Everyone is worried about “Islamophobia”: New Jersey’s unlikeliest new state senator-elect just apologized for criticizing Islam; Muslim leaders in Canada want the Ontario government to be more proactive against “Islamophobia”; and a mosque leader in London recently charged that Muslim women in Britain live in fear of “racism.”
Meanwhile, in Pakistan several days ago, Muslims fired upon Christians in an attempt to seize their lands; in Nigeria, Muslims kidnapped over one hundred Christians; and in Egypt, two Muslim brothers murdered a Christian shopkeeper because of his faith.
The Muslim persecution of Christians has rarely been as virulent or widespread as it is today, yet it gets little attention. That’s why a new book by Casey Chalk, The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands (Sophia Institute Press), is a breath of fresh air and a welcome dose of realism in an international public discourse increasingly dominated by sloganeering and propaganda.
Chalk explained to me that this much-needed book had its genesis in encounters he had with Pakistani Christian asylum seekers in Bangkok, Thailand, where he and his wife moved in 2014.
It’s more than just gracious. It’s urgent, as most Americans are completely unfamiliar with the plight of these Christians, which has been criminally underreported. Yet “the Pakistani Christians I now count as friends,” Chalk recounts, “have endured terrible trauma. Some have been shot at, others set on fire by angry militant mobs, and others beaten within an inch of their lives. Many have female family members or friends who have been abducted by extremists and forcibly married to Muslim men, something local authorities rarely do anything about.”
Local authorities rarely act because more often than not, they sympathize more with the attackers than with their victims. But in the establishment media narrative, Christians are always white oppressors and Muslims are always and in every case victims, and stories that don’t fit that paradigm get quickly consigned to the memory hole.
One story that did get international attention was that of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who spent years on death row in Pakistan on false accusations of blasphemy before finally having her conviction overturned and being able to leave the country. According to Chalk, she was just one of many. “What is particularly alarming,” he says, “is how similar these stories are to that of Asia Bibi. That similarity, I would argue, demonstrates that their experience is not an anomaly.
Christians, not only in Pakistan, but across the Muslim world, from North Africa to Indonesia, are experiencing the same kinds of mistreatment. With a few exceptions like China and North Korea, almost all of the worst places to be a Christian in the world are in Muslim majority countries.”