In his humiliation he [Jesus] was deprived of justice. Acts 8:33a
Christians experiencing persecution are following in the footsteps of their
master, Jesus. In Acts chapter eight, Philip revealed to the Ethiopian eunuch
that the passage from Isaiah 53 he was
reading referred to Jesus who indeed was deprived of justice. Today in the
Western world, we would describe His trial before crucifixion as occurring in a
“kangaroo court!”
If disinformation about any group, including Christians, is disseminated long
enough, no one will help when that group or person is discriminated against.
Discrimination relegates Christians to second-class citizenship with inferior
legal, social, political and economic status. Once discrimination takes place,
no one will intervene when the mistreatment comes.
Examples of such injustice against Christians abound around the world: ID
cards in a country where Christianity is an unacceptable entry in the religion
column; daughters abducted because they are Christians; expulsion from the
community just because they are evangelicals.
Christians in Pakistan are a small minority among a large Muslim majority and
often face such discrimination. The problem is compounded by the fact that many
Christians are illiterate and poor. One Christian teacher at a center training
Christian women recently said, “We do face discrimination because we live in the
midst of people who don’t want us to move forward; people who keep trying to
push us down so that we will always be in slavery.”
But there is one repeated scene of injustice against Christians that occurs
in Pakistan which brings me to tears which involves young Christian girls. As a
father of two daughters and having six granddaughters, I shudder every time I
read news reports that describe Christian family injustice in this land. The
stories usually work out this way:
Muslim women must marry Muslim men but Muslim men are allowed to marry any
woman they wish with the proviso that any children must be raised as Muslim.
Consequently in Pakistan there are Muslim men who often desire some of the very
beautiful young Christian girls in the community but realize there is no way
their Christian families will agree to marriage. So these men resort to
abduction.
The Christian father’s only option is to go to court where the judge—usually
a Muslim—hears the case and pronounces to the Christian father, “Your daughter
voluntarily converted to Islam and voluntarily married this Muslim man so you
are to have no more contact with her. One of the most recent cases involved two
young Christian sisters aged thirteen and ten. In this case, the judge allowed
the ten-year-old to return home to her family but not the thirteen-year-old.
Safwan, a secret believer in Algeria, found a Christian pamphlet between the
paperwork given him at work and started reading it. Upon discovering him reading
the pamphlet, his boss reported him to the police. Later that night the police
visited him and searched his entire home. They found Christian CD’s, several
Christian movies and a New Testament. “It was clear to them that I had become a
Christian. My boss fired me.”
RESPONSE: Today I will work toward justice for everyone in my own country
and around the world.
PRAYER: Lord, be with those experiencing discrimination today because they
love and serve You.
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