Sadly, news about the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is
nothing new. In parts of Iraq and Syria the situation has gotten so bad that the
Obama administration declared ISIS’ actions to be
“genocide.”
But a recent story about the persecution of Christians in the region
didn’t come out of the Levant, but instead, out of Egypt.
Now if this story sounds familiar, that’s because, sadly, it is. For
years we’ve been talking on BreakPoint about the plight of Egypt’s native
Christians, known as the Copts.
As I said back in 2013, “Egypt [is] central to the birth of
Christianity.” It’s right there in Scripture: it was to Egypt that the Holy
Family fled from Herod. And Egypt produced some of Christianity’s greatest minds
such as Origen and the great defender of orthodoxy, Athanasius. The father of
monasticism, Anthony, was also Egyptian, and for much of the Church’s early
history, Alexandria was the mind and soul of the faith.
“Egypt was Christian for six centuries before the coming of Islam,” and
the people we call “Copts” are the descendants of those who kept the faith in
the face of enormous pressure to abandon it.
Those pressures continue to this day. Even under non-Islamist
governments, Copts are, at best, second-class citizens. They’re harassed at
every turn. For instance, repairing their churches, never mind building a new
one, requires overcoming huge obstacles.
And that’s under relatively “friendly” regimes. When the Muslim
Brotherhood took power following the “Arab Spring,” they faced what Nina Shea
called “jihad” in which it was “open season” on them and their
institutions.
Many thought that the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood’s
government in 2013 might bring some relief. But as the Washington Post reported
recently, any respite has proven to be short-lived.
The Post quotes a Coptic Bishop’s assessment that a “‘disturbing wave of
radicalism’ has emerged from the uprising and changes in government and as the
economy has worsened.”
In Minya, which is 150 miles south of Cairo, where “unemployment and
illiteracy are high,” and “government services are limited,” radical Islamists
“have filled the void, influencing people with anti-Christian
rhetoric.”
The result—a series of attacks on Christians and a failure or
unwillingness to punish the perpetrators. Instead, according to Christian
activists, “Local officials often pressure Christians into mediating disputes
instead of going to court and coerce them into changing their
testimony.”
As the local Bishop told the Post, “These kinds of reconciliation
sessions replace the rule of law.” This, in turn, emboldens other would-be
assailants since “the community knows they can get away with attacking
Christians.”
It’s gratifying to see the Post’s coverage of this important story. Would
that the rest of the mainstream media did the same.
But in the end, we can’t count on this happening. If the story of what’s
going on in places like Minya and in the rest of Egypt is going to be told, it’s
going to be up to us. As I said three years ago, if the media aren’t “urging our
leaders to protect Egyptian Christians . . . we have to. We cannot stand by in
silence while yet another ancient Christian community is threatened with
extinction.”
We’re all the beneficiaries of the courage and wisdom of Egyptian
Christians since the beginning of the faith. It’s long past time to return the
kindness.
Please call or email your newly elected representative and senators in
Congress. We’ll soon have a new president in the White House. Make sure he knows
that the U.S. must speak out and condemn the persecution of Egyptian
Christians.
And come to BreakPoint.org, click on this commentary. We’ll link you to
the article in the Washington Post.
And of course, as always, please pray for our brothers and sisters in
Egypt. Breakpoint.