Where is the #PersecutedChristians hashtag?

The year’s end sees innumerable annual reviews. Political earthquakes, sporting achievements, natural and man-made disasters, the demise of entertainers, they all find their place. Missing from these reviews is an item largely missing from news reports through the year – the increasing persecution of Christians around the world.

Worldwide, more than 215million believers face intimidation, prison – even death – for their faith in Jesus Christ. That’s one in 12 Christians in the world.

Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) says the persecution of Christians reached a new high between 2015 and 2017. Its recent report accuses the international community of failing to respond adequately to the violence, stating: ‘Governments in the West and the UN failed to offer Christians in countries such as Iraq and Syria the emergency help they needed as genocide got under way.’

American Vice-President Mike Pence, an evangelical, said last year: ‘The reality is, across the wider world, the Christian faith is under siege. Throughout the world, no people of faith today face greater hostility or hatred than the followers of Christ.’

Christians are under increasing threat in many major Islamic countries, as well as under authoritarian regimes such as North Korea and Eritrea.

There is a determined drive to make the Middle East, homeland of Christianity, a Christian-free area. Canon Andrew White – known as the ‘Vicar of Baghdad’ – has reached a painful conclusion: Christianity is all but over in the land where it began.

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