The Trump administration is sending about 200 troops to Nigeria to help train its military to fight Islamist militants, U.S. and Nigerian officials said Tuesday.

The deployment comes weeks after President Donald Trump accused Nigeria’s government of failing to protect Christians from terrorist attacks in the West African country.

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Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-send-200-troops-nigeria-172823454.html

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Millions of Christians across the globe live in perpetual fear that they will be punished, harmed — or even killed — for merely practicing their faith.

Worldwide persecution continues to be at a fevered pitch, with varying degrees of affliction for those who openly embrace the Bible.

(Listen: Candace Cameron Bure and more — Check out the best of “The Pure Flix Podcast”)

This tragic reality is more than evident in Open Doors USA’s latest “World Watch List,” an annual report that offers “an unparalleled glimpse into the 50 places around the world where it costs the most to be a Christian.”

According to the stunning 2020 report, more than 260 million Christians live in places where there is a high level of persecution, amounting to one-in-eight Christians worldwide.

Learn more about the horrors of Christian persecution:

The “World Watch List” gives a lens into some of the most unthinkable scenarios.

“It’s the foremost grassroots data on the persecution of Christians,” Open Doors USA president and CEO David Curry recently told “The Pure Flix Podcast.” “It gives us an idea about the trends of religious liberty generally.”

He said there are restrictions in most places of the world, but that the areas of extreme oppression will likely shock those unfamiliar with the dire scenario.

From government seizure of property and social exclusion to violence and murder, there is a wide range of ways in which Christians can be oppressed for their faith.

“The most dangerous country where persecution was most intense was North Korea,” Curry said. “But as far as violence, Nigeria pops up [high] on our list.”

The government of North Korea, for instance, has “great control over every sphere of life,” Curry said, with people who are found with scripture or who are suspected of being a Christian at risk of losing everything and being sent to labor camps.

In places like Nigeria — the 12th most dangerous place to be a Christian on the 2020 list — Islamic extremists with the Boko Haram terror group use extreme violence.

“Such violence often results in loss of life, physical injury, as well as the loss of property,” the report says. “As a result of the violence, Christians are also being dispossessed of their land and means of livelihood — and Christians with a Muslim background also face rejection from their own families.”

Curry said Open Doors collects the “World Watch List” data through a network of researchers who are on the ground all over the globe.

“We measure it across all spheres — church life national life, the community, private life,” he said, noting that the level of violence is then discerned. “The trends are all very difficult right now.”

You can see the 2020 “World Watch List” for yourself here.

This article was originally published on Pure Flix Insider. Visit Pure Flix for access to thousands of faith and family-friendly movies and TV shows. You can get a free trial here.

Source: https://www.theblaze.com/news/christians-are-being-captured-and-killed-across-globe

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 The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was mentioned in the report for denigrating Christians. Photograph: Reuters

Pervasive persecution of Christians, sometimes amounting to genocide, is ongoing in parts of the Middle East, and has prompted an exodus in the past two decades, according to a report commissioned by the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

Millions of Christians in the region have been uprooted from their homes, and many have been killed, kidnapped, imprisoned and discriminated against, the report finds. It also highlights discrimination across south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in east Asia – often driven by state authoritarianism.

“The inconvenient truth,” the report finds, is “that the overwhelming majority (80%) of persecuted religious believers are Christians”.

Some of the report’s findings will make difficult reading for leaders across the Middle East who are accused of either tolerating or instigating persecution. The Justice and Development (AK) party of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for instance, is highlighted for denigrating Christians.

Hunt described the interim report – published on Thursday, based on a review led by the bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen – as “truly sobering”, especially since it came as “the world was seeing religious hatred laid bare in the appalling attacks at Easter on churches across Sri Lanka, and the devastating attack on two mosques in Christchurch”.

Hunt, an Anglican, has made the issue of Christian persecution one of the major themes of his foreign secretaryship. “I think we have shied away from talking about Christian persecution because we are a Christian country and we have a colonial past, so sometimes there’s a nervousness there,” he said. “But we have to recognise – and that’s what the bishop’s report points out very starkly – that Christians are the most persecuted religious group.”

He added: “What we have forgotten in this atmosphere of political correctness is actually the Christians that are being persecuted are some of the poorest people on the planet. In the Middle East the population of Christians used to be about 20%; now it’s 5%.”

“We’ve all been asleep on the watch when it comes to the persecution of Christians. I think not just the bishop of Truro’s report but obviously what happened in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has woken everyone up with an enormous shock.”

The interim report is designed to set out the scale of the persecution and a final report in the summer will set out how the British Foreign Office can do more to raise awareness of the issue.

The report shows that a century ago Christians comprised 20% of the population in the Middle East and north Africa, but since then the proportion has fallen to less than 4%, or roughly 15 million people.

In the Middle East and north Africa, the report says, “forms of persecution ranging from routine discrimination in education, employment and social life up to genocidal attacks against Christian communities have led to a significant exodus of Christian believers from this region since the turn of the century.

“In countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia the situation of Christians and other minorities has reached an alarming stage. In Saudi Arabia there are strict limitations on all forms of expression of Christianity including public acts of worship. There have been regular crackdowns on private Christian services. The Arab-Israeli conflict has caused the majority of Palestinian Christians to leave their homeland. The population of Palestinian Christians has dropped from 15% to 2%.”

Palestinian Christians attend an Orthodox Easter service in Gaza. Photograph: APAImages/Rex/Shutterstock

The report identifies three drivers of persecution: political failure creating a fertile ground for religious extremism; a turn to religious conservatism in countries such as Algeria and Turkey; and institutional weaknesses around justice, the rule of law and policing, leaving the system open to exploitation by extremists.

The report says: “The rise of hate speech against Christians in state media and by religious leaders, especially in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, has compromised the safety of Christians and created social intolerance.”

In findings that may pose difficulties for the UK as it seeks to build relations across the Middle East, the report states: “In some cases the state, extremist groups, families and communities participate collectively in persecution and discriminatory behaviour. In countries such as Iran, Algeria and Qatar, the state is the main actor, where as in Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt both state and non-state actors, especially religious extremist groups, are implicated.”

“In 2017 a total of 99 Egyptian Christians were killed by extremist groups, with 47 killed on Palm Sunday in Tanta and Alexandria. Egyptian Christians were continuously targeted by extremist groups during 2017 and 2018.

“Arrest, detention and imprisonment are common in Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. For example in the course of six days before Christmas 2018, 114 Christians were arrested in Iran with court cases left pending as a form of intimidation. Though most cases in Iran involve converts, indigenous Christians such as Pastor Victor, an Assyrian Christian, with his wife, Shamiram Issavi, have also been targeted and imprisoned.”

It also highlights how states, and state-sponsored social media, sometimes incite hatred and publish propaganda against Christians, especially in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. “The governing AK party in Turkey depicts Christians as a ‘threat to the stability of the nation’. Turkish Christian citizens have often been stereotyped as not real Turks but as western collaborators.”

In Saudi Arabia, the report says, school textbooks “teach pupils religious hatred and intolerance towards non-Muslims, including Christians and Jews”.

The report says freedom of religious belief can also act as a means of helping those suffering gender discrimination, since there is clear evidence that female Christians suffer disproportionately.

Defending the claim of genocide, the report says: “The level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN.”

The eradication of Christians and other minorities on pain of “the sword” or other violent means was revealed to be the specific and stated objective of extremist groups in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, north-east Nigeria and the Philippines. An intent to erase all evidence of the Christian presence was made plain by the removal of crosses, the destruction of church buildings and other church symbols.

“The killing and abduction of clergy represented a direct attack on the church’s structure and leadership. Where these and other incidents meet the tests of genocide, governments will be required to bring perpetrators to justice, aid victims and take preventative measures for the future. The main impact of such genocidal acts against Christians is exodus.”

Referring to the universal declaration of human rights, the report concludes: “The challenge that faces us at the beginning of the 21st century is not that we need to fight for a just legal system, it is rather that to our shame, we have abjectly failed to implement the best system that women and men have yet devised to protect universal freedoms.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/persecution-driving-christians-out-of-middle-east-report

The post Persecution driving Christians out of Middle East – report first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Under the new rules for the summer jobs grants program, applicants must agree — by marking a box on an electronic form — that they respect charter rights, including “women’s reproductive rights.” (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Thousands of years ago, before Christians could practice their faith legally, they often faced persecution from the Roman government. If captured, however, a suspected Christian could avoid punishment by performing a simple sacrifice dedicated to the emperor.

To stay on the authority’s good side, some Christians crossed their fingers (a concealed symbol of their true allegiance to Jesus) and complied with the government’s request. They rationalized that a coerced physical action didn’t compromise their true belief.

Most early Christians disagreed with that position. They felt “truth” had “set them free.” They would not betray the truth.

Today Christians in Canada, especially those ascribing to a more traditional faith, are being asked to cross their fingers and comply with a government decree. In this contemporary case, though, it’s a bit of money — not their lives — hanging in the balance.

Youth summer jobs

It sounds innocuous enough: Trudeau’s Liberals have made changes to the youth summer jobs program, which provides grant money to various employers to hire students. The changes, announced in December, got little media attention until now.

Under the new rules, applicants must agree — by marking a box on an electronic form — that they respect charter rights, including “women’s rights and women’s reproductive rights.” The office of the employment minister has said without the confirmation, an organization will not receive funding.

Religious organizations — churches, youth camps, aid groups and so forth — that hire students to assist them over the summer are frustrated. That’s because many, especially conservative Protestant and Catholic organizations, believe a child in the womb is as valuable as a child born, and they see abortion as immoral. To give assent to abortion, even via a check mark on a government form, betrays their values and conscience.

Employment Minister Patty Hajdu has said without the online confirmation, an organization will not receive funding. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)

Late last week, in an effort to suppress a burgeoning controversy, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Employment Minister Patty Hajdu said that the changes were not meant to affect all Christian organizations, but rather, only those whose “core mandate” was one of suppression of abortion rights.

The implication was thus that other religious groups should simply check the box, knowing it was not meant to target them.

This “solution,” however, shows a complete lack of awareness of what it means to be ethical. Here, the Liberals are advocating regular Canadians mimic their practice of equivocation and mutable morality, which we’ve seen in their about-face on electoral reform, as well as the prime minister’s own ethical breaches.

That Trudeau and his team are apparently so at ease encouraging conservative Christians and other religious Canadians to betray their conscience should cause many across the country great unease. Even those who are solidly pro-choice will appreciate the dangers inherent in that precedent.

• Churches upset by new abortion clause in jobs program
• Liberals ‘imposing’ values on groups seeking summer job grants, Andrew Scheer says

Another aspect of the Liberals’ reasoning should give the public even greater cause for concern.

When asked to justify holding back grant money from organizations they deem too dedicated to a pro-life position, the Liberals have implied that to give such groups funding would violate the charter and, thus, Canadian law.

Hajdu explained: “Our ministry believes in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and these are fundamental expectations of Canadians, and we stand up for those rights — and we [will] ensure that the money that we disperse on behalf of Canadians is not used in a way that violates those hard-won rights.”

But here’s the thing: there are no rights being violated here.

No right to abortion

Hajdu’s nod to “hard-won rights” is a reference to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1988 Morgentaler decision. But that decision didn’t recognize a constitutional right to abortion under the Charter. While it did nullify Canada’s existing abortion law, the Court left it to Parliament to come up with new legislation that would balance the rights of women with the state’s interest in the protection of the fetus, within the bounds of the charter.

Indeed, commenting at the time of the decision, law professor Daphne Gilbert wrote, “The Morgentaler decision didn’t say a woman has a constitutional right to abortion, it didn’t go that far.”

Canada is the only Western nation without any law regulating abortion. Successive governments have avoided crafting such legislation for fear of dividing the country, but the Liberals have discovered an easier solution: simply make people believe that a law already exists. (One, incidentally, that just happens to match Liberal ideology exactly).

Conservative Christians and those of other faiths supporting pro-life positions should not be subjected to an ideological purity test to qualify for federal funding. The beliefs they hold about abortion are completely within the bounds of the law and can be voiced upon and advocated for freely and publicly. Even organizations that are solely dedicated to opposing abortion contravene no law.

Their only “crime” is that their values don’t align with those of our prime minister. It’s ironic that Trudeau insists Canadians support “diversity and inclusion,” when he himself does not.

Clearly, the Liberals are letting a particular worldview, and not the law, influence their actions. The danger here is that if a government can pretend a law into existence, it can pretend others out of existence.

We’ve seen this before. Hail to the emperor.

This column is part of CBC’s Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor’s blog and our FAQ.

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Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/summer-jobs-program-1.4491602

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