I have to admit that when it comes to the conflicts over seas I am tired. Tired of being the “police of the world”, tired of “spreading peace” and tired of fighting for the wrong kingdom . Yet over the last week I’ve wondered “What should we [as Christ followers] do in this world”?
Right now it seems like it is open season on our Christian brothers around the world.
- Seventy-eight Christians were slaughtered Sunday by twin suicide bombers at a historic church in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
- Less than 24 hours earlier a group of militants (some allegedly from the U.S,) murdered at least 68 workers and shoppers at a mall in Kenya, allegedly shouting for Muslims to get out of the way so they could specifically kill Christians.
- Coptic Christians in Egypt also have been targeted recently by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Christians in large numbers have left their ancient enclaves in Iraq and the West Bank after churches there were attacked or Christians were threatened.
- In late May, International Christian Concern, an evangelical ministry to the persecuted church, released to Christianity Today an anonymous open letter from a “trusted Syrian source” that explains why many Syrian Christians support Assad’s regime.
Many Middle eastern Christians feel that the government was bad [under the former regime], but they were at least safe. After researching what has happened in historic churches in places like Aleppo and Homs I know that we must do something but the question in my mind is what? Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan of the Syrian Catholic church in Damascus said in May that Christians are so frustrated with Western policy, which he believes is fomenting Islamic radicalism and anti-Christian hatred, that they may give up on the West altogether.
“I believe there will be a time coming when Christians of the Middle East will no longer look to the West for support and perhaps to better strengthen their roots with the Eastern culture and civilization … [to] Russia, to India, to China,” he said.
So in light of this [and many other things] I wonder, [as Western Christians] what do we do?
I’m really looking forward to your comments and ideas.
Honestly, I can’t say that there is a whole lot that we can do. On the one hand, I don’t believe what a lot of Americans do, that we should just not care about the rest of the world, as long as they leave us alone. To stand by and do nothing as atrocities are committed is not the action of a good people, and it also strikes me as a bit short-sighted- when power is what defines who is in charge of a country, the end results will get steadily worse and worse.
That being said, what we’re doing now clearly doesn’t work. Diplomacy seems not to have any measurable effect on the worst tyrants, and our ‘kinetic operations’ seem to do exactly as was said in the quote- stirring up anti-Western, and by extension, anti-Christian sentiments.
I also feel for our brothers and sisters in Christ in those situations. The support of Assad has to gall them, but at the same time, those are the times that they live in, having to make a decision as to which evil they are to live under. I have no idea what course they’ll end up having to decide on, or if it’ll work.
I guess that really sums up my feelings on the matter. I just don’t know. But I do know that a time where America’s role as arbiter of the world is coming to an end… for better or worse.