American Churches Are Ignoring The Genocide Of Their Own
Actions speak louder than words, but in this case, no words are just as indicative of a lack of intention. As it is with Obama’s refusal to call the killing and maiming done in the name of Allah, Islamic terrorism, so it is with many Christian pastors who say nothing from the pulpit about the genocide of Christians and who is perpetrating it. Their silence is deafening.
It is a national disgrace to consider the lack of support towards a people who hold to the same faith as the one in which the country was founded. What is more incredulous is the way many pastors have allowed political correctness to seep into the culture of the church to the point of rendering them spineless when it comes to speaking out against the barbaric ideology of Islam.
More importantly, there is minimal aid being sent to the Christians in the Middle East to help them survive the onslaught of a ruthless movement set on establishing the Caliphate. Even after the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, there was a massive outpouring of funds and assistance from the church going to the region for relief of suffering, yet when we see countless reports of Christians being beaten, beheaded, and crucified, the church looks the other way and sends no help.
Do the pastors think their congregations to be deaf and dumb? Do they not realize that their members have internet and can see the atrocities that are happening on a grand scale? The clergy in America may remain quiet, but the blood of Christians who have been marked, singled out, and slaughtered by Muslims won’t be silent.
The Reverend Douglas Al-Bazi, a priest of the Chaldean Catholic Church who in 2006 was kidnapped and tortured for nine days by Islamic terrorists knows first-hand about the genocide taking place against Christians in Iraq.
Al-Bazi has witnessed the number of Christians in Iraq go from 1.4 million in 2003 to just under 250,000 after Islamic State invaded in 2014. Amazingly some 120,000 Iraqi Christians were expelled overnight from Mosul taking with them the only personal belongings they could hold.
The Chaldean priest endured days without water and had his teeth, and vertebrae broken with a hammer during his kidnapping. Fortunately, he was released, and has been a witness for many Christians whose lives have been changed forever by Islamic oppression. Reverend Al-Bazi knew a fellow priest who unlike himself, did not survive his captors’ brutal treatment, but was killed and buried in a shallow grave after telling the church not to give a ransom for his life because he knew the money would not be used for good.
In fact, those who are priests in Iraq have been told they probably won’t die a natural death. These strong Christian men know they have been marked for death by various Islamic groups, yet they choose to stay in the land where the very first Christians were said to have lived in the first century.
Al-Bazi is the director of Mar Elia Refugee Camp for Iraqi Christians, and holds the position of Parish Priest in the same town of Irbil, Iraq. He says the Christians remaining in Iraq want to stay in their homes. Many though, have left the area because of an obvious lack of opportunity that is given to a professing Christian.
With all this being known, the US government allows the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to choose 95% of the refugees we admit into our country from the UN camps. These camps have very strict Islamic environments, and not many Christians venture into them for help. So, our refugee program trusts the UN to send us the people it deems worthy.
Americans, especially those who value God-given freedom need to raise their voices and demand the Refugee Resettlement program assist the most vulnerable refugees, those Christians who are marked for death because of their faith. Further, it should be the pastors who are leading the charge on this issue. Our tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on bringing Muslim refugees to our country who adhere to the same ideology that espouses the genocide of Christians.
Maybe we just need more video footage of Christians fleeing for their lives like the Indonesians and Thai people were the day the tsunami swept in with its overbearing destruction. Or could it be the need for Christian pastors to wake up to the reality that Christians are in a battle that is being waged by Islam and decide to speak the truth about the genocide from their pulpits. It is way past time to start strengthening Christians in the Middle East who are fighting to provide a future for their families as well as their very survival.
*If you or your church would like to help Christian Refugees, please go to: http://www.helpiraq.org/.
The gross apathy of the US church to the suffering of the Believers in those lands has been a source of grief for me. We resemble the church of Laodicea, fat, lazy, self-indulgent, uncaring. I hear evangelicals talking about how the ME Christians aren’t “born- again” or “saved”, and it makes me want to puke. I abhor what the American church has become. May God have mercy on us, as hard-hearted as we are.
I have noticed that overbthe last 10 years, most Catholic priests talk about dribble, nonsense during the Homily. In fact, I heard just one priest decry abortion, and within a week he was transferred from the parish.
This is why many of us no longer attend mass on a regular basis; the experience is shallow, very much so.
Yes, PC-madness now consumes even the church, it is truly sad.