We Are More Than '21'

*Please note that the video referenced in the article is extremely violent, and should only be viewed by adults.*

Last week I saw something gruesome, but then something beautiful.

I forced myself to watch the execution of 21 Coptic men by ISIS members in Libya. It was one of the most nightmarish things I have ever witnessed. I did not do this because I relish violence in any way, but because I felt it was important to be reminded of what true persecution is. Contrary to the conception that I often hold, persecution is not when someone scoffs at my beliefs or smirks when I pray before a meal. That is “aggravation.” “Persecution” is someone pressing a knife to your throat because you follow Christ. And as much as it hurt my soul to watch that video, I needed that reminder.

But over the week that followed, I witnessed something truly beautiful take place. First, the Coptic church stood quickly in solidarity with their fallen sons. The men wereofficially canonized by the church as martyrs. One slain man’s brother thanked ISIS for including their final cries to Jesus in the video, saying that by doing so, ISIS had inadvertently “strengthened our faith.”

But these tributes were not limited to the Coptic church. From all around the world, Christians from diverse traditions stood in solidarity with those 21 men. Facebook and Twitter profile pictures were changed to the number “21,” honoring the 21 lives that were lost. Many Western evangelicals voiced their support, including Russell Moore and Ed Stetzer. Ann Voskamp wrote a powerful tribute and initiated a prayer campaign for persecuted Christians around the world. And Pope Francis gave this stirring statement:

“The blood of our Christian brothers is a witness that cries out. If they are Catholic, Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, it is not important: They are Christians. The blood is the same: It is the blood which confesses Christ.”

What I found so moving about these tributes was that so few questions had to be asked. Coptic Christianity is not familiar to many, especially here in the United States. Few people can say they know anything about Coptic theology, have attended a Coptic church service, or personally know a Copt. In all honesty, a person who holds a Coptic understanding of salvation might not be allowed membership at many American evangelical churches. But none of that mattered, not this time. Despite our unfamiliarity with Copts and their beliefs, we all knew deep within our souls that they were our brothers.

Neither did we ask any questions about the men and their individual lives, their motivations, or their piety. We did not ask if they had been walking with God, or their political persuasions, or their stance on one issue or another. Again, none of that mattered. With their lips, these men cried out the name “Yeshua!” And that is all that any of us needed to hear, the only requirement that needed to be fulfilled for us to lament their death and identify ourselves with them.

Seeing the church stand up in solidarity with these men reminded me that we are one family in Christ. Yes, a broad, diverse, and incredibly fractious and quarrelsome family, but family nonetheless. There are surely significant and important differences among us, but persecution and suffering has a way of putting those differences into perspective and allowing us to recognize, even if momentarily, that what ties us together as Christ followers is far stronger stuff than we thought. And what binds us is nothing less than the name of Jesus, the name above all names, the name that these men uttered before they died as martyrs.

But perhaps there is a larger lesson we might glean from this. Our response to the death of the 21 clearly demonstrated that we share a profound connection with other believers despite the considerable geographical, cultural, and theological gaps between us. We have proven that we do not need to be in complete alignment with other followers of Christ to stand with them in their pain. We made a bold declaration that we are the “21” and have claimed Copts as our own brothers in Christ.

But why only “21”? Could we not make that number higher, and expand the circle further to include believers who are closer to home? What about the plight of undocumented people from Mexico and Latin America, so many of whom follow Christ faithfully but are faced with the prospect of being deported and having their families torn apart? Yes, many of us might be different from them in terms of our culture, language, and understanding of civil law. But is their “illegal” status more important to us than their status as “faithful and Spirit-led Christ followers”?

And what about our faithful brothers and sisters in the black church who cry out in lament for the death of children like Tamir Rice? Yes, for many of us there are sizable cultural and political differences between our communities. But are these differences greater than the name of Christ that we both honor? Do any of us truly believe that? Can we not simply say, as we do with our own biological family, and as we are commanded in Romans 12:15, “You are my brother and sister, and so no matter our differences, your suffering is my own”?

To be quite honest, we share far more in common with Latin American and African American believers in this country than we do with the Coptic church. Our theologies are more aligned, and we are physical neighbors with one another. So if we can rightly offer our full-throated support for the “21,” then I implore us to also stand with believers in our own country, not because we are culturally or politically identical to them, but because we are spiritually connected with them. In truth, we are not just the “21.” We are the “22” and the “23,” the “100” and the “100,000,000”. Persecution reminds us that the eternal family of Christ is unified not by uniformity, but by the name of “Jesús,” “Yeshua,” “예수,” the name which we hold above all other names. We should never forget this important, and costly, lesson.

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Report: 200,000 Christians “At Risk Of Slaughter” As Islamists Prepare Massive Assault In Nigeria

Nigerian Bulletin – “US intelligence officers say that the Boko Haram sect looks to be planning an attack on Maiduguri, a city with 2 million people in North-East Nigeria. This, it says, could mean 200,000 Christians could be at ‘risk of slaughter.’
J. Peter Pham said: ‘An attack on Madiguri is very likely,’ and he and a couple of experts believe that the terrorists have put ‘sleeper cells’ among refugees who have fled areas where the group attacked.
He also hinted that the sect may be planning to hoist its black flag over Maiduguri, which he says would be a big blow to the Nigerian government.” Source – Nigerian Bulletin.

John 16:2b, “… the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God.”

Flashback: Nigeria: Islamists Pull Over Bus Near Maiduguri, Kill All Christian Passengers, Embark On Door-To-Door ‘Islamisation Campaign’ At Gunpoint – “Release partners are reporting targeted violence against Christians in the northern state of Borno this weekend. Stefanos Foundation says that gunmen pulled over a bus near Maiduguri on Saturday, demanded passengers declare their faith and then killed the six people who said they were Christian. Meanwhile, in Gwoza, also in Borno state, Islamists are reported to have embarked upon an ‘Islamisation campaign’. Stefanos reports that gunmen are going from door to door demanding people profess allegiance to Islam at gunpoint.” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria’s Christian President Warns That The Current Massacre Of Christians Means The End Times Is Upon Us – “In another deadly move portraying Nigeria’s Borno state as a killing field for Nigerian Christians, attackers have stormed a church service in Kiyak village in the outskirts of Chibok, killing another set of 15 worshippers. It was the second major killing of Christians in the Chibok area. Early in December, 10 Christians were also killed in the area… News of the killings emerged after President Goodluck Jonathan questioned whether deadly Islamist attacks on churches in his country and other violence worldwide could be signs of coming ‘end times’… The attack followed another gruesome killing Friday that saw attackers slit the throats of 15 Christians in a pre-dawn raid in Musari …” Read more.

Flashback: Nigeria: Boko Haram: Our Goal Is To Eliminate Followers Of Christ – “Terrorist organisation Boko Haram has issued a statement making clear that its goal is to eliminate followers of Christ from Nigeria and establish an Islamic state. ‘The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state … We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu,’ a spokesman for the group, Abul Qaqa, is said to have told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri over the phone.” Read more.

More Than 100 Killed by Boko Haram in Cameroon

Boko Haram fighters have killed more than 100 people in the north Cameroon town of Fotokol, murdering residents inside their homes and a mosque, a local civic leader said on Wednesday.

The massacre comes amid a major regional offensive against the Islamic group, which has kidnapped hundreds and killed thousands in neighbouring northern Nigeria and has mounted increasingly bloody cross-border raids.

"Boko Haram entered Fotokol through Gambaru early in the morning and they killed more than 100 people in the mosque, in the houses and they burned property," said the civic leader Abatchou Abatcha, reached by telephone.

The militants shot and killed one of his sons during the raid, he added.
Many of the dead were found with their throats slit, according to Cameroon's L'Oeil du Sahel newspaper.

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Analysts Expect More Extreme Violence From Islamic State Militants

Voice of America News reports: “The fight between the extremist group Islamic State, and the Western/Arab coalition battling to defeat it has become a public showdown of horror. And analysts warn there could be more to come.

‘As soon as we get to the point where we think they can’t get any worse than they are, they manage to exceed the brutality of even what we have become accustomed to,’ said Mia Bloom, a professor of security studies at University of Massachusetts.

‘It’s not that we are immune to the violence, it’s just that they are pushing the envelope and engaging in more and more violence,’ Bloom told VOA.

Images of a young Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage by Islamic State militants shocked and horrified people around the world this week. Crowds took to the streets in Jordan demanding that Muath al-Kaseasbeh’s death at the hands of Islamic State extremists be avenged…”

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Franklin Graham to Obama: Muhammad Killed Innocents

WND.com reports: “Christian evangelist Franklin Graham on Thursday reminded President Obama, who discusses during one televised interview his ‘Muslim faith’ but otherwise has stated being a Christian, that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for the guilty, while Islam’s Muhammad killed the ‘innocent.’

The comment came in reaction to Obama’s speech during the National Prayer Breakfast, when he linked Christians to violence, by claiming that atrocities such as the Inquisition and the Crusades were done ‘in the name of Christ.’

Obama said, ‘Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. And in our home country, slavery, and Jim Crow, all too often was justified in the name of Christ.’

He condemned jihadists who are ‘betraying’ Islam with their slaughter of innocent people.

And he called out members of the Islamic State, who have ‘carried out unspeakable acts of barbarism.’

‘This is not unique to one group or one religion,’ Obama claimed. ‘There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith. And in today’s world when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to combat such intolerance. But God compels us to try.’

While one Catholic leader called for Obama to apologize, pointedly noting that the Inquisition was political, and the Crusades were a defensive effort, and a Fox commentator blasted the president for having to go back ‘1,000 years’ to find some way to link Christians to violence, others noted that it actually was a largely Christian influence that drove slavery out of America and reduced Jim Crow laws to relics…”

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ISIS Is Crucifying, Burying Iraqi Children Alive; Using Mentally-Challenged Kids as Suicide Bombers, Says UN Watchdog

An injured child is seen in a field hospital after what activists said were air strikes by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Douma eastern Al-Ghouta, near Damascus January 25, 2015. Islamist fighters struck the Syrian capital with at least 38 rockets on Sunday, killing seven people, a monitoring group said, in one of heaviest attacks on Damascus in over a year. State media confirmed the attack and said at least four people were killed. It said the army was retaliating. The Saudi-backed Islam Army, based in the eastern Ghouta region near Damascus, had warned earlier that it would hit back against an air strike last week in Ghouta in which more than 40 people were killed.

In issuing its first report on the plight of Iraqi children for the first time since 1998, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child painted a horrifying glimpse into how the Islamic State terrorist organizations is beheading, crucifying, and even burying alive religious minority children.

The report, which was released Wednesday and was written by a committee of 18 independent experts, finds that not only are ISIS militants killing religious minority boys in scores, but they've also found a way to take advantage of the mentally weak Iraqi children, by using their harmless bodies in jihad attacks.

Committee expert Renate Winter said at the press conference introducing the report that the militant group is using mentally-challenged children as suicide bombers, and he thinks many of them go into their fatal suicide plots without even knowing that they will die as a consequence.

"We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding," Winter said. "There was a video placed [online] that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers."

The committee also found that it isn't just mentally-challenged children who are being used as suicide bombers, as many other boys under the age of 18 are also being used to carry out suicide missions. Other children who are recruited to be child soldiers are often forced to donate their blood to battle-wounded ISIS militants.

The report also finds that children, mostly religious minority children, also face the most brutal forms of death such as being buried alive, beheaded and crucified.

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UK Christian School Shut Down After Boy 'Didn't Know What a Muslim Was;' Another Labeled 'Intolerant' When Inspectors Asked 10-Y-O What Lesbians 'Did'

A state-funded free Christian school in the United Kingdom will be forced to shut down after government inspectors deemed the school "inadequate" and claimed that the school's students displayed "discriminatory views" toward people of other faiths.

After the British government created new guidelines for how school inspectors rated schools, inspectors were told to evaluate schools, in their annual Ofsted inspection reports, on how school's promote "British values."

After inspectors visited the Durham Free School, which educates 94 students aged 11 to 13, last November, it was deemed that the school did not meet the required standards for just about every aspect of the inspection: leadership and management, behaviour and safety, quality of teaching and achievement of pupils.

Although the school was praised by the U.K.'s former education secretary when it first opened in September of 2013, the inspectors' report stated that the quality of the student's work was low, teachers didn't have a high expectation of their students, and progress did not meet the necessary standards.

Additionally, the report stated that the school placed "too much emphasis on religious credentials" when hiring staff and the school didn't put enough emphasis in recruiting teaching candidates with "excellent leadership and teaching skills."

Continued, here.