Christians under attack worldwide at a rapidly rising rate

[Gregory95]

Those who kill you will believe they do God a service

We were told this would happen friend

no idea when the end of this age will be

But in truth i can say we are at the end of this age

Can't wait to see the Lord return as He
accended
[/QUOTE="redleghunter, post: 73893510, member: 348895"]Violence against Christians — like the bomb attacks that killed at least 311 people in Catholic churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — has been escalating steadily over the past few years, international observers say.

In just the past few weeks, stark reminders of the danger Christians face around the world abound: an underground priest is dragged from his pickup truck in Xuanhua Diocese in China, a Christian couple in India are beaten by a father accusing them of trying to convert his son, 17 Christians are killed during a child dedication service in Nigeria.

Open Doors USA, a mission for persecuted Christians, estimates that violent attacks on the faithful doubled from 2017 to 2018, with approximately 11 Christians dying every day for their faith.

“There’s a specific pattern of violence around Christian holy days, such as Easter and Christmas,” said Sarah Cunningham, senior director of communications for Open Doors USA.

Nearly 50 worshippers were killed on Palm Sunday 2017 by bombers who targeted Coptic Christians in Cairo. That same year, at Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan, nine Christians were killed a week before Christmas by suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State.

More at link: Attacks on Christians double since 2017[/QUOTE]

 

[DamianWarS]

We live in a hateful and violent world, even in the USA. Did you note too that Muslims are the victims of 85% of terror attacks...

"According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the main victims of religious terrorism are overwhelmingly Muslim. It reported that of the more than 70,000 deaths worldwide in 2017, 85% were Muslim. Christians represented a fraction of the victims of religiously motivated violence." (11 Christians a day, 163 or more Muslims a day)

It's more complicated than this, for example, Muslim's greatest enemy happens to be other Muslims.

 

[mindlight]

Violence against Christians — like the bomb attacks that killed at least 311 people in Catholic churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — has been escalating steadily over the past few years, international observers say.

In just the past few weeks, stark reminders of the danger Christians face around the world abound: an underground priest is dragged from his pickup truck in Xuanhua Diocese in China, a Christian couple in India are beaten by a father accusing them of trying to convert his son, 17 Christians are killed during a child dedication service in Nigeria.

Open Doors USA, a mission for persecuted Christians, estimates that violent attacks on the faithful doubled from 2017 to 2018, with approximately 11 Christians dying every day for their faith.

“There’s a specific pattern of violence around Christian holy days, such as Easter and Christmas,” said Sarah Cunningham, senior director of communications for Open Doors USA.

Nearly 50 worshippers were killed on Palm Sunday 2017 by bombers who targeted Coptic Christians in Cairo. That same year, at Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan, nine Christians were killed a week before Christmas by suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State.

More at link: Attacks on Christians double since 2017

The article made the important point that a generation ago it would have been communist inspired persecution from the Soviet Union and its allies that would have worried the church. Now the largest percentage of violence against Christians is by Muslims and seems to represent an overflow of increasingly violent tendencies internal to the Muslim world. The collapse or removal of old style strongman regimes ( many of which were allied to the communists but protected the church) coupled with violent fundamentalist tendencies in the Muslim world seems to be the main cause. The rise of Hindutva in India is having a similar effect. But so also I think we are seeing a transition from the stability of an American-European dominated world to one which is more open and uncertain. From a world dominated by professing Christians, since the imperial era began some 5 centuries ago to one where Americans call Christians "Easter worshippers" and say "Happy Holidays" at Christmas time. With the old hierarchies no longer recognised on the ground there is an attempt to replace them with old religions and new heresies and the increasing chaos and instability we are seeing is reflected in the numbers of Christians being killed also.

At the same time as this geopolitical shift the church has been growing strongly in dangerous places like Africa and Asia and its increased profile is resented by the power brokers of many of these societies and especially by those who represent the entrenched religions threatened by Christianities rise.

In essence the increased persecution is a result of a changing world and also a symptom of the churches success.

 

[Jamsie]

It's more complicated than this, for example, Muslim's greatest enemy happens to be other Muslims.

I wouldn't disagree... my only suggestion was to note that terrorists and extremists have a wide impact. In our own country hate crimes are on the rise... we live in a hateful and violent world.

 

[Ronald]

Violence against Christians — like the bomb attacks that killed at least 311 people in Catholic churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — has been escalating steadily over the past few years, international observers say.

In just the past few weeks, stark reminders of the danger Christians face around the world abound: an underground priest is dragged from his pickup truck in Xuanhua Diocese in China, a Christian couple in India are beaten by a father accusing them of trying to convert his son, 17 Christians are killed during a child dedication service in Nigeria.

Open Doors USA, a mission for persecuted Christians, estimates that violent attacks on the faithful doubled from 2017 to 2018, with approximately 11 Christians dying every day for their faith.

“There’s a specific pattern of violence around Christian holy days, such as Easter and Christmas,” said Sarah Cunningham, senior director of communications for Open Doors USA.

Nearly 50 worshippers were killed on Palm Sunday 2017 by bombers who targeted Coptic Christians in Cairo. That same year, at Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan, nine Christians were killed a week before Christmas by suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State.

More at link: Attacks on Christians double since 2017

There seems to be some discrepancy with the amount of 11 Christians killed per day. That's only 4,000 annually. There are many more Christians killed especially in Muslim countries. This site reports 100,000 per year killed:
[Current situation (1989 to present)[edit]
Main article: Persecution of Christians in the modern era
According to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Christians are the most persecuted group in the contemporary world.[217] The Holy See has reported that over 100,000 Christians are violently killed annually because of some relation to their faith.[218] According to the World Evangelical Alliance, over 200 million Christians are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith.[219] Of the 100-200 million Christians alleged to be under assault, the majority are persecuted in Muslim-dominated nations.[220] Paul Vallely has said that Christians suffer numerically more than any other faith group or any group without faith in the world. Of the world's three largest religions Christians are allegedly the most persecuted with 80% of all acts of religious discrimination being directed at Christians[221] who only make up 33% of the world's population.] Wikipedia
I'm not even sure this amount includes millions who've died in the civil wars in African nations like Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, etc.

 

[Erik Nelson]

 

[JosephZ]

There seems to be some discrepancy with the amount of 11 Christians killed per day. That's only 4,000 annually. There are many more Christians killed especially in Muslim countries. This site reports 100,000 per year killed...

I'm not even sure this amount includes millions who've died in the civil wars in African nations like Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, etc.

Most of the civil wars in Africa occurred in predominantly Christian countries, so many of those would be Christians killing other Christians. Christians killed by ISIS in recent years totaled less than 30,000, so the 100,000 Christians dying as martyrs each year is highly inflated.

Here are some excerpts from an article that explains how the 100,000 figure came about.

Its researchers started by estimating the number of Christians who died as martyrs between 2000 and 2010 - about one million by their reckoning - and divided that number by 10 to get an annual number, 100,000.

But how do they reach that figure of one million?

When you dig down, you see that the majority died in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More than four million are estimated to have been killed in that war between 2000 and 2010, and CSGC counts 900,000 of them - or 20% - as martyrs.

Over 10 years, that averages out at 90,000 per year.

So when you hear that 100,000 Christians are dying for their faith, you need to keep in mind that the vast majority - 90,000 - are people who were killed in DR Congo.

This means we can say right away that the internet rumours of Muslims being behind the killing of 100,000 Christian martyrs are nonsense. The DRC is a Christian country. In the civil war, Christians were killing Christians.

A broad definition: Christian martyrs are defined as "believers in Christ who have lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility"...

The largest martyrdom situation today is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where atrocious acts of violence began in the late 1990s and have continued to the present...

Although not all their circumstances would be considered "situations of witness," we estimate that a substantial proportion of those who have died meet our definition of martyr.

In earlier estimates of martyrs, CSGC included killings that occurred in the Rwandan genocide. Again this is puzzling. It was not a conflict about religion - it was a case of Hutus killing Tutsis, and both sides were Christian.

If you were to take away the 90,000 deaths in DR Congo from the CSGC's figure of 100,000, that would leave 10,000 martyrs per year.

"One has to see that there is no scientific number at the moment. It has not been researched and all experts in this area are very hesitant to give a figure,".

"We are starting a research project with several universities worldwide on this topic and there we start with a guess of 7-8,000 Christians killed as martyrs each year."

How many Christians die for their faith?

 

[timothyu]

The collapse or removal of old style strongman regimes ( many of which were allied to the communists but protected the church) coupled with violent fundamentalist tendencies in the Muslim world seems to be the main cause.

Although they have always been at war with each other over denomination, actually external meddling has caused reaction on their part and increased violence towards Christians simply by association with the outside destabilizing forces.

 

[timothyu]

The desire here to have enemies does not seem much different as a motive to those who would do us harm.

 

[mindlight]

Most of the civil wars in Africa occurred in predominantly Christian countries, so many of those would be Christians killing other Christians. Christians killed by ISIS in recent years totaled less than 30,000, so the 100,000 Christians dying as martyrs each year is highly inflated.

Here are some excerpts from an article that explains how the 100,000 figure came about.

Its researchers started by estimating the number of Christians who died as martyrs between 2000 and 2010 - about one million by their reckoning - and divided that number by 10 to get an annual number, 100,000.

But how do they reach that figure of one million?

When you dig down, you see that the majority died in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More than four million are estimated to have been killed in that war between 2000 and 2010, and CSGC counts 900,000 of them - or 20% - as martyrs.

Over 10 years, that averages out at 90,000 per year.

So when you hear that 100,000 Christians are dying for their faith, you need to keep in mind that the vast majority - 90,000 - are people who were killed in DR Congo.

This means we can say right away that the internet rumours of Muslims being behind the killing of 100,000 Christian martyrs are nonsense. The DRC is a Christian country. In the civil war, Christians were killing Christians.

A broad definition: Christian martyrs are defined as "believers in Christ who have lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility"...

The largest martyrdom situation today is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where atrocious acts of violence began in the late 1990s and have continued to the present...

Although not all their circumstances would be considered "situations of witness," we estimate that a substantial proportion of those who have died meet our definition of martyr.

In earlier estimates of martyrs, CSGC included killings that occurred in the Rwandan genocide. Again this is puzzling. It was not a conflict about religion - it was a case of Hutus killing Tutsis, and both sides were Christian.

If you were to take away the 90,000 deaths in DR Congo from the CSGC's figure of 100,000, that would leave 10,000 martyrs per year.

"One has to see that there is no scientific number at the moment. It has not been researched and all experts in this area are very hesitant to give a figure,".

"We are starting a research project with several universities worldwide on this topic and there we start with a guess of 7-8,000 Christians killed as martyrs each year."

How many Christians die for their faith?

Again the incessant desire to point the finger at the church. These African wars and murders have nothing to do with Christianity. They are superficial converts still dominated by tribalism and warlords

 

[mindlight]

Although they have always been at war with each other over denomination, actually external meddling has caused reaction on their part and increased violence towards Christians simply by association with the outside destabilizing forces.

The end of imperialism and communism has merely released the old hatreds , which were never forgiven and never washed clean, and allowed Muslims in the region to kill each other and the church also

 

[JosephZ]

These African wars and murders have nothing to do with Christianity. They are superficial converts still dominated by tribalism and warlords

So you would also apply that to how we count persecution and martyrdom since you consider Christians in Africa as only superficial converts? What about other parts of the developing world where the populations continue to be dominated by tribalism? If you do that, then there's really not very much persecution taking place in the world using your standards.

 

[Pioneer3mm]

Violence against Christians — like the bomb attacks that killed at least 311 people in Catholic churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — has been escalating steadily over the past few years, international observers say.

In just the past few weeks, stark reminders of the danger Christians face around the world abound: an underground priest is dragged from his pickup truck in Xuanhua Diocese in China, a Christian couple in India are beaten by a father accusing them of trying to convert his son, 17 Christians are killed during a child dedication service in Nigeria.

Open Doors USA, a mission for persecuted Christians, estimates that violent attacks on the faithful doubled from 2017 to 2018, with approximately 11 Christians dying every day for their faith.

“There’s a specific pattern of violence around Christian holy days, such as Easter and Christmas,” said Sarah Cunningham, senior director of communications for Open Doors USA.

Nearly 50 worshippers were killed on Palm Sunday 2017 by bombers who targeted Coptic Christians in Cairo. That same year, at Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan, nine Christians were killed a week before Christmas by suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State.

More at link: Attacks on Christians double since 2017

"The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church."
Tertullian
---
From the beginning of Christian movement in the 1st century,
persecution has been going on..
---
I have been working with Christian leaders in "restricted countries"..for years.
- They go through tough challenges every day.
In those countries, it is difficult to get even - a copy of Bible.
- In United States, we still have access to Christian literature..not just Bibles.
---
I wrote 'Christian movement.'
- I prefer those words..from mission perspective.
on 'unreached regions/countries.'

 

[mindlight]

So you would also apply that to how we count persecution and martyrdom since you consider Christians in Africa as only superficial converts? What about other parts of the developing world where the populations continue to be dominated by tribalism? If you do that, then there's really not very much persecution taking place in the world using your standards.

As said before Daesh and the various other terrorist groups Islam has spawned in recent years do not have a superficial view of Islam. They most often know the Quran better than moderate Muslims and their motivations are more clearly religious and nothing else. But the causes of the long list of terrorist atrocities you attribute to Christians are at root ignorance and the continued dominance of tribalism, greed, personality cults , power and others motivations over newly found faiths.

 

[JosephZ]

As said before Daesh and the various other terrorist groups Islam has spawned in recent years do not have a superficial view of Islam. They most often know the Quran better than moderate Muslims and their motivations are more clearly religious and nothing else. But the causes of the long list of terrorist atrocities you attribute to Christians are at root ignorance and the continued dominance of tribalism, greed, personality cults , power and others motivations over newly found faiths.

Since this strays far off the topic of the OP, I responded to this in another thread: Growth of Islam through the political arena in various countries around the world..

 

[FireDragon76]

Again the incessant desire to point the finger at the church. These African wars and murders have nothing to do with Christianity. They are superficial converts still dominated by tribalism and warlords

Not to mention there are non-Christian cults like the Lord's Army.

 

[Ronald]

Sudan's Christians were persecuted under various military regimes. Sudan's civil wars temporarily ended in 1972, but resumed in 1983, as famine hit the region. Four million people were displaced and two million people died in the two-decade long conflict before a temporary six-year ceasefire was signed in January 2005.


During the Second Sudanese Civil War people were taken into slavery; estimates of abductions range from 14,000 to 200,000. Abduction of Dinka women and children was common.


In 2011, South Sudan voted to secede from the north, effective 9 July. Persecution of Christians there had resumed by then.


Multiple casualty estimates have been published since the war began, ranging from roughly 10,000 civilians (Sudan government) to hundreds of thousands.


In September 2004, the World Health Organization estimate that there had been 50,000 deaths in Darfur since the beginning of the conflict, an 18-month period, mostly due to starvation. An updated estimate the following month put the number of deaths for the 6-month period from March to October 2004 due to starvation and disease at 70,000;


These figures were criticized, because they only considered short periods and did not include deaths from violence. A more recent British Parliamentary Report estimated that over 300,000 people had died, and others have estimated even more.


In March 2005, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland estimated that 10,000 were dying each month excluding deaths due to ethnic violence. An estimated 2.7 million people had at that time been displaced from their homes, mostly seeking refuge in camps in Darfur's major towns. Two hundred thousand had fled to neighboring Chad. Reports of violent deaths compiled by the UN indicate between 6,000 and 7,000 fatalities from 2004 to 2007.


In May 2005, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) of the School of Public Health of the Université catholique de Louvain in Brussels, Belgium published an analysis of mortality in Darfur. Their estimate stated that from September 2003 to January 2005, between 98,000 and 181,000 persons had died in Darfur, including 63,000 to 146,000 excess deaths.


In August 2010, Dr. Eric Reeves argued that total mortality from all violent causes, direct and indirect, at that point in the conflict, exceeded 500,000. His analysis took account of all previous mortality data and studies, including that by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster.


The UN disclosed on 22 April 2008 that it might have underestimated the Darfur death toll by nearly 50%.


In July 2009, The Christian Science Monitor published an op-ed stating that many of the published mortality rates have been misleading because they include a large number of people who had died of disease and malnutrition, as well as those who died from direct violence.


In January 2010, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters published an article in a special issue of The Lancet. The article, entitled "Patterns of mortality rates in Darfur conflict", estimated with 95% confidence that the excess number of deaths is between 178,258 and 461,520 (with a mean of 298,271), with 80% of these due to disease.





https://www.newsweek.com/christian-persecution-genocide-worse-ever-770462



Indonesia - In January 1999 tens of thousands died when Muslim gunmen terrorized Christians who had voted for independence in East Timor.


Nigeria --The Boko Haram Islamist group has bombed churches and killed numerous Christians who they regard as kafirs (infidels). MIDDLE BELT, Nigeria (BP) -- The mass slaughter of Christians in Nigeria is calculated genocide abetted by the government in the nation that is Africa's most Christian, cries a growing number of leaders calling on the United States to intervene. Evangelical John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, is among the latest to describe as genocide the killing of some 6,000 Christians this year alone in Nigeria by jihadist Fulani herdsmen aided by resurging Boko Haram terrorist


ISIS ---The Genocide of Christians by ISIL refers to the systematic mass murder of Christian minorities, within its region of control in Iraq, Syria and Libya by the Islamic extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Persecution of Christian minorities climaxed following its takeover of parts of Northern Iraq in June 2014.


Considering that out of some 220 countries, 52 of them are Muslim, where persecution of Christians is and has been common.

 

[Ronald]

Most of the civil wars in Africa occurred in predominantly Christian countries, so many of those would be Christians killing other Christians. Christians killed by ISIS in recent years totaled less than 30,000, so the 100,000 Christians dying as martyrs each year is highly inflated.

Here are some excerpts from an article that explains how the 100,000 figure came about.

Its researchers started by estimating the number of Christians who died as martyrs between 2000 and 2010 - about one million by their reckoning - and divided that number by 10 to get an annual number, 100,000.

But how do they reach that figure of one million?

When you dig down, you see that the majority died in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More than four million are estimated to have been killed in that war between 2000 and 2010, and CSGC counts 900,000 of them - or 20% - as martyrs.

Over 10 years, that averages out at 90,000 per year.

So when you hear that 100,000 Christians are dying for their faith, you need to keep in mind that the vast majority - 90,000 - are people who were killed in DR Congo.

This means we can say right away that the internet rumours of Muslims being behind the killing of 100,000 Christian martyrs are nonsense. The DRC is a Christian country. In the civil war, Christians were killing Christians.

A broad definition: Christian martyrs are defined as "believers in Christ who have lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility"...

The largest martyrdom situation today is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where atrocious acts of violence began in the late 1990s and have continued to the present...

Although not all their circumstances would be considered "situations of witness," we estimate that a substantial proportion of those who have died meet our definition of martyr.

In earlier estimates of martyrs, CSGC included killings that occurred in the Rwandan genocide. Again this is puzzling. It was not a conflict about religion - it was a case of Hutus killing Tutsis, and both sides were Christian.

If you were to take away the 90,000 deaths in DR Congo from the CSGC's figure of 100,000, that would leave 10,000 martyrs per year.

"One has to see that there is no scientific number at the moment. It has not been researched and all experts in this area are very hesitant to give a figure,".

"We are starting a research project with several universities worldwide on this topic and there we start with a guess of 7-8,000 Christians killed as martyrs each year."

How many Christians die for their faith?

The liberal media would downplay any such figures, they would distort the truth, and lie to the point of changing history. We call them revisionists. They attack those who even mention the phrase Islamic terrorism and call them Islamophobic. Obama could speak the phrase. He would appease Muslims on every issue ... even as far as kneeling and kissing the ring of a Saudi King. His efforts towards Christian genocide and ISIS expansion were nil compared to Trumps. Europe is suffering from a massive invasion of Islamic refugees and we continue to here the news of murders and rapes escalating due to Islamic terrorism - yet, liberal governments suppress the truth to the point of making it a crime to speak out against it.