Why Does the Western Church Not Speak Up for Middle East Christians?
My friend Dexter Van Zile of CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has a terrific article up at Pajamas Media that asks this question: why are the mainline Western churches silent in the face of Muslim oppression of minorities, especially Christians? Here’s an excerpt:
What is remarkable is that liberation theology — which was so readily used to highlight the suffering of blacks in the U.S. and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — has not been used by its adherents to highlight the suffering of Christians under Muslim rule.
Instead of challenging Islamic doctrine regarding the status of non-Muslims, Christian leaders, particularly those from the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, and mainline churches in the U.S. — all of which have assailed white supremacy and imperialism — have engaged in mealy-mouthed dialogue with Muslim leaders. Instead of raising the issue of Muslim oppression of Christians and other minorities forcefully with their dialogue partners, they talk about the theological similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam and then blame whatever difficulties there are between Christians and Muslims on Christian support for Israel.
Read it all.
Comments
Facebook comments are closed.
5 comments
Because they identify more closely with the aims of post-modern leftism than Christianity.
They’re animated by the view that the west oppresses the poor petals in the middle east and so the artifacts of the imperial west, like Christianity, must be destroyed.
[1] Posted by Bill2 on 9-17-2012 at 03:39 PM · [top]
Pope Benedict addressed these issues in his recent visit to Lebanon. See “Ecclesia-in-medio-oriente” at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20120914_ecclesia-in-medio-oriente_en.pdf
[2] Posted by Already Gone on 9-17-2012 at 07:08 PM · [top]
1. The worldwide demonization of the Christian church has flourished and spread.
2. Islam has won the battle of ‘persuasion’ by effectively killing people who disagree with their religion of peace. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, and our Christian nation seems to have been both feminized and terrorized.
[3] Posted by Fradgan on 9-18-2012 at 12:29 AM · [top]
Because most are Orthodox and Catholics who have not endorsed the Gay Agenda. The leaders of the liberal chures in the West dtest them. Statmann
[4] Posted by Statmann on 9-18-2012 at 06:33 PM · [top]
And it’s not just in Muslim dominated countries either:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/jesus-is-a-monkey-tensions-intensify-between-jews-christians-in-the-holy-land-heres-why/#
“The monastery was targeted shortly after Israel evacuated an illegally built West Bank settler outpost. In recent months, two other monasteries and a Baptist church were vandalized. It is not clear why the vandals have targeted Christian sites. For years, Christian clergymen also have been spat at by ultra-Orthodox seminary students in Jerusalem’s Old City.”
Of course, here’s a difference:
“...the attacks do not reflect the views of most Israelis, and he welcomed the condemnations by Israeli police, politicians and mainstream rabbinical authorities.”
But still, American Christians should be looking out for our brothers and sisters world-wide, not just when they are persecuted by Muslims.
[5] Posted by S. Hamilton on 9-20-2012 at 12:53 PM · [top]
Registered members are welcome to leave comments. Log in here, or register here.
Comment Policy: We pride ourselves on having some of the most open, honest debate anywhere. However, we do have a few rules that we enforce strictly. They are: No over-the-top profanity, no racial or ethnic slurs, and no threats real or implied of physical violence. Please see this post for more explanation, and the posts here, here, and here for advice on becoming a valued commenter as opposed to an ex-commenter. Although we rarely do so, we reserve the right to remove or edit comments, as well as suspend users' accounts, solely at the discretion of site administrators. Since we try to err on the side of open debate, you may sometimes see comments which you believe strain the boundaries of our rules. Comments are the opinions of visitors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Stand Firm site administrators or Gri5th Media, LLC.