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If current trends continue, the region may be virtually cleansed of Christians within a few years. (From 1948-70, MENA ethnically cleansed its 800,000 mostly Sephardic Jews. They were, in a state of traumatic deracination, absorbed by Israel, sparing them, in retrospect, the far worse fate they would have suffered under numerous civil wars and ISIL.)

Blasphemy laws are presently in place in 71 countries, and they, too, are having an effect on Christians’ ability to express their beliefs. The report points to the highly publicized case of Asia Bibi, for example, a Pakistani Christian who was sentenced to death for allegedly having blasphemed Islam, and only saved by the worldwide attention her case received, as well as to the unjust trial of Iranian priest Ebrahim Firouzi who was arrested in March 2013 on charges of “promoting Christian Zionism.”

In his introduction, the Bishop notes that the horrific Sri Lanka massacre of Christians occurred while the report was in its final stages, observing sadly that “this report will be out of date even by the time that it is published.”

As religious victimhood is one of the great themes of this progressive era, one might think that this disturbing escalation in prevalence and severity of anti-Christian hatred would attract media alarm and anguished public discussion, especially in such nations as ours, built by believing Christians and dominated by Christian principles. But, as London’s former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks told the House of Lords: “The persecution of Christians throughout much of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia (and) elsewhere is one of the crimes against humanity of our time and I’m appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.”

There is plenty of protest amongst ordinary Christians. The “lack” — and it is indeed appalling — is found amongst nominally Christian elites, including politicians who readily express indignation over hate crimes against Jews and Muslims, but refer to slain Christians as “Easter worshippers,” elites who are keen to legislate a “day of remembrance and action against Islamophobia,” but are too progressively “woke” to condemn the objectively horrific problem of global Christophobia.

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