The Crisis in Maiduguri

Aleteia ^ | 10/31/14 | Philip Jenkins

[marshmallow]

In the battle for religious freedom, let's not forget Africa.

Unless they have family ties to Nigeria, few Western Christians are likely to know the name of Maiduguri. That has to change. Maiduguri is presently the setting for one of the world’s most significant struggles for religious freedom, and even for Christian survival outside the West.

In recent months, we have heard much of the ancient Middle Eastern communities devastated by ISIS and the Islamic State. Such coverage is necessary and appropriate, but it distracts attention from the quite comparable violence occurring in very different regions, especially in West Africa. The most important single battlefront is Nigeria, a country that is presently home to 85 million Christians, and that number may exceed 200 million by 2050. Nigeria is crucial to the fate of Christianity in black Africa, not to mention the vast global presence of its migrant communities.

Christians constitute just under half the population of Nigeria, who are mainly concentrated in the country’s southern and central regions. The predominantly Muslim north is nevertheless home to some thriving communities, including Catholics and Anglicans besides locally-derived churches. In recent years, those churches have come under increasing pressure, as Muslim majority states have declared themselves under the rule of Sharia law, and even more acutely since 2009 with the rise of the lethal terrorist movement Boko Haram. In terms of its savage cruelty and intolerance, Boko Haram yields nothing to ISIS.

The story of Islamist violence features sporadically in Western media with reports of deadly suicide bombings and mass kidnappings. Most consumers of news find it difficult to contextualize such stories except as part of a generalized stereotype of African chaos and civil war. A single case-study, though, indicates the scale of the horror, and the issues at stake.

Maiduguri is the capital.....

[Maudeen]

http://www.persecution.com/idop

This one minute and 7 second video is a must see for EVERYONE! I showed it at church in the sanctuary Sunday. The younger children were dismissed for Kids’ Church. Very somber audience after watching. . .in fact total silence.

[rusty millet]

Prayers lifted up for my friend and his family in Maiduguri.