It should shock the conscience of the world, but it gets nary a blip on the media's radar.

While celebrities and others champion the victims of atrocities in Sudan's Darfur, those with HIV and AIDS and other worthy causes, the plight of the 100 million Christians who suffer persecution, imprisonment and even death for their faith in Jesus Christ has gone largely unnoticed for too long.

But with a recent civil forum on "The Persecuted Church" at Saddleback Church and the release of a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life report entitled "Global Restrictions on Religion," more people are awakening to the sobering truth that many Christians worldwide are enduring torture and other unspeakable acts of brutality for their faith in Jesus.

"Of all the religions and of all the different groups in the world that are being persecuted, the single largest persecution is of the church – Christianity - far more than of Islam, of Buddhism, of Hinduism or any other religion," Pastor Rick Warren told those who gathered at the recent forum at the Lake Forest, California church. "More Christians have died this last year than those of any other religious group – 176,000 believers. Persecution affects over 100 million believers in the world today. And the Bible tells us we are to care about them. The Bible tells us when one part of the body hurts, the other parts of the body are to hurt with it."

The event came as the Pew Forum recently released a study that found two in three people on the planet live in nations with high or very high levels of restrictions on religion. These 64 nations, while comprising only one-third of the world's countries, contain nearly 70 percent of the world's 6.8 billion people.

It's the first quantitative study to gauge the level of restrictions involving governments and acts of violence and intimidation by individuals, organizations and social groups.

"This is shocking and it should shock the conscience of the world," says Thomas F. Farr, a Visiting Associate Professor of Religion and International Affairs at Georgetown University and the former director of the Office of International Religious Freedom in the U.S. State Department. "What this means is that millions, perhaps scores of millions of people, are suffering because of their religious beliefs."

In the last century, unprecedented numbers of Christians have died for their faith in Jesus. Each year, about 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Jesus, and millions more face discrimination and alienation.

"More people have died for the faith in Christ in the last 100 years than in all of time before that," says Todd Nettleton, spokesman for The Voice of the Martyrs, a Bartlesville, Oklahoma-based ministry dedicated to assisting the persecuted church worldwide. "But the exciting thing is that when we hear of people giving their lives and being arrested, the reality behind those stories is that the church in these nations is growing, sometimes at a phenomenal rate. The church is growing so fast that the government doesn't know how to stop it. That's why they are arresting people. That's why there is persecution."

Based on analysis of information from 16 governmental and nongovernmental sources – including the United Nations, the State Department and Human Rights Watch – the study assessed restrictions in 198 countries representing more than 99.5 percent of the world's population. The authors looked at publicly reported incidents of religious violence, intolerance, intimidation and discrimination from mid-2006 through mid-2008.

Among all regions, the Middle East and North Africa have the highest government and social restrictions on religion while the Americas are the least restrictive region on both measures.

Surprisingly, although the U.S. has relatively few government restrictions on religion, it falls into the moderate category in terms of social hostilities. Last year, the FBI investigated 1,519 hate crimes involving religion. In 2007-08, Human Rights Watch reported numerous attacks on places of worship, including a spree of church burnings in Alabama.

"Certainly, in the sources we looked at, we found Christians were facing abuse and hostilities just as minorities were too in the U.S.," says Brian Grim, the primary investigator of the report and a senior researcher at the Pew Forum. "So it's not a case in the U.S. where it's only minorities that are facing abuses, but it's true that even majority faiths, such as Catholics and Protestants, also face these problems."

Of the nations analyzed 75, or 38 percent, limit efforts by religious groups or individuals to persuade others to join their faith. In 126 countries, or 64 percent, the tensions between religious groups resulted in physical violence. And in 49 nations, or 25 percent, people or groups used force or intimidation to compel adherence to religious norms.

During the two-year study period, more than 18 million people were displaced from their homes by conflicts related to religion.

"This report is a confirmation of what our organization has determined over 50-plus years of working with Christians in a lot of these restrictive countries," says Carl Moeller, president and chief executive officer of Open Doors USA, a Santa Ana, California-based ministry that serves persecuted Christians. "Nevertheless, it is still remarkably troubling and sobering to realize that nearly three-quarters – or 5 billion - of the nearly 7 billion people living on planet Earth don't have the kind of freedom of religious beliefs that we would understand as fundamental human rights."

Today, Open Doors released its 2010 World Watch List of 50 nations that are the worst persecutors of Christians. For the eighth year, North Korea – a nation where every religious activity is recognized as an insurrection to its socialist principles – was No. 1. Last year, the regime of Kim Jong-Il targeted Christians, resulting in arrests, torture and killings. The nation has placed an estimated 200,000 people in political prisons, including 40,000 to 60,000 Christians. A veteran North Korea watcher, who can't be identified for security reasons, told Open Doors that some of the prisoners are "used as guinea pigs to test chemical and biological weapons."

Iran was No. 2 on the list. A wave of arrests that started in 2008 continued last year, with at least 85 Christians arrested. Most of those arrested were mistreated in prison.

"If this were any other issue, perhaps world hunger, there would be amazing attention placed on this," Moeller says. "We might consider the right of having food, water and shelter a basic human right, but it is no less a human right of having religious beliefs and the freedom of conscience."

The U.S. government has long overlooked the national security threats posed by increasing religious persecution and oppression, Farr says. By promoting religious freedom worldwide, the U.S. – which has spent billions of dollars in recent decades to spread democracy – could bolster its fight against religious-based terrorism.

"The data shows you cannot have stable democracies, especially in highly religious societies, without religious freedom," Farr says. "Advancing religious freedom is the peaceful means of combating religious-based terrorism, such as the kind we have seen with al Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups."

Christian leaders say the Pew Forum report should serve as a wake-up call in the U.S., a nation whose founders came to America seeking religious freedom.

"Persecution and martyrdom are happening throughout the world - just as Christ said they would," Nettleton says. "We here in the U.S. are really the minority of Christ's followers who have the freedom to go to church on Sunday, stand on the street corner, hand out tracts and preach the Gospel. We sort of have the idea that everyone has it as good as we do and we are shocked and appalled to learn that people are sometimes beaten and killed for doing those things. But that's the reality for most of the world's Christians. This is not a surprise to the Lord and he is using the persecuted to purify the church and to spread the Gospel, just as he did in New Testament times."

As persecution of Christians continues to worsen, Farr says President Obama should appoint the next ambassador at large for religious freedom. This ambassador should not only focus on helping prisoners of conscience get out of jail, but integrate religious freedom policies into national security policies.

"It's very troubling that the U.S. is willing to sacrifice and cut off concerns about religious liberties," Moeller says. "If we don't integrate religious freedom into our dealings with China, Iran or Saudi Arabia, we will be in danger of really denying the first freedoms that our ancestors came to this country to fight for."

Meanwhile, Nettleton says Christians should pray for their persecuted brothers and sisters, asking the Lord to give them the strength to remain faithful to the call he has placed on their lives.

"After prayer, there are some very practical things we encourage people to do, such as writing letters to Christians who are in prison in restrictive nations," Nettleton says. "It's a very simple thing, but it really does make a difference to those believers. We have set up a Web site called www.prisoneralert.com that allows people to write letters to them and it actually translates the letters into their language."

In the West Epiphany Emphasizes the Manifestation of Christ’s Divinity to the Gentiles Exemplified by the Biblical Magi

Although January 6th, the traditional date of Epiphany, often goes unnoticed in our busy Christmas season, it is historically as significant as the celebration of Christ’s birth.

"As with most aspects of the Christian liturgical calendar, Epiphany has theological significance as a teaching tool in the church. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the child Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as "King" and so were the first to "show" or "reveal" Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. This act of worship by the Magi, which corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this child Jesus would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32), was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few.”

CRI/Voice Institute

http://www.cresourcei.org/cyepiph.html

In Today's News: Persecution Alerts Around the World

Persecution.org - International Christian Concern

http://www.persecution.org/suffering/index.php

Imprisoned But Not Alone

While imprisoned on charges of blasphemy against the Quran, Pakistani Christians Sandul Bibi and her father, Gulsher Masih, received thousands of letters from people who logged onto www.prisonalert.com.

The Web site, part of The Voice of the Martyrs ministry, allows people to write letters to Christians imprisoned worldwide. The Web site translates the letters into the imprisoned person’s language.

Bibi and Masih, who had been in custody since October 2008 when a radical Muslim mob gathered outside their home and falsely accused them of tearing pages out of the Quran, were released from jail in December after a court found them innocent of the charges.

“I’m thankful to God to be released from jail, I’m thankful to VOM who helped me and my father, and I’m thankful to my brothers and sisters - those who prayed for our release and who sent us letters while we were in prison,” Bibi said in a video on the VOM Web site. “Bless all of you and happy Christmas.”

But while Bibi and Masih were found innocent and released from prison, tens of thousands of Christians in recent years weren’t as fortunate. As chronicled on the VOM Web site, www.persecution.com, a growing number of Christians face arrest, fines, beatings, torture and even death for sharing their faith.

http://www.persecution.com/

Ziya Meral, a Muslim background Christian, reflects on his work with Christian Solidarity Worldwide on behalf of believers who are persecuted for their faith around the world.

"I look into the eyes of people who suffer and I have the privilege to be welcomed into their most intimate hurts, I know all too well that there is no quick fix for their afflictions. No smart line from a pop-psychology book can ease their continual pain.

In such moments, God often reminds me to shut up and simply be present. I stand as desolate as they, and choose to stay awake in their Gethsemane, hold their hands, pray, and cry with them.

Sharing in their pain, even if it is for a moment, gives me the urge to shout from rooftops in order to bring to light what has been kept in darkness, to voice what has been muted, to disgrace what is shameful, and to remind others of what was left to oblivion. This I do shamelessly, often with tears and anger. Yes, I do cry, even though it is a shame for a Middle Eastern man to do so.

Though I am deeply shaken by my calling, I am also determined. As I put down the photos and close my eyes in the hotel room, I long for God's comfort and human friendship, security, and love.

I also laugh, endlessly. I laugh at the absurdity of the rulers and secret police officers and their self-importance. They are neither the final word nor unshakeable sources of power."

Christianity Today

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/march/27.48.html?start=2

Persecution of the Early Church

"The Roman Empire was generally quite tolerant in its treatment of other religions. The imperial policy was generally one of incorporation - the local gods of a newly conquered area were simply added to the Roman pantheon and often given Roman names. Even the Jews, with their one god, were generally tolerated. So why the persecution of Christians?

In order to understand the Roman distrust of Christianity, one must understand the Roman view of religion. For the Romans, religion was first and foremost a social activity that promoted unity and loyalty to the state - a religious attitude the Romans called pietas, or piety. Cicero wrote that if piety in the Roman sense were to disappear, social unity and justice would perish along with it.

The early Roman writers viewed Christianity not as another kind of pietas, piety, but as a "superstition." Pliny, a Roman governor writing circa 110 AD, called Christianity a "superstition taken to extravagant lengths." Similarly, the Roman historian Tacitus called it "a deadly superstition," and the historian Suetonius called Christians "a class of persons given to a new and mischievous superstition." In this context, the word "superstition" has a slightly different connotation than it has today: for the Romans, it designated something foreign and different - in a negative sense. Religious beliefs were valid only in so far as it could be shown to be old and in line with ancient customs; new and innovative teachings were regarded with distrust.

The Roman distaste for Christianity, then, arose in large part from its sense that it was bad for society."

ReligionFacts.com

http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/history/persecution.htm

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