By The Wall Street Journal – Editorial –
Radical Islam poses an existential threat for the region’s Christians.
Britain’s Prince Charles devoted his annual Christmas message this week to religious persecution around the world. He opened by quoting a Jesuit priest from Syria who had told him it’s “quite possible there will be no Christians in Iraq within five years.”
The priest is right, and not only about Iraq. In parts of Syria controlled by ISIS, Christians including children have been crucified. In Egypt—home to the second largest Christian population in the region—27 innocents have now died from a Dec. 11 bomb that exploded in a Cairo chapel that is part of the Coptic pope’s cathedral complex. In Iran three men who converted to Christianity were recently sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine. In Saudi Arabia Christian churches are forbidden.
Christians in the Middle East are a highly diverse lot who range from Copts, Maronite Catholics and Greek Orthodox to Protestants, Syrian Orthodox, Assyrian and others. Some of these communities date back to the beginning of Christianity. Some of them even use Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, in their liturgies. But the rise of militant Islam now presents many of these ancient Christian churches with an existential threat.
Christian persecution has accelerated in particular with the rise of Islamic State, which views non-Muslims as infidels whom it is justifiable to slaughter if they don’t submit to Muslim domination, and often even if they do. Islamists persecute other minorities, notably the Yazidis in northern Iraq. And there is a larger sectarian war inside Islam between Sunnis and Shiites. But Christians are targeted in particular as radical Islamists seek to restore the Muslim religious rule of the pre-modern era.
It’s fair to say the fate of Middle East Christians has not been the focus of Western leaders. Pope Francis has made statements about it, though not with the fervor you would think is deserved for men and women dying for their beliefs. Western Europe has largely been de-Christianized, and the Obama Administration has spoken up only rarely, perhaps out of concern that this would offend Muslims.
So it’s notable that this week it was left to Benjamin Netanyahu —the prime minister of the Jewish State of Israel—in his Christmas message to Christians around the world to state forthrightly what too many other Western leaders would prefer to ignore: The forces of intolerance and barbarism that pose a threat to all religions nonetheless “attack Christians with particular vehemence.”
Muslim-majority nations are diminishing themselves if they let Islamists use violence and bigotry to purge citizens who believe in a different God. No one in the West wants the return of a religious war, but that is all the more reason for Western leaders to speak up for religious tolerance and the ability of Christians and other minorities to practice their faith.
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Photo: A crucifix is seen hanging as Egyptians attend a candle vigil on December 17, 2016 outside the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
http://www.wsj.com/articles/christmas-in-the-middle-east-1482533388?mod=djemMER#livefyre-comment