The Persecution Of Christians Is Intensifying As Anti-Christian Hatred Sweeps The Entire World

Recently, ISIS posted videos delineating the second-class status of Christians in the caliphate. Those unwilling to pay the jizya tax or to convert would be destroyed, the narrator warned, as the videos culminated in the now-­infamous scenes of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians in Libya being marched onto the beach and beheaded, their blood running into the surf.

The future of Christianity in the region of its birth is now uncertain. ‘‘How much longer can we flee before we and other minorities become a story in a history book?’’ says Nuri Kino, a journalist and founder of the advocacy group Demand for Action. According to a Pew study, more Christians are now faced with religious persecution than at any time since their early history. ‘‘ISIL has put a spotlight on the issue,’’ says Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, whose parents are from the region and who advocates on behalf of Eastern Christians. ‘‘Christianity is under an existential threat.’’

In April this year, hundreds of students at Garissa University in northern Kenya came under attack when Al-Shabaab militants from across the border in Somalia raided dormitories at the college. Separating Christian students from their Muslim classmates, the raiders killed 147 and wounded dozens more. Today, the university stands empty.

Christians in North Eastern Kenya have come under repeated attacks by Al-Shabaab militants.

At Sunday Mass in Garissa’s Cathedral, Our Lady of Consolation, the benches are full. The congregation is praying under armed guard but they’re praying nonetheless.

Each Sunday brings with it new threats from Al-Shabaab. Garissa’s Christians are told that if you worship here, you’ll die. One of those attending Sunday Mass, Patrick Gitau tell us that despite the risks: “Every Sunday I’m here it’s my cathedral. Yeah I’m here I was baptized in this church.”

The Evangelical Fellowship of India has reported a violent attack against Christians in the country that was committed earlier this month when over 200 Hindu radicals stormed a Protestant church in the town of Attingal, Kerela, beating up the pastor and some of the worshipers, and breaking the altar.

EFI shared the news with Fides News Agency, reporting that the attack took place on June 14. The radicals apparently shouted slogans like “Bharat Mathaki Jai” (“Hail Mother India”) during the attack, which was broken up after police arrived.

On Sunday, May 24, a Christian man in the Sanda neighborhood of Lahore was accused of blasphemy when some Muslims saw him burning newspapers that reportedly contained Arabic verses from the Koran. After the accusation, a Muslim mob caught the Christian, severely beat him, and even attempted to set him on fire. A few months earlier, another Muslim mob burned a Christian couple alive inside a kiln after they, too, were accused of insulting Islam. The Christian youth — named Humayun Masih, said to be “mentally unstable” — was imprisoned and charged under section 295-B of Pakistan’s penal code, which prohibits the desecration of the Koran. After the attack on the Christian youth, the Muslim mob, reportedly thousands, rampaged through the neighborhood and set fire to Christian homes and a church. Christians in the region were attacked, and most fled the region; some of the mob was armed and gunshots were heard.

Since its formation in 2009, Boko Haram has perpetrated the killing of over over 10,000 Nigerians, including thousands of Christians. This year alone, over 2,000 people have been killed as a result of the group’s attacks and an estimated 750,000 have fled their homes. While most of the attacks have taken place in northern Nigeria, they have extended to Cameroon and Chad in recent months.

Earlier in July, Muslim extremists ravaged northeastern Nigerian villages, killing nine villagers and burning down 32 churches and about 300 homes, according to Stephen Apagu, chairman of a self-defense group in Borno state’s Askira-Uba local government area.

The CCP considers the rising popularity of Christianity as a threat to its dominance, China Aid said, and has used aggressive measures to intimidate members.

“The Chinese government’s persecution campaign included forced demolition of churches and crosses, the detention and imprisonment of pastors and church members on criminal charges, forcing churches into bankruptcy by confiscating church property and imposing fines, and manipulating state-run media to label house churches as ‘cult’ organizations,” the report said.

A local police force—including 600 SWAT officers and government agents—demolished the cross last year at Salvation Church, a Christian house church in the eastern coastal city of Wenzhou. The officers attacked 14 church members on July 21 and seriously injured five, according to the report.

Zhang Shaojie, former pastor at the Nanle County Christian Church in central China, was sentenced to 12 years in jail and fined after being convicted of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order” and “fraud.” Zhang mobilized his congregation to petition the government in Beijing after local authorities seized property that the church had set aside for a new building. Local officials responded by detaining some church members and barring their travel to Beijing.

The largely Hindu nation of Nepal has published a draft of a new constitution that would ban religious conversion. Father Silas Bogati, vicar general of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nepal, told Catholic News Service that “Christianity is not recognized as a religion here, unlike Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam.” “Hence, churches cannot be registered as a legal body, and we cannot buy property,” he added. “We are severely handicapped by this.”

Accounts of Muslim immigrants taunting and even assaulting Christians in Italy are increasing. Earlier this year, a crucifix was violently destroyed in close proximity to a populated mosque, and a statue of the Virgin Mary was destroyed and urinated on by a group of North Africans in Italy.

On May 26, a 22-year-old man of Muslim background was charged with alleged hate crimes committed against the St. Catherine of Siena Church and its neighboring elementary school in Mississauga, Ontario. Iqbal Hessan faces five counts of mischief, and over $5,000 in fines. On May 20, the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue that stands in front of the church was covered in black paint and the fingers of its outstretched arms were broken off. Behind the church, graffiti with the words “There is no Jew God” was scrawled across the brick wall along with a drawing of a face labelled “Jewsus.” That vandalism was the fourth time the church was targeted.

Two street preachers were brutally beaten—punched and kicked—by a crowd at a gay pride festival in Seattle and the entire melee was captured on video.

The preachers were holding signs reading “Repent or Else” and “Jesus Saves From Sin.” The video shows a group of people initially screaming and threatening the men during Pridefest at the Seattle Space Needle.

Television station KOMO reported that some of the attackers belonged to a group called NOH8.

A group of women tried to steal their signs but were unsuccessful. The video then shows a group of men grabbing onto one of the preacher’s signs and dragging him to the ground. At some point he was punched in the back of the head a number of times while others can be seen kicking the man.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, the world therefore hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My words, they will keep yours also.

“One of our YWAM workers in the Middle East was contacted by a friend earlier this year and they met up and he was introduced to an ISIS fighter who had killed many Christians already. I mean that’s a horrible situation, and admittedly, he was probably on guard,” Gina Fadely, director of Youth With A Mission Frontier Missions, Inc. (YWAM), said during a recent appearance on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network.

YWAM, a nonprofit missionary organization active since 1960, describes itself as “a global movement of Christians from many cultures, age groups, and Christian traditions, dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world.” The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) is another nonprofit that draws attention to Christians facing persecution around the world.

Fadely, who appeared on the VOM radio program along with Kevin Sutter, another YWAM leader, went on to share that this Islamic State jihadi confessed not only to killing Christians but “that he had actually enjoyed doing so.”

“He told this YWAM leader that he had begun having dreams of this man in white who came to him and said, ‘You are killing my people.’ And he started to feel really sick and uneasy about what he was doing,” Fadely continued. “The fighter said just before he killed one Christian, the man said, ‘I know you will kill me, but I give to you my Bible.’ The Christian was killed and this ISIS fighter actually took the Bible and began to read it. In another dream, Jesus asked him to follow him and he was now asking to become a follower of Christ and to be discipled.”

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