John F. Cullinan penned an important article today. It begins:
A church of martyrs on the cusp of annihilation. That’s the grim reality that Iraq’s beleaguered and vanishing Christian community faces. And it’s no secret, especially after two pillars of establishment journalism — the New York Times and CBS's 60 Minutes— produced truly shocking accounts of savage persecution right before the Fourth of July.
The June 26 Times piece is one of the most thorough treatments yet of the ubiquitous practice of “protection money” (jizya) being extorted from Iraq’s surviving Christians on pain of death, exile, or forced conversion to Islam. And the June 29 60 Minutes segment recounts in chilling detail how "iraqi Christians are being hunted, murdered, and forced to flee--persecuted on a biblical scale."
Later in the article he writes:
The incidents invariably follow precisely the same pattern, with precisely the same threats (see, for instance, herehere) and citations to precisely the same Koranic verse: and
Fight those who do not believe in the Last Day and do not forbid what God and his Messenger have forbidden — such men as practice not the religion of truth, being those who have been given the Book [i.e., Christians and Jews] until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled (9:29).
If this text and related traditions are being misinterpreted and misapplied, then it is above all the ulema’s, or clergy’s, duty to make that authoritative theological judgment unmistakably clear. These crimes openly usurp the clergy’s authority, as the “Islamic men of learning” are traditionally given the exclusive prerogative to interpret and apply Islamic law, but the ulema have failed to denounce or halt these abuses effectively. This compares unfavorably with the clergy’s direct — and highly effective — ongoing intervention in all aspects of Iraq’s political life, from shaping the 2005 constitution to organizing, supporting, and even directing sectarian political parties.
. . . What’s needed right now is direct humanitarian aid and adequate security, as spelled out in last month’s NRO piece
by Robin Harris. Responsibility for carrying out these measures belongs
to the Iraqi federal government, the Kurdish authorities, the U.S.
government, and Iraqi Christians themselves. (more . . .)