Synod puts sex before the horrors of Christian persecution
by Jules Gomes, TCW:
General Synod is the Church of England’s highest decision-making body. It holds congress twice a year—in Westminster and in York. It is copulating (in the original Latin sense) this weekend in York. Over 400 bishops, clergy and laity will attend its sessions. Members may propose motions, ask questions, discuss positions and raise issues for debate. It is their chance to table the most serious issues facing Christianity and therefore society today.
What are they? The list surely is long from a catastrophically declining church membership and the concomitant collapse of Christian marriage (the very building block of Christian culture) to the sanctity of life (threatened by the normalisation of abortion) to pressure for euthanasia. But of the greatest urgency, surely, is the genocide of Christians in the Islamic world and the persecution of Christians in countries like India, which is ruled by a fascistic Hindu government.
Two months ago, in Civilisation sleeps while a Christian Holocaust takes shape, a response to A Manifesto for Persecuted Christians launched by Barnabas Fund, I set out how Christians today are the world’s most persecuted religious group. The statistics are truly shocking: Not only is a Christian is killed every six minutes but 500,000 Christians around the globe are unable to practice their faith freely. No, these are not alarmist statistics provided by advocacy groups. These are understated figures supplied by The Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) an independent international network that engages in scholarly research and provides accurate information to the public on new religious movements. That is the considered assessment of the liberal Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University.
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