Persecution Today

Persecution Today?

Are Christians and followers of other religions being persecuted today?

The following article was printed in the January, 2001 edition of The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.

THE LION AT THE DOOR: THE ACCELERATING GLOBAL PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS In late 1999, this writer completed his book "Storm Warning: The Coming persecution of Christians and Traditionalists in America" and recently published a new, revised and updated edition of the book. ...It describes persecution of Christian believers around the world (past, present, and future) and attempts to make the case that persecution of Christians and traditionalists is rapidly emerging in America. It has accelerated dramatically under Bill Clinton and Al Gore and will grow even more rapidly in the years to come as an anti-Christian/ anti-traditional values dynamic proliferates in America.

The following article by Greg Nyquist, from WorldNet Magazine is an excellent overview of present day persecution around the world, and perhaps a preview of coming attractions for America: The twentieth century will go down in history, not merely as the bloodiest and most genocidal of all centuries, but also as the century in which Western Civilization suffered its greatest setbacks since the rise of Islam in the seventh century.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the West more or less controlled the entire world. By the 1960's, most of Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe had fallen out of the orbit of the West, devoured in large part by the two most formidable anti-Western creeds, communism and Islam. One of the least appreciated consequences of this transformation is the resumption of a type of persecution that would have been unthinkable 100 years ago: the persecution of Christians.

At no time in the history of the world have more Christians been subjected to persecution and murder that at the present time. According to the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 605 million Christians live "under political restrictions on religious liberty" and 225 million endure "severe state interference in religion, obstruction, or harassment" - in other words, outright persecution.

Words like "interference," "obstruction" and "harassment" don't adequately convey the sufferings of millions of Christians worldwide. Every day Christians are beaten, tortured, maimed, raped, sold into slavery or executed. Take, as one example, Mary, a young Egyptian girl who grew up as a Coptic Christian. When she was 18 years old, a group of radicals from the "Gamat Islamiya" kidnapped and raped Mary, forcing her to convert to Islam. Her captors poured sulfuric acid on her wrist in order to remove a tattooed cross and threatened to throw the acid in her face if she didn't consent to wear the traditional Islamic veil. When Mary's father went to the Cairo police, he was told to forget his daughter and was ordered to sign a document pledging that he would cease all efforts to recover her.

Mary eventually escaped her captors and received assistance from the clandestine group "Servants of the Cross," which facilitated Mary's reconversion to Christianity. According to one of the representatives of the organization, there have been in recent years anywhere between 7,000 and 10,000 forced conversions to Islam in Egypt.

China is another country where Christians have been persecuted mercilessly. In March, 1993, five Protestants from Shaanxi were rounded up by the authorities and three of them were so savagely beaten with bamboo rods that they were covered with blood. Later, they were hung off the ground and hit with rods until they were unconscious and hardly breathing.

In the Sudan, Christians are being sold into slavery. Many of the victims are female children. A typical case is Auk Ding, a Christian girl in her early teens. She was enslaved by a Muslim named Mohammed, who raped and beat here. According to the girl's own testimony, "Mohammed ... wanted me to be a Muslim woman, so they forced me to have my genitals cut. A man did it. I don't know who he was. He tied my hands and legs down very tightly. You can still see the marks (scars on wrists visible). It was so painful. I cried and cried. That was the worst thing they did to me."

The two most important forces behind the persecution of Christians are militant Islam and Communism. Christians are seen as a threat to the state and to the religious or ideological purity of the people. As such, Christians are subjected to discrimination, harassment, threats, violence and terror.

A. Persecution under Islam

1. GENOCIDE IN SUDAN

• No place in the world are Christians more brutally persecuted that in Sudan, Africa's largest country. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1956, Sudan has become increasingly torn by political instability an religious strife. In 1989, militant Islamic military officers seized power over the democratically elected government and declared a virtual jihad against southern Sudanese "infidels" - which is to say, against Christians and animists. A scorched-earth policy was adopted in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, scene of some of the most horrifying religious persecution since the Holocaust. Whole villages have been bombed, burned and looted. Many inhabitants have been relocated into concentration camps where they have been starved until they agreed to convert to Islam. Christians have been subject to torture, imprisonment and assassination. Enslavement, rape, deprivation of water and systematic starvation are also commonplace.

As a result of these policies, more people in Sudan have been murdered than in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda combined. According to the testimony of Mark T. Ajo, a church worker, before the House Committee on International Relations, "1.9 million southern Sudanese and Nubans have already died, 4.5 million are displaced and 2.5 million are starving to death. Most of the displaced and starving are children and women." And most of these children and women are Christians.

Although in most other Islamic nations Christians are subjected to this sort of genocidal barbarity, their position in these nations is extremely unfavorable. In countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, Christians are facing increasingly hostile conditions.

2. PERSECUTION IN IRAN

• In Iran, Christians live under what amounts to a religious apartheid. They are not allowed to work for the government or for any state owned companies, they cannot receive promotion in the military, nor can they prepare food eaten by Muslims. Islamic radicals have in recent years assassinated several Christian ministers.

3. PERSECUTION IN SAUDI ARABIA - In Saudi Arabia, Christianity is expressly prohibited. Bibles, Christian artifacts, literature and churches are banned. Nevertheless, there are an estimated 580,000 Christians living Saudi Arabia, 98 percent of whom are foreigners working in the country. Persecution of these foreign nationals has intensified in recent years. Thousands are said to be in prison and some have been beheaded. Others have been beaten, flogged and deported.

4. PERSECUTION IN PAKISTAN

• The 2 to 3 million Christians living in Pakistan find themselves increasingly at the mercy of Islamic terrorists which the government is either unable or unwilling to control. Many Christians in Pakistan fear that a policy of "communal cleansing" is taking place. In 1986, a blasphemy law was passed which states that anyone who says, implies or insinuates anything about the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran can be punished by death, imprisonment or fine.

David F. Forte, a professor of law, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that "The main effect of the blasphemy law is to unleash a reign of private terror against Christians and other religious minorities, frequently without the perpetrators being brought to justice."

Christians have been beaten, they have had their villages raided and their homes plundered and destroyed. Their daughters have been kidnapped, raped and forced to convert to Islam. Discrimination is pervasive. Ninety percent of Christians are either unemployed or are forced to take the most menial jobs society has to offer, such as removing human excrement from the streets.

5. PERSECUTION IN EGYPT

• In Egypt, especially in southern Egypt, militant Islamic groups are allowed to assault and murder Christians with impunity. In May 1992, 13 Christians in Daryut were massacred. Nine Christians were murdered in 1993, 12 in 1994. In 1996, many Christian villages were completely destroyed and their populations forced to convert to Islam by militant Muslim youths. In February 1998, gunmen killed nine Christians attending a church youth meeting in Abu Qurqas. A month later, Islamic militants wearing masks and military fatigues and armed with assault rifles killed 13 people in the predominantly Christian village of Ezbet Dawoud.

The position of Christians in other Islamic nations is not much better. In Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Tunisia it is illegal to proselytize of behalf of Christianity. Throughout the Islamic world, leaving Islam for another religion is regarded as apostasy and is forbidden. Apostates can be disinherited, forced to divorce their spouses and prevented from ever seeing their children again. In some Islamic countries, they can be killed.

B. Christian Persecution Under Communism The other great ideological motivator of persecution against Christians is Communism. What is most extraordinary is that, despite the systematic persecution that generally prevails against Christians in Communist nations, Christianity is nonetheless flourishing in some Marxist countries.

1. PERSECUTION IN CHINA

• This is especially true in China, which in recent years has experience one of the most phenomenal explosions of religious belief in the history of the world. According to figures compiled by Tony Lambert, a former diplomat who worked in China, Protestantism in China has, since 1979, expanded by at least a factor of 20, and possibly as much as 30. Estimates now place the Christian population of China somewhere between 60 million and 100 million.

This astonishing rate of growth has raised concerns among China's Marxist-Leninist bosses. In an effort to control religious activities, China, like many other Communist nations, requires believers to worship in so-called "patriotic" churches that are strictly regulated by the state. Since most believers suspect these government churches of being compromised by their association with the Communist (and hence atheist) government,, they prefer to worship in illegal "house" churches.

In recent years, the Chinese government has made a special effort to crack down on house churches. According to the Far Eastern Economic Review, between February and June 1996, "police have destroyed at least 15,000 unregistered temples, churches and tombs."

Believers can be arrested and tortured merely for holding unauthorized prayer meeting or distributing Bibles without state approval. Reports have surfaced of Chinese women being hung by their thumbs with wires and beaten with heavy rods, denied food and water and shocked with electric probes. Religious leaders are fined, thrown into prison, tortured and sent to concentration camps.

Throughout this ordeal, Chinese Christians have tried to remain upbeat and philosophical about their plight. "It's good for the church, like growing pains with children," said one church leader, 84-year-old Allen Yuan, who spent 21 years and eight months in a labor camp. Other Christian leaders are fond of referring to prison as "our seminary."

2. PERSECUTION IN NORTH KOREA

• Conditions in other Communist countries like Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea are no better. In fact, conditions are probably worse in North Korea, where Christianity is completely outlawed by the state. Since North Korea is one of the most restricted and closed regimes on the planet, reliable information about what goes on inside is hard to come by. Nonetheless, it is believed that the number of Christians in North Korea is growing, and some analysts project that there may be as many as 400,000 Christians living under Kim Jong-II's Marxist tyranny. They are forced to meet secretly in small groups, rarely numbering over six, in order to avoid attracting attention.

An anecdote reported by Andrew Wark in the News Network International well illustrates the predicament of North Korea's Christian community. A minister from overseas met secretly with Christians in North Korea, serving the Eucharist and baptizing some recent converts. A few days later, Christians from a nearby town who had heard of the minister's visit arrived on the scene. When told that he had already left, they "fell to their knees and began pounding the ground with their fists."

3. THE RETURN OF PERSECUTION TO RUSSIA AND THE FORMER SOVIET BLOC STATES - The persecution of Christians still persists in some post-Communist nations, especially in those where the Orthodox Church seeks complete religious hegemony. This is true in Rumania, the Ukraine and especially Russia. In Russia it appears that the persecution of non-Orthodox Christians may soon begin to parallel the persecution of Christians under the Soviet regime.

On September 26, 1997, former President Yeltsin signed a new anti-religious law which, in effect, outlaws every religious organization that has appeared in Russia during the last 15 years and subjects them to surveillance by the secret police. The bill was sponsored by nationalists and Communists within the Russian parliament and by the Russian Orthodox Church. It affects nearly all of the non-Orthodox faiths in Russia, including the Assemblies of God, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, the Anglican Church, Lutherans, Evangelicals and most other Protestant faiths [and Baptists].

The bill was passed under a false pretext. The Yeltsin administration, supported by the Orthodox Church, pretended it was submitting a "compromise" law, in response to the Duma's version, which Yeltsin had vetoed. But, except for deleting a misleading preamble in which the right to religious freedom is reasserted, the bill Yeltsin signed into law is identical to the bill he vetoed.

Since the preamble has no affect on the law itself, the whole matter was nothing more that an elaborate charade to conceal what the Russian oligarchy was really up to: giving the state the legal right to shut down all religious activity that does not meet with the approval of all the former Communist Party hard-liners who now control the Russian Federation.

Within weeks after Yeltsin signed the anti-religion law, police began breaking up Catholic and Protestant gathering. Russia is lapsing back into its old totalitarian ways under an alliance of Communists on the left and Fascists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the right. It seems that independent religious activity is destined to come under increasing scrutiny and persecution by the Russian government.

"Inquiries, interrogations, police raids and groundless church closures will likely once again become commonplace in Russia," warned ... Steven L. Snyder,president of International Christian Concern.

In August 1999, police and security agents raided the Word of Life Church in Magadan, a city in eastern Russia, near Siberia. Church members were taken away for interrogation in the middle of the night. They were stripped of their jewelry, their fingernails and pockets were slit and they were threatened with the loss of their homes and possessions.

"This persecution is no different from that which was done under the Communist regime," stated Nickolay Voskobeynikov, the church's pastor.

Appeals have been made to the U.S. government for political protection against this persecution. It does not appear that anything will be done.

C. Apathy in the West Toward Global Persecution

What is most disturbing about the persecution of Christians around the world is the relative apathy in America and the West. The establishment media has said very little about the plight of Christians in the Third World. And when they have run stories about the persecution of Christians, they have often adopted a skeptical attitude toward it. Consider the headline of an article run in the New Your Times ...(November 1999): "A move to fight 'persecution' facing Christians" reads the headline, with the word persecution placed in quotes!

Many political leaders in the West have reacted with even more disdain to claims of persecuted Christians. Typical in this respect is Andrew Yo8und, the former civil rights protégé of Martin Luther King. In 1998, Young traveled to China with a small delegation of the National Council of Churches to see how Christians were getting along under Chinese Communism. His conclusions have an eerie resemblance to those of Western liberals who visited the Soviet Union in the twenties and thirties and came back chanting, "We have seen the future, and it works!"

"We found no sign of religious repression," Young declared unequivocally. "The Chinese government has recognized the role of religion in stabilizing and encouraging people to live moral and responsible lives."

The National Council of Churches proved willing to be the sycophantic mouthpiece of China's bigoted anti-religious oligarchs.

"Christians in China," Declared the NCC's general secretary, Joan Brown Campbell, "are terribly offended at the ... rumor that there's widespread, terrible persecution and asked us to advocate for a more accurate portrayal of their situation."

Those familiar with the ultra-liberal NCC should hardly be surprised that they should adopt this sort of approach to the problem of persecuted Christians. They have dismissed the efforts of evangelicals to draw attention to the plight of Christians under Islam and Communism as merely an attempt to create a new enemy.

"It's the new anti-Communism for them," charges ... Albert M. Penny, the NCC's associate general secretary. This sort of dismissive attitude toward the persecution of Christians can only serve to encourage the crimes that are being committed against people of faith.

David Barrett calculates that the average rate of martyrdom in the late 1990s was about 159,000 a year. If this figure is correct, it would mean that more Christians are martyred in one week that were martyred by the pagans during the Roman persecutions n the first three centuries of the Church's' existence.

Michael Horowitz, and activist on behalf of persecuted Christians around the world, has warned that unless a serious effort is made to confront the horrors of the persecution of Christians and put a stop to them, Christians are likely to become "the Jews of the twenty-first century, the scapegoats of choice of the world's thug regimes."s

[Bibliography: Marshall, Paul. Their Blood Cries Out (Dallas, Texas: Word Publishing 1997); Wall Street Journal (July 31,1998); The Oregonian (October 25, 1998; The Washington Times (October 3, 1997); www.persecution.org; www.family.org; www.Chihuahuas.org; www.truepath.com; www.bechristiannews.org; www.Reagan.com; www.worldmissions.com; www.crosswalk.com.] [End of Nyquist article]

D. The Growing Anti-Christian Dynamic in America and its Consequences Over 40 Years

Over the past four decades (and especially the past 20 years) America has entered what the late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer described as "the post-Christian era." Prayer, Bible reading, or any mention of God has been stripped from the public arena - from the schools, courts, government (local, state, and federal), the workplace, etc. with numerous Supreme, federal district and state court ruling against public displays of Christianity. Even Nativity scenes have been outlawed in many municipalities thanks to the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union and liberal judges.

And wherever one looks, Christians, their world view, their Bible, and their values are being denigrated, ridiculed, stereotyped, marginalized, and in some instances criminalized. To be a fundamental, evangelical Christian in America in 2000 A.D. is to bear the brunt of hostility, antagonism, and growing discrimination from the media, Hollywood, television, the courts, the educational system, the government, the gay/lesbian movement, the New Age movement, the radical environmentalists (especially those into deep (occultic) ecology) such as Al Gore, and a wide assortment of witches, Satanists, and occultists.

Janet Reno (the Clinton/Gore Attorney General) has characterized Bible believing, evangelical Christians who strongly believe in Bible study; Bible prophecy (i.e., the end times Daniel/Ezekiel/Revelation scenario); home schooling; food reserves; and especially the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ as "dangerous religious cultists."

This was her justification for the government massacre of over 80 men, women, children, and babies in Waco in 1993 and the government execution of an innocent mother and child at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in the same year. The Attorney General of the U.S. has labeled Christians of conscience (nuns, priests, evangelical Christians), who have prayed and demonstrated in front of abortion clinics as "terrorists." Government agents have arrested and jailed such demonstrators, heavily fined them, seized their property, etc. Their crime? Praying for and trying to peacefully stop the killing of innocent babies - actions which were born out of their Christian/Biblical convictions.

This is the way it began in Nazi Germany in the early 1930's - only the primary target were the Jews (and the secondary target was the handful of evangelical Christians and the so-called "confessing church," headed by Martin Niemoller, Eric Bonnehoffer, etc. - who opposed the Nazis, their tyranny, and their persecution of the Jews).

In the 1920s and '30s the German people went into an economic/spiritual/moral free fall. The nazis began to ascend to power and along with the media, began to stereotype, ridicule, marginalize and finally persecute the Jews. The great majority of the German people either supported or were at least passive to the persecution.

None of this has happened overnight. It has happened over several decades as liberalism in America has gained almost total control over the reigns of power: in government, the judiciary, the educational system, the media, the arts, Hollywood, television, etc. As the liberals have slowly strangled the traditional/Biblical values which made America the greatest nation in history, we have gone into a moral/social/spiritual  free fall which now threatens future generations and the nation itself.

Our founding fathers understood the essentiality of keeping God and the Bible as the cornerstone and centerpiece of America and what would happen if we pushed God out of the public arena and abandoned the Christian principles upon which America was built.

[Don McAlvany's book, "Storm Warning: The Coming Persecution of Christians and Traditionalists in America" has several chapters which deal with the present parallels between America and Nazi Germany.]

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