While we have a civil responsibility to defend the rights and welfare of those who face persecution in all its forms, Christians have a special responsibility to those Christians who are persecuted. By this I mean real persecution, and not the whining you here from people (within the United States) that they can’t put a floodlight on the twenty-foot wooden cross in their front yard or whatever.
I mean the sort of thing you hear about in North Korea and the Sudan. I wept when I read some reports about what goes on in North Korea. If prayer and a public word is all we have to offer in their behalf, then we are obliged to give it in full.
Now, with dry eyes, I’m looking for reports from respectable organizations, with some hope of verification (in as much as that’s possible) and I’ll make the links here, or use the Trackback feature to connect a future entry on this subject.
Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Hebrews 13:3
Update I found a report by Amnesty International and one by the U.S. State Department which are just as damning as some of the more emotion-driven reports by Christian anti-persecution organizations. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, no way you slice it, it is very, very bad. Not for the squeamish or children.
- U. S. State Department’s report (2003)
- Amnesty International USA (2003) More focus on famine than religious persecution.