies demanding she be punished, said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.”
Or consider the horrific beheading of a Christian in Tunisia, another country that was supposed to have benefited from the Arab Spring. Yeah right, try telling Christians there about how much better things are. Oh, and the mob was happily chanting “Allahu Akbar” as they slit the Christian’s throat.
The sad thing is, these are not just isolated incidents. All over the Muslim world Christians are being persecuted, attacked and killed. And an even sadder truth is this: the West, and even so many Christians in the West, don’t seem to be concerned about this at all, or actually doing anything about this.
Indeed, why does it take an article in the secular Wall Street Journal for example, to raise this issue? A recent piece found there made an impassioned plea for standing with our persecuted brethren overseas. It begins: “This month the Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani marked his 1,000th day of incarceration in Lakan, a notorious prison in northern Iran. Charged with the crime of apostasy, Mr. Nadarkhani faces a death sentence for refusing to recant the Christian faith he embraced as a child. He embodies piety and represents millions more suffering from repression—but his story is barely known.
“Mr. Nadarkhani’s courage and the tenacity of his supporters, many of them ordinary churchgoers who have crowded Twitter and other social media to alert the world to his plight, bring to mind the great human-rights campaigns of recent years: the fight against apartheid in South Africa, or the movement to assist Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate from behind the Iron Curtain. As Nelson Mandela represented the opposition to South African racism, and Anatoly Sharansky exemplified the just demands of Soviet Jews, so Mr. Nadarkhani symbolizes the emergency that church leaders say is facing 100 million Christians around the world.
“Yet Mr. Nadarkhani has almost none of the name recognition that Messrs. Mandela and Sharansky had. Despite the increasing ferocity with which Christians are targeted—church bombings in Nigeria, discrimination in Egypt (where Christians have been imprisoned for building or repairing churches), beheadings in Somalia—Americans remain largely unaware of how bad the situation has become, particularly in the Islamic world and in communist countries like China and North Korea.
“The principal reason public opinion hasn’t been galvanized around the persecution of Christians is that the various church leaderships either ignore or dance around the issue. If churches don’t speak up forcefully, then it is unrealistic to expect the world’s democratic governments to do the same.”
So, what to do? “To begin with, they need to shake off the aura of naivete that clouds their testimony regarding persecution. Throughout the dark years of the Soviet Union’s existence, Orthodox bishops despaired at the readiness of outsiders to take at face value their assurances—offered with a nervous eye on the reaction of the authorities—that life was really not that bad. We discern a similar tendency today with regard to the Islamic world.
“Christian leaders in Muslim countries are concerned with surviving from one day to the next. We can help them not by engaging in bland dialogues but by compelling those who rule them to respect their right to worship, as well as their desire to stem the flood of Christians fleeing oppression for safer havens elsewhere.
“The church also needs to press the reset button on its priorities. It is a bitter irony that Israel, the one country in the Middle East where Christians live in freedom, is the main focus of church opprobrium.”
Another article on this has also recently appeared, and is worth noting. Says Bill Warner, “If you are even slightly awake about the world news today, it is no surprise that Christians are being killed, raped, and brutalized throughout the Islamic world. However, there is a place where you can go to escape the dreadful and relentless details of Christian annihilation by Islam. You can just go to church.
“For example, Christians were killed this week in Nigeria. Nothing out of the ordinary – indeed, in the world of Christian persecution, this is routine. And so the response found in nearly every church to the murder of Christians is…wait for it…complete silence. Not a mention or reference to it, or to the brutality against Christians that happens almost every day in the Islamic world.
“This is not a passive silence, because if you try to change it, you will fail. The silence is an active, working conspiracy that goes throughout nearly all of Christendom.” Indeed, we sit around seeking to have dialogue with those who have openly declared their intent to enslave us, or kill us.
“Even worse than the silent ministers are those who go to ‘interfaith dialogs’ and smile while the Muslims assert religious and political dominance over them. The nice, oh so nice Christians and Jews show up to tie, while the Muslims are there to win, and they do.
“Christians need to follow the example of Jesus and willingly suffer the condemnation by the Establishment and fight against the political Islam that murders Christians. Said another way, Christians should demonstrate courage and sacrifice to support their cruelly murdered brothers and sisters.
“We cannot defeat political Islam until we get Christian boots on the ground. Do the math. The pulpits must become a source of courage and knowledge and stand up for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and all others who suffer under Islam’s persecution today and who have suffered for the last 1,400 years. It isn’t just about religion; it is about the survival of our civilization.”
Yes quite so. Political Islam seeks to force everyone to submit to Allah and sharia law. All opposition will be swiftly dealt with. Do we care about this? Do we intend to do something about this? Or will it just be more business as usual?
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8518809/downs-syndrome-girl-accused-of-blasphemy
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/06/arab-spring-muslims-behead-christian-man-in-tunisia-while-reciting-anti-christian-islamic-prayer/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304388004577531031387938506.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/the_silence_of_the_pulpits.html
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