Wrong question. A better one is why don't YOU ever see those Christians who care.
The answer is that all the noise in American Christianity is about US politics. E Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 16, 2014, at 13:08, "BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community" <[email protected]> wrote: > > The following article raises a question that I have raised previously, > never with a good answer from anyone, namely: > > Why don't Christians even care about the slaughter of other Christians? > > I think I now know the answer: It is because Christianity has been > emasculated, > it pretty much happened during the Clinton years, but actually became an even > worse problem under George W Bush and has deteriorated even more > since the election of Barack Hussein in 2008. > > Christianity wasn't always like this. In the past: > (1) Christians had self confidence > (2) Christians included many, many people who understood a range of > what might be called social science fields and could draw upon expertise > in these areas and offer solutions to problems based on at least > some semblance of knowledge about what to do that might be effective > (3) Christians had moral clarity about all social issues of consequence. > > What has happened is that Christianity has become reductionist religion, > it is generally reduced to some one thing, as if Christ was sort of a > masculine > version of Mother Theresa, or was a pacifist Quaker, or the like. But was he > any such thing? Few except extreme sectarians of history (Mennonites, > the Amish, true-believer Franciscans, Trappists, etc) had any such view. > Generally Jesus was the Christ of the whole New Testament and someone > who drew heavily on the OT. > > You can see this in Christian art and symbolism where there are cross designs > that have been used again and again as part of religious tradition to show > the Church militant, Christian faith as love, the Church as missionary > endeavor, > and on and on, though a range of factors that all were regarded as essential > to Christian faith. > > Christian faith has become privatized, it is mostly regarded as a personal > matter. > There is Jesus and things of spirit, and he has nothing at all to do with life > in the workplace or governance or the system of justice or much of > anything else. All of which is aided and abetted by general ignorance > of Christian history and precedents set by great Christians of the past. > Thus today there is no equivalent of Martin Luther, nor of Americans > like Jonathan Edwards of Roger Williams or Charles Grandison Finney, > or Walter Rauschenbusch or the Neibuhr brothers, all of whom were, > we might say, polymaths in addition to being men of faith. > > Instead we get one half-baked "prime time preacher" after another, a few with > pretensions to breadth of knowledge, like Pat Robertson, which is kind of > a joke in his case even if he does try, but otherwise there are so many > Joel Osteens, poorly educated, with little critical (in the scholarly sense) > intelligence, and no comprehension that faith could mean anything beyond > their favorite salvation narrative. > > Is this Christianity at all? The more I think about it the more it seems > obvious that it is no such thing, it has little relationship to the faith > taught by Jesus > and, while it may well be a force for good in the world, it basically is a > child's faith > and not adult faith at all. No wonder Christians don't care about the > holocaust > of other Christians, they are children for whom the world consists of > home and family and that is it. > > As usual, a disclaimer is necessary. You can find exceptions, there always > are exceptions, but I have the sinking feeling that this analysis is > far more right than wrong. And if this is true then there are many > implications > and some very important lessons to learn, such as the fact, as I see it, > that what is called Christianity today needs to be completely replaced by an > altogether new kind of Christian faith that, while it allows children > to be children, demands that grown ups should be educated adults > who see it as essential to take responsibility for the world they live in > as something intrinsic to their faith. > > > Billy > > --------------------------------------------------- > > > > August 14, 2014 > > Jewish Journal > > Why doesn’t the world seem to care when Christians die? > > by Rob Eshman > > When Jews are killed, we make sure the world knows. When Palestinians are > killed, the Web explodes. So why is it that when Christians are murdered and > persecuted en masse, no one seems to care — not even other Christians? > > We see this mystery playing out in Iraq with the hundreds of thousands of > members of Christian minorities whose deaths have not yet provoked an outcry. > > It was only last week, when the torture and killing had reached such extreme > levels that the world began to take notice, that President Barack Obama > ordered United States humanitarian and military intervention to rescue some > 40,000 members of the Yazidis, a non-Muslim minority cornered by radical > Muslims on a mountain outside of Mosul. > > “It’s a full-scale genocide,” Nuri Kino, a Swedish-Assyrian journalist, told > me recently. “They are bombing near Mosul as we speak. It’s so frustrating > to hear the U.S. media say this is so sudden and surprising. Systematic > ethnic cleansing has been going on from day one, and it’s going to get worse.” > > For 10 years, Kino has been writing about the growing strength of > fundamentalist Sunni groups in Iraq and Syria, and of their persecution of > those countries’ non-Muslim groups. > > What Kino has been writing and speaking about for years is now on CNN. But > when I reached him by phone last week in Sweden, just before his next secret > trip into the Middle East, Kino was far too emotionally wrought to feel > vindicated. > > A fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq > and Syria (ISIS) has taken over swaths of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. It is > murdering, pillaging and exiling thousands of people from other ethnic and > religious groups. ISIS gives Christians who live in the many villages in > northern Iraq a choice: Convert to Islam, leave or be killed. > > “Being a Turkmen, a Shabak, a Yazidi or a Christian in [Islamic State] > territory can cost you your livelihood, your liberty or even your life,” > Human Rights Watch’s Middle East executive director Sarah Leah Whitson said > in a press release on Saturday from Iraqi Kurdistan. > > As of last week, America has finally taken notice — and action. Kino and > others fighting for the cause worry that tomorrow the airdrops and the > spotlight will disappear, but the problem won’t. > > The Yazidis are an ancient minority whose religion recognizes Jesus as a > prophet, but also combines elements of Zoroastrianism, Islam and other local > traditions. They are just the latest target in ISIS’ genocidal campaign > focused largely on Christian minorities. > > Assyrians are Christians who speak a linguistic relative of Aramaic. Of the 2 > million Assyrians worldwide, about 400,000 live in the United States. Only > 250,000 remain in their homeland. > > There, ISIS’ documented abuses include executing Assyrian women who refuse to > wear a hijab; raping a mother and daughter for not paying a religious tax; > destroying the purported tomb of the Prophet Jonah, whom Assyrians revere; > kidnapping; forced sexual slavery; and depriving refugees of clean water and > food. > > Since taking power from the Iraq army, ISIS has gone on a spree of killing > and forcibly exiling all of the Assyrian, Chaldean and other Christian > communities in its path. As far back as 2007, ISIS bombed a Yazidi village > and killed 500 people. > > In July, in Mosul, ISIS thugs painted the Arabic letter ن (noon) on the doors > of Christian homes after their original inhabitants fled, were forced out or > murdered. ن is the first letter of the Arabic Nasrani, the word for > Christians. > > The Assyrian diaspora community in Europe and America has been trying, > without success, to draw the world’s attention to this campaign of > intimidation and terror. A group called A Demand for Action organized a > series of protests across the United States earlier this month, including one > in front of the Federal Building in Westwood that drew about 200 marchers, > mostly local Assyrians and Chaldeans. > > “It is a modern-day Holocaust,” Suzan Younan, the organization’s spokeswoman, > told me. “I compare Jewish homes that the Nazis painted a Star of David on > with Christian homes that ISIS painted an ‘N’ on. There is a another genocide > happening as we speak.” > > What especially frustrates Kino is that this has been going on with almost no > outcry from American politicians or religious leaders. > > “We hear, ‘Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.’ ‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine.’ But where are > the Christian leaders of the United States?” Kino demanded, his voice > breaking. “These people are the roots of Christianity. They speak Jesus’ > mother tongue. Shame on Sarah Palin, all those so-called good Christians. > Shame on both Democrats and Republicans.” > > Kino heaped scorn on American politicians who didn’t see this genocide coming. > > The region is full of ethnic minorities with competing claims and agendas. > The Assyrians are the largest of the Christian minorities, buffeted on one > side by Kurds, who want the oil-rich Nineveh plains — the Assyrian ancestral > homelands — as part of a future Kurdistan, and on the other by ISIS, which > wants them gone, or dead. > > Saddam Hussein granted Iraq’s forced-together minorities their religious > rights, even as he denied them political rights. The Ba’athist Assad family > ruled neighboring Syria the same way. > > At the risk of raising the back hairs of died-in-the-wool partisans, much of > the blame for the current debacle belongs to the George W. Bush > administration’s invasion of Iraq. > > “When the U.S. invaded Iraq,” Kino said, “it was amazing how unaware they > were of the different sects of Islam and other religions. But this genocide > was easy to predict. It’s what happens when you take power from the Sunnis > and give it to the Shiites, then you guys leave the country and the Shiites > discriminate, then of course the radicals will react.” > > Fundamentalist Sunni groups have been marauding through the area for decades. > Ideologically, they are the spawn of the extreme ideology that bred the > Muslim Brotherhood — Hamas and al-Qaida. > > “ISIS is just al-Qaida. There’s no difference,” said Kino, who wrote a novel, > The Line in the Sand, and an as-yet-unproduced screenplay about the > Assyrians’ plight. > > But this is the difference between ISIS and many radical Islamist groups: > ISIS has plenty of guns and money. Where ISIS has overpowered the Iraqi army, > it has captured the latest American weaponry. It controls oil fields and > their revenues, and some $400 million it extracted from Mosul banks when it > captured the city. > > Savina Dawood, who represents A Demand for Action in Iraq, works among the > refugees in the Kurdish city of Erbil, helping them find places to stay, > medical care and supplies. When I reached her by phone there, she said the > U.S. humanitarian relief to the Yazidis hasn’t noticeably relieved the > Assyrian situation. > > “This has had no impact,” she said. “People are still displaced, and they > haven’t gone back to their homes.” > > Dawood, 24, an Assyrian native of Erbil, has collected stories of extreme > hardship. In the town of Singal, Iraq, she was told that ISIS took hundreds > of women captive to serve as sex partners for the ISIS fighters. In Erbil, > she met women whose husbands had been taken by ISIS weeks ago and have yet to > be seen. > > Meanwhile, Assyrian refugees crowd into churches, public parks and community > buildings around Erbil and other larger towns — protected, for now, by the > Kurdish Peshmerga forces. > > Dawood said she has no idea when, or if, they will ever be able to return to > their homes. > > I asked her if the Assyrians have received any help from the international > community. > > “The attention we’re getting internationally is only from our own people > outside Iraq, not others,” she said, speaking of the Assyrian Christian > diaspora. “ISIS is trying to force us out of our ancestral country because we > are indigenous people, and we are Christians. But we are also human. So if > people don’t care about Christians or indigenous people, fine, but can they > help us as humans?” > > Helping the non-Muslim minorities in Syria and Iraq and stopping ISIS will > take long-term resolve. Kino and others say the best way to begin is to > immediately establish a safe haven in northern Iraq’s Nineveh plains. United > Nations forces, or other international security forces, can be deployed to > protect them from attack. > > The Assyrians want their safe haven to evolve eventually into an autonomous > nation of their own, where they can protect themselves. A hundred years ago, > at least 250,000 Assyrians were slaughtered in the genocide perpetrated by > the Young Turks regime that decimated the Armenian population as well. Now, a > hundred years later, they face a second round of extermination. Carving their > own bit of land out of an oil-soaked swath of Kurdistan and Iraq with no army > and no international support may be a distant dream. > > In the meantime, what they most want, and need, is protection and assistance > from an indifferent world. > > “The international community must help us,” Dawood said. “Their silence > means they are fine with it.” > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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