(USA Today) Joseph Bottum–Who will defend Mideast Christians?

More African than Arab, Southern Sudan might not provide much assistance to minorities in the Middle East. But its existence teaches the lesson that commitment from the United States actually works. In the 1980s and 1990s, a broad political coalition forced the Bush and Clinton administrations to treat Sudan as a rogue state for its oppression of minorities. The 2011 independence of Southern Sudan is a fruit of that effort ”” proof that, though it might take decades, international pressure can succeed.

Unfortunately, in the years since, America foreign policy has been little concerned with religious persecution. George W. Bush, for example, refused to insist on a non-Islamic constitution for Iraq. And Barack Obama has systematically watered down U.S. diplomacy: Where we once demanded “freedom of religion,” a public liberty, we now speak only of “freedom of worship,” a lesser and private right.

This American abdication has produced only more oppression ”” and it’s accelerating at a horrifying rate. Nearly every day since Christmas, Christians have been murderously attacked for the simple fact of being Christians….

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Posted in * Culture-Watch, * International News & Commentary, * Religion News & Commentary, Egypt, Middle East, Other Churches, Religion & Culture

6 comments on “(USA Today) Joseph Bottum–Who will defend Mideast Christians?

  1. Lapinbizarre says:

    A piece by Ruth Gledhill published last March stated that Bishop Nazir-Ali “intends to use his expertise as an Islamic scholar to work in Pakistan where he was born and in the Middle East to build bridges between Christians and Muslims”. He is certainly needed at this time and his high profile might be useful.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5991632.ece

  2. Br. Michael says:

    The liberal west will not lift a finger. I expect the rest of the world to follow suit.

  3. Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) says:

    Sadly, this all is nothing new. Muslims will kill us all, given the chance, and it usually comes in waves. In the late 13th Century this miserable excuse for faith — dressing up 6th Century camel nomads’ pitifully ignorant view of the world, even for that age, with bits of Christian and Jewish language — had been reduced to a tiny rump in Egypt.

    It is a pity they were not wiped out.

    By the 14th Century they were on the march, slaughtering Christians and destroying their communities. Militant Islam dates from the 14th Century, with its rapidly cooling climate and its accompanying shortages of food, not from the 7th Century.

    Until that time, throughout much of near Asia Christians were in a majority. The second wave of destruction came with the Ottomans. We are now in the third. Jenkins’ [url=http://www.amazon.com/Lost-History-Christianity-Thousand-Year-Asia/dp/0061472808]Lost History of Christianity[/url] lays it out in depressing detail.

  4. Confessor says:

    Jesus welcomed 11 more Christian martyrs when two families were attacked by Islamists during the news blackout in Egypt.
    [url=http://transfigurations.blogspot.com/2011/02/muslims-attack-two-christian-families.html] Link [/url]

  5. Viridian Energy says:

    I don’t understand that Muslims are really religious but why they allowed to kill people.

  6. Sick & Tired of Nuance says:

    Why on earth would Christians need to be defended from practitioners of the “religion of peace”? /sarc

    The world should treat Islam like the British Empire treated the Tuggies and worshipers of Kali, the goddess of death. Islam worships death, so give them as much as they care to have. Let them find their path to allah through martyrdom it that is what they wish.