At least 78 people were killed in a bombing outside of a Pakistani church Sunday, with the attack being only the latest in a cascade of anti-Christian violence that has rocked the Middle East and Africa in recent months.
In Egypt, Islamist supporters of the country’s deposed former President Mohammed Morsi have engaged in the country’s worst organized anti-Copt violence in 700 years. In Syria and Lebanon Christians are under attack by both Sunni and Shiite forces.
The Daily Beast’s Kirsten Powers is baffled by the lack of domestic outrage from U.S. religious leaders:
Christians in the Middle East and Africa are being slaughtered, tortured, raped, kidnapped, beheaded, and forced to flee the birthplace of Christianity. One would think this horror might be consuming the pulpits and pews of American churches. Not so. The silence has been nearly deafening… It is inexplicable. American Christians are quite able to organize around issues that concern them. Yet religious persecution appears not to have grabbed their attention, despite worldwide media coverage of the atrocities against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.
Powers specifically cites legislation aimed at creating a special envoy at the State Department to advocate for religious minorities:
Wolf and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) sponsored legislation last year to create a special envoy at the State Department to advocate for religious minorities in the Middle East and South-Central Asia. It passed in the House overwhelmingly, but died in the Senate. Imagine the difference an outcry from constituents might have made. The legislation was reintroduced in January and again passed the House easily. It now sits in the Senate. According to the office of Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the sponsor of the bill there, there is no date set for it to be taken up. Wolf has complained loudly of the State Department’s lack of attention to religious persecution, but is anybody listening?
The legislation is HR.301, which passed the House by a vote of 402-22 last week. The bill provides “for the establishment of the Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.” It now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to – again – face pushback from officials who argue that the legislation would limit the U.S.’s diplomatic flexibility.
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