First Things RSS Feed - Nina Shea

Biden’s Choice in China

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 06:00:00 -0500

Eleven million persecuted Uighurs and other Muslims in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region got a first taste of justice on January 19 when then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the Chinese government is committing genocide against them. History has shown that condemning genocide is an essential initial step to stopping it and preventing it from happening again.

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China’s Threat to the Bible

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 10:55:00 -0500

The Bible is America’s best-selling book, annually outpacing the top 20 best sellers combined. Yet a single Chinese company has a near monopoly on Bible printing, meaning that any rupture in the supply chain—say, from U.S. or Chinese government policies—would lead to a Bible shortage in America. This poses a serious threat both to American Christians’ fundamental religious liberty rights and to national security.

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The Costs of the Vatican’s Deal With China

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 06:00:00 -0500

On October 22, the Vatican renewed its 2018 provisional agreement with China. The two parties agreed to a two-year extension of the agreement and will keep the text of the deal concealed. Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong has accused the Holy See of accepting terms that will “kill our Church.” It’s hard to disagree with this dire pronouncement—which prompts the question, why did the Vatican do it?

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Silence of the Churches

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 00:00:00 -0400

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Atrocities Not Fit to Print

Sat, 01 Nov 1997 00:00:00 -0500

Since January 1996, when a coalition of Christian and Jewish activists began working to publicize in America the plight of persecuted Christians abroad, there has appeared in the secular press a great deal of commentary about the arrest, torture, and execution of believers. Columnists in particular have seized upon the issue, with the New York Times ‘ A. M. Rosenthal alone writing over a dozen columns arguing passionately in defense of besieged Christians. The major Washington, D.C., news bureaus have also begun to cover the story regularly, as public agitation in the U.S. makes international religious oppression a hot topic in political Washington’s foreign policy debates.

But perhaps the most interesting feature of the media’s response to the persecution of believers is how little work on the story (according to the online information services First Search and Nexis) has come from the international reporters and foreign correspondents actually covering the countries where that persecution occurs. While editorial page editors––in such major newspapers as the New York Times , the Washington Post , the Wall Street Journal , and USA Today ––fill their pages with columns, op-eds, and letters about the persecution of Christians abroad, the foreign desks of those same newspapers are nearly mute.

Take the situation in China, where government officials have undertaken in the last year a massive and deliberate crackdown on unregistered Catholic and Protestant churches. As a report issued by the U.S. State Department this July declared:

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