The
persecution of Christians around the world, but especially in the Muslim world,
has reached an all-time high—with 2016 being the “worst year yet,” according to
Open Doors, which re-cently released its annual
ranking of the top 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution.
Among some of its more significant findings:
raymondibrahim.com |
·
“Islamic extremism” remains the dominant force responsible for the
persecution of Christians in 40 of the 50 worst nations.
·
Nine of the ten worst nations are Muslim (North Korea being the only
non-Islamic).
·
“In the top 21 countries on the Open Doors World Watch List [18 of
which are Muslim], 100 percent of Christians experience persecution.”
·
1,329 churches were attacked, damaged, or destroyed, mostly in Muslim nations.
·
Islamic Somalia is now the second worst nation; there, “If their
[Christians’] faith is discovered it means instant death, executed without
trial and often on rumor alone.”
·
In Nigeria—where more Christians have been slaughtered by Muslims than
possibly in any other nation—the killing of Christians went up by 62 percent.
·
The nation where the most violent and sexual attacks on Christians take
place—Muslim majority Pakistan—rose to the number four spot.
While everything points to Islam—or “Islamic
extremism,” as Open Doors puts it—as the chief factor behind the global
persecution of Christians, what does one make of the fact that North Korea
continues to rank as the number one worst persecutor of Christians? ... Here we
come to some critically important but rarely acknowledged distinctions. While
Christians are indeed suffering extreme persecution in North Korea, something
as simple as overthrowing Kim Jong-Un’s regime could lead to a quick halt to
that persecution—just as the fall of Communist Soviet Union saw the end of religious
persecution. The vibrancy of Christianity in South Korea, a nation virtually
identical in ethnicity, culture, and language to its northern counterpart, is
suggestive of what may be in store—and thus creates paranoia for—North Korea.
In
the Islamic world, however, a similar scenario would not alleviate the
sufferings of Christians by an iota. Quite the opposite; where dictators fall
(often thanks to U.S. intervention)—Saddam in Iraq, Qaddafi in Libya, and
attempts against Assad in Syria—Christian persecution dramatically rises. Today
Iraq is the seventh worst nation in the world in which to be Christian,
Syria sixth, and Libya 11. A decade ago under the “evil” dictators, Iraq was
ranked 32, Syria 47, and Libya 22.
The
reason for this is that Muslim persecution of Christians is perennial,
existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler. It is part and
parcel of the history, doctrines, and socio-political makeup of Islam—hence its
tenacity; hence its ubiquity.
To
further understand the differences between temporal and existential
persecution, consider Russia. Under communism, its own Christians were
persecuted; yet today, after the fall of the USSR, Russia is again reclaiming
its Orthodox Christian heritage.
North
Korea—where Kim Jong-un is worshipped as a god and the people are shielded from
reality—seems to be experiencing what Russia did under the Soviet Union. But if
the once mighty USSR could not persevere, surely it’s a matter of time before
tiny North Korea’s walls also come crumbling down, with the resulting religious
freedom that former communist nations have experienced. (Tellingly, the only
countries that were part of the USSR that still persecute Christians are
Muslim, such as Uzbekistan, #16, and Turkmenistan, #19.)
Time,
however, is not on the side of Christians living amid Muslims; quite the
opposite. In short, Muslim persecution of Christians exists in 40 nations today
as part of a continuum—or “tradition”—that started nearly 14 centuries
ago. As I document in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on
Christians, the very same patterns of Christian persecution
prevalent throughout the Muslim world today are often identical to those from
centuries past.
A
final consideration: North Korea, the one non-Muslim nation making the top ten
worst persecutors list, is governed by what is widely seen as an unbalanced
megalomaniac; conversely, the other nine nations are not dominated by any
“cults-of-personalities” and are variously governed: including through
parliamentarian democracies (Iraq), parliamentarian republics (Pakistan and
Somalia), one-party or presidential republics (Eritrea, Sudan and Syria),
Islamic republics (Afghanistan and Iran). Looking at the other Muslim nations
that make the top 50 persecutors’ list and even more forms of governments
proliferate, for example transitional/disputed governments (Libya #11) and
monarchies (Saudi Arabia #14). The common denominator is that they are
all Islamic nations.
Thus, long after the psychotic North
Korean Kim Jong-Un has gone the way of the dodo, tens of millions of Christians
and other “infidels” will continue to suffer extreme persecution...