My Point of View by Jerold Dettle

Really? Is the recent death of a popular lion in Africa a much greater news story than the violent persecution of millions of Christians in recent years? After all, the lion is a species ranked most violent, and humans are frequently the victims. Some may even expound that the human is a superior animal, and thus deserving greater attention. This summer it appears that numerically the persecution of Christians economically, socially and physically has exceeded all past history.  These catastrophic tragedies are widely under-reported, and at best back page news. Where is the outrage? And what is the cause of this silence?

True, the founder of the religion promised that “the meek shall inherit the earth,” but while on Earth he violently drove the wicked vendors from the temple. If the leader of the most influential nation in the Middle East is able to exterminate all Christians and Jews, as he has repeatedly promised recently, will that make some in American leadership, the world media and many American citizens happy?

Caring friends and loyal citizens who seek justice and religious freedom might wisely take a few moments from a hectic day to read a couple comments and statistics like the following:

1. From Franklin Graham, “Many laws are being passed that restrict our freedom as Christians. I believe it is going to get worse. We are losing our freedom little bit day by day.” “Our foreign policies rebuke our allies and befriend our enemies. Christians need to get involved. Who says we can’t run for office?”

2. Pope Francis condemned indifference and complicit silence in the wake of the recent massacre of nearly 150 people at a Kenyan University.

3. Archbishop Basham Warda, the Christian leader in Iraq, states that genocide is now occurring there. Unless Americans act urgently, the 2000-year Christian history will be lost. Records show there were 1.2 million Iraqi Christians in 2000 but less than 300,000 this year. The insidious perpetrators who torture, murder and rape are madmen. They are not the “JV team” described by our president.

Christians are being murdered at a reported rate of 180 per month for their faith.

One hundred years ago, Christians were 20 percent of the population in the Middle East. Today they are only 5 percent and rapidly declining. During the current mass exodus, some reports state that thousands of drowned Christians and Jews have washed ashore in the Mediterranean Sea from sunken rafts and overloaded boats carrying desperate refugees from the Middle East.

Since the earliest American colonies, religious freedom has been foremost in the minds of the populace. Their courage and boldness seems to now be lacking within us. The cause of this change and the method for refocusing may be accurately stated by the popular author and former legal advisor in the Reagan administration, Mark R. Levin. He states:

“Oppose all efforts to delude the nation of its founding justification — that is, God given unalienable, natural rights that the government can neither confer on the individual nor deny to him. The “Statis” (statism: practice or doctrine of giving centralized government control over policy) seeks the authority to do both, which explains contempt for, or misuse of, faith. Moreover, faith provides the moral order that ties one generation to the next and without which the civil society cannot survive.”

 

Jerold Dettle is a member of the Freeborn County Republican Party.