The new Via Crucis – The Way of the Cross, 2014…

We live in a new age of Christian martyrs.  It is estimated that the 20^th century saw the killing of over half of all Christian ever martyred.  And over 1 million Christians have died for their faith since the year 2000.

“There is a very real possibility that Christianity may soon be exiled from the region of its origin,” according to “Pledge of Solidarity,” a document issued by a broad coalition of Christians and congressional leaders in May 2014.  This assembly was co-chaired by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), co-chairs of the bipartisan Religious Minorities in the Middle East Caucus.

While the “Pledge of Solidarity” focuses on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the problem is much more extensive.  Paul Marshall, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, recently provided a broader survey in “The War on Christians:  From Africa, to Asia, to the Middle East, they’re the world’s most persecuted religious group.”

In his article, Paul Marshall refers to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report which “finds that Christians are suffering persecution in more places today than any other religious group.”  Even as he worries that most people in the West are not aware of the enormous suffering, but he is somewhat hopeful that this may be changing.

There are several stories that have gotten broad press coverage recently.

A few cases do get press coverage—the desperate plight of Meriam Ibrahim, for instance, who gave birth in a Sudanese prison just the other day. She was raised a Christian, but after officials learned that her long-absent father was a Muslim, she was sentenced to death for apostasy—for leaving Islam. And since in Sudan a Muslim woman may not be married to a Christian, her marriage to her American husband was declared void, and she was convicted of adultery and sentenced to 100 lashes to be administered before her execution. These punishments will be dropped if she renounces her Christian faith, which she steadfastly refuses to do.

Another case receiving attention is North Korea’s sentencing of a South Korean missionary, Kim Jong-uk, to life with hard labor. On May 30, he was convicted of espionage and trying to start a church. North Korea also still holds Kenneth Bae, an American sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor on charges of trying to use religion to overthrow the political system.

The Chinese government’s demolition of the 3,000-member Sanjiang church in Wenzhou on April 28 was newsworthy partly because of the church’s size, but also because Sanjiang was not an “underground” church but an official, approved, government-registered “Three-Self” church. Some 20 other official churches in the area have had all or parts of their buildings removed or demolished, and hundreds more are threatened with destruction.

And, most notorious, the abduction into slavery of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria on April 14 by the al Qaeda-linked Boko Haram led news cycles and tweets for a time, though the religious dimensions of the story were often played down. While the kidnapped girls include Muslims (Boko Haram regards them as apostates because of their Western education), most are Christians, seized in a predominantly Christian area and now subjected to forced conversion. …

Sadly, numerous other tragic stories go unreported.

These events get media attention because they are particularly poignant, or dramatic, or involve foreigners, but our media miss countless other stories. Since the kidnappings, Boko Haram has killed—not kidnapped, killed—hundreds of people, many in the predominantly Christian Gwoza area of Borno State, destroyed 36 churches, and kidnapped at least 8 more girls. On June 1, it attacked a Christian area in neighboring Adamawa state, killing 48 people. In Sudan, a second woman, Faiza Abdalla, has been arrested on suspicion of converting to Christianity, and on April 8 a court terminated her marriage to a Catholic. Iran is imprisoning and torturing pastors from the rapidly growing house church movement, including an American citizen, Pastor Saeed Abedini. Vietnam has imprisoned over 60 Christian leaders. Eritrea holds more than 1,000 Christians in conditions so inhumane that prisoners die or are permanently crippled. In Somalia, in an ignored religious genocide, Al-Shabaab systematically hunts Christians and kills those it finds. …

Christians are not the only ones facing the loss of religious freedom.

Of course, people of all religions suffer persecution for their faith or lack thereof—the situations of Baha’is and Jews in Iran, Ahmadis and Hindus in Pakistan, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong in China, independent Buddhists in Vietnam, and Rohingya Muslims in Burma are particularly dire. Traditionally, the United States has been regarded as the country that advocates religious freedom for all, often to the disdain of other Westerners. In recent years, however, that has changed. Now America is quieter, while others speak up.

Paul Marshall is Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.  He is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea).  “The War on Christians:  From Africa, to Asia, to the Middle East, they’re the world’s most persecuted religious group” was published in the Weekly Standard.

“The Pledge of Solidarity & Call to Action on behalf of Christians and Other Small Religious Communities in Egypt, Iraq and Syria” (May 7, 2014) is online at the website of Rep. Frank Wolf.