Pentecostals and Evangelicals Most Persecuted Group of Christianity

By Julio Severo

Pentecostals and evangelicals are the most persecuted branch of Christianity, a new report says.

“Protestant evangelical and Pentecostal Christians are more likely to be persecuted than mainline Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox Christians or other Christians associated with ancient churches. In response to persecution, evangelical and Pentecostal Christians are more likely to engage in strategies of survival or, on rare occasions, confrontation,” reads the report by Under Caesar’s Sword.

UCS is a three-year, collaborative global research project that investigates how Christian communities respond when their religious freedom is severely violated.

In 2016, Christianity was ranked as the most persecuted religion in the world. In those same figures, Islamic State (ISIS) murders of Christians accounted for 30 percent of the persecution. ISIS has committed genocide against Christians in Syria and Iraq. According to Trump, Obama founded ISIS.

UCS gives three reasons to account for the horrific acts committed against believers.

In many countries, evangelicals and Pentecostals are comparatively recent arrivals and thus have not established patterns of relating to surrounding populations and governments to the same degree as churches with decades or centuries of history in a given region.

Evangelicals and Pentecostals are often perceived to be supported by co-religionists and allies in the West. Especially Muslims hate the connections evangelicals and Pentecostals have with Christian groups in the United States.

Evangelicals and Pentecostals tend to understand evangelism and conversion as verbal, urgent and sometimes dramatic processes and, consequently, expect and are prepared to endure persecution.

To combat the violence against Christ-followers, UCS recommends “Churches need to understand their global responsibility for Christians under persecution and achieve unity across Christian communities in supporting persecuted minorities. Particular stress should be placed on building bridges connecting traditional Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches with evangelical and Pentecostal groups.”

Christians have been historically persecuted by Islam.

Speaking January 2017 on Vatican Radio, Massimo Introvigne, Director of the Centre for Studies on New Religions, said that around half a billion Christians in the world are unable to express their faith completely freely — with around 90,000 Christians who were killed for their faith in 2016 alone, which is the equivalent of one Christian being martyred every six minutes.

In March 2016, the Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo reported that in just five years of conflict, the Christian population of Syria has been reduced by two thirds from 1.5 million to just 500,000, according to a Breitbart report.

Many Syrian Christians were killed by ISIS, founded by Hillary Clinton, or by Syrian rebels, funded, armed and trained by the Obama administration and now by the Trump administration. While the Syrian government was fighting ISIS, the Obama administration was helping Islamic rebels who were essentially damaging the Syrian government’s war against ISIS.

Such reality puts the U.S. behind Islamic persecution of Christians. In fact, according to the 2016 World Watch List, published by Open Doors USA, even though North Korea is the number one in Christian persecution, the other countries that ranked highest on such persecution were Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is very bad news for the U.S., which has been militarily interfering in Syria and which invaded and intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq. The results are obviously appalling, at least for Christians.

In 2014, Raymond Ibrahim, author of the bestselling book “Crucified Again,” said in his article “Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution”:

Whenever the U.S. intervenes in an Islamic nation, Islamists come to power. This is well demonstrated by the other three nations to which the U.S. brought “democracy” and where Christian minorities suffer “extreme persecution”:

Afghanistan: The supposedly “moderate” Karzai government installed by the U.S. upholds many of the draconian laws enforced by the Taliban—including the apostasy law, fiercely persecuting those who seek to convert to Christianity—and, in 2011, under U.S. auspices, it destroyed Afghanistan’s last Christian church.

Iraq: After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for graphic images). Christians have been terrorized into near-extinction, with well over half of them fleeing Iraq.

Libya: Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Qaddafi, Christians—including Americans—have indeed suffered extreme persecution. Churches have been bombed; Christians have been tortured and killed (including for refusing to convert); and nuns have been threatened.

Surely a common theme emerges here: Where the U.S. works to oust secular autocrats, the quality of life for Christians and other minorities takes a major nosedive. Under Saddam, Qaddafi, and Assad, Christians and their churches were largely protected.

Ibrahim then said, “Prominent indicators confirm that the U.S. is the chief facilitator of the persecution of Christians around the world today.”

During his campaign, Donald Trump said that the administration of former President George W. Bush lied about his reasons to invade Iraq. Trump said that he opposed such invasion. Christians in Iraq took a very heavy toll for Bush’s bad decision. The Iraqi Christian community, which was over 2 million before the U.S. invasion, is now less than 400,000.

Under Bush and Obama, while Muslims in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq had facilitated immigration to the U.S., Christians were essentially banned. Oppressors in, victims out. During his campaign, Trump made many promises to correct this incredible immigratory inconsistency by favoring Christian victims, not Islamic oppressors. But until far, he has not fulfilled his promises.

On the contrary, in the first days of his administration, Trump, through his CIA director, rewarded Saudi Arabia for fighting Islamic terror, when actually the Saudi dictatorship is the main sponsor of the global Islamic terrorism.

Saudi Arabia has today more Christian blood in its hands than any other Muslim nation. Even so, in his planned trip to Israel this month, Trump intends at the same time to visit Saudi Arabia. Trump seems to have forgotten the role of Saudi leadership in the global Islamic terrorism, including that most terrorist Muslims in the 9/11 were Saudi.

The United States, founded by Christians, more specifically by Protestants, should give priority to persecuted Christians, including by helping Christian immigrants, especially persecuted by Muslims, but since some thirty years ago it has been giving priority to Muslims. The U.S. has protected Saudi Arabia and Islam, not Christians.

For his visit to Israel this month, I would have two suggestions to Mr. President Trump: Because Israel has an active military involvement in Syria, encourage Israel to bomb ISIS bases in Syria and to receive Christian refugees from Syria. The second suggestion is: Exclude Saudi Arabia and include Armenia, the first officially Christian nation in the world.

In this trip, Trump should recognize the Armenian Genocide, where almost 2 million Christian Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish Muslims 100 years ago. Such acknowledgment would send the clear message that the Trump administration is seriously worried about Islamic persecution of Christians.

While Christians are the most persecuted religious group on the earth, Muslims are the main persecutors of Christians in the world. So why has the Trump administration had an excellent relationship with Saudi Arabia, not Armenia?

With information from Charisma, CBN and ChristianHeadlines.

Portuguese version of this article: Pentecostais e evangélicos são o grupo mais perseguido do Cristianismo

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Immigration: A Weapon of Mass Cultural Destruction in Liberal Hands

Trump refuses to call genocide the mass killings of Christian Armenians by Muslim Turks during World War One

Christians’ Love of the Warfare State Is Killing Other Christians

Christian Persecution Follows US, UK and France in Kosovo, Libya, Iraq and Syria

Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution

Why Does Christian Persecution Get Worse In Every Country The U.S. “Liberates”?

What Is Neoconservatism (Neocon)?

Islam, to surpass Christianity by 2070, will be only major religion to increase faster than world’s population 

Siding with the “religion of peace”: Obama, Bush, Brzezinski…

War between Christian Nations and Muslim Nations: A Table Talk between an American Economist and Young Muslims in

Indonesia

CIA Rewards Saudi Arabia for Fighting Islamic Terror

Christians Are the Most Persecuted Religious Group in the World

Armenian President Warns about Danger of Genocide Denial, Brazilian Congressman Marco Feliciano Denounces Genocide

of Armenian Christians

Armenia, the first Christian nation in the world, and the first genocide in the 20th century

Trump and Prophecies, and a New Model of National and World Leader

Christians Are the Most Persecuted Religious Group in the World

By Julio Severo

Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world, according to the Centre for Global Christianity.

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Massimo Introvigne, Director of the Centre for Studies on New Religions, said that around half a billion Christians in the world are unable to express their faith completely freely — with around 90,000 Christians who were killed for their faith in 2016 alone, which is the equivalent of one Christian being martyred every six minutes.

In March, the Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo reported that in just five years of conflict, the Christian population of Syria has been reduced by two thirds from 1.5 million to just 500,000, according to a Breitbart report. 

Many Syrian Christians were killed by ISIS, founded by Hillary Clinton, or by Syrian rebels, funded, armed and trained by the Obama administration. While the Syrian government was fighting ISIS, the Obama administration was helping Islamic rebels who were essentially damaging the Syrian government’s war against ISIS.

Such reality puts the U.S. behind Islamic persecution of Christians. In fact, according to the 2016 World Watch List, published by Open Doors USA, even though North Korea is the number one in Christian persecution, the other countries that ranked highest on such persecution were Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is very bad news for the U.S., which has been militarily interfering in Syria and which invaded and intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq. The results are obviously appalling, at least for Christians.

In 2014, Raymond Ibrahim, author of the bestselling book “Crucified Again,” said in his article “Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution”:

Whenever the U.S. intervenes in an Islamic nation, Islamists come to power. This is well demonstrated by the other three nations to which the U.S. brought “democracy” and where Christian minorities suffer “extreme persecution”:

Afghanistan: The supposedly “moderate” Karzai government installed by the U.S. upholds many of the draconian laws enforced by the Taliban—including the apostasy law, fiercely persecuting those who seek to convert to Christianity—and, in 2011, under U.S. auspices, it destroyed Afghanistan’s last Christian church.

Iraq: After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for graphic images). Christians have been terrorized into near-extinction, with well over half of them fleeing Iraq.

Libya: Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Qaddafi, Christians—including Americans—have indeed suffered extreme persecution. Churches have been bombed; Christians have been tortured and killed (including for refusing to convert); and nuns have been threatened.

Surely a common theme emerges here: Where the U.S. works to oust secular autocrats, the quality of life for Christians and other minorities takes a major nosedive. Under Saddam, Qaddafi, and Assad, Christians and their churches were largely protected.

Ibrahim then says, “Prominent indicators confirm that the U.S. is the chief facilitator of the persecution of Christians around the world today.”

During his campaign, Donald Trump said that the administration of former President George W. Bush lied about his reasons to invade Iraq. Trump said that he opposed such invasion. Christians in Iraq took a very heavy toll for Bush’s bad decision. The Iraqi Christian community, which was over 2 million before the U.S. invasion, is now less than 400,000.

Under Bush and Obama, while Muslims in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq had facilitated immigration to the U.S., Christians were essentially banned. Oppressors in, victims out. During his campaign, Trump promised to correct this incredible immigratory inconsistency by favoring Christian victims, not Islamic oppressors.

The U.S., founded by Christians, more specifically by Protestants, should give priority to persecuted Christian immigrants, but since some thirty years ago it has been giving priority to Muslims.

While Christians are the most persecuted religious group on the earth, Muslims are the main persecutors of Christians in the world. Why grant visas to persecutors, not their victims?

Let us pray that Trump may stop the trend of brutal persecution of Christians in the trail of U.S. interventions in Islamic nations.

With information from CBN and ChristianHeadlines.

Portuguese version of this article: Cristãos são o grupo religioso mais perseguido do mundo

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Christians’ Love of the Warfare State Is Killing Other Christians

Christian Persecution Follows US, UK and France in Kosovo, Libya, Iraq and Syria

Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution

Why Does Christian Persecution Get Worse In Every Country The U.S. “Liberates”?

Immigration: A Weapon of Mass Cultural Destruction in Liberal Hands

Olavo de Carvalho and His Nonsense on Trump and Russia

By Julio Severo

Olavo de Carvalho, a Brazilian famous for advocating the revisionism of the Inquisition, which tortured and murdered Jews and evangelicals, said several days ago: “After all, is Trump a mad war-monger who is going to bomb Russia or he is a Russian agent who is going to pour out dollars on Moscow? Because the U.S. media accuses him of both things, it is obvious that he is neither of them.”

The mainstream media has in fact been accusing Trump of being a Russian agent, because, for one thing, he and his family have made trips to Russia. (As a capitalist, Trump always had deals with Russians, one of his business partners.) But also because he says nice things about Putin.

And of course, as confirmed by WND, one of the most prominent conservative websites in the world, Trump has been praising the Russian president and showing willingness to be friend with Russia.

However, in spite of what Carvalho asserts, the mainstream media does not accuse Trump of being “a mad war-monger who is going to bomb Russia.” They only accuse him of being a mad war-monger who wants to bomb the Islamic State. They also accuse him of praising Vladimir Putin and wanting a U.S. alliance with Russia against ISIS.

Last Wednesday, Trump declared on TV that Putin is a better leader than U.S. President Barack Obama, according to Reuters, which mentioned, “…Trump’s praise of Putin and his suggestion that the United States and Russia form an alliance to defeat Islamic State militants.”

And last Thursday, Trump was interviewed by Russia Today, a news service backed by the Russian government, to give his view on accusations that a covert plan of Russian intelligence is interfering with U.S. elections and creating distrust among American voters.

“I don’t know. I’ve been hearing about it. I’ve been reading about it. I think it’s probably unlikely,” Trump said.

If Trump had Carvalho’s mindset, he would not accept an interview from a Russian news service because he thinks this news outlet is part of a spy network and that everything written by Russians — except for the Washington toadies in Russia, of course — is lying propaganda, especially the reports that can be readily verified. If he accepted the interview, obedient neocon that he is, he might say, “It is very likely that Russia is interfering. And do you know what? Russia created ISIS.” But Trump is not Carvalho.

Carvalho’s mind is so fixated on Russia that whenever the U.S. press says that Trump is going to do something against the Islamic State, Carvalho sees only the word “Russia.”

When you search Google with “Trump” and “bomb” as key words, you get numerous hits directly pointing to news headlines like “Trump wants to bomb ISIS, the Islamic State.” Let us see:

·         Donald Trump promises to ‘bomb the hell out of ISIS’ in new radio ad — Washington Post.

·         DONALD TRUMP: ‘I would bomb the s­— out of’ ISIS — Business Insider

·         Trump Vows If He Becomes President, He Will Bomb ISIS Into Extinction. — AWM

·         Trump: US has ‘no choice but to bomb’ ISIS in Libya — The Hill

When you include the key word “Russia” to “Trump” and “bomb” in the Google search, you find not comments by Trump wanting to bomb Russia, but comments by Putin on bombing ISIS. So both Trump and Putin want to bomb ISIS. They have the same goal. This is one important reason both praise one another.

Perhaps, by using a crystal ball, Carvalho saw that Trump wants to bomb Russia. But his personal fantasies are no reason or basis for him to accuse the U.S. mainstream media of saying what they have never said. Truth was raped to benefit the sentiments of an anti-Russia activist.

The mainstream media is mistaken on many things, but Carvalho falsely accused it of something it never said, namely, that Trump wants to bomb Russia. But this media has no time or willingness to answer the false accusation of a Brazilian immigrant who fancies himself a brilliant philosopher but is unknown in the U.S. (even though he has lived in the United States for more than ten years).

Things have soured for Carvalho and his “big knowledge” and “honesty.” He spent years putting Russia at the center of all evil in the universe and now, countering all his political obsessions, comes an American presidential candidate who puts Islamic terror at the center of political concerns and openly praises Russia. To keep up his reputation as a conservative, he is obliged to make an odd bedfellow with this Trump fellow, but he is clearly not comfortable with the arrangement (which Trump does not know anything about) and has little understanding of Trump’s ideas.

The only thing left for him to do is to hide his head like an ostrich in his hole of illusions that protect the Islamic State from Trump’s bombs and put Russia in its place.

Or perhaps, as a professional astrologer (which he is), he is subconsciously predicting that the American candidate will do what he has imagined, or keeps imagining and saying that Trump is going to bomb Russia, when what the U.S. press said very clearly is that he wants to bomb the Islamic State.

Usually, Carvalho has a marked and worn card against anyone minimally praising the Russian President Vladimir Putin. He calls his victim of duginist. “Duginist” is a reference to the adherents of the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who, according to Carvalho’s exaggerations, is the most prominent conservative or leader in Russia.

In 2015, Raymond Ibrahim, evangelical author of the best-selling book “Crucified Again,” which shows how Christians in the Middle East are being slaughtered by Muslims, wrote the article “Russia Declares ‘Holy War’ on Islamic State.” The report received positive feedback, especially from evangelical readers. Even Trump has praised the Russian fight against ISIS. But a Carvalho assistant, who is a member of the Carvalho led-Inter-American Institute, strongly protested the positive representation of Russia as Christian and conservative by evangelical Ibrahim, averring that Russian conservatism was a “strategy.”

In the 1990s, when I was involved with Catholic leaders, evangelical leaders also often said that Pope John 2 and his pro-life activism were a Vatican “strategy.”

I am glad to have cooperated with both pro-life “strategies,” not because I am an ecumenical Christian, but because whether is the Vatican or the Russian Orthodox Church, their pro-life stances deserve our support. While I do not support most their religious doctrines, I wholeheartedly their pro-family work.

In this point, considering Carvalho’s insistent rejection of all pro-family initiatives from Russia, some might think that perhaps strategy is what the Inter-American Institute has been up to, drawing evangelicals and Catholics for the supposed purpose of pro-life and pro-family activism when the real motivation of his founder and his close assistant is anti-Russian activism.

As a basis for his accusation of Russian “strategy,” the Inter-American Institute member and Carvalho assistant mentioned “Aleksandr Dugin” in his protest in Ibrahim’s article, presenting Dugin as the most powerful man in Russia.

I attended the most important conservative meeting in Russia in 2014, with another Inter-American Institute member and many international conservative Orthodoxies, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, and Dugin did not put in an appearance. Dugin is, by the way, an admirer of René Guénon, a Catholic French who had converted to esoteric Islam.

Oddly, other Guénon’s admirer is Carvalho himself, who translated into Portuguese one of Guénon’s books. Carvalho helped found in Brazil the first tariqa, an Islamic esoteric center that teaches a kind of Muslim witchcraft, and one of his sons is an active Muslim. Even though Carvalho seems today to reject partially some of those past experiences, many of his articles praise and recommend Guénon.

Besides calling them duginist, Carvalho also frequently accuses those minimally praising Russia of being Putinists, KGB agents or Russian agents.

With Trump’s arrival and his comments supportive of Putin and Russia, Carvalho’s anti-Russia arguments fell apart. He does not dare to accuse Trump of being a Kremlin agent, but he circumvents the hazards by planting in the minds of his followers the forged image of a Trump who is “accused” of praising Russia — when actually his praises are largely proved and recorded by the powerful U.S. conservative press — and of a Trump who is accused of wanting to bomb Russia. This is indeed a blatant false accusation, made up exclusively to replace Carvalho’s knee-jerk accusations against anyone praising Russia.

The accusation that Trump is a “Russian agent” is not a conservative one. It is a neocon accusation leveled at all American groups or individuals appreciating the positive and conservative aspects of modern Russia. A former CIA director also accused Trump of being a Russian agent and said that he intends to vote for Hillary Clinton.

So the candidate most compatible for anti-Russian activists like Carvalho is Hillary. Left-wing billionaire George Soros also supports Hillary and he is anti-Russia.

While Trump has praised Russia and his advisers were supporting pro-Russian forces in Ukraine, Carvalho has openly praised the Ukrainian revolution as the best democratic example against dictatorship. The Ukrainian revolution was the biggest Soros revolution, massively funded by him.

In his article “The Ukraine-ISIS Alliance,” author Sierra Rayne said,

“It is unlikely that many average citizens in the West are aware that ISIS is fighting on the side of the Ukraine nationalists. If they were, public opinion might drastically shift towards support for Russia — as it should. Better to have Ukraine be a proxy state of Russia than yet another budding member of the global Islamic Caliphate taking shape.”

In regard to this article, Steve Baldwin, a member of the Inter-American Institute, said,

“Freedom loving people all over the world who grew up during the Cold War years learned to hate the Soviet Union and with good reason. Communism stamped out all freedom and Soviet-style communism was constantly trying to acquire more territory. But that paradigm has changed. Unfortunately, there are many political leaders, both in the USA and elsewhere, who don’t understand that the Cold War is over and that there are new threats to deal with and new alliances that need to be formed. Putin may not be a perfect leader but freedom loving people all over the world have far more in common with the Russian people than they do with radial jihadists. His [Sierra Rayne’s] article reveals the Jihadist alliance with some factions in the Ukraine and suggests that the USA form an alliance with Russia to fight the growing jihadist threat.”

The paradigm has really changed, and left Carvalho far away not only from Trump, but also from members of his own institute. But it has not left him far away from Soros and his old school.

Carvalho founded the first school of astrologers in Brazil. But how can his crystal ball accurately see the future if he inaccurately sees the present?

Reality: Trump wants to bomb the Islamic State.

Fantasy: The crystal-ball of the Brazilian astrologer-philosopher says that U.S. media is accusing Trump of wanting to bomb Russia.

Fact: Such accusation is nonexistent in the U.S. media, resulting in two possible interpretations for the astrologer-philosopher’s lies:

1.      He is a cheat who deceives to his own advantage.

2.      He is a sophisticated clown who uses a philosophical circus to amuse the Brazilian public.

In both cases, the result is the same: audience growth. In Brazil, it is not impossible to be a clown in political affairs and succeed in increasing one’s audience. Tiririca, a semiliterate clown, became a famous Brazilian congressman.

In addition to accusing the U.S. press of saying Trump wants to bomb Russia, Carvalho insists on fanciful self-propaganda, bragging that he alone is responsible for the downfall of the socialist Dilma Rousseff administration in Brazil, when even the U.S. conservative big media does not grant him such glory. CBN, headed by Pat Robertson (who was a Republican presidential candidate in the 1980s), did not grant the esoteric Catholic Carvalho such glory in the report “President’s Impeachment Shows Growing Evangelical Power in Brazil.” WND also did not grant him such glory in the article “The lesson for U.S. in fall of Brazil regime.”

Yet, who cares? Not Carvalho, who does not see the downfall of Rousseff as an important event. Recently, he said that infinitely more important than removing Rousseff from the Brazilian government is to eliminate from people’s conscience the “myth” of the Inquisition, as if this bloody machine had not tortured and killed Jews and evangelicals.

So he is obsessed with advocating a revisionist image of the Inquisition. See this video where he says that all the torture tools of the Inquisition were made up and never existed: https://youtu.be/Cpq8eaAy7JY

He is also obsessed with attacking Russia every day, abundantly, as if Putin were Osama bin Laden and Russia were ISIS.

Meanwhile, Trump’s focus is ISIS. According to Trump, ISIS was created by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Putin has said the same thing. But I would not be surprised at all if Carvalho tried to suggest that Russia created ISIS, because his automatic answer on all universe’s evils has been to blame Russia. Interestingly, prominent neocons do blame Russia for the creation of ISIS.

In terms of the dangers facing civilization, Carvalho’s focus is not Islam. Perhaps he is not actively involved in Islamic affairs today because he has had extensive involvement in the past. He has already read and memorized the Koran in Arabic and has received an award from the Saudi government for a Mohammed biography he wrote.

While Trump’s and conservatives’ focus has been Islam and its terror and the immigrant invasion in the U.S. and Europe, Carvalho’s focus continues to be Russia, his whipping boy for all seasons. He cannot avoid it: he is the most prominent anti-Russian activist in Brazil, even though he is an immigrant in America.

He is very lucky. Obama’s immigration policies are the most generous in the U.S. history. Largely under Obama, Carvalho has kept his survival as an immigrant, and basically he does what Obama does: he focusses on Russia, not Islamic terror, as the biggest threat.

With a crystal ball in his mind and his heart, it is easy for an astrologer-philosopher to ignore reality, despise objectivity and see imaginary threats.

So blame it on the crystal ball!

Read also “Olavo de Carvalho” in Conservapedia.

Portuguese version of this article: Olavo de Carvalho e seus absurdos sobre Trump e a Rússia

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading on Olavo de Carvalho:

Olavo de Carvalho and the Inquisition

Is Trump a KGB Agent?

Homeschooling in Brazil: Where Is it Headed?

The Horrors of the Inquisition and Its Modern Advocates

Bible Ignorance, Clergy Corruption and the Inquisition in England before the Reformation

Neocons, the Inquisition, Russophobia and Lies

Why Call Names? An Answer to Olavo de Carvalho

Can a Pro-Life Activist Defend The Inquisition?

Recommended Reading on Trump and Russia:

Left-Wing Billionaire George Soros and His Plan of Global Chaos

Top Anti-Russia Journalist Presents a Dossier Suggesting Trump May Be a Russian Agent

Former CIA director endorses Hillary Clinton, supports Muslims in CIA and characterizes Trump as Putin’s agent

A Trap for Trump

Is Trump a KGB Agent?

Recommended Reading on Brazil:

The lesson for U.S. in fall of Brazil regime

President’s Impeachment Shows Growing Evangelical Power in Brazil

Guatemala Lessons for Brazil in the Midst of a Powerful Political Crisis

Brazil, the Next (Regional or Global) Threat to the U.S. Economic Supremacy?

Understanding Anti-Government Protests in Brazil

Were Brazilian Protests an Anti-Marxist Counter-Revolution?

Anti-Marxist Conscience of the Brazilian Evangelical

Lula, the Ugliest Face of “the Brazilian Way of Doing Things”

Confirmed: U.S. Chief Facilitator of Christian Persecution

Raymond Ibrahim

Prominent indicators confirm that the U.S. is the chief facilitator of the persecution of Christians around the world today.

Senator John McCain and Syrian “rebels”

According to the recently released 2014 World Watch List, which ranks the 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted, Syria is the third worst nation in the world in which to be Christian, Iraq is fourth, Afghanistan fifth, and Libya 13th. All four countries receive the strongest designation, “extreme persecution” (other designations are “severe,” “moderate,” and “sparse” persecution).

Aside from being so closely and harshly ranked, these four nations have something else in common: heavy U.S. involvement. Three—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya—were “liberated” thanks to U.S. forces, while in the fourth, Syria, the U.S. is actively sponsoring “freedom fighters” against the regime, many of whom would be better labeled “terrorists.”

The Syrian situation alone indicts U.S. foreign policy. According to Reuters:

Open Doors, a non-denominational group supporting persecuted Christians worldwide, said on Wednesday it had documented 2,123 “martyr” killings, compared with 1,201 in 2012. There were 1,213 such deaths in Syria alone last year, it said. “This is a very minimal count based on what has been reported in the media and we can confirm,” said Frans Veerman, head of research for Open Doors. Estimates by other Christian groups put the annual figure as high as 8,000.

While most Americans are shielded from the true nature of the war by the U.S. media’s reluctance to report on it, Arabic media, websites, and activists daily report and document atrocity after atrocity—beheadings and bombed churches, Christians slaughtered for refusing to convert to Islam, and countless abducted for ransom or rape—at the hands of those whom the U.S. supports.

It’s enough to point out that “the largest massacre of Christians in Syria,” to quote a top religious leader, was left wholly unreported by any major U.S. news network.

At any rate, the statistics speak for themselves: Syria, which used to be religiously tolerant, is now, in the context of the United States’ trying to bring “democracy” to it, the third worst country in the world in terms of “extreme persecution” of Christians.

The Blaze reports that Dr. David Curry, president of Open Doors,

charged that the Obama administration has essentially declined to make the protection of religious minorities a priority . . . “There are many instances where the vacuum of leadership and spokesmanship has created a real problem,” said the human rights leader. “I would say that every significant data point on this year’s ‘2014 Watch List’ is worse—and I think a factor in it is a lack of leadership from Western governments including . . . the U.S. in terms of religious freedom.”

But it’s worse than that. Far from taking any action or providing leadership—or simply ceasing to support the terrorists responsible—the Obama administration recently tried to go to war with Syria on behalf of the “freedom fighters,” amazingly, in the name of “human rights” (Apparently the unsubstantiated rumor that Assad massacred people is enough for the U.S. to go to war, but the ongoing and well-documented massacres of Christians and other civilians at the hands of the opposition is not enough for the U.S. to stop supporting them.)

What’s worse, even the most misinformed mainstream-media-watching American today knows that the so-called “Arab Spring,” which was hailed to justify U.S. support for “rebels” of all stripes—in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood (which months ago destroyed some 80 churches); in Libya, al-Qaeda, which has turned Benghazi into a terror zone; and now the “freedom fighters” in Syria—is not what it was touted to be.

In other words, at this point, whenever the U.S. intervenes in an Islamic nation, Islamists come to power. This is well demonstrated by the other three nations to which the U.S. brought “democracy” and where Christian minorities suffer “extreme persecution”:

Afghanistan: The supposedly “moderate” Karzai government installed by the U.S. upholds many of the draconian laws enforced by the Taliban—including the apostasy law, fiercely persecuting those who seek to convert to Christianity—and, in 2011, under U.S. auspices, it destroyed Afghanistan’s last Christian church.

Iraq: After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for graphic images). Christians have been terrorized into near-extinction, with well over half of them fleeing Iraq.

Libya: Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Qaddafi, Christians—including Americans—have indeed suffered extreme persecution. Churches have been bombed; Christians have been tortured and killed (including for refusing to convert); and nuns have been threatened.

Surely a common theme emerges here: Where the U.S. works to oust secular autocrats, the quality of life for Christians and other minorities takes a major nosedive. Under Saddam, Qaddafi, and Assad, Christians and their churches were largely protected.

Moreover, while George W. Bush was responsible for Afghanistan and Iraq, the argument can be made that, back then (2001 and 2003), this pattern of Islamic radicalization that erupts once autocrats are gone was less well known than it is today. There weren’t many precedents.

Conversely, the Obama administration has had both Afghanistan and Iraq to learn from—and yet still it supports Islamists and jihadis. But by now, what happens once they assume power—religious persecution, terror, oppression—is no longer a secret.

Incidentally, those who care little for the fate of Christians or other minorities in the Islamic world would do well to remember a simple truism: Wherever anti-Christian elements come to power, anti-American forces come to power. The two are synonymous.

Put differently, Muslim persecution of Christians is the litmus test of how radical an Islamic society has become. In all those Muslim nations that the U.S. has interfered in—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt (till the Egyptians revolted, to the chastisement of the U.S.), and now Syria—the increase of religious intolerance is a reflection of the empowerment of forces hostile to Western civilization.

I am often asked, “How can we help persecuted Christians?” At this point, one must respond: “How about starting with getting the U.S. government to stop being the chief facilitator of Christian persecution?” Altruism aside, it would be in the interests of all who value freedom, religious or otherwise—and especially their descendants.

Source: Raymond Ibrahim, via Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

ISIS Praises John McCain For Helping Them Invade Iraq

Presbyterian Church USA Criticizes Israel, Ignores Christian Persecution

Why Does Christian Persecution Get Worse In Every Country The U.S. “Liberates”?