REMEMBERING CHRIST'S COMMAND TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER

It is well known that Christians of all sorts are persecuted in several regions around the world.  These persecutions are also roundly ignored.  After all, it is much more fun and useful to remember the sins of Christians oppressing non-Christians.  (Those non-Christians being the Jews more often than not--although Christians savaging other Christians would come in first.)  The wretchedly ignored actuality is that the main persecutors of Christians today are Muslins.

The most vicious persecution today is by the radical Muslins in Syria and northern Iraq who unite

under the umbrella of ISIS.  Faced with the prospect of the choice between converting or summary execution, many Christians are fleeing with little more than the clothes on their backs.  Some are finding refuge in other counties.  Many are trapped.  If the many testimonies of hundreds of refugees are to be believed, numerous Christians have already been put to the sword.

I say these persecutions are well known; but it also should be acknowledged many that governments and organizations deny or dismiss the existence of these persecutions of Christians.  Our own ELCA has put out a rather tepid statements condemning the violence against our brothers and sisters in the faith.  Even the statements from the Catholic Church have been little stronger.  Of course, there is little the Church at large can do.  It is not like the Church has anything like a standing army.  (Thank God!)  And to be fair, the Church may be doing more behind the scene than it appears.  (I am inclined to think it is.)

But there are no demonstrations filling the streets to denounce the worldwide oppressions of the Church.  Outrage does not ring from the editorial pages of newspapers in Europe and the Americas. The plight of our brothers and sisters is inconvenient or of little interest or importance.  Worse, a small but significant minority believes that Christians are merely getting what they due. 

Jesus promised these things would happen to his disciples.  But that doesn't mean we have to grin and bear it in all cases.  This clearly is not one of those occasions where to simply turn the other cheek is in order.

These persecution are thousands of miles away from us and the human tendency is to carry on as usual.  But while their looks and ways are strange to us, they are our brothers and sisters.  As foreign as they are, they also are object of God's love.  The Father would not want us to abandon them to their own desperate devises.

Write your congressman.  Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.  Petition the government.  Work to somehow get food and clothing to the refugees.  But do something.