THE GLOBAL WAR ON CHRISTIANS: DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINES OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION. By John L. Allen Jr; Image Books, New York 2013
Reviewed by Rev Dr Anthony Gooley
HUMAN rights organisations estimate that the 20th and 21st centuries have witnessed the deaths of more Christian martyrs than all the previous centuries combined.
Some estimate the number of Christians killed, for being Christian, in the last decade as equivalent to 11 people per hour every day of the year.
One international human rights group estimates that 80 per cent of all persecution, legal and social restrictions and acts of violence directed against religious groups is directed at Christians around the globe.
In his book, The Global War on Christians, Allen lays out facts about human rights abuse directed at Christians, gathered from a variety of secular and religious human rights groups.
In the first part of his book he provides a kind of report card on the regions of the world outlining the scope and nature of persecution.
He not only tells the statistical story but shares brief accounts of some martyrs and the causes of their persecution. The Global War rarely produces martyrs who die because they are forced to relinquish their Christian faith or worship other gods, as the martyrs of ancient times sometimes did.
These are women and men who are martyred in what Benedict XVI calls “situations of witness to the Christian faith and life”. Some also talk of “martyrs of charity”.
Part two of his book outlines five myths about the global war on Christians.
These include the myths that Christians are only persecuted where they are a minority, that no one saw it coming, that it’s all about Islam, that its only persecution if the motives are religious and that it is a political issue.
Part three of his book examines what he calls; Fallout, Consequences and Responses.
He suggests there are positive gains to be made if we keep the memory of the modern martyrs alive and allow ourselves to become familiar with their stories.
He asks if their witness will spur on other Christians to return to the sources of Scripture and Tradition to renew their faith encounter with Christ.
Drawing on the ancient wisdom he asks how the blood of these martyrs might renew the Church today and evangelise.
Given that these Christian martyrs come from across the whole spectrum of Christianity he wonders if their common witness to Christ will give rise to an “ecumenism of the martyrs”.
He outlines a convincing case for a Global War on Christians.
We owe it to these martyrs to become aware of their story and allow their witness to challenge us. We need to take up the cause of persecuted Christians as a central issue of the defence of human rights. He urges us to pray, to act for persecuted Christians.
This is the kind of book every Christian should read and pray about.
It is the kind of book from which rich sources of preaching can emerge for clergy. It is the kind of book that may be the beginning of a new martyrology.
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