Oh ye of little faith: Christianity under the hammer

Many who reject Christianity’s most profound belief, the resurrection, seem quite happy to follow the wildest conspiracy theories on social media. All they think about at Easter is food.

Pope Francis has called the persecution of Christians around the world the worst since the first three centuries. Picture: AFP

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Last year in Italy, I was showing around a young Australian who had come with his father on a quest to buy a house. He wanted to know something of the history of the region. I mentioned that among the famous people from Abruzzo was the poet Ovid and, apparently, Pontius Pilate. His response nearly floored me. “Who is Pontius Pilate?” he asked.

That someone who was almost 30, brought up in an affluent Australian family, was ignorant of the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection means something is deeply wrong with Australian culture. Our culture is based on Christianity, for which the story and belief in the Passion and physical resurrection of Jesus are central tenets.

Without the knowledge of that pillar of our culture we cannot understand our history, the foundations of Australian aspiration, the way our ancestors thought. My young friend belongs to a new generation who, to paraphrase GK Chesterton, having no faith will believe anything; that Jesus was not a real historical person or even that a man can become a woman.

Many young people do not know enough of Christian faith to understand that our Lord’s teaching is embedded in our political and social foundation. But so many people have rejected Christianity’s most profound belief, the resurrection, and are more accustomed to following irrelevant social media conspiracies that all they may think about this Easter is food or whether the shroud of Turin is real. Apparently, the proof that is the truth in Jesus’ teaching is not enough.

Seven out of 10 people in the world persecuted for religious belief are Christians. Even Pope Francis has called this the worst persecution since the first three centuries.

In Africa, persecution of Christians is expanding. According to Father Benedict Kiely, founder of Nasarean.Org, a charity helping persecuted Christians, in 2022 more than 3000 Christians were killed in Nigeria alone and it is increasing. Kidnapping girls, rape, forced conversion and marriage are also common, even in Egypt, where Coptic Christians are second-class citizens. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo there are death squads seeking out Christians.

“Black lives matter,” liberal Americans and Europeans say. “They do, but not in Africa,” Kiely says.

Catholic nuns carry the Cross during the Good Friday procession to the Durban City Hall in South Africa on Good Friday. Picture: AFP

In the Middle East this has reached proportions so great that Christianity may disappear from the place it began. Particularly in Syria, jihadism is appearing in its most dangerous guise. We are told members of Mohammed al-Jolani’s government, terrorists in their former identity as al-Qa’ida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Nusra Front, but now in new suits and with beards trimmed, have changed. They have hunted down Christians, burnt their villages and given them the ultimatum to convert, move or die, yet many Westerners want to swallow the Islamic Hayat Tahrir al-Sham PR. No wonder Syrian Christians looking at the dwindling number of their co-religionists are terrified.

Aleppo, one of the Middle East’s most important Christian cities, has been decimated. Out of a pre-war population of 200,000 Christians, about 20,000 live in Aleppo today. In Idlib nearly the entire Christian population of 10,000 fled. Others were killed or kidnapped, their property confiscated. Only 300 Christians remain in Idlib.

Congregants pray during a service at Re'ese Adbarat Debre Selam Kidist Mariam Church, an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church, in Washington, DC earlier this month. Picture: AP

Under Bashar al-Assad there was no political freedom in Syria but there was religious freedom. Iraqis and Iranians fleeing persecution fled to Syria.

The only exception in the Middle East to this Christian persecution is Israel. However, this year the war has caused celebration of the resurrection of Jesus to be muted among most Palestinian Christians, especially those stuck in Gaza. Although Israel is the only country that allows freedom of religion for Christians, it is the Palestinians who are the biggest group of Christians residing in the area. As a Palestinian Christian once said to me: “We Christian Palestinians are caught between the Israeli hammer and the anvil of Islamic fundamentalism.”

However, Christian persecution is not just a Middle Eastern problem. In Pakistan it is an everyday occurrence, in India Hindu nationalists drive out and kill Christians and burn churches. In Indonesia, especially in West Papua, but nowhere is it as great as China and North Korea.

All this would make headlines every day if it were not for the de-Christianisation of our secular political sphere. As Kiely says: “It is easier to organise a talk in a church about global warming than persecution of Christians, but if you are about to have your head cut off you are not really worried about your carbon foot print.”