Church Officials Start to Acknowledge Persecution of Christians by Radical Islam

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Would you believe that liberal church officials are actually starting to speak out about radical Islam and persecution of Christians?

Yes, it’s quite amazing, and good news certainly. The recent ravaging of two Pakistani Christian communities, resulting in scores of burned homes and 7 dead Christians, has sparked distress. A bishop from The Church of Pakistan also recently visited offices in New York for the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, and the Episcopal Church, igniting statements of concern from all.

The statement by United Methodist West Ohio Bishop Bruce Ough, as president of Global Ministries, was especially good.  Encourage him with a supportive email, thanking him.

And here’s my article, quoting Bishop Ough and others.

This Pakistani bishop especially expressed alarm about his country’s Blasphemy Law, which makes illegal any criticism of Muhammad or the Koran. Angry Islamist mobs exploit the law to create rumors about Christians and then to attack them. Theocratic laws forbidding criticism of Islam are common throughout Muslim majority countries and are often aimed like a knife against vulnerable Christians and other religious minorities.

But typically, left-leaning church officials say nothing about persecution of Christians by Islamists. They prefer to think of Christianity, and the West, especially the U.S., as the persecutor, and Muslims everywhere as only victims. Liberal church officials often prefer apologizing for the Crusades of 1,000 years ago rather than recognizing today’s injustices. The outrages in Pakistan seem to have aroused some new concern.  Let’s pray the Holy Spirit will water and grow this concern for persecuted Christians!

Of course, most of the Religious Left will remain silent about persecution of Christians, whether by Islamist or Marxist regimes. The Religious Left prefers its usual political themes, such as attacking capitalism as a cosmic threat to Planet Earth. A group of Presbyterian and Congregationalist theologians from around the world recently convened to issue their denunciation of free markets as the supposed tormentor of the poor.Here’s my article.

Which has sustained more poverty in the world, free markets and protection of private property, or state control and corruption of markets? Tens of millions of previously poor people in the Global South, especially in India and China, have escaped centuries of poverty thanks to the former, and relief from the latter. But the Religious Left prefers its own ideology, to reality and traditional Christian thought. Unfortunately, at least if you are a Mainline Protestant, the Religious is often funded by your donations to your local church!

Please continue to pray for our churches, for the persecuted church globally, for our country, and for IRD’s ministry of church reform. Your contribution allows IRD to report and to speak about what is happening in our churches. Your gift of $25 will help us continue. Please easily donate here.