By , ,
Published January 26, 2017
Is it possible that this decade will see the virtual end of Christianity in the very region it was born?
There were few images more sickening than the images of ISIS terrorists beheading 21 Egyptian Christians on a beach in Libya. It was sickening because the crime itself was beyond the pale. It was sickening because months after the United States launched its war against ISIS – the Islamic State – the atrocities continue, unabated. And it was sickening because the video was visual evidence that ISIS continues to expand, even into Libya – a nation we helped “liberate” less than four years ago.
We can do more. We must do more. We can start by taking the handcuffs off our own military. We can start by refusing to fund regimes that persecute Christians and treat them as second-class citizens at best and sub-human at worst. We can start by awakening the sleeping giant of American popular opinion.
On Wednesday, I am testifying before the Senate’s State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee. The topic: “Protecting Religious Freedom Abroad.” There has never been greater need for public awareness of the plight of Christians in the Muslim world.
Last fall, I wrote a book, "Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore," that detailed not only ISIS’s shocking rise from the ashes of Al Qaeda in Iraq but also its limitless ambitions and savagery. Confronting ISIS, I warned, would require “courage and will” – arming our allies and removing limits placed on our own military to act.
Yet, in the months since publication, we’ve fought a war of limits, and now the president is trying to write those limits into law with his proposed Authorization for Use of Military Force. As we limit ourselves, jihadists expand and Christians suffer.
Yes, ISIS has suffered some minor defeats in Syria and Iraq but now Nigeria’s Boko Haram has pledged allegiance to ISIS, creating an even larger deadly caldron of chaos. And as the Libya executions demonstrate, ISIS is putting down roots in the same nation where jihadists killed our ambassador and three other brave Americans on September 11, 2012.
ISIS is not the only threat to religious freedom. Iran persecutes Christians relentlessly, including the American pastor Saeed Abedini – imprisoned in Iran merely because of his Christian faith. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we have the honor of representing the Abedini family, and we are relentlessly advocating for his release.
Pakistan is persecuting Christians as well. Angry mobs threaten Christian families at the slightest provocation. Our affiliated office in Lahore, Pakistan works full-time trying to stem the rising tide against religious liberty and diversity.
Yet in discussing ISIS, Iran, and Pakistan, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the crisis. Canon Andrew White, the courageous “Vicar of Baghdad” declared that the persecution of Christians is “like nothing that has been seen since the days of the Holocaust.”
This is a defining moment for the world. The post-World War II international order was designed to prevent and stop just such a disaster, but the great powers—with the United States foremost—have done all too little to stop mass-scale violations of the most basic human rights.
As I told the Senate panel: “At best, the United States has sent mixed messages to the world as to our priority on religious liberty issues. We must not sit idly by; rather the United States must lead by example – show the world that religious liberty and human rights are the foundation of peaceful and secure societies.”
We can do more. We must do more. We can start by taking the handcuffs off our own military. We can start by refusing to fund regimes that persecute Christians and treat them as second-class citizens at best and sub-human at worst. We can start by awakening the sleeping giant of American popular opinion.
But we must start. The blood of the innocents demands nothing less.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/christians-under-siege-theres-no-time-to-waste-we-must-act-now