Christians around the world have become
20
This coming weekend, Christians throughout our land will jam churches to celebrate the birthday of Jesus, accepting the angels’ invitation from the midnight skies over Bethlehem to “come, let us adore Him!,” the infant they believe to be their Lord and savior.
They’ll be praying and singing, laughing and hugging, wishing each other peace and joy as they leave church to return home for gifts and a festive meal with family and friends.
They will do it all in security and safety. Not so throughout a growing swath of the rest of the world. If recent ominous events are predictors, Christians in Egypt, China, Iraq, India, parts of Africa and Indonesia — just to name a few places — will keep to the shadows this holy day as they leave for church, avoiding people, walking to church by a back route, hurrying into a darkened church, with their prayers hardly of joy over the birth of the Prince of Peace.
Many will hope that no bomb will go off during worship, that no terrorists or hostile police will barge in, and that they’ll make it back home safely for a quiet, secluded Christmas celebration with scared family and friends.
According to the International Conference on the Freedom of Religion, which took place earlier this month, bringing together leaders of Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Islamic communities, Christians have become the most persecuted followers of any religion in the world today.
This hatred and bigotry even has a title: Christophobia.
I recently had the honor of addressing the convention of the Anti-Defamation League here in New York. The part of my speech that got the loudest and most sustained applause was, “Jews and Catholics need to be even more closely united today, for, as we speak, somewhere some innocent Jew or Catholic is in the crosshairs of the rifle scope of a fanatic who hates him just because of his faith.”
According to the Frankfurt-based International Society for Human Rights, which describes itself as a “secular” group, 80% of the acts of religious intolerance in the world today are directed against the followers of the One whose birthday we celebrate Sunday.
As respected international journalist John Allen notes, “The threat doesn’t just come from growing Islamic extremism, but a bewildering variety of forces: the rise of Hindu radicalism in India; the policies of officially atheistic