And in agreement with the main thrust of Mike’s post here, Others have written/commented this week on how Western media and politicians downplay global Christian persecution. In an opinion piece for the Telegraph, Journalist and Historian, Dr Tim Stanley wrote: “When Christians are killed for being Christians, politicians overlook it and public interest fades”.
“We should call what’s going on in some Muslim countries a war on Christianity because that’s what it is. If we refuse to do this to avoid causing offence, we are allowing our worst enemies to police our language. “There is one other reason why we’re so nervous about engaging with this fight: the West is reluctant to identify itself as Christian.
“Our spirit has become so weak, our culture so vapid, that we struggle to see that the rights, the democracy, the religious pluralism that we all enjoy in our part of the world were not invented yesterday but are part of a historic, global story of Christian social progress. “We’ve forgotten who we are. No wonder that when we see members of our religious family suffer, we don’t realise the responsibility that we have for them.”

As Mike asks, “Can we pray for those who suffer because of their allegiance to Christ?” Yes, we can and we must. And we must also not allow silence to prevail regarding their plight.

We are all gods childrens the Western world has lost the way in protecting and turning the countries back to be Christian

I appreciate your tone and the kindness that motivates your comment, but I’m not sure a blog article entitled, “They’re dying in Egypt while we’re whining about Easter hat parades, although some are being quite reasonably concerned about losing your jobs because of your stance on same-sex marriage” quite rolls off the tongue. 😉

Thanks Mike, some helpful perspective there! I want to suggest something that might be helpful for people to hear you better: I often find that some of your statements in intending to (rightly) point out the seriousness of the situations of our brothers and sisters overseas, unnecessarily dismiss or reduce the experiences that brother’s and sisters have in our culture. “Whining” or “Can we make a pact here in the West to stop referring to our own persecution or hostility or marginalization ever again?” are not particularly gracious, helpful and careful in affirming real hurts (however less than that of overseas) that our local brothers and sisters sometimes face. It is possible to hold the two together carefully without having to subtract from one. I know you don’t mean to dismiss the loss of being able to do business (ie cakes), have to give up a job as a X (X being marriage celebrant or other) or those who experience ridicule in the workplace, but sometimes your writings throughout choice of language/phrases suggest otherwise.
In dismissing one thing well please be more careful in language and gracious towards other brothers & sisters. Apart from that, thanks brother!

Excellent post, Mike. I posted a link to it on our church’s Facebook page.

They are dying for it, literally, and we in the West can’t even say it.

I agree, Michelle. It can be easy to locate the enemy “out there”, whether it’s radical Islam or something else, without looking within to see the ways we can be our own worst enemies.

I am not sure that we do all know the real enemy is Islam.

When children in our churches are abused by people who are meant to protect them. When one in three women are raped and abused. When doctrinal correctness is more important that LGBTIQA people suiciding. Christianity is the cause of just as many problems as Islam, but it is much easier to make ‘them’ the enemy.

Easter is still Easter regardless of your hat parade, regardless of the packaging on some chocolates, regardless of the wording of greetings at specific times of the year.

For God so LOVED the WORLD….. not just those who we have decided are worthy.