The faith journey of a long-time underground Christian in Somalia ended in tragedy this week when Islamic militants controlling a security checkpoint killed him after finding Bibles in his possession.
It's sad. I hear rhetoric every week about hateful Christians who are prejudiced against Muslims. I don't hear about this man, Omar Khalafe, who was shot for possessing Bibles. In fact, I searched CNN.com for Omar Khalafe and nothing came up. I guess it's not important.
Here's more of the story:
...Khalafe was carrying 25 Somali Bibles he hoped to deliver to an underground fellowship in Somalia. By 10:30 a.m. he had arrived at the checkpoint controlled by al Shabaab, a rebel group linked with al Qaeda that has taken over large parts of the war-torn country...
...The Islamic extremists saw that the elderly Khalafe resembled a face in one of the photos, the source said. They asked Khalafe if he was the owner of the Bibles; he kept quiet. They shot him to death...
...The body was taken to Merca, according to the source, and there the al Shabaab militants placed the 25 Somali Bibles on top of Khalafe's body as a warning to others.
...The Islamic extremists saw that the elderly Khalafe resembled a face in one of the photos, the source said. They asked Khalafe if he was the owner of the Bibles; he kept quiet. They shot him to death...
...The body was taken to Merca, according to the source, and there the al Shabaab militants placed the 25 Somali Bibles on top of Khalafe's body as a warning to others.
Obviously, this is not the way every Muslim acts; this article only deals with the extremists.
The violence of the Taliban is not getting press and the worldwide apathy for Christians is so strong that no one cares when an old believer is murdered. Imagine if a group of Christians took over a country and shot anyone who didn't go to church - how long do you think that would go one before the media noticed?
5 comments:
Christians are constantly crying persecution over everything from prayer in schools to the "War on Christmas." Crying wolf about persecution all the time means that eventually people stop listening and no one covers it when it actually happens.
Christians are being persecuted around the world daily. Regimes like the Taliban love this sort if thing. Especially in Africa, the persecution is high. So, CNN is probably thinking this is not a big story (unless a lot of other people carry it, too).
@Anonymous - I don't think we're constantly crying "wolf". I think you are wrong. Christians are being persecuted, and stories like this one (which shock us because we're indoctrinated to believe in religious freedom as a fundamental right) are happening all the time. It's too common to be CNN news worthy. Meanwhile, singling out an issue like school prayer or Christmas and suggesting that Christians are "crying wolf" about them as persecution is a ignorent of the facts. There really are battles going on over our rights and the extent to which they extend, in regards to our freedom to practice religion, taking place in this country every day. That's also not "crying wolf". That's discussion of real issues. Some may claim certain losses in these battles as persecution when they are not. (some actually are). However, that doesn't make the issues less real, and the majority of intellectual Christians seem to know the difference. Meanwhile, persecution of religion is a fun, attention grabbing topic for the headline driven news media, and so they are the worst perpetrators of this mislabeling.
Quick tack on to my last point:
While the media love to go for attention grabbing headlines where they mislabel something as persecution, they actually like to ignore REAL persecution. They want their opinion to be somewhat controversial so it grabs even more opinion. If a story about an elderly woman getting bad service from a telephone technician can be turned into a story about persecution, it is even widely read if it's not actually persecution. Then, those that don't believe in persecution (or don't want to) can be upset about it, too.
In this story, it's such a cut and dry case of persecution (and one of many) that it is more easily ignored.
Persecution against Christians is happening so constant and consistently across the world that lack of attention to it can't be explained away by American Chicken Littles.
http://www.persecution.com/
Should've refreshed the page; Kelly beat me to it.
Post a Comment