The number of Christians persecuted for their faith continued to increase, some form of persecution affects every seventh follower of Jesus and a third of the countries of the Earth. "This is the biggest and most silent human rights crisis."
"If persecution were a lake, it would have become both deeper and wider compared to last year," Michel Varton, the president of the world's largest organization dealing with this issue, said in 2019. 3 years have passed since then, and the lake has turned into a sea. While the international organization Open Doors reported "only" 130 million persecuted Christians in 2018, in their latest, recently published report, they already reported the persecution of 360 million Christians, meaning that every seventh Christian is at high risk. The compilation examining the year 2021 found strong, very strong, or extreme persecution of Christians in 76 countries (about a third of the countries on Earth).
In the course of a single year, 5,898 Christians were killed because of their faith (the statistics only include those murders that can be proven to be related to religious convictions, racial or tribal conflict, or other personal motives are excluded), and another 6,175 believers were imprisoned.
5,110 churches have been attacked worldwide - examples from Hungary are among them.
Worldwide, the number of churches that were closed by government decision increased by 14 percent, but a truly brutal increase was seen in the number of arbitrarily detained Christians, as the organization's researchers and experts showed a 68 percent increase in their cases. Nearly four thousand followers of Jesus Christ are considered to have been kidnapped and/or disappeared at this hour as well.
In most countries, Islamic oppression can be identified as the cause of Christians' suffering, in many places the communist dictatorship is still the source of persecution, while in India, for example, Hindu nationalism causes the increasingly frightening situation of Christians.
Every year, Open Doors compiles a ranking of the countries where it is most dangerous to live as a Christian. Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Eritrea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran and India share the top ten places in the list of shame, but the report also reports extreme persecution in eleventh place Saudi Arabia.
A notable recent event is that although Christians are physically safe in Canada, their freedom of speech is far from complete: under the so-called C4 Act passed by the federal legislature (which heavily penalizes professionals who undertake reintegrative therapy and parents who do not affirm the their children who declare a gender identity other than heteronormative)
those pastors who explain based on the teaching of the Bible can even be punished with imprisonment: God created man as male and female. According to popular pastor James Coates, the law "criminalizes evangelism."
"This is the biggest human rights crisis of our time, affecting 20 million more people in a single year," Tristan Azbej told Mandiner. According to the state secretary responsible for helping persecuted Christians and implementing the Hungary Helps program, while the deprivation of rights for Christians is spreading rapidly, the responsibility of the Western world inevitably arises:
"it is not only the biggest crisis, but also the most ignored," he adds.
"We are living in a period of active denial, Western politicians and liberals have declared Christianity the number one enemy. They are waging an ideological battle to completely supplant Christianity, but the reality is that it is the most persecuted religion," says Tristan Azbej.
In Luke's Gospel, Jesus says: everyone will hate you for my name's sake. But not a hair is lost from your heads. You will save your souls by your perseverance. (Lk21,5-36) In another place, "Fear not...Behold, I am with you always the world ." (Mt28,20)
Source and full article: mandiner.hu
Featured image: Azbej Tristan/Facebook
