For several weeks now, students in several US universities have been protesting and camping on campus grounds to seek justice and freedom for the Palestinian cause. Some of these protests have turned confrontational, with police being called to draw many away and clear the temporary tents set up on the campuses. These protests have caused many universities to cancel their classes and graduation ceremonies. Notably, the demonstrations have also targeted Jews. I ask myself, what do they aim to achieve, and will they achieve it? Is it drawing people’s attention to their cause or making them more enemies? Will that stop the war in Palestine? While they seek for justice for the Palestinians, are they also asking for the release of the hostages held by Hamas? While they protest far away, Israel is already invading Rafah, the last and only remaining Hamas stronghold…
Indeed, their protest is rather making them more enemies than friends. There are many Muslims being persecuted in China and many Christians are being persecuted in Islamic countries, yet who demonstrates for them? Just last two weeks, the homes of Coptic Christians were burnt down in Egypt. Why, because it was rumoured that they were going to build a church. For this reason, their homes were burnt. In Nigeria, more than 8200 Christians have been killed by Islamists between January 2023 and January 2024. It is estimated that more than 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria within the last 14 years. A report published by the Guardian five years ago showed pervasive and genocidal persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which forced many of them to relocate from those countries. In Pakistan, Christians endure persecution and death without government protection. Have you heard people talk about these or demonstrate against it? What about the persecution of Yemenis by fellow Muslims?
In North-Eastern China are a Muslim ethnic group called the Uyghurs. For many years, the Chinese government has been systematically warring against this ethnic group. Their men are taken away forcefully into detention or concentration camps. Their women are sterilized. In the worst cases, their organs are harvested for organ transplants. Within these concentration camps, the men are “re-educated” by being taken through forced renunciation of Islam. After the men are taken away, the government appoints someone to stay with their families and also ensure that they stop being Muslims. What’s their crime? Islam…their religion.
For those who are born into free societies where divergent views are tolerated, this may seem shocking. However, in societies where other forms of dissent are not accepted, practicing any other form of religion other than the accepted State religion or government, can be a death sentence. Such situations also exist in certain Muslim-dominated countries where any other form of religion is anathema (forbidden).
It was such repression of religion and divergent views that forced millions to run from the shores of Europe to America, Canada, South Africa, and Australasia: where they can worship God in the freedom of conscience. Religious intolerance, was so ripe in Europe during the Medieval and Middle Ages that millions, including the Waldensians, were murdered for being heretics (non-conformist or non-believers in Catholic doctrine/teachings).
After King Henry VIII’s defection from the Catholic church to remarry, he had several kids with subsequent wives…his daughter with his first Catholic wife (Catherine of Aragon), called Mary Tudor (bloody Mary) later ascended the throne after the death of her infant brother, Edward VI. Being Catholic, it was her studied aim to return the country to Catholicism…contrary to what her father and younger brother have done.
During this time, there was a large Protestant population in Britain and turning the whole country from Protestantism to Catholicism was no easy feat. Mary I thus lighted fires at Smithfield. She burnt down all dissenters who failed to submit to Catholicism…earning her the nefarious name, bloody Mary. The prisons were filled with heretics, the streets of Smithfield were stained with blood and its atmosphere, with the smoke of burning humans…
Gradually, governments around the world are becoming increasingly intolerant, authoritative, and repressive. Through cancel culture, persons dissenting from the status quo are banished from social media. Whereas persons ascribing to LGBTQ+ are protected, those dissenting are hated and banished as anti-progressive. Indeed, you cannot even speak against the accepted “norms” of the “progressives”, so called!
The media has an agenda…and it is their way or the highway: if you doubt, just take a step back and see their bias…so, where is the tolerance for dissent? Are we nearing another Smithfield fires…another Kristallnacht? This is the time for all discerning ones to follow global and social events closely that we be not overtaken by surprise! Paul was right…. let’s not sleep, for we’re not of the night that the day should overtake us (1 Thes. 5:1-9). Let’s pray continually for the peace and safety of the Earth. A happy Sabbath to all the sons and daughters of God.
