Submitted by Peter Kujala

What constitutes persecution and discrimination? It can be viewed on a scale from 1 to 10, ranging from someone hurling insults at you, all the way to the unfathomable evil of genocide. According to the Pew Research Center, a well-known organisation, Christians are the group most persecuted today, followed by Muslims primarily within the context of the conflict between the Shia and Sunni branches of their own faith. Jews, of course, continue to face persecution, not only in Arab nations but also in Western democracies; for instance, in the Swedish city of Malmo, Jews are moving away to avoid being attacked.

Historically, Jews and Christians have been, by far, the most persecuted groups. Millions of Christians became true martyrs, bearing the message of the Gospel on their lips and holding a Bible (rather than a sword) in their hands during the Roman Empire, the expansion of Islam and under Communist regimes. As for the Jewish population, 90% of Poland’s Jews were murdered by the Nazis. By comparison, 3% of the Palestinian population in Gaza were killed, the majority of whom were active Hamas terrorists who used civilians as human shields in their war against Israel.

Today, more than 388 million Christians worldwide face persecution and discrimination.  This information comes from Open Doors, an international human rights organization with extensive operations in over 70 countries. The persecution includes the burning down of homes, the seizure of possessions, physical abuse, torture, imprisonment and murder, placing it quite high on the scale of persecution.

Furthermore, it is reported that Christians are being persecuted by Communists and Hindus in China, North Korea and India, as well as by Islamists in a large number of Muslim-majority countries. Some media outlets currently report on the ongoing slaughter in Christian villages in Nigeria, where over 125,000 people have been killed, and so in many other nations Christians are being shot, burned alive or hacked to death with machetes. Just recently, 60 Christians were murdered in a series of attacks in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. You didn’t know? Exactly, only “some” media outlets report on this. Here, then, is a “media-gate”, a scandal! Our media is selective; the persecution of those who are the most heavily persecuted is being kept in the dark. Why? One likely explanation is that left-leaning media, in particular, operate with an ideological agenda that shapes their coverage, an agenda that does not include showing sympathy for “conservative” Christians. Yet, this is not the whole truth. To offer an answer from the perspective of Christians themselves, their Bible states:

“When the light came into the world, people loved the darkness more than the light, because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light, for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light”.  In short, Christians are persecuted because they bear witness about Jesus, who is the Light, while those who persecute them love the darkness. This explains the fascination with things like Halloween, with its ghosts, monsters, demons and devils, and with death in general, as well as humanity’s capacity for a myriad of evil deeds, including persecution. Certain media outlets downplay the persecution of Christians because, in their love for the darkness and their aversion to the Light, they do not wish to expose these evil acts. This is the Christian perspective, if you are open to accepting it.

Jesus himself said: “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one city, flee to the next”. Furthermore, God loved the world and its people so much that Jesus died for us, offering salvation from the darkness; this is also what the Christian Bible explains.

So, how do you define persecution and discrimination? Personally, as a Finn living in Sweden during the 1970s, I was occasionally subjected to unpleasant remarks about “drunken Finns with knives”. Yet, it feels trivial even to mention this when compared to forms of persecution that involve torture, imprisonment and murder. We must all take every form of “real” persecution seriously; we cannot be selective or turn a blind eye to truth and facts. Otherwise, we risk repeating the meaning behind Winston Churchill’s famous words: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. Perhaps the call to us all is also to turn away from the darkness, not only regarding persecution, but all forms of evil, and instead let every heart draw near to the Light. Everyone would benefit most from this, even those who persecute others.