Is Newsweek using Holy Week to bash Christianity?
Richard Blake
Two articles in this Holy Week’s edition of Newsweek made it seem as though Newsweek magazine was taking the opportunity to go out of its way to bash Christianity. The first, provocatively entitled The End of Christian America by Jon Meacham (http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583) was, of course, a good deal more nuanced than the title implied. The basis for the contention that Christian influence on American social and political life was a poll that demonstrated that self-identified Christians in America declined from 86% of the population in 1990 to 76% in 2009.
That the influence of a religion that still could claim over three fourths of the population as adherents could be characterized as ending, seems a stretch. Still it is clear that Meacham sees the decline of Christian influence as a pervasive trend and a good thing at that. Meacham seems to define Christian influence on American society, not as a set of moral codes and humanitarian values, but rather as the right-wing side (and side with which he disagrees) of a number of social issues ranging from abortion, to gay marriage, to the teaching of evolution.
Expanding on the alleged theme that the Christian era in America is nearly past, is Dan Ephron’s article entitled The Guard Who Embraced Islam (http://www.newsweek.com/id/190357
Ephron’s piece tells the story of Terry Holdbrooks, an former Guantanamo guard, who experienced what might be a sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome and converted to Islam while at Gitmo. Newsweek used the story to again advance the theme that innocents may well have ended up at Gitmo, although no mention was made of the fact that the quite obviously guilty (such as admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalil Sheik Mohammed) ended up there as well. Holdbrooks credits his conversion to witnessing the devotion of Muslims in the face of Gitmo’s hardships, no doubt in contrast to the lack of devotion that that he had witnessed from Christians in the United States.
One is left to wonder if there were guards at a Gitmo-like facility for Christians imprisoned and otherwise persecuted for their beliefs, for the most part by adherents of the very religion Holdbrooks now admires, perhaps they too might be struck by the devotion of these much less complacent Christians. Alas, there is no facility in the Islamic world, or anywhere for that matter, that would capable of holding those numbers.
To be fair, in fact, Christians are much more likely to be murdered, raped, have their churches destroyed or be driven from their homes than experience incarceration. Incarceration for their beliefs is actually one of the more “civilized” persecutions that Christians in the Islamic world are likely to endure. In Pakistan, “key ally” in the war on terrorism, many Christians are imprisoned under the nation’s “blasphemy laws,” which while they apply to acts or words defamatory to Islam, there are no Muslims that have been imprisoned for “blasphemy” against Christianity. Imprisonment of Christians for belief related “offenses” is also common in the Bush family’s beloved Saudi Arabia (which usually holds foreign workers who are Christians prior to deporting them, considerably luckier than native Saudi Christians who are beheaded), Eritrea and others.
An estimated 11,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria since Sharia law from the Muslim north was imposed on Christians in the south. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={8C1D2863-9FE5-43E9-BA8E-B21C2FFE5158}
Thousands of others have been killed in Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Iran, Yemen, Pakistan, Bengladesh and the Phillipines among others.
Then there is the ongoing massacre and enslavement of nearly 2 million black Christians in southern Sudan by the same Sudanese government forces and militias that are now engaged in a smaller scale genocide aimed at black Muslims in Darfur. Interestingly and sadly, the genocide aimed at the Christians was not protested to anywhere near the extent of the Darfur tragedy by either the UN, the US Government or Hollywood celebrities such as George Clooney and, Angelina Jolie. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_17_54/ai_90888285/
The example of the Iraqi Christians illustrates just how alone the Christians of the Islamic world are, and the courage and devotion they must have to hold on to their faith. After the invasion of Iraq, Iraqi Christians, whom many Muslims blamed for the invasion, became the object of pervasive deadly attacks throughout the country, but particularly in the areas of their largest concentrations in the north. The attacks, that the media largely ignored and no large Iraqi or coalition forces sought to repel, forced the vast majority of Iraq’s Christians into exile. No doubt as a primarily political consideration, it is neither American or coalition force’s policy or practice to go out of their way to defend Christians when attacked.
Nor have American politicians or even religious leaders intervened on behalf of Christian minorities in the Islamic world. When Islamic civil rights groups such as CAIR decry such practices as perceived “racial profiling” of Muslim airline passengers or companies that do not make allowances for break times for Islamic prayer during Ramadan, it would seem to be a logical time for Americans to inquire about what these organizations are doing to ensure not just the civil rights, but the very lives and safety of Christian minorities in Islamic nations. Not only do American politicians and religious leaders miss this opportunity, but the silence is deafening.
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