From the New York Post: “Terrorists slaughter Coptic Christians in Egypt.” You don’t have to speculate about the terrorists’ allegiance.

Gunmen killed at least seven Coptic Christians in Egypt as they were traveling on a bus near a monastery — the most serious assault on the religious minority in over a year. The attackers “killed seven people and wounded 14, all of whom are in the Sheikh Fadel hospital in Beni Mazar” about 120 miles south of Cairo, Bishop Makarios of Minya told Agence France-Presse. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack near St. Samuel the Confessor monastery in Minya, but extremists linked to ISIS have regularly targeted Christians. The attack took place near the spot where gunmen killed 28 Christians in a similar assault in May 2017.

Such news stories from Egypt are nothing new, although I think that Egypt’s government is trying, in good faith, to prevent mass murders. If it weren’t, there would be a lot more of them.

Stories like this one prompt several observations.

1) Mainstream news outlets conventionally refer to “Coptic Christians” or “Copts” as though they were exotic and somehow expendable. I disagree. They are Christians, period.

2) There were Christians in Egypt at least 400 years before Muslims arrived. So are Muslims colonialists whose interests and history should therefore be disregarded? Somehow, I have never seen anyone make this argument.

3) Around the world, Christians are under attack and are being persecuted. The attackers are nearly always Muslims. For some reason, this fact is of little interest to nearly all American Christians. I have given up on trying to understand why American Christians are so indifferent to the fate of their fellow Christians overseas.

I do have some hope, however, that President Trump–heathen though he may be–might be willing, at some point, to stand up for the interests of the world’s persecuted Christians.