Monday, March 12, 2012

The Plight of Christians in the Middle East

I am overwhelmed by sadness whenever I think of what our brethren are suffering. (Via Gareth.)
The trauma of those priests is now commonplace among Middle Eastern Christians. Their share of the region's population has plunged from 20% a century ago to less than 5% today and falling. In Egypt, 200,000 Coptic Christians fled their homes last year after beatings and massacres by Muslim extremist mobs. Since 2003, 70 Iraqi churches have been burned and nearly a thousand Christians killed in Baghdad alone, causing more than half of this million-member community to flee. Conversion to Christianity is a capital offense in Iran, where last month Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death. Saudi Arabia outlaws private Christian prayer. As 800,000 Jews were once expelled from Arab countries, so are Christians being forced from lands they've inhabited for centuries.

The only place in the Middle East where Christians aren't endangered but flourishing is Israel. Since Israel's founding in 1948, its Christian communities (including Russian and Greek Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians and Protestants) have expanded more than 1,000%. (Read entire post.)
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1 comment:

lara77 said...

I am noticing this situation for quite awhile in the mainstream media. Where is the outrage in the West? What is the future of the millions of Muslims in Western Europe? Will they start going after Christians as well? All the nasty attacks agains Israel and she alone in the Middle East protects her Christian population.How very ironic indeed. Thank you for sharing this article. It is alarming and an outrage and it does nothing to foster relations between the West and Islam.