Posted on 07/10/2013 3:42:38 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
The worldwide rise in anti-Christian persecution is not often noted by the MSM, but that doesn’t make it any less deadly. This week two new stories of persecution hit the web. Christianity Today reports that Hindu extremists broke into a Christian prayer meeting in India and beat up the attendees with clubs and iron rods. The attackers accused the pastors of using force and coercion to convert Indians to Christianity, an accusation the pastors vigorously deny. And in Syria, Fr. François Murad became the latest victim of rebel militas, some of whom are systematically targeting Christians for persecution and death. At NRO, Nina Shea comments:
As for the larger [Syria] conflict, the Christians are caught in the middle. The churches have not allied with the Assad regime. They have no armed protector, inside or outside the country, and they have no militias of their own. But they are not simply suffering collateral damage. They are being deliberately targeted in a religious purification campaign.
It’s important to note of the agressors in these cases that some are Islamic and some are Hindu. This is a reminder for those who think that only one religion is the cause of the world’s troubles and we should also, gratefully, note that the large majority of adherents to both faiths have never committed an act of religious violence in their lives.
Each case tells us something about its respective country as well. Fr. Murad’s death in Syria is a reminder of how few good options there are left for our policy towards the country. Years of US inaction as the country deteriorated now likely means little hope for many Syrian Christians. The White House is likely to be haunted by the specter of many more victims. Iraqi Christians were caught up in crossfire in the Iraq war when Bush was in the White House; Syrian Christians are now getting crushed during the Obama administration, and as US policy in Syria now consists mostly of handwringing over the deepening horror, things seem unlikely to improve.
India is a different story. For 1,000 years, Indian Hindus have felt pressure from Islam, and there are hundreds of millions of Muslims today in lands that were once largely Hindu. Christianity has an even longer presence in India, but during the British Raj there were fears that British missionaries used their political connections with the country’s rulers to gain converts in dubious ways. The appeal of both Christianity and Islam in India is often to lower castes and to tribal peoples; Hindus often believe (with greater or less reason in particular cases) that missionaries offering inducements (food, health care, education) to converts are essentially forcing helpless people to change their religion in order to live. Much of India was under Islamic rule before the British came; Hindus have long memories and they are determined to hold on to their faith and their values. Pakistani-supported Islamic terrorism has deepened a sense of Hinduism under siege.
For many, Hindu religion and Indian national identity go together; Gandhi wanted a secular Indian state, but not all Hindus then or since agreed with him. The BJP, one of India’s two leading political parties, is rooted in India’s nationalist and religious right; while some BJP leaders and members are mostly interested in economic reform and modernization, others are linked, sometimes closely, to radical Hindu-nationalist groups.
The Hindu right has a violent side and these are not the first such attacks. Anti-Christian violence reached a fever pitch in 2008 in Orissa, and only slowed down after the BJP lost local elections. India’s next government could be a BJP-led one, and some of the political allies of the religious extremists will have some significant influence. Even if the mainstream media continues to downplay stories of Christian persecution (which it probably will), religious media in the US is widely read and follows this story much more closely. Our foreign policy cannot be insulated from the political consequences of stories like this one, and if the pace of attacks increase, India’s friends in Congress and the State Department will have a harder time keeping relations on track.
Americans like to think that modernization and economic progress make religious and ethnic tensions fade away. That may be true in the long run, but often the stressful social and political changes associated with rapid economic development make intercommunal tensions worse. It was only after the Industrial Revolution was well under way, for example, that waves of nationalism and ethnic hate flamed across Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.
India is an even more complicated and diverse country than the United States, and Indian society is passing through some revolutionary changes. Both Indian and US governments will have to think carefully about how religious tensions inside India can be kept from complicating a bilateral relationship of the greatest importance to both.
To some, it will seem odd and anachronistic that 21st century American diplomats will be dealing with issues of religious persecution. But history grinds on, and humanity’s religious and tribal affiliations don’t seem to be fading away.
Hmm. I have to say that I admire the muslims and Hindus for defending their faith...seems to me that Christians could learn a thing or two from them in this regard.
Why do they have to? It’s obvious people in the U.S. don’t care how many Christians get slaughtered.
Why do they have to? It’s obvious people in the U.S. don’t care how many Christians get slaughtered.
The Moslem regime in the USA is responding to the persecution of Christians in saracen lands by financing it and supporting the persecutors. What else is a Mohammedan to do?
Obama’s response is known: he will do nothing.
Interesting concept. One has to wonder what would happen here if a person were to place signs around their property declaring it a ‘Christian Only’ zone, and that violators would be emasculated, burned and hung from a nearby bridge.
So we should start converting by the sword? You must not follow Jesus.
Obama admin... fight against persecution of Christians?
You have got to be kidding.
The U.S. government has responded to the persecution of Christians: it’s all for it, and has been since the Clinton administration. When Christians in the Balkans defended themselves, we bombed the Christians, stole their land and gave it to Muslims. Bush stayed the course on that one, even after the allies of said Muslims attacked us on 9/11, and did zilch to help the Christian in Iraq once the removal of the Ba’athist regime (as close to secularists as the Muslim world has ever seen) unleashed murder of Christians and destruction of churches. Now Obama is backing Al Qaeda linked Sunni insurrectionists who murder priests and deacons, kidnap bishops, and in slogans, at least, threaten to crucify Christians in Syria, and at home in the U.S. unleashing soft persecutions of his own with the abortion and contraception funding mandates on all employers (except actual churches), standardizing government rhetoric as “freedom of worship”, rather than freedom of religion, backing “gay marriage”, deporting Christian home-schoolers back to Germany,...
“With a Marxist Muslim as POTUS? You must be kidding; Bamster is leading the pack (along with his real brain, Valerie Jarrett).”
Really; at least “over there” they know and admit what they are dealing with. Too many psuedo-Christians in the US have no problem with Obama’s anti-family, anti-life agenda.
What I meant is that these people do a better job than we do of fighting back. Right now in this country we have a Christian who is looking at a prison sentence because he refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding.
Try that in Pakistan and the judge, police, and prosecutors will not live to see the end of the day.
So, like I said, they do get some things right.
Megan you’re exactly right. We are too meek. We should be marching in the streets like they do in Puerto Rico, France, and Eastern Europe. They all rallied against secularism. We just sit back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.