{"id":6928,"date":"2014-01-21T14:32:12","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T22:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6928"},"modified":"2014-01-21T14:32:12","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T22:32:12","slug":"the-existential-elephant-in-the-christian-persecution-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-existential-elephant-in-the-christian-persecution-room\/","title":{"rendered":"The Existential Elephant in the ‘Christian Persecution’ Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0CBN News<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Open Doors USA<\/a>\u00a0recently released its widely cited\u00a02014 World Watch List<\/a>\u2014a report that highlights and ranks the 50 worst nations around the globe persecuting<\/p>\n

\"2014
2014 World Watch List global map of Christian persecution (darker colors more severe).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christians.<\/p>\n

The one glaring fact that emerges from this report is that the overwhelming majority of Christian persecution around the world today is being committed at the hands of Muslims of all races, languages, cultures, and socio-political circumstances: Muslims from among America\u2019s allies (Saudi Arabia) and its enemies (Iran); Muslims from economically rich nations (Qatar) and from poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); Muslims from \u201cIslamic republic\u201d nations (Afghanistan) and from \u201cmoderate\u201d nations (Malaysia and Indonesia); Muslims from nations rescued by America (Kuwait) and Muslims claiming \u201cgrievances\u201d against America (fill in the blank __).<\/p>\n

A common denominator, a pattern, exists, one that is even more extensive than Open Doors implies.\u00a0\u00a0According<\/a>\u00a0to that organization\u2019s communications director, Emily Fuentes, \u201cof the 50 worst nations for persecution, 37 of them are Muslim,\u201d or 74%.<\/p>\n

In fact, while this number suggests that the other 13 countries making the top 50 are not Muslim\u2014for example Kenya and Ethiopia\u2014those doing the persecution there are.<\/p>\n

In other words, those persecuting Christians in 41 of 50 nations are Muslims; that is, a whopping 82% of all persecution around the globe is being committed by the adherents of Islam\u2014sometimes in Christian majority nations; for example, the Central African Republic which, after the 2013 Islamic takeover, now ranks #16, \u201csevere persecution\u201d (the Christian-majority nation did not even appear in the previous year\u2019s top 50).<\/p>\n

As for the top ten absolute worst nations, where, according to the 2014 World Watch List, Christians suffer \u201cextreme persecution,\u201d nine\u2014that is, 90%\u2014are Muslim.\u00a0 (Indeed,\u00a0Open Doors\u2019 global map of Christian persecution<\/a>\u00a0can easily be confused with a\u00a0global map of the Islamic world<\/a>, with the exception of China (ranked 37, \u201cmoderate persecution\u201d) and some sporadic countries dominated by crime and godless tyranny, Columbia, North Korea, etc.)<\/p>\n

Similarly, a recent Morning Star News report\u00a0listing<\/a>\u00a02013\u2019s ten most horrific anecdotes of Christian persecution around the world finds that nine out of ten\u2014again, 90%\u2014were committed at the hands of those professing Islam.<\/p>\n

Still, considering that the 2014 World Watch List ranks North Korea\u2014non-Islamic, communist\u2014as the number one worst persecutor of Christians, why belabor the religious identity of Muslims?<\/p>\n

Here we come to some critically important but blurred distinctions.\u00a0\u00a0 While Christians are indeed suffering extreme persecution in North Korea, these fall into the realm of the temporal, the aberrant, even.\u00a0 Something as simple as overthrowing the North Korean regime would likely end persecution there almost overnight\u2014just as the fall of Communist Soviet Union saw religious persecution come to a quick close.<\/p>\n

In the Islamic world, however, a similar scenario would not alleviate the sufferings of Christians by an iota.\u00a0 Quite the opposite; where dictators fall\u2014Saddam in Iraq, Mubarak in Egypt, Qaddafi in Libya, and ongoing attempts to oust Assad in Syria\u2014Christian persecution rises.<\/p>\n

The reason for this dichotomy is that Christian persecution by non-Muslims (mostly communists) is often rooted to a temporal regime or ideology.\u00a0 Conversely, Muslim persecution of Christians is perennial, existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler.\u00a0 It is part and parcel of the history, doctrines, and socio-political makeup of Islam\u2014hence its tenacity; hence its ubiquity.<\/p>\n

Still, the significance of all this is often overlooked.\u00a0 Thus, \u201cDr. David Curry, CEO and president of Open Doors USA, told The Blaze \u2018Not every circumstance is the same. For example, in North Korea, you have a quasi-Stalinist government that is the most difficult place to call yourself a Christian on the planet \u2014 and has been for the last 12 years,\u2019 he noted.\u00a0 But while North Korea\u2019s government is the real culprit, in places like Iraq, \u2018roving extremist groups\u2019 are waging attacks against Christians, while government officials are seemingly powerless to stop the carnage, he explained.\u201d<\/p>\n

True; but atheistic Stalinism\/communism is a relatively new phenomenon\u2014about a century old\u2014and, over the years, its rule (if not variants of its ideology) has greatly waned, so that only a handful of nations today are communist.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, \u201croving extremist groups\u201d (also known in other contexts and countries as \u201cIslamists,\u201d \u201cterrorists,\u201d \u201cmujahidin,\u201d \u201cmobs,\u201d \u201cradicals,\u201d \u201cpeople-with-grievances,\u201d etc.) attacking and killing \u201cinfidel\u201d Christians have been around since the dawn of Islam.\u00a0\u00a0It is a well-documented, even if suppressed, history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To further understand the differences between temporal and existential persecution, consider: Russia, once a staunch Orthodox Christian nation, led the communist movement and persecuted its own Christians; yet today, a century later, it is becoming more orthodox again, prominent among Western nations for\u00a0showing support for persecuted Christians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

North Korea\u2014where its leader, Kim Jong-Un, is worshipped as a god and the people are shielded from reality, including outside their borders\u2014seems to be experiencing what Russia did under the Soviet Union and thus living in a delusional state.<\/p>\n

But if the once mighty USSR could not persevere, surely it\u2019s a matter of time before tiny North Korea\u2019s 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, ranked #15, \u201csevere persecution,\u201d and Turkmenistan, ranked #20, also \u201csevere persecution.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Time, however, is not on the side of Christians living amid Muslims; quite the opposite. Since the 7th\u00a0century, when Islam came into being,\u00a0Muslims have been invading and conquering Christian lands<\/a>, so that more than half of the territory that was once Christian in the 7th\u00a0century\u2014including all of North Africa and the Levant\u2014are today the heart of the \u201cMuslim world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muslim persecution of Christians exists in 41 nations today as part of a continuum that started nearly 14 centuries ago.\u00a0 As I document in\u00a0Crucified Again: Exposing Islam\u2019s New War on Christians<\/em><\/a>, the very same patterns of Christian persecution prevalent throughout the Muslim world today are often identical to those from centuries past.\u00a0 The facts speak for themselves.<\/p>\n

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 (hence the \u201caberrant\u201d persecution); conversely, the other nine nations are not dominated by any \u201ccults-of-personalities\u201d and are variously governed, including through parliamentarian democracies (Iraq), republics (Maldives, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen), Islamic republics (Afghanistan, Iran), \u00a0and monarchies (Saudi Arabia).<\/p>\n

The common denominator is that they are all Islamic nations.<\/p>\n

Thus, long after North Korea\u2019s psychotic Kim Jong-Un has gone the way of the dodo, Islam will still be here and\u2014short of a miraculous \u201creformation\u201d\u2014still treating Christians and other \u201cinfidels\u201d like it did for centuries.<\/p>\n

Confronting this understandably discomforting and better-left-unsaid fact is the first real step to alleviating the sufferings of the overwhelming majority of Christians around the world.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, however, while some are willing to point out that Christians are being persecuted around the Muslim world\u2014why<\/em>\u00a0that is the case,\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a082% of the world\u2019s persecution is committed by Muslims from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances\u2014is the great elephant in the room that few wish to address.\u00a0 For doing so would cause some long held and cherished premises of the modern West to come crashing down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0CBN News\u00a0 Open Doors USA\u00a0recently released its widely cited\u00a02014 World Watch List\u2014a report that highlights and ranks the 50 worst nations around the globe persecuting Christians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[225,227],"tags":[366,192,1017,30,1071,1016,478,921],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1NK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7216,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-are-slaughtering-us-like-chickens-muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":6928,"position":0},"title":"The Are Slaughtering Us Like Chickens’: Muslim Persecution of Christians, December 2013","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0Gatestone Insitute As happens at Christmas every year throughout the Muslim world, Christians and their churches were especially targeted\u2014from jihadi terror strikes killing worshippers, to measures by Muslim authorities restricting Christmas celebrations.\u00a0 Some incidents follow:","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6219,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/crucified-again-venn-institute-interviews-raymond-ibrahim\/","url_meta":{"origin":6928,"position":1},"title":"Crucified Again — Venn Institute Interviews Raymond Ibrahim","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Raymond Ibrahim [Note: The following interview was conducted by the\u00a0Venn Institute\u00a0with Raymond Ibrahim] Raymond Ibrahim is a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam expert, and author most recently of\u00a0Crucified Again: Exposing Islam\u2019s New War on Christians. 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