Bringing Clarity to Uncertainty in Our Church

Tag: intolerance

The Persecution No One Talks About

Yesterday marked the beginning of the third week of Advent. This Sunday has traditionally been called by the Latin name Guadate, which translates to “joyful” and is marked by lighting the pink candle on the Advent wreath. The reason this Sunday depicts joy is because it marks the second last Sunday of Advent before the birth of Jesus.

For many Christians around the world Advent is a time of fear. While it is rarely spoken about in our media, in the last 20 years Christians have been the most persecuted and displaced religious group around the world, particularly in the Middle East, and parts of northern, Sub-Saharan and Western Africa. For example, Syria contains the only majority Christian town that has Aramaic as its official language – the language that Jesus spoke. Between 2011 and 2013, Churches have been bombed, Christian icons (some well over 1000 years old) have been destroyed, and priests publicly executed. In Syria in 2011, there were 1.7 million Christians, today there are less than 450 000. In Iraq, the Christian population shrunk from 1.5 million in 2003 to less than 120 000 today. Even in Biblical areas such as Gaza and the West Bank the Christian population plummeted from 11 percent to less than 1 percent in the last 100 years. 

Many Christians in the Middle East are ethnically Assyrians, Suryani, or Coptic. These ethnic groups are indigenous to the lands and are even mentioned in the Old Testament. 

A couple years ago I met a Coptic Christian Egyptian man, who was staying at a monastery outside Cairo, Egypt. The monastery attacked and his life was spared because the attackers saw his peaceful faith in God even in the face of death. Another gentleman, I met 12 years ago, who today runs an NGO smuggling persecuted religious minorities out of the Middle East, shared with me that when he was a young man the Cairo police arrested and tortured him because he was found with a Bible. Even in our school, there are Middle Easter Christians who have escaped with their lives. I am grateful for their stories. 

On a hopeful note many of these Christian have chosen to immigrate to Canada where they can live out their faith in peace, not only among their own communities, but among other religious communities as well. Today, let us pray for the families of Middle Eastern Christians who have started a new life in Canada and for those who continue to live in their homeland. 

Let us pray,

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Lord Jesus, we thank you for loving us. We thank you for the gift of your Middle Eastern followers., especially those who are part of our school community. We pray that those who are experiencing persecution for their faith be comforted by Your loving presence. We pray especially for those who had to flee for their lives and have become separated from their families. Invite into your loving presence those who have unjustly lost their lives because of their Christian faith. We pray this in Your name. Amen. 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

 

The Closing of the Canadian Mind: Selective Open Mindedness and Learning to Take Offence

There have been a few people on mind lately for various reasons. An Amazon delivery man who recently delivered a package to us. This gentleman patiently waited at our front door until I was able to open it. Most amazon delivery persons drop the package and book it. He kindly greeted me as “sir” (even though he was at least twice my age) and with a warming personality wished me good night. Two of my admittedly favourite people to speak are two of my wife’s friends from her days in university. Warm hearted, compassionate, and loving are the first three ways I can describe them. One my good friends, who has a great sense of humour, is classy, and just a joy to hang out with. My sister is hard working, always puts her whole being into tasks and is a loving aunt of whom my daughters can’t get enough of. Finally, last year, at an interfaith event I spoke at I had a brief discussion with a young woman who had two toddlers who were about the same ages as my daughters. We shared a few laughs about the similarities of our experiences.

Besides being exceptional human beings they all share something else in common. They all have different belief systems then myself. The Amazon delivery gentlemen, one of my wife’s friends, and the young woman with toddlers are Muslim. My wife’s other friend is Hindu. My close friend and sister are agnostic, based on previous conversations we’ve had about religion. Oh by the way, I respectfully disagree with their belief system and I love asking them critical questions.

Wait a minute…. So I am delighted to be around these human beings, I respect and even love some of them, but I am critical of what they believe? For some, the idea of caring for individuals, disagreeing with them and potentially offending them is oxymoronic, even if the criticisms are regarding matters of facts. It is in this “oxymoronic” mode of thought that I witnessed the closing of the Canadian mind this past weekend.

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