Iraqi Christians are again under threat, with tens of thousands that fled after jihadists seized several northern towns on Thursday just the latest wave to seek shelter elsewhere in the country and abroad.Another report says: "Islamist militants surged across northern Iraq toward the capital of the Kurdish region on Thursday, sending tens of thousands of Christians fleeing for their lives, in an offensive that prompted talk of Western military action." See http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/08/07/iraq-security-idINKBN0G70NR20140807
Gunmen from the Sunni Muslim Islamic State (IS) seized Qaraqosh, Iraq's largest Christian town, and several others near Mosul following the withdrawal of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, inhabitants said.
Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako called the occupation part of a "humanitarian disaster" that has displaced 100,000 Christians and seen churches occupied, their crosses removed and manuscripts burned.
In mid-July, thousands of Christians in Mosul fled after IS gave them an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay jizya (protection money) or leave on pain of death.
The exodus raised concern in Western capital, and governments began to accept the fleeing Christians as refugees.
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the country had an estimated Christian population of more than one million, including more than 600,000 in Baghdad, 60,000 in Mosul and concentrations in the oil cities of Kirkuk and Basra.
The latest estimates put the overall number at around 400,000 with more than half living in the northern Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.
Patriarch Sako says there were around 35,000 in Mosul before the IS launched an offensive, though other sources give lower figures, and almost all have since fled.
What kind of Western military action will be taken? Was it not a self-professed Christian president who employed such action to effectuate a "regime change" in Iraq? Iraqi Christians never had it so bad before it occurred. [1] One has to wonder whether the deceased dictator or the president who tacitly agreed to his execution by hanging was Satan's minion? From Satan's perspective, they both were.
Will bombing help the displaced Iraqi Christians? Of course not, but it has been authorized [2]. If Jesus were alive today, what would He do? I speculate. First, He would not bomb the persecutors. What would He do with all the refugees? Jesus Himself was a refugee before He was born, therefore it would be reasonable to assume that He would do as Mary and Joseph did, move to a place of safety, but Jesus is not here today. Thus, it would be up to those Christians with the power and means to do the work of Christ. I recall that there are powerful leaders in the world who profess to be Christians. They can open the borders of their countries and let the refugees immigrate. Will they do it? No, but they know how to kill, and they have killed. [3]
And where are the articulate religious who speak so compassionately of illegal immigration when they are needed? Where are their voices for the persecuted descendants of the early Christians? How will they answer their conscience? How will they answer God on Judgment Day, a day they know so well and look forward to so eagerly? [4]
[1] https://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20140801/OPINION/308010009/Jim-Ketchum-Iraqi-Christians-victims-conflict
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/08/07/iraq-christian-villages-flee/13710265/
[3] Of all the powerful leaders in the world, two low ranking politicians, Laurent Fabius, France's foreign minister, and Bernard Cazeneuve, France's interior minister, stood up to offer asylum to the dispossessed and displaced Iraqi Christians. See http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/07/france-offers-asylum-iraqi-christians-2014728125854650414.html God bless them!
[4] I dislike sarcasm. Please pardon my use of it here. I am a bit bitter.
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