Dr. Eowyn posted: " The Catholic concept of the "Church Suffering"
refers to Christians being martyred for their faith. George Weigel writes
for First Things, Oct. 30, 2013, that alas, few Christians in the West seem
aware of the Suffering Church, much less have it we" Respond to this
post by replying above this line
New post on *Fellowship of the Minds*
<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/author/eowyn2/> We are in the greatest
tribulation-time in Christian
history<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2013/11/13/we-are-in-the-greatest-tribulation-time-in-christian-history/>
by
Dr. Eowyn <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/author/eowyn2/>
[image:
persecution]<http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/persecution.jpg>
The Catholic concept of the "*Church Suffering*" refers to Christians being
martyred for their faith.
George Weigel writes for
<http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/10/the-church-persecuted>*First
Things*, Oct. 30, 2013, that alas, few Christians in the West seem aware of
the Suffering Church, much less have it weigh on their Christian conscience.
*Christians today live in the greatest tribulation-time in Christian
history. More Christians were killed for fidelity to Christ in the 20th
century than in the previous nineteen centuries of Christian history
combined*.
Wiegel cites the following examples of persecution from a recent issue of
*Touchstone:*
- *Some **1,200 Protestants are being imprisoned in shipping containers
in Eritrean desert camps where “torture is routine*”.
- Mostafa Bordbar, a 27-year-old Christian convert, was arrested and
charged with “illegal gathering and participating in a house church” in
Iran.
- *Kazakh Christians*, many of them converts from Islam, are
“encouraged,” by the arrest and imprisonment of their pastors, to refrain
from evangelism.
- A* Muslim leader in central Nigeria regularly abducts Christian girls
and women and holds them captive in his home, *to compel their
conversion (or reversion) to Islam.
- In Syria and Egypt, Christians live in daily fear for their
lives where it’s open season on Christians.
Wiegel would not say it. But as you can see from the examples above, *Muslims
are doing many of the persecution.*
Wiegel warns that at the rate Christians are being persecuted and martyred
in the Middle East, within two decades, perhaps less, Christianity may well
cease to be a living ecclesial reality in many of the places where
Christianity was born, not to mention the cities where sub-apostolic and
patristic Christianity developed.
*The sole exception to this pattern throughout the Middle East and North
Africa is Israel.*
Thus Tom Holland, a popular historian and author of *The Forge of
Christendom*<http://www.amazon.com/The-Forge-Christendom-Days-Epic/dp/0307278700>
(an
intriguing book exploring the ways the late first millennium’s expectation
of an imminent End Time shaped the West’s triumph in the second
millennium),
*said*<http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christianity.in.danger.of.becoming.extinct.in.its.birthplace/34189.htm>recently
at a London press briefing that *“In
terms of the sheer scale of the hatreds and sectarian rivalries” afoot in
the Middle East today, “we are witnessing something on the scale of horror
of the European Thirty Years War.”*
At that same briefing, Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s
Religious Freedom Center in Washington, raised some pointed questions
about western
media ignorance—or worse—about this persecution. Shea noted that *a
fourth-century Coptic church dedicated to Our Lady was recently destroyed
in Egypt, even though it was on a shortlist to be declared a UNESCO World
Heritage Site.* *The church was 200 years older than the UNESCO-listed
Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, whose destruction by the Taliban in 2001
was widely reported and universally condemned; yet the mainstream media
treated this grotesque act of anti-Christian religious and cultural
vandalism in Egypt as a non-event.*
[image:
EGYPT-POLITICS-UNREST-CHRISTIAN]<http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/coptic-church-in-southern-egypt.jpg>A
picture taken on August 18, 2013 shows the Amir Tadros coptic Church in
Minya, some 250 kms south of Cairo, which was set ablaze on August 14,
2013. Egypt's Christians are living in fear after a string of attacks
against churches, businesses and homes they say were carried out by angry
supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. As police dispersed
Morsi supporters from two Cairo squares on August 14, attackers torched
churches across the country. (Photo credit: VIRGINIE NGUYEN
HOANG/AFP/Getty Images)
So what is to be done?
- Support those non-governmental agencies that work to sustain the
pastoral life of Christianity in its historic birthplace.
- Demand that U.S. diplomacy take religious freedom in the Middle East
more seriously.
- Pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ.
- And pray, publicly, for the conversion of the persecutors.
*To that end, this blog, Fellowship of the Minds, will have a regular
feature asking you to pray for a particular individual who is suffering
from persecution somewhere in the world.*
H/t my friend Sol
*~Eowyn*
*Dr. Eowyn <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/author/eowyn2/>* | November
13, 2013 at 4:49 am | Tags: Amir Tadros Coptic
Church<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?tag=amir-tadros-coptic-church>,
George Wiegel <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?tag=george-wiegel>, Nina
Shea <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?tag=nina-shea>, Tom
Holland<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?tag=tom-holland>| Categories:
Christians/Christianity
<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=111409284>, Culture
War <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=20812>,
Evil<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=35821819>,
God's creation <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=354016>,
Islam<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=420>,
Israel <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=9937>,
Media<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=292>,
Middle East <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=3250>,
persecution<http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=79343>,
Religion <http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/?cat=4983159> | URL:
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