The full title of the article to which I am linking is actually "The Tragedy of Iraq's Christians is that it doesn't interest anyone." No, it doesn't. As I noted before, media outlets in the U.S. ignore the plight of Christians in Muslim-dominated lands. As Marisol, the writer of this piece says,
we noted the silence of CNN's website in the midst of another wave of jihadist attacks against Christians in Iraq. Dancing with the Stars merited a mention, along with Sarah Palin on baking cookies and other human interest pieces. Another escalation in the latest violent campaign to convert or expel non-Muslims from the Middle East? Not so much
Later, the writer of this piece, Marisol, continues: [author's emphases]
"The tragedy of Iraq's Christians is that it does not interest anyone, Chaldean Catholic says," by Joseph Seferta for Asia News, November 13:
I belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church, which makes up the majority of Christians in Iraq. Others include Assyrians, as well Syrian, Armenian and Byzantine Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox. Christians under Saddam Hussein totalled some one million, but now only half that number remains in the country, the rest having fled and are living as refugees, particularly in Syria and Jordan.
The atrocity committed by Muslim fanatics, which resulted in dozens of Syrian Catholics dead and dozens of others wounded, was a big blow to the struggling Christian minority. It has been followed by other assassinations of Christians in their homes and shops. All these fanatics (known by various names) in the Middle East and other Muslim-majority countries, are bent on imposing Shari'a and running Islamic states that have no place for Christians in them.
Christians in the Middle East, of course, predate Muslims by hundreds of years and go back to Apostolic Times. Since the 7th Century Islamic conquest, they have been made second-class citizens with hardly any rights at all. They have undergone many waves of persecution, which have greatly reduced their numbers and influence. They suffer prejudice and discrimination on a daily basis, while Muslim minorities here in the West enjoy full rights and have built hundreds of mosques.
Tragically, Iraq's Christians had nothing to do with the American invasion, but they always wrongly get accused of siding with the "Christian" West. Now they feel both isolated and betrayed by their own government as well as the international community. They have always been model citizens, serving their country in every field, and their only desire is to be left alone to live and worship in peace. But they have become a soft target for extremists.
There is now a real danger that Christians in the Middle East and in Iraq in particular, of being exterminated, due to both persecution and large-scale emigration, unless something is done urgently to stem the tide and save them. Too many cannot bear their suffering any longer and are sick and tired of waiting for someone to come to their aid. People either do not know or do not seem to care about them. Even the recent Middle East Synod convoked by the Holy Father was a disappointment, due to lack of both unity and courage. It is now high time that the United Nations seriously tackle this huge problem, for otherwise we will end up with the catastrophe of an Iraq and even a Middle East devoid of any Christians.
In October 2007, 138 Muslim leaders issued 'A Common Word between Us and You', a substantive invitation to Christians to dialogue based on the commandments to love God and love one another, found in the Bible and the Qur'an. The problem is that no such thing exists in the Qur'an.
While love is central in Christianity, it is hardly relevant in Islam. The few Qur'anic verses that mention love mean something that is totally different from the New Testament. In the Qur'an, Allah's love is conditional upon man's blind obedience to his laws. Thus, we read in verse 4:107, for example, "Allah loveth not the impious and the guilty."
Love in the Qur'an is just an attribute rather than a part of God's very essence (as in "God is love", 1 John 4:8). The concept of love of neighbour does not exist either. There is only love for fellow Muslims, who, for example, are told in 5:59, "Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends", and in 9:29, "Fight those who believe not in Allah or his Apostle, even if they are the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] until they submit".
Those who comment on this article have important things to say:
Kepha wrote: (my emphases)
The people leading the Western World got their high school and college educations back in the 1970's. They were fed pablum about Islamic "tolerance", in which the Ummayad Caliphate at its very, very best was compared to Los Reyes Catolicos at their very, very worst (the expulsion and subsequent Inquisition). Further, it was part of the bedrock of their educations that only stupid fundamentalists paid any attention at all to theological doctrine; and that jettisoning a theistic tradition was all but a necessary rite of passage for consideration for elite status. After all, genes, socioeconomic status, or supply-and-demand determined everything that there was (unless you were a Freudian, whereupon your desire to copulate with the parent of the other sex determined everything). Hence, our elites are all but clueless about anyone's theological motivations; whether he's a Shi'ite from Iran or a Baptist from the Upper South. Why, I'd almost be willing to bet that there are policy makers in the depths of Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon who believe that the Assyrians and Copts got their Christianity from 19th century British and French missionaries--and are unaware that Iraq was the "Second Homeland" of Jewry. . .
Further, having received some rude political surprises back in the late 1970's and '80's, many of the mentors of our current leaders have fanned a consensus that sees any theological input (especially from evil, evil Christianity!) into politics to be utterly baneful. Thus, if the Copts, Maronites, and Assyrians are being run out of their historical homelands, our leaders probably think it serves them right.
So, of course the Western leadership doesn't care.
"For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Ps. 44:22; Rom. 8:36) Yet, at the risk of sounding trite, it appears that God Almighty cares.
Two more:
"While love is central in Christianity, it is hardly relevant in Islam. The few Qur'anic verses that mention love mean something that is totally different from the New Testament. In the Qur'an, Allah's love is conditional upon man's blind obedience to his laws. Thus, we read in verse 4:107, for example, "Allah loveth not the impious and the guilty."
In a nutshell this is the difference between islam and Christianity. The Christian God loves uncondtionally where as Allah's love is conditional upon man's blind obedience to his laws. Christians are forgiven if they truly repent for their sins where as muslims have are doomed unless they take out a few dozen Christians with a suiside vest.
Church representatives seem to be more aflame with the issue of how Israel's building of some apartments in "East" Jerusalem fits in with their supracessionist theology than they are concerned with the very real destruction of their brothers in Christ by the agents of "rasul allah" to the east.