Christianity arguably the most persecuted religion in the world

[The_Reginator]

Ron Csillag has an article in the Toronto Star about the fate of Christians in our modern world in Christianity arguably the most persecuted religion in the world.

Christianity is arguably — and perhaps counter-intuitively — the most persecuted religion in the world. And the reason for the blissful obliviousness to that fact of well-fed Christians in the West is “ignorance,” says Michael Horowitz, a U.S. Jewish activist who has written on Christian persecution. Horowitz contends this lack of awareness “is fostered by preconceptions and conventional wisdoms that lead many in the West to dismiss anti-Christian persecution as improbable, untrue, impossible.”
…
Virtually every human rights group and Western government agency that monitors the plight of Christians worldwide arrives at more or less the same conclusion: Between 200 million and 230 million of them face daily threats of murder, beating, imprisonment and torture, and a further 350 to 400 million encounter discrimination in areas such as jobs and housing. A conservative estimate of the number of Christians killed for their faith each year is somewhere around 150,000.

Christians are “the largest single group in the world which is being denied human rights on the basis of their faith,” the World Evangelical Alliance has noted.

In the west we used to live in a Christian world. Compared to most of the world we still live in ease. We are concerned about the commercialization of Christmas for example, not about whether or not we will be arrested for believing the Truth.

On the other hand we are fighting for the lives of the unborn. The evil of abortion is being exported from our world to the third world.

 

[JackVk]

John 15:18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you”.

 

[Borealis]

It’s not even arguable; there isn’t even a close second. Of course we’re hated by the secularists; truth is anathema to them, and we have it.

 

[Petergee]

It’s not even arguable; there isn’t even a close second. Of course we’re hated by the secularists; truth is anathema to them, and we have it.

Exactly, the only shocking thing about this headline is the word “arguably”.

 

[Petergee]

Persecution of Christians just doesn’t compute. After all, it’s the faith of record in the world’s richest and most powerful countries, where Christians have been ensconced for centuries.

Surely “the world’s richest and most powerful countries” include Communist China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Israel etc. And what on earth is a “faith of record”?

And given Christianity’s well-documented history of brutality

which on a per capita basis is dwarfed compared to, oh yeah, every other religion that has ever existed, especially Islam, and most especially compared to atheism.

When even Horowitz the Christians’ friend says this in the middle of trying to publicise the truth about persecution of Christians, what hope is there of the truth getting out?

 

[Timothy17]

Surely “the world’s richest and most powerful countries” include Communist China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Israel etc. And what on earth is a “faith of record”?
which on a per capita basis is dwarfed compared to, oh yeah, every other religion that has ever existed, especially Islam, and most especially compared to atheism.

When even Horowitz the Christians’ friend says this in the middle of trying to publicise the truth about persecution of Christians, what hope is there of the truth getting out?

You make a point. He claims Christians are being persecuted world-wide then goes on to later say, “And given Christianity’s own well-documented record of brutality…” Won’t such a platitude, which isn’t even literally true, only fuel indifference to the plight of Christians ? Mixing fact and fiction produces what, exactly - except, perhaps, some ugly shade of gray ?

Frankly, even though this article seems to be on-side with Christians, given that the author’s primary source has such a skewed understanding of Christianity’s history, I would take it with a grain of salt. If he can’t connect the fact he believes Christianity is ‘historically brutal’ with it being “the most persecuted religion today,” then he’s missing one of the obvious reasons for the persecution of Christians worldwide, which is ignorance and misunderstanding.

Pax,
Tim

 

[The_Reginator]

You make a point. He claims Christians are being persecuted world-wide then goes on to later say, “And given Christianity’s own well-documented record of brutality…” Won’t such a platitude, which isn’t even literally true, only fuel indifference to the plight of Christians ? Mixing fact and fiction produces what, exactly - except, perhaps, some ugly shade of gray ?

Frankly, even though this article seems to be on-side with Christians, given that the author’s primary source has such a skewed understanding of Christianity’s history, I would take it with a grain of salt. If he can’t connect the fact he believes Christianity is ‘historically brutal’ with it being “the most persecuted religion today,” then he’s missing one of the obvious reasons for the persecution of Christians worldwide, which is ignorance and misunderstanding.

Pax,
Tim

[SIGN]Well said sir![/SIGN]

 

[IsThisCeral]

Someone would be pissed at me if I screamed from the rooftops that the flying spaghetti monster is real and if you don’t believe in him your gonna burn forever in hell.

Why? Because it sounds stupid.

 

[Petergee]

Someone would be pissed at me if I screamed from the rooftops that the flying spaghetti monster is real and if you don’t believe in him your gonna burn forever in hell.

Why? Because it sounds stupid.

No, I don’t know anyone who would be “p…ed” (I presume you mean “angry”) at you, much less want to persecute and murder you. I would merely feel compassion and pity for your stupidity and ignorance.

 

[Petergee]

You make a point. He claims Christians are being persecuted world-wide then goes on to later say, “And given Christianity’s own well-documented record of brutality…” Won’t such a platitude, which isn’t even literally true, only fuel indifference to the plight of Christians ? Mixing fact and fiction produces what, exactly - except, perhaps, some ugly shade of gray ?

Frankly, even though this article seems to be on-side with Christians, given that the author’s primary source has such a skewed understanding of Christianity’s history, I would take it with a grain of salt. If he can’t connect the fact he believes Christianity is ‘historically brutal’ with it being “the most persecuted religion today,” then he’s missing one of the obvious reasons for the persecution of Christians worldwide, which is ignorance and misunderstanding.

Pax,
Tim

Yes and not only histroy but the present day. It’s true that most (by no means all) of the rich and powerful countries are predominantly Christian (primarily due to the Church’s sponsorship of science and technology) , but so are most of the poor and weak countries ! Most strikingly in Southeast Asia where the two poorest countries, the Phillippines and East Timor, are also the only two predominantly Christian countries.

In fact most of the world’s countries are predominantly Christian. This is because although Christians are only one-third of the world’s population, most of the non-Christians are concentrated in a handful of countries with very large populations - China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Vietnam, Turkey, Nigeria, Iran, Egypt, Thailand. China and India alone contain more than half the world’s non-Christians.