by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Gatestone Institute<\/em><\/p>\n Last Sunday, many Christians around the world celebrated Easter, taking it for granted that they can congregate and worship in peace. Not so; in the Islamic world, where\u00a0top religious officials call for the destruction of churches<\/a>, Christian holidays celebrated in church are increasingly a time of death and destruction, a time of terror.<\/p>\n Nigeria<\/a>, for example, saw some 50 Christians killed “when explosives concealed in two cars went off near a church during Easter Sunday services in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna\u2026. the casualty figure may go up because some injuries were really critical.” The church targeted was “the Assemblies of God’s Church near the center of the city with a large Christian population and known as a major cultural and economic center in Nigeria’s north.” According to the pastor holding Easter services at the time, “We were in the Holy Communion service and I was exhorting my people and all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise that shattered all our windows and doors, destroyed our fans and some of our equipment in the church.”<\/p>\n There is little doubt that the Islamist group Boko Haram is behind the terror strike. The group has long been targeting churches \u2014 most notoriously, last December 25, when several churches were bombed in the Muslim majority areas of Nigeria, in what was described as “Nigeria’s blackest Christmas ever<\/a>“: then, over 40 Christians were slain, “the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla near the capital of Abuja] after celebrating Christmas Mass as blood pooled in dust from a massive explosion.” As usual, the charred and dismembered remains of Christian worshippers were seen scattered in and around the destroyed church.<\/p>\n While the Christmas \u2014 and now Easter \u2014 church attacks may be Nigeria’s most known, they are certainly not the only ones. Consider just the last few weeks:<\/p>\n While the mainstream media, analysts, government officials, etc. try to portray these attacks as products of\u00a0Nigerian poverty<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 most recently, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs insisted that “religion is not driving extremist violence<\/a>” in Nigeria \u2014 the fact is, wherever in the world there are significant numbers of Muslims (Nigeria is essentially half Christian, half Muslim), churches are under siege (see sections dealing with church attacks in my “Muslim Persecution of Christians” reports for\u00a0February<\/a>,January<\/a>,\u00a0December<\/a>,\u00a0November<\/a>,\u00a0October<\/a>,\u00a0September<\/a>,\u00a0August<\/a>, and\u00a0July<\/a>).<\/p>\n Some of the more spectacular ones include the Baghdad church attack where58 Christians were killed<\/a>; likewise, the\u00a0New Year’s Eve church bombing in Egypt<\/a>\u00a0that saw over 20 Christians killed (when\u00a0several more churches were bombed and attacked<\/a>\u00a0and thousands of Egyptian Christians demonstrated, they were\u00a0slaughtered by their own military<\/a>); earlier, in 2010, eight Egyptian Christians were shot dead by drive-by Muslims as they were leaving church on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n Incidentally, Muslim attacks on churches during the holiest of Christian holidays are not limited to Nigeria and Egypt, but occur throughout the Muslim world \u2014 for instance, in distant, “moderate” Philippines,\u00a0where another church was bombed during Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, there are some Muslim nations \u2014\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>,\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>, and soon possibly\u00a0Kuwait<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 where one rarely hears of church attacks; but that is because they have nipped the “church problem” in the bud by not allowing them to exist in the first place. In other words, the hatred for churches is still there, but in an unseen form.<\/p>\n Speaking of hatred, while church attacks are efficient ways to ensure the deaths of maximum numbers of Christians \u2014 in that worshippers are tightly gathered in one spot \u2014 intentionally targeting churches during the highest Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, is also a reminder of the malevolency that drives such attacks.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim Gatestone Institute Last Sunday, many Christians around the world celebrated Easter, taking it for granted that they can congregate and worship in peace. Not so; in the Islamic world, where\u00a0top religious officials call for the destruction of churches, Christian holidays celebrated in church are increasingly a time of death and destruction, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[29,225,227],"tags":[379,192,378,380,1035,1017,30,1075,1060,162],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-dv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3349,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/destroying-one-koran-or-many-christians-which-is-worse\/","url_meta":{"origin":837,"position":0},"title":"Destroying One Koran or Many Christians: Which is Worse?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPageMagazine.com The now infamous Koran burning by Florida pastor Terry Jones has created hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty people, including UN workers, have been killed and beheaded to screams of \"Allahu Akbar!\" Western leaders around the globe \u2014 including Obama and members\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/christmas-under-islam-hardly-a-season-to-be-jolly\/","url_meta":{"origin":837,"position":1},"title":"Christmas Under Islam: Hardly a Season to be Jolly","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media Earlier I\u00a0discussed\u00a0how mosques, some of which\u00a0breed radicalization\u00a0and serve as\u00a0terrorist bases, flourish in America, while churches are increasingly targeted and destroyed in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. This pattern \u2014 religious appeasement of Muslim minorities in the West, religious hostility\u2026","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":1297,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nigerias-christmas-present-blown-up-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":837,"position":2},"title":"Nigeria’s Christmas Present: Blown Up Christians","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Several churches in northern Nigeria were bombed December 25, in what has been\u00a0described\u00a0as \"Nigeria's blackest Christmas ever.\" The attacks, perpetrated by the Muslim militant group Boko Haram, killed at least 39 people, \"the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nigeria"","block_context":{"text":"Nigeria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/nigeria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7027,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-york-times-biased-coverage-on-muslim-persectution\/","url_meta":{"origin":837,"position":3},"title":"New York Times Biased Coverage on Muslim Persectution","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0has finally found a victim of Islamic aggression in Nigeria worth reporting on: homosexuals. \u00a0 In a big spread complete with pictures appearing last week, the NYT\u2019s Adam Nossiter wrote \u201cWielding Whip and a Hard New Law, Nigeria Tries to \u2018Sanitize\u2019 Itself of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nigeria"","block_context":{"text":"Nigeria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/nigeria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6564,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bloody-weekend-trend-of-muslim-rage-against-infidels-continues\/","url_meta":{"origin":837,"position":4},"title":"Bloody Weekend: Trend of Muslim Rage Against ‘Infidels’ Continues","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0The Blaze\u00a0 Muslim slaughter of non-Muslim \u201cinfidels\u201d saw an especially dramatic weekend in the nations of Pakistan and Kenya.\u00a0 Even so, these are simply the latest in a long list of jihadi attacks on the Christians of both nations. 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