"Enough!"
by Jerry Newcombe
2/10/11

         The Egyptian uprising has been dominating the news lately. But there’s a story beneath the surface that needs to be told as well.
         And that is all the Christians that are at risk, not only in Egypt but throughout the Middle East.
         The Muslims have persecuted the Christians for centuries now. But sometimes there has been a fragile peace. In recent times that peace seems to have been shattered.
         For example, Christians came to worship at a Catholic cathedral in Baghdad on Sunday morning on November 1, 2010. Suddenly, militant Islamists burst into the building armed to the hilt, and they began to systematically kill worshipers, including the priest at the altar.
         An American nun wrote about one of the most remarkable aspects of this slaughter, which claimed at least 58 people:

Among the victims of this senseless tragedy was a little boy named Adam. Three-year-old Adam witnessed the horror of dozens of deaths, including that of his own parents. He wandered among the corpses and the blood, following the terrorists around and admonishing them, "enough, enough, enough." According to witnesses, this continued for two hours until Adam was himself murdered (Source: Cardinal Francis George, quoted in lisagraas.com).
When you look at the photo of Adam (reproduced below) and you look how happy he seemed to be, and then you consider how tragically his life ended, it puts a human face on all the suffering going on in many of the Christian communities of the Middle East.
         At the very beginning of this year, on New Year’s Day, 2000 Christian worshipers were leaving a church in Alexandria, Egypt. A suicide bomber detonated a bomb, killing himself and at least 21 Christians and wounding about 100 more, some seriously.
         The scene was out of a horror movie. As body parts were scattered all over, some Muslim extremists came out of the shadows and jumped on these remains, screaming, "Allahu Akbar!"
         What’s interesting to note about this bombing is that an hour before the suicide bombing went off and killed all those Christians and wounded so many others, several of the security forces left the church they were supposed to guard, leaving only a skeletal crew behind. Many suspected that somebody gave them a tip as to what was about to happen.
         Tragically, incidents like these in Baghdad and in Alexandria are starting to become more common, at least on a smaller scale. I spoke recently with Rev. Julian Dobbs, who heads the Church and Islam Project of the North American Convocation of Anglicans. He said, "too often in places where there was a relative peace, Christians, our brothers and sisters, are now living with the regular threat and challenge of persecution and suffering for their faith."
         One of the problems, of course, involves changing religion. You can come and go within Christianity. But you apparently only leave Islam in a pine box. Says Dobbs, "As painful and difficult as it is for us to understand this in this modern generation, Islam is the only religion I know of in the world which calls for the execution of those who leave the faith."
        Not all Muslims are terrorists, of course, but these days it seems that virtually all terrorists are Muslims. You would think that the non-violent Muslims would have a vested interest in speaking out against their violent brethren, lest they all be condemned with the same brush.
         I know a man who fled his native Lebanon two decades ago because of anti-Christian persecution. In his native land, he was a lawyer and an advocate on behalf of Christians in Lebanon. Today, he’s a spokesman on Middle Eastern issues in Washington, DC. His name is Dr. Walid Phares, and you often see him on major media outlets, Fox News, CNN, NBC, etc.
         Dr. Phares has often written on the issue of Jihad, and his latest book---which was written before the upheaval in Tunisia and now in Egypt---is entitled, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East.
        He told me recently, "Al Qaida and its cohorts in the region are openly saying that they are at war, at jihad with the Christians, and they want to, ethnically cleanse them from the region."
        Dr. Phares added, "If there is any emergency worldwide for the international community to support an endangered community, it would be the Christians in the Middle East."
        If extremist groups in Egypt, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, gain significant power, should there be regime change in Egypt, this does not bode well for those who want to live in peace---including the millions of Christians there.
         Just like little Adam of Baghdad, we must say in reference to the Muslim slaughter of the innocent Christians in the Middle East, "Enough. Enough. Enough."
 

Photo of Adam of Baghdad, posted on the Christians of Iraq.com website:
He cried out to the Islamic attackers (before they killed him), "Enough, enough, enough."


 
 

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Jerry Newcombe is the senior producer and host of The Coral Ridge Hour. He has also written or co-written 21 books, including The Book That Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation. Jerry co-wrote (with Dr. Peter Lillback) the bestselling, George Washington's Sacred Fire. He also hosts the website www.jerrynewcombe.com.