Why is the Catholic Church under Attack?

As I follow Christ I seek to encourage and teach fellow believers to speak about their faith in Jesus. To achieve that end I provide training in witnessing and evangelism and constantly challenge others to boldly talk the walk.  

But there is another way of understanding, “talking the walk.”  In my view Christians have the duty and responsibility to confidently enter the public square with the truth of Christianity. Of the many faith groups that I know of, there is one in particular who seems to understand this calling better than others.  I speak of the Catholic Church.  Many who follow her teaching are people who speak up for Christian values in the public square.  As a result they are often maligned for their efforts.

The following is a letter published today in a local Guelph newspaper defending the Catholics for their willingness to speak the truth.

Dear Editor,

Re: Letter to the editor, “Solid argument lost in translation” (Tribune, June 21, 2012).

Letter writer Cory Houghton wants everybody to be certain that Alan Pickersgill did not attack the Catholic Church in one of his recent columns.   So, in a fairly nuanced way he tries to defend Pickersgill, and at the same time scorns the idea that Catholic Christian, Betty Karl, has any right to feel attacked.

It amazes me that Houghton has the audacity to say to someone in a faith tradition that they have no right to their feelings. Who does he think he is? Then in a surprising turn he, himself, proceeds in the last half of his letter to specifically attack the Catholic Church for some of her public stands on morality, and her persecution of various groups some 500 years ago.

Frankly, I too, grow tired of the almost constant drum beat of attack against Catholics. And no I don’t agree with every Catholic position. In fact I am an Evangelical Christian with a different faith tradition. But I recognize that the Catholic Church is one of the last bulwarks of defence against the rampant tide of immorality sweeping the West.   

Among other charges, Houghton claims that the Catholic Church is linked with homophobia. I’m of the strong opinion that there is a much more sinister phobia on the loose.  There is a growing animosity toward Christian values found in virtually every level of society.

Yes, I speak of Christophobia. It is very much present, and is growing.  I long for the day when the media will begin to report on it.  

Royal Hamel

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Anti-Semitism in Germany

 A regional court in Germany decided that parents can be brought before a judge for causing bodily injury if they have their child circumcised. According to reports neither religious reasons, nor the rights of the parents can be used to justify the procedure.  

This does not look good. It especially looks bad that this decision against Jewish people has been undertaken by a German court.  Who does not know that for thousands of years circumcision has been a fundamental rite of the Jewish faith? Indeed, some might argue that it is the most basic rite, and therefore the most basic religious right of this oft persecuted people.

What would Christians say if a court all of a sudden concluded that baptizing people was now considered to be against the law?  Yes, you can be certain millions of generally passive Christians would sit up and take notice.  Such a decision would be an attack on the heart of Christian faith and practise.  It is exactly the same with this decision respecting the Jews in Germany.   

There will be some who say that this is not persecution, it is merely a decision taken on the basis of the health of the child.  What rubbish! Let’s be realistic, circumcision has not been happening in a corner for the last few thousand years. Don’t you think if this was a serious health matter it would have been dealt with hundreds of years ago?

It is well documented that presently we are living in a time of heightened anti-Semitism, the like of which has not been seen since the time of World War II. 

This unprecedented act by a German judge is simply another manifestation of that age old scourge of Jew hatred that the world simply cannot seem to shake.

I implore my fellow Christians to shake off passivity; I implore you to speak and to act on behalf of Jews wherever they are found 

Mom Jailed for Living a Holy Life

Mother of twelve jailed in Germany for refusing to enroll children in sex ed classes

BY MATTHEW CULLINAN HOFFMAN

• Wed Feb 23, 2011 14:26 EST
• Comments (3)
• Tags: Christian, Germany, Homeschooling, Sex-Ed

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GERMANY, February 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A mother of twelve has been sentenced to 43 days in jail in the German town of Salzkotten for refusing to enroll her children in the sex education program in a local elementary school, according to two German Catholic news sites, Kath.net and Katholishes.info.

The woman, whose name is not revealed in the articles, is reportedly a Baptist who is opposed to the program based upon her religious convictions. The couple says that their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Germany is a signatory, are being ignored.

They cite article 2 of the convention’s first protocol, which states: “the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” The local elementary school has reportedly ignored this right since 2005, and is being supported by the judiciary.

The woman’s husband says that “his wife has really missed her family, but finds her solace in God” according to Kath.net, which also reports that the younger children “miss their mother,” but that suffering injustice is part of the experience of being Christian.

The persecution of Germans who homeschool or reject government sex education is an ongoing phenomenon. In April of last year the website Kopp Online reported several cases of German mothers who reside in Salzkotten spending up to a week in jail for refusing the local sex ed program for their children. Similar persecution was reported in the same town, which is located in the district of Paderborn, in December of 2009.

In January of 2010 a German family was granted asylum in the United States after years of harassment by the German government for homeschooling their children.

The above story uncovers the lie that democratic countries will protect the religious freedom of its citizens. The secular state will tolerate religious belief as long as it doesn't interfere with the values of the state. We in Canada must be wary of what the state is trying to impose on us in terms of sex education programs. It's shocking that a mom is in jail for not sending her kids to school. But it could never happen in Canada, right? Don't be too sure. If the jackboots are marching in democratic Germany against helpless moms, who's to say they won't soon march elsewhere. We must be vigilant. We must speak to protect the freedoms we now have.

Said Musa Should Not Be Allowed to Die

National Review Online – February 18, 2011
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/260050/america-quiet-execution-afghan-christian-said-musa-paul-marshall
America Quiet on the Execution of Afghan Christian Said Musa
By Paul Marshall

A terrible drama is unfolding in Afghanistan: There are reports that Said Musa, whose situation I described at Christmas, will soon be executed for the ‘crime’ of choosing to become a Christian. (For background, see here.)

Musa was one of about 25 Christians arrested on May 31, 2010, after a May 27 Noorin TV program showed video of a worship service held by indigenous Afghan Christians; he was arrested as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy. He converted to Christianity eight years ago, is the father of six young children, had a leg amputated after he stepped on a landmine while serving in the Afghan Army, and now has a prosthetic leg. His oldest child is eight and one is disabled (she cannot speak). He worked for the Red Cross/Red Crescent as an adviser to other amputees.

He was forced to appear before a judge without any legal counsel and without knowledge of the charges against him. “Nobody [wanted to be my] defender before the court. When I said ‘I am a Christian man,’ he [a potential lawyer] immediately spat on me and abused me and mocked me. . . . I am alone between 400 [people with] terrible values in the jail, like a sheep.” He has been beaten, mocked, and subjected to sleep deprivation and sexual abuse while in prison. No Afghan lawyer will defend him and authorities denied him access to a foreign lawyer.

Any and every human being who is imprisoned, abused, or tortured for the free and peaceful expression of their faith deserves our support, but Musa is also a remarkable person and Christian. In a letter smuggled to the West, he says, “The authority and prisoners in jail did many bad behaviour with me about my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, they did sexual things with me, beat me by wood, by hands, by legs, put some things on my head.”

He added a thing much more important to him, that they “mocked me ‘he’s Jesus Christ,’ spat on me, nobody let me for sleep night and day. . . . Please, please, for the sake of Lord Jesus Christ help me.” (View the full letter here)

He has not, in fact, even appealed to be released, only to be transferred to another prison. He has also stated that he is willing to give his life for his faith. “Please, please you should transfer me from this jail to a jail that supervises the believers. . . . I also agree . . . to sacrifice my life in public [where] I will tell [about my] faith in Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, [so] other believers will take courage and be strong in their faith.”

Newspapers in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe have reported the story, but with, the exception of the Wall Street Journal and, of course, NRO, American outlets have not found it worthy of attention. The Journal reports that “Afghan officials have been unapologetic: ‘The sentence for a convert is death and there is no exception,’ said Jamal Khan, chief of staff at the Ministry of Justice. ‘They must be sentenced to death to serve as a lesson for others.’”

The U.S. government — reportedly including Secretary of State Clinton — and other governments have pushed for his release, but to no avail.

But the president has been silent, even as we fight a war that has among its goals the creation of a government that conforms to international human-rights standards.

An American president certainly needs to guard and shepherd his political capital, and should not speak out about every prisoner. But Musa himself has appealed to “President Brother Obama” to rescue him from his current jail. And when an obscure and aberrant Florida pastor, Terry Jones, threatened to burn a Koran, not only President Obama but much of his cabinet, as well as General Petraeus, weighed in on the matter.

If the actions of a Florida pastor who threatened to destroy a book holy to Muslims deserved public and presidential attention, then the actions of the Afghan government, ostensibly a ‘democratic’ ally, to destroy something holy to Christians, a human being made in the image of God, also deserve public and presidential attention.

— Paul Marshall is the co-author, with Nina Shea, of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide, forthcoming from Oxford University Press in October 2011.

Persecution of Christians Continues

On November 7 Asia Bibi was sentenced to die. I reported on Asia’s tragic plight just over a year ago in this paper. According to published reports Asia, a Pakistani Christian, got into a dispute with her Muslim colleagues who were pressuring her to convert to Islam. She allegedly told her co-workers that Jesus had died, but had risen from the dead, but that Mohammed, the founder of Islam, had died, and had not returned from the dead. Her co-workers regarded her comment as an insult to their prophet. An altercation broke out; Bibi was beaten and charged with blasphemy. The 38 year-old mother of two was held in prison for more than a year, and on November 7 she was sentenced to death by a Pakistani judge.

Even if she escapes the death penalty on appeal the future does not look bright for Bibi as she would still be facing imprisonment for life. And in the unlikely event that the charges were to be dropped she would still be in constant danger. For in July of this year two other Pakistani Christians were shot and killed on the way home from the courthouse even though they had been acquitted of blasphemy charges.

Unfortunately this is only one more incident in a long list of cases of Christians being harassed and persecuted around the world. On October 31 fifteen Muslim gunmen entered the Syrian Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad during Sunday evening Mass. The terrorists during a four-hour siege murdered some 60 innocent hostages, and wounded 78 others before they themselves were killed. Since then attacks on Christian neighborhoods in the city have continued.

We in Canada have the notion that persecution ended when the Roman Empire officially became Christian way back in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine. And of course in this country we take it for granted that people have the right to freely express their faith and not endanger their life by doing so. But that freedom simply does not exist in many parts of the world.

According to the World Evangelical Alliance approximately 200 million Christians worldwide are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith. And a conservative estimate of the number of Christians who are killed for their faith each year is somewhere around 150,000.

This massacre in the Baghdad cathedral recently provoked a white-hot response from an agonized churchman. Father Raymond J. de Souza for the National Post blazingly wrote, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord…But let us not blanch from raising our voices to the Lord, with righteous anger and hot tears, that He might visit His vengeance upon those who did this, bring down His wrath upon their heads and exact upon them a terrifying justice in full measure.” There are some Christians who would condemn de Souza for his cry for God’s justice on those who perpetrated this ghastly evil, but I am not among them.

Christians believe that Christ will execute perfect justice to all doers of evil when he returns as King and Judge. In the meantime surely we can emulate the prayers of many of the Psalms, asking that God would act sooner rather than later. Can it be wrong to pray to Christ as Judge that He would bring justice down on killers of the innocent, and on all who oppress through unjust laws?

Sunday, November 14 has been designated as International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Tomorrow, Christians will be especially praying for fellow believers who are being persecuted around the world in some 60 different countries. We do not know how or when God will choose to bring about his vengeance on evildoers, for that is his prerogative. But it is certainly appropriate that on one day of the year, at least, Christ-followers everywhere should particularly remember all the Asia Bibi’s living under the sentence of death. Let us never, never forget those living in dark places where to openly speak of Jesus Christ, Light of the world can land you in prison or put you in a hangman’s noose.

Published in Guelph Mercury on November 13, 2010

Fierce the Conflict

Norman Cliff has written a fascinating book on persecution of Christians in China titled, Fierce the Conflict. In one chapter that deals with the famous Watchman Nee, Cliff recounts how Nee in 1950 returned to China from the safety of Hong Kong for he believed that God wanted him back in the country to preach and witness.

"Nee was aware that he, together with many other Christians, would soon be suffering for their faith. And so he wrote a hymn based on Galatians 6:17 (I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ) in which Christ is saying":

Why have you no marks?
I was persecuted and hung alone on the Tree,
Surrounded with coldness, cruelty and pride.
I was hurt by rod, spear and nails,
Why have you no marks?

Two years later Nee was arrested, sentenced and imprisoned for fifteen years.

We believers in comfortable places like Canada and the USA for the most part have very few marks, indeed most have none at all. Just maybe the absence of marks is proof of a lack of bold witness...just maybe the lack of bold witness is why there is so little growth in His church? Where do marks come from? What do they look like? Should part of our praying be directed to the acquisiton of some marks?

Royal