Christians worship and pray on Friday, known as “Good Friday” to the Christian community, as they remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As they do so, there is no greater time for Christians to remember this sacrifice of love and take such action to demonstrate their love for one another by actively supporting the oppressed people around the world, including their Christian brothers and sisters.
Across the nation and the world in churches on Easter Sunday, there will be Christian pastors and worshipers who will rejoice in their eternal salvation through Jesus, which is truly the point of the Christian faith.
On this Good Friday, Christians can also remember Jesus’s painful, brutal sacrifice of his life on Earth for humanity, as well as the commandment he gave his followers. In John 13:34-35, Jesus is quoted as with this new commandment “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This was a command, not a suggestion, and it is an imperative for the billions in the Christian community.
The commandment to love one another must be more than social pleasantry. Christians are right to offer kindness and friendship in their community and fellow human beings are the world. Love is an active verb seeking more than pleasant thoughts, and it calls for action to help those in need. The command to love one another means giving our outstretched hand to our brothers and sisters in humanity around the world, suffering from oppression, poverty, abuse, and despair. As a Christian myself, surely our hearts are big enough that when we love one another, we can reach out to help one another. That is what people who love one another do.
The Christian ethic requires that we reach out and love one another of every identity group, religion, ethnic background around the world, including our defense of rights of our fellow human beings, who we are taught to love.
Certainly this outreach must also include love and support for their fellow Christians who face oppression and violence. With 2.2 billion Christians in the world, the commandment to love one another should produce group the largest human rights activists in the world. Instead, there are small, but determined groups of human rights activists, missionaries, and asylum supporters, whose courage and persistence provide an example for the entire community. Their impact and influence of these activists far outweighs their limited numbers. The Christian community of 2.2 billion can do much more and must coordinate more of their efforts in defending the human rights of oppressed people around the world, including our own Christian brothers and sisters.
As a starting point, let us assume that if we love one another, we believe that our fellow human lives’ matter. The eternal lives of Christians have always been our priority, as it must be in the Christian faith. But our love for one another should also include a commitment to work for the rights and security of our fellow Christians, rather than abandon them around the world to be hunted down, tortured, imprisoned, and killed. Our loved ones deserve that we care for their well-being. All of the lives of our fellow human beings matter; Christian lives matter as well.
Yet in many churches around the world, the oppression of our fellow human beings and of our fellow Christians will be not the topic of sermons in weeks and months to come. Many are uncomfortable discussing such issues, and billions of Christians are uninformed by their religious leaders. Christian churches are for prayer and honoring God, not for politics. But following the command to love one another is not a political issue; it is a moral issue of responsibility to love one another, and to care for each other’s well-being.
The oppression of Christians around the world is every bit of an evil as the historic bondage and slavery that we have challenged for generations for Christians and others around the world. Within the Christian community, we need a new generation of abolitionists, who seek the abolition of oppression of our Christian brothers and sisters. They need to be freed from the slavery of oppression, torture, and murder; they need to be freed from prisons where they are enslaved for their faith. If we love one another, surely the injustice to them must be a cause for our action.
We can do more in defending the human rights of oppressed Christians around the world, who are regularly being tortured, raped, murdered, and imprisoned. We Christians must pray. But we must also reach out our hands, open our hearts, and open our lives to our brothers and sisters who need help. There must be more than us shaking our heads and stating “isn’t that a shame.” If we are commanded to love one another, that command calls for us to do something to help our loved ones in times of need. As we remember the sacrifice for us, surely we can sacrifice for those we are commanded to demonstrate our love.
The Open Doors organization estimates 100 million Christians face persecution, and according to the International Society for Human Rights, up to 80% of acts of persecution are directed at people of the Christian faith. If we seek to act to love one another, we must also work to help our brothers and sisters suffering around the world. It is not pleasant to see this suffering or to recount it. Perhaps some leaders view the problem of our oppressed brothers and sisters too unpleasant to discuss. But the Christian community must come together to understand the magnitude of the oppression of Christians today. This is a global problem, and it requires context of the global issue for the resources of the billions of Christians to work together.
There is no crime, no abuse of human rights, no murder that cannot be committed against Christians around the world – without apparent impunity. The billions of Christians need to become aware of this and develop a voice of love for one another, where we seek the protection of our loved ones. Our love for one another must be a challenge to those who oppress Christians around the world, and to reject the policies of Dechristianization by extremists in nation after nation. The universal human rights of all people include the freedom of religion for Christians.
In Pakistan, we have seen attacks on three churches in the past two weeks, and we have seen the continuing institutional abuses of Christian minorities. On March 15, two Christian churches were attacked during Sunday prayer services in the Youhanabad neighborhood of Lahore, with 15 killed that day and nearly 80 injured. Another three more Christians died from the attack, including a six year old girl, bringing the death toll from that attack alone to 18, and the situation has continued to worsen with arrests of hundreds of Christians. Days later, another Christian church was targeted for an attack in Pakistan. Pakistan Christians have long been a target of attack, abuse, mob murder, violence, and oppression. This has included use of the Pakistan “blasphemy” law to rationalize oppression, imprisonment, and violence against Christians. Mobs have previously destroyed Christian villages in Gojra, burned to death a Christian husband and wife in Kasur district, and have made numerous attacks on Christians. The Pakistan “blasphemy” law is also used to imprison Christians such as Pakistan woman Asia Bibi, based on hatred and grudges from non-Christians against them; Asia Bibi has been given the death sentence for trumped up and false charges of blasphemy and remains in a Pakistani prison.
In Thailand, Pakistan Christian refugees have been seeking asylum, and 300 have recently been arrested and placed in Immigration Detention Centers, while the UNHCR reviews their status in applying for asylum in fleeing from the oppression of Pakistan. We continue to reach out to the Kingdom of Thailand government, the UNHCR, and United States government to provide some mercy for these refugees seeking asylum from oppression due to their faith.
In Kenya, the latest crime against Christian human rights took place on Thursday in the attacks by the terrorist group Al-Shabaab killing 147 and wounding 79 at the Garissa University College. Christians were hunted down and hand-picked for execution by the terrorist group. The terrorist group has previously targeted Christians in a December 2014, killing 36 in the village of Kormey. The Al-Shabaab group has made numerous other attacks in Niger and Kenya – attacking churches, Christian shops, and pastor’s homes.
In India, an elderly nun was recently raped in West Bengal’s Ranaghat at the Convent of Jesus and Mary at Ranaghat, Nadia District. A rash of recent anti-Christian attacks in India has including an attack on a church under construction in the Haryana’s Hisar district. Reuters India has reported that Christians feel “under siege” in India as a result of recent attacks on them.
In Libya in February 2015, 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were marched on their knees to a bloody beheading filmed by the ISIS terrorist organization, with the beaches of Libya covered with their blood. The ISIS terror group was proud of its grisly accomplishment and shared the video of their terrorist atrocity which it called as “a message signed with blood to the nation of the cross.” Egyptian Copts have protested the outrageous murder of Christians by this terrorist group.
In Syria, ISIS terrorists recently kidnapped over 200 Christians, thousands of Christians have been forced from their homes, and according to the BBC, Syrian Christians have been ordered to convert to Islam, pay jizya (a religious levy), or face death.
In Egypt on March 27, 2015, a Coptic Christian church being built in Al Our village in the Minya governorate being built to honor the 21 Christians beheaded by ISIS in Libya, was attacked by an angry mob with Molotov cocktails, injuring seven people and burning a Christian worshiper’s car.
In Nigeria, reports continually flow in about Christian churches being burned down in town after town. As of October 2014, Nigerian news reported that “185 churches have been razed and 190,545 people displaced.” This was after the global terror organization Boko Haram’s attack on Nigerian towns in Borno and Adamawa states. In November 2014, Fr. Gideon Obasogie, Head of Social Communications of the Diocese of Maiduguri, has provided news media with further updates on the destruction of Diocese of Maiduguri, with the fall of Mubi, with an estimated 2,500 Catholic Christians killed, 100,00 Catholics displaced, and over 50 churches destroyed. Christian churches and lives have been a target for destruction by the Boko Haram terrorist group, as well as terrorist attacks throughout northern Nigerian causing thousands of women and children to flee the country to neighboring nations.
In Communist China, on March 25, 2015, a Chinese Christian preacher Huang Yizi, who opposed an ongoing “anti-church” demolition campaign that saw hundreds of places of worship destroyed, has now been jailed on trumped-up charges of “gathering crowds to disturb social order.” The Communist Chinese Party (CCP) court sentenced him to one year in prison. The totalitarian CCP has long sought to oppress people of faith and conscience as part of oppression of universal human rights. Chinese Christian have regularly had prayer sessions to protect their houses of worship, but we have reported on numerous cases where the CCP authorities bully Chinese Christians and bulldoze their house of worship.
In the United States of America, African-Americans have been a target of abuse in major cities throughout the country. This has included Christian African-Americans in the city of Ferguson, Missouri. Christian leaders have come out of their pulpit to have a voice for human rights, dignity, and justice, but also to call for peace. As one woman pastor sought to keep the peace, she was shot in the stomach by a 60 caliber rubber bullet causing a bloody wound. But she stood back up and continued her commitment for peace and dignity.
As Christians worship during this Holy Week, in terms of rights, lives, and dignity of their fellow Christians and other fellow human beings, there is much that needs to be done. This is hardly a comprehensive list of the current oppression on Christians’ human rights, but the point is that this is a global problem, which needs a global solution.
The commandment for love is not only for quiet prayer, but also a call for acting in love. For our fellow Christians, it is a call to get our leaders to influence and change the views of nations where Christians are routinely oppressed, tortured, imprisoned, and killed. It is a call to work together to find ways to help, provide asylum, and find routes for Christians who flee such oppression to find a safe haven.
Americans had a history in addressing the disgrace of slavery for those fleeing such states where human rights and dignity were denied for African-Americans. They created a network of secret routes and safe houses for enslaved African-Americans to escape slave states and their oppressors. This commitment to their journey to freedom was a commitment to human rights. Just as Americans did in their history of providing safe haven (and continuing to fight for the rights) of African-Americans, so Christians around the world must come to the aid of those Christians seeking asylum from oppressive nations.
While we need long-term efforts to change the conditions where Christians are oppressed, we also need immediate action to help our fellow Christians in crisis. Groups such as the Pakistan Christian Congress, OpenDoors, Jubilee Campaign, ChinaAid, Christian Asylum Seekers, Iman Foundation Trust, Farrukh Saif Foundation, and others seek to work to help Christians in crisis, and they need your support.
To help Christians in crisis, we also need our own “underground railroad” to help oppressed Christians fleeing oppressor nations to find freedom. We need to work with our government agencies, United Nations refugee organizations, NGOs, and other refugee organizations to help oppressed Christians who are forced to flee their oppressors find a refuge in a free nation. Christian human rights organizations need to find ways to work more cohesively together for greater impact in human rights and safety of Christians around the world.
Open Doors reports that each month 322 Christians are killed for their faith, 214 churches and Christian properties are destroyed, and 772 forms of violence are committed against Christians. In Kenya alone, on Thursday, 147 people were killed, mostly Christian – in ONE DAY.
If we follow the commandment to love one another, and we respect the human rights of our fellow human beings, these global patterns of oppression must be unacceptable to the billions of Christians.
Love Means Action. Christian Lives Matter. All Lives Matter.
