Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era

See also: Criticism of Christianity

Anti-Christian sentiment is an opposition to some or all Christians, the Christian religion, or the practice of Christianity. Christophobia or Christianophobia are also names for "every form of discrimination and intolerance against Christians" according to Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE).

Anti-Christian expressions

Vandalism

The vandalism or defacement of Christian symbols or property is one form of the expression of anti-Christian sentiment. If the defaced or vandalized object is considered holy by Christians, such as the Bible, the Cross, or an image of Christ or a saint, the case becomes that of desecration. Such destruction may also be illegal if it violates property rights or hate crime laws. Arson directed at Christian meeting places or churches is often considered a hate crime. However, churches may also be targeted for reasons unrelated to anti-Christian sentiment, especially racism(against the congregants).

An aggravating factor in the burning of a church in Minnedosa, Manitoba was that two of the arsonists were fans of National Socialist black metal music with anti-Christian themes, according to the Crown. Vandals stole a wooden statue of Virgin Mary, from the Saint Albert the Great Parish of Calgary, Canada in August 2008 detached her hands, tried to incinerate it, and threw into a ditch along the nearby 22x Highway. In 2010, vandals daubed graffiti and attempted to burn down the White Church of Baildon, West Yorkshire, marking the church with the sign of the pentagram and scrawling anti-Christian graffiti upon it.

Music

Some fans of black metal and witch house music declare open hatred of Christianity. Headliners of the black metal genre have claimed responsibility for inspiring (if not necessarily perpetrating) over fifty arsons directed at Christian churches in Norway from 1992 to 1996. The most notable church was Norway's Fantoft Stave Church, which the police believed was destroyed by the one-man band Burzum, Varg Vikernes, also known as "Count Grishnackh".

Examples of anti-Christian sentiment in politics and culture

Europe

Norway

On 6 June 1992, the Fantoft Stave Church, a wooden structure originally built in 1150 in Fortun, when the Vikings converted to Christianity, and moved to Bergen in 1883, was burnt down. At first the fire was attributed to lightning and electrical failure. In January 1993 Varg Vikernes, also known as "Count Grishnackh", was interviewed by a local journalist in his apartment decorated with 'Nazi paraphernalia, weapons and Satanic symbols'. According to Vikernes, black metal fans had declared war on Christianity and Norwegian society and was responsible for eight church burnings as part of an ongoing terror campaign. He used a photo of the charred remnants of the church taken soon after the fire on his band Burzum's album entitled Aske (Norwegian for ashes). Following his statement the Norwegian authorities began to clamp down on black metal fanatics.

In 1994 Vikernes was found guilty of murder, arson and possession of illegal weapons (including explosives) and given the maximum sentence under Norwegian law of 21 years in prison. He was released in 2009.

The following is a partial list of Norwegian Christian church arsons in 1992 by anti-Christian groups reported by English-language media sources:

• May 23: Storetveit Church in Bergen.
• June 6: Fantoft Stave Church in Bergen. Varg Vikernes was suspected of the crime, but denied this; he was not convicted.
• August 1: Revheim Church in Stavanger.
• August 21: Holmenkollen Chapel in Oslo.
• September 1: Ormøya Church in Oslo.
• September 13: Skjold Church in Vindafjord. Varg Vikernes and Samoth were convicted for this.
• October: Hauketo Church in Oslo.
• December 24: Åsane Church in Bergen. Varg Vikernes and musician Jørn Inge Tunsberg were convicted for this.
• December 25: a Methodist church in Sarpsborg. A firefighter was killed while fighting this fire.

Sweden

On 7 February 1993, the Lundby New Church in Gothenburg, Sweden was burnt down.

United Kingdom

Mark Pritchard, the Member of Parliament representing the English constituency of The Wrekin, instigated a debate in the House of Commons on 5 December 2007 on the issue of Anti-Christian sentiment, describing the phenomenon as 'Christianophobia'. Introducing the debate, he said it was about "how anti-Christian sentiment is increasing, not decreasing; why many Christians feel they are not getting a fair hearing when it comes to Christianity in the public square; and what many people of all faiths and no faith see as the increasing marginalisation of Britain’s Christian history, heritage and traditions through the actions of Whitehall Departments, Government agencies, local authorities, the charity commissioners, or other sectors of society." One example where anti-Christian sentiment was evident was when a church building was wrecked by squatters which included the adding of anti-Christian graffiti to the walls.

Indonesia

Further information: 2005 Indonesian beheadings of Christian girls

Middle East

Fiorello Provera of the European Parliament called the Middle East "the most dangerous place for Christians to live" and cited Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who blamed the international community for failing to deal with what she considers a war against Christians in the Muslim world.

Former Lebanese president Amine Gemayel stated in 2011 that Christians had become the target of genocide after dozens of Christians were killed in deadly attacks in Egypt and Iraq.

According Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, in the hundred years leading up to 2010 the Middle East's Christian population dwindled from 20% to less than 5%. Oren argues that with the exception of Israel, where Christian communities have been flourishing since the state's founding in 1948, Christians in the Middle East have endured severe political and cultural hardships: in Egypt, Muslim extremists have subjected Coptic Christians to beatings and massacres, resulting in the exodus of 200,000 Copts from their homes; in Iraq, 1,000 Christians were killed in Baghdad between the years 2003 and 2012 and 70 churches in the country were burned; in Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty and in 2012 Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death; in Saudi Arabia, private Christian prayer is against the law; in the Gaza Strip, half of the Palestinian Christian population has fled since Hamas seized power in 2007 and Gazan law forbids public displays of crucifixes; in the West Bank, the Christian population has been reduced from 15% to less than 2%.

Egypt

See also: Kosheh Massacres, Nag Hammadi massacre, Maspero demonstrations, 2011 Alexandria bombing, and 2011 Imbaba church attacks

In Egypt, the government does not recognize religious conversions involving Muslim who choose to embrace the Christian faith. Since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Egypt's Coptic Christians have been the target of growing discrimination. In 2011, Egypt's Coptic Christians experienced church burnings, protests against the appointment of a Coptic governor in Qena, and deadly confrontations with the Egyptian army. On television Islamists referred to Christians as heretics and said they should be made to pay the jizya tax. A Coptic priest accused Islamists in the country of massacring innocent pigs predominantly owned by Copts during a swine flu scare: "They killed these innocent pigs just because they thought they violated their religion in some way." In October 2011 a draft resolution passed by the European Parliament accused Egypt of persecuting the country's Christian population. By mid-2012 10,000 Christians had fled the country.

Iraq

See also: 2010 Baghdad church attack

The consolidation of power in the hands of Shiite Islamists in Iraq since the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime has been to the detriment of Iraq's Christian communities. Friction between rival sects in Iraq has frequently resulted in violence being directed against Christians in the country. Consequently, there has been a flight of Christians from some areas to Europe and to the United States. Since 2003, hundreds of thousand of Christians have fled Iraq, such that the Christian population, which may have been as high as 1.4 million prior to the Iraq War, has dropped to 500,000, with numbers continuing to decline. Between 2003 and 2012 more than 70 churches were bombed. In 2007 Al Qaeda militants killed a young priest in Mosul, and in 2010 terrorists massacred 53 Assyrian Christians in a Baghdad church.

Israel

In Jerusalem, there have been instances of Christian churches being vandalized with spray-painted offensive remarks against Christianity including death threats. These are believed to be price tag attacks by extremist settlers.

A number of Ultra-Orthodox/Haredi youth have reportedly spat at Christian clergymen. Archbishop Aris Shirvanian, of Jerusalem's Armenian Patriarchate, says he personally has been spit at about 50 times in the past 12 years. The Anti-Defamation League has called on the chief Rabbis to speak out against the interfaith assaults. Father Goosan, Chief Dragoman of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, stated that, "I know there are fanatical Haredi groups that don't represent the general public but it's still enraging. It all begins with education. It's the responsibility of these men's yeshiva heads to teach them not to behave this way". In January 2010, Christian leaders, Israeli Foreign ministry staff, representatives of the Jerusalem municipality and the Haredi community met to discuss inter-faith tolerance. The Haredi Community Tribunal of Justice published a statement condemning harassment of Christians, stating that it was a "desecration of God's name." Several events were planned in 2010 by the Orthodox Yedidya congregation to show solidarity with Christians and improve relations between the Haredi and Christian communities of Jerusalem.

Hundreds of copies of the New Testament, which had been handed out in the city (allegedly by Messianic Jews), were burned by Orthodox students of Judaism in a suburb of Tel Aviv in 2008. Uzi Aharon, the town’s deputy mayor, told CNN he had collected the New Testaments but that he did not purposely plan them to be burned.

Palestinian territories

Further information: Islamization of the Gaza Strip and The Teacher's Bookshop

According to the organization Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), state-controlled Palestinian media frequently demonize religions like Judaism and Christianity. PMW translated into English a children's television program aired twice in 2012 it said featured a young girl saying Jews and Christians are "cowardly and despised."

West Bank

In 2002 a mob of Palestinian Muslims burned Christian property in Ramallah. A dossier submitted in 2005 to Church leaders in Jerusalem listed 93 incidents of abuse alleged to have been committed against Palestinian Christians by Muslim extremists and 140 cases of gangs allegedly stealing Christian land in the West Bank. In May 2012 a group of 100 Muslims attacked Taybeh, a Christian village in the West Bank.

Gaza

In 2007 the Gaza Strip had a tiny Christian minority of 2,500–3,000. The Hamas overthrow of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza during that year was accompanied by violent attacks against Christians and Christian holy sites by Islamic militants. A Catholic convent and Rosary Sisters school were ransacked, with some Christians blaming Hamas for the attack. In September 2007 Christian anxiety grew after an 80-year-old Christian women was attacked in her Gaza home by a masked man who robbed her and called her an infidel. That attack was followed less than a month later by a deadly assault on the owner of the only Christian bookstore in Gaza City. Muslim extremists were implicated as being behind the incident. The library of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was bombed in 2008 by gunmen who, according to guards at the site, asked why the guards worked for "infidels."

In 2011 the Christian population of Gaza Strip was less than 1,400. A member of the Catholic faith told The Guardian he was stopped by a Hamas official and told to remove a wooden crucifix he was wearing.

Saudi Arabia

The human rights advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC) told the Christian Post that 35 Christian Ethiopians – men and women – were violently arrested in Jeddah in December 2011 while holding a prayer meeting in their home. The prisoners complained of being persecuted on account of their faith and of being pressured to convert to Islam, and the women reported undergoing a humiliating strip search. According to the ICC, one prisoner said, "The Muslim preacher [that was sent by officials to speak to the prisoners] vilified Christianity, denigrated the Bible and told us that Islam is the only true religion."

Syria

In October 2011 a draft resolution passed by the European Parliament accused Syria of persecuting its Christian population. In March 2012 reports circulated indicating that Christians were expelled from parts of Homs by an anti-Assad militant group with ties to al-Qaeda. In June a report in Agenzia Fides indicated that most of Qusair's Christian inhabitants had abandoned the town in the wake of an ultimatum from a local rebel leader.

Turkey

See also: Bible publishing firm murders in Malatya, Turkey

Tunisia

A video aired on Egypt Today in 2012 showed the Muslim beheading of a young man who adopted the Christian faith and refused to renounce it.

Somalia

In September 2011 militants sworn to eradicate Christianity from Somalia beheaded two Christian converts. A third Christian convert was beheaded in Mogadishu in early 2012.

See also

• Anti-Catholicism
• Anti-clericalism
• Anti-Mormonism
• Anti-Protestantism
• Antireligion
• Antitheism
• Christmas controversy
• Civil and political rights
• International Christian Concern, a Christian human rights NGO whose mission is to help persecuted Christians
• Persecution of Christians
• Religious persecution
• Religious segregation
• Religious intolerance

Further reading

• Michael Moynihan, Didrik Søderlind. Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground, ISBN 0-922915-48-2

External links

• US Commission on International Religious Freedom
• National Alliance Against Christian Discrimination
• Website about Christianophobia What is Christianophobia, cases of Christianophobia in Europe
• News article on Bjorn Atldax Anti-Christian logo jeans
• News article about Christianophobia.
• News article about the Vatican's reaction to a "Seven Wonders of the World" contest that 'excluded' Christian monuments
• Protecting persecuted Christians - Christians throughout the world are victims of abuse, violence and discrimination
• Anti-Christian: a "Socially Acceptable Prejudice"
• http://www.licc.org.uk/engaging-with-culture/connecting-with-culture/religion/the-excommunication-of-rocco-buttiglione--173
• http://www.IntoleranceAgainstChristians.eu Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe