The Crisis in International Religious Freedom
by David D. CoreyIn September of this year, Baylor University sponsored two lectures on the topic of religious persecution. The presenters were former congressman Frank Wolf (now the Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair of Religious Freedom at Baylor) and Princeton Professor Robert P. George, who currently serves as the . . . . Continue Reading »
Burning Churches in Israel
by Ramona TauszEarlier this summer, in the spot on the Sea of Galilee traditionally hailed as the site of Christ’s feeding of the five thousand, the Roman Catholic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes in Tabgha, Israel, was torched in an arson attack. And as of Thursday, three young right-wing Jewish men—Yinon Reuveni, twenty, Yehuda Asraf, nineteen, and Moshe Orbach, twenty-four—have been indicted on suspicion of responsibility. Continue Reading »
The New York Times on Mideast Christians
by Mark MovsesianMideast Christians have the misfortune to be too foreign for the Right and too Christian for the Left. Continue Reading »
When Discrimination Means Death
by Fr. Dominic BouckThe social media world has been aflutter over the possibility that a flight attendant discriminated against a Muslim woman by denying her an unopened can of soda.But a story about the plight of Christians in India hasn’t caused a firestorm in the media. It is fascinating that a racial . . . . Continue Reading »
When We Cared
by Filip MazurczakToday, we mark the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. On April 24th, 1915, the nationalist Young Turks attempted to wipe out the Armenians, the oldest Christian nation, which adopted Christianity twelve years before the Edict of Milan. On this solemn anniversary, it is worth recalling the great aid European and American Christians and Jews gave the Armenians. This legacy should lead us to not remain silent in the face of today’s extermination of Middle Eastern Christians and fight the politically convenient yet disturbing tendency to deny that what happened in the Ottoman Empire a century ago was genocide.For centuries, the Armenians lived in relative peace in the Ottoman Empire. The Koran’s stance towards non-Christians is inconsistent. At some points, it advocates the persecution of all non-Muslims (kaffirs), but in others it advocates tolerance for Christians and Jews, as they are “peoples of the Book.” The Ottomans applied the latter passages with regards to the followers of Abrahamic religions in its millet system, which gave religious minorities self-rule. Continue Reading »
Confession and the Armenian Genocide
by Stella MorabitoMy grandmother often talked about her father’s crucifixion to my mother and my aunt. Today my aunt still vividly remembers her lamenting the atrocities of the Armenian massacres that spread throughout the Ottoman Empire one hundred years ago.The family called my great grandfather Haji Dede. He was a beloved low level cleric of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the village of Tomarza in the Kayseri region of central Turkey. In 1915, the killers came to Tomarza. They put Haji Dede up on some crossbeams, and turned him upside down like Saint Peter. I have no further narrative or details of what else they did to him before he died. Other sources have noted that a pre-killing ritual of men, especially clergy, often involved pulling out their beards. Victims could undergo other barbaric humiliations and tortures, beheading, or be burned alive. The Armenians who neither survived nor were butchered outright, died on death marches. Continue Reading »
Mideast Christians & ISIS
by Mark MovsesianOn February 18, St. John’s University Law School will host a panel, “Threat to Justice: Middle Eastern Christians and the ISIS Crisis.” Continue Reading »
Seeking Self or Costly Discipleship?
by David T. KoyzisIf something like ISIS/ISIL were to overrun much of North America, would we be willing to give up our lives for the sake of a gospel so fixated on the self and its needs? Continue Reading »
They Cry Out
by Samuel TadrosThe attacks began at 2:45 a.m. on July 5, 2013. Fifteen minutes earlier, the body of a Muslim resident of Nagaa Hassan had been found on the banks of the Nile. Though it remains unclear today who killed him, the angry mob that gathered had one target in mind: the 275 families that make up the . . . . Continue Reading »
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