Faith Archives

A sobering summer reading list

This IRF Summer Reading List features a short selection of books that wrestle with the sobering themes of human dignity, religious persecution, and freedom of conscience. I encourage readers to include one or more of these titles alongside that great American novel this summer.

PBS launched a summer series this week called The Great American Read — a celebration of reading and a challenge to book lovers to weigh in on their choice for America’s best-loved novel. In the spirit of the PBS project, which showcases great fiction, I offer my own challenge: a sobering summer reading list that highlights the important nonfiction topic of international religious freedom (IRF).

Religious freedom conditions are deteriorating around the world. One need only scan the global headlines to recognize the grave consequences born of a disregard for religious freedom. We read of genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, imprisonment, enslavement, forced displacement, forced conversions, intimidation, harassment, destruction of property, and marginalization of women and children. Indeed, nearly 80% of the world’s population lives in countries with high or very high levels of restrictions or hostilities associated with religious freedom.

Continue reading “A sobering summer reading list”

ARTICLE: Satellites and sanctions: How the West can support Iran’s faithful

(This article was originally written for and posted to 21Wilberforce)

In recent days, reports have surfaced that Aziz Majidzadeh, a newly converted Iranian Christian, has been detained at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran. Aziz had gone missing for several weeks after Iranian security forces raided a Christian workshop he was attending on the outskirts of the Iranian capital. Though he has not been charged, Aziz has been arrested before for “activities related to his faith.” He is not alone.

Since 2010, more than 600 Iranian Christians have been arrested and detained by Iranian authorities. As of late 2016, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports approximately 90 Christians remain imprisoned due to their religious beliefs and activities.

“Technically, it’s not illegal to be a Christian in Iran. However, in practical terms, policemen, Revolutionary Guards, judges, and every other authority in the country interpret the law for themselves and aren’t accountable to anyone,” writes Marziyeh Amirizadeh, who was herself imprisoned for 10 months in 2009 before receiving asylum in the U.S. “Though being a Christian [is] not a crime, converting from Islam to another faith and evangelizing on behalf of that faith [are] considered crimes of apostasy and punishable by death.”

Continue reading “ARTICLE: Satellites and sanctions: How the West can support Iran’s faithful”

ARTICLE: Can Sam Brownback Elevate Religious Freedom within U.S. Foreign Policy?

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

Across the globe, assaults on religious freedom abound. Rohingya Muslims are fleeing brutal ethnic cleansing by the Burmese government. Years of war and genocide at the hands of ISIS have decimated the ancient Christian population in Iraq—from 1.5 million in 2003 to fewer than 250,000 today. Pakistani blasphemy laws threaten the lives and freedom of innocent religious minorities. In China, the government routinely shuts down underground churches. Saudi Arabian textbooks teach school children hate and intolerance toward the “unbeliever,” specifically Christians, Jews, Shiites, Sufis, Sunnis, Hindus, atheists and others.

In the United States of course, freedom of religion is the first freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution and foundational to the very origin and existence of the nation. It follows that religious freedom also would animate U.S. foreign policy—except oftentimes it does not.

“No administration has seen IRF policy as a national security imperative.”

Continue reading “ARTICLE: Can Sam Brownback Elevate Religious Freedom within U.S. Foreign Policy?”

ARTICLE: A Precarious Liberty: Religious Freedom in Erdoğan’s Turkey

From his jail cell, American pastor Andrew Brunson cries out, “Will the Turkish government face no consequences for stubbornly continuing to hold an American citizen as a political prisoner?”

Pastor Brunson’s story underscores the swift erosion of religious freedom in Turkey.

(This article originally appeared in The Philos Project)

On April 16, Pastor Andrew Brunson did not celebrate Easter with his flock. Instead, he marked six months and eight days of confinement in a Turkish prison, where he is being held on charges of “membership in an armed terrorist organization.”

Since 1993, American citizens Brunson and his wife Norine have faithfully shepherded a small but vibrant Christian congregation at the Resurrection Church in their adopted home of Izmir, a buzzing, ancient city on Turkey’s Aegean coast. Originally from North Carolina, Brunson was ordained in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and followed the call to church plant in the Muslim-majority nation, where less than 0.2 percent of the population identifies as Christian.

The Brunsons served the people of Turkey without incident for nearly 25 years, even as religious tensions mounted and an increasingly authoritarian regime squeezed religious freedoms. But everything changed on the morning of October 7, 2016, when the Brunsons were summoned to their local police station. Assuming they were about to receive their long-awaited permanent resident designations, they were surprised to find themselves detained on the grounds that they were a “threat to national security.”

Continue reading “ARTICLE: A Precarious Liberty: Religious Freedom in Erdoğan’s Turkey”

ARTICLE: The Roots of America’s Commitment to Religious Freedom

On President’s Day, a nod to our first president and the origins of America’s embrace of religious freedom.

(This article originally appeared in Medium for 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative)

On February 20, Americans pause to honor and remember our first president. A man of unmatched character and integrity, George Washington set the tone for the nation’s highest office; he set the bar high.

After leading the nascent country to victory over the British, Gen. Washington laid down all claims to political power. Then, upon his unanimous election as the country’s top executive, he rejected the moniker of king, instead embracing a new title — President. After concluding his second term in office, Washington again laid aside control to make way for the peaceful transfer of power, establishing a tradition that has distinguished America among nations for more than two centuries.

Continue reading “ARTICLE: The Roots of America’s Commitment to Religious Freedom”

ARTICLE: Brightening the Beacon of Light

Oppression is great in all corners of the world. At the core of such evil festers a deepening and deadly intolerance of religious freedom.

(This article originally appeared in the Washington Times)

It is Christmas week, and mankind is reminded of the promise of the gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This year, however, the darkness seems to have closed in. In Aleppo, the battered streets run with blood. Genocide has left Iraq’s ancient Christian community all but extinct. Nigeria is fractured along religious lines. Christians and other minorities in China are targeted for the gruesome practice of forced organ harvesting. Oppression is great in all corners of the world.

At the core of such evil festers a deepening and deadly intolerance of religious freedom. A staggering 75 percent of the world’s population lives in areas of severe religious persecution. To claim the promise of the gospel then, to pierce the darkness in these mean times, we must start by turning on the lights.

Continue reading “ARTICLE: Brightening the Beacon of Light”

ARTICLE: A Light in the Darkness

Passage of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act brings promise of hope to a darkening world

(This article originally appeared in The Philos Project)

It is difficult to see past the evil.

In the waning days of 2016, we are reminded of it on a daily basis, particularly (though not exclusively) the evil that is making headlines in the Middle East. Aleppo is drenched in blood. A Christian mother of five languishes in a dank Pakistani prison cell, charged with blasphemy and sentenced to death for drinking a glass of water. Lives have been shattered with the bombing of Egypt’s main Coptic Christian Cathedral during a packed worship service. Iraq’s ancient Christian community is all but extinct, ravaged by genocide and unspeakable atrocities.

Trace the roots of this evil and you will find at its core religious persecution–the attempt by a powerful few to crush the most sacred of human rights: the freedom of conscience. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, a staggering 75 percent of the world’s 7.2 billion humans live in areas of severe religious persecution. While the study revealed that the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion are found in the Middle East–where Christianity, Judaism and Islam originated–evidence of oppression in other corners of the world is all too prevalent.

Continue reading “ARTICLE: A Light in the Darkness”

BOOK REVIEW: Is Jesus Worth It? A Review of ‘The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected’

“The Insanity of God” is an intense book depicting the struggles, heartbreak and power of God evident in the lives of Nik and Ruth Ripken.

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

As midlife crises go, Nik Ripken’s was a whopper. After years of blood, sweat and toil, his life’s work lay in ruins. His enterprise had failed, he was forced to flee his home, and he buried his beloved son, all in the span of a few months. Not surprisingly, Ripken was left with hard questions – just not the questions one might expect.

Ripken is a missionary. He and his wife Ruth followed their hearts to Africa in the mid-1980s, serving first in Malawi and then in South Africa. In 1991, with a young family in tow, they traveled to Somaliland, a region in northwestern Somalia devastated by drought and civil war. In the face of total societal collapse, the Ripkens aimed to bring humanitarian relief to a desperate people, and in so doing, demonstrate the love of God to an un-churched people.

Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: Is Jesus Worth It? A Review of ‘The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected’”

BOOK REVIEW: Christianity on the Brink: They Say We are Infidels

Mindy Belz chronicles the persecution of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community in her newly released, first-hand account, They Say We Are Infidels.

(This article originally appeared at The Philos Project)

The door for Christians in Iraq is closing. That is the grim message received from Knox Thames, U.S. Department of State’s Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia, speaking on the systematic campaign by ISIS militants to eliminate ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. A new urgency may be attached to this headline, but persecution of Iraq’s indigenous Christian community has been building for more than a decade. Mindy Belz chronicles this in her newly released, first-hand account, They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

A seasoned war reporter and editor of World magazine, Belz provides more than a sterile accounting of the atrocities meted out against the Christian community in Iraq and Syria after more than a decade of war. They Say We Are Infidels introduces the real faces of conflict, the human predicament attached to a region afflicted by deeply rooted sectarian hatred and violence.

Continue reading “BOOK REVIEW: Christianity on the Brink: They Say We are Infidels”

ARTICLE: Will Pope Francis Raise Awareness of Today’s Genocide in the Middle East?

(This article originally appeared in The Christian Post)

When Pope Francis arrives in the U.S. this week, there are many who hope he will again speak the word that global leaders have been reluctant to speak: Genocide. In remarks made last June while in Bolivia, the Holy Father proclaimed, “Today we are dismayed to see how the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus…a form of genocide is taking place, and it must end.”

It is hard to ignore the horrifying images of the humanitarian crisis gripping northern Iraq and Syria in recent years: families struggling atop Mount Sinjar in a desperate attempt to flee ISIS death squads…ethnic minorities gunned down en mass for refusing to abandon their faith…the wholesale destruction of historical monuments and holy places.

Yet these images are incongruous with our modern sensibilities. Such barbarous accounts are more consistent with the brutality of the Middle Ages. Surely in the enlightened 21st Century we have learned from past mistakes.

Continue reading “ARTICLE: Will Pope Francis Raise Awareness of Today’s Genocide in the Middle East?”