Joshua Arnold/Washington Stand
The past week was one of the most fatal for Christians around the world in recent memory. From Nigeria to Ethiopia to Jordan, gunmen slaughtered more than a hundred Christians. The somber news reminds Christians in America of the urgent need our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ face every day. It also accentuates the stakes in Tuesday’s election.
On Friday, gunmen attacked a Christian community in northeastern Nigeria, firing on people as they fled into a river. At least 62 people were killed in the attack, 52 were wounded, and thousands fled their homes. In the past decade, Islamist militants have killed tens of thousands of Christians in Nigeria.
Also on Friday, three unnamed terrorists opened fire at Christians gathered for a funeral outside St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in the village of Hmoud, east of the Dead Sea. Jordanian authorities have suspects in custody, making this the only one of the three attacks where government authorities have acted to protect Christians.
On Saturday, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in the Oromia state suffered a series of attacks in which more than 60 people were killed, including five children, and 20 houses were burned to the ground. One survivor described it as an ambush, in which the attackers surrounded their victims on all sides.
A local official blamed the attacks on a rebel coalition, Alliance for Survival, which includes the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). However, according to Christian Emergency Alliance, “surviving witnesses claimed regional authorities collaborated with Islamist militias to carry out the massacre.”
All three attacks came the weekend before International Religious Freedom Day (October 27), and also shortly before the U.S. midterm elections.
Fortunately, international religious freedom still finds supporters in both parties — far more than pro-life or pro-marriage positions. For instance, a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) passed the Senate unanimously on September 30.
However, the parties do vary in the intensity of their commitment to international religious freedom.
In 2018, the Trump administration hosted the first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, an international summit of government leaders and advocates focused on achieving real change. The event has occurred annually since 2018, but the burden of hosting it was transferred to nonprofits after the Biden administration declined to maintain the ministerial in 2021.
Indeed, the Biden administration explicitly rejected a foreign policy that emphasized religious freedom in favor of one that emphasized the LGBT agenda and abortion.
“This is a major shift away from international religious freedom — moving away from even calling it religious freedom,” former USCIRF Commissioner Nina Shea said of the Biden administration policy. “It’s more of a watered-down freedom of belief or religion, and equating religion with belief, which is very dangerous because that would mean you have a right to believe what you want to believe, but you may not be allowed to practice it in a public square.”
Sadly, many foreign leaders predicted the Biden administration’s pivot away from religious freedom and had given that as their reason for not implementing more permanent change. It is one thing for Americans to give lip service to religious freedom and warn the world that we are watching. But what really matters to Christians facing persecution is when governments (and militant groups) believe that America will not only watch but act to protect the religious freedom of persecuted Christians abroad. Thus, the intensity of America’s commitment to religious freedom is what actually has an impact.
Christians have long been persecuted for their faith and will continue to face fiery trials for as long as the Lord tarries. As Paul reminded his readers, quoting from Psalm 44, “for your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36).
Yet Christians continue to persevere in difficult circumstances because of the hope that is within them. As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14).
“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord,” Paul continued. “Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).
These words do bring much-needed encouragement. The survivors of the attacks in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Jordan are likely consoling their souls in such promises even now. But the Christian’s final hope also motivates us to action now, and believers with an opportunity to vote can use that vote to succor their suffering brothers and sisters halfway around the world.
Originally published at The Washington Stand
