Crossroads Podcast: Angry Questions About Christians Being Persecuted

During a typical week, readers (or podcast listeners) send me emails or messages through various social-media platforms. Often, these people are frustrated or even angry.

Most of the time these folks are not upset with me. More often than not, they are ticked off about something they have seen — or failed to see — in mainstream press coverage of the news. The topic I hear about the most was the subject of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.

Recently, someone sent me this headline: “Kidnappings hit Nigerian clergy again and again.” The lede on that story noted: 

Catholic priests in Nigeria have always been a prized target for kidnappers, but the first two months of 2025 have witnessed a dramatic surge in kidnappings — and sometimes the murder of clergy.

Not less than seven Catholic priests have been kidnapped in Africa’s most populous nation since January this year.

It was a solid, informative story. Why was my correspondent upset? Because the story was in the Catholic publication Crux and he could not find these recent events in the mainstream news publications that he frequents.

Or how about this headline, which I found while hunting for mainstream press coverage of another topic of interest to several readers: “Were Christians targeted in Syria’s deadly crackdown?”

Once again, this was a complex, interesting, timely report — with on-to-record quotes from important sources that should have credibility with mainstream newsrooms. Ah, but this news report was in LaCroix, a French publication targeting Catholic readers.

Mainstream coverage of this persecution angle? Check out this Google News search for some logical terms linked to this topic, such as “Syria,” “Christians,” “Alawite,” “killed” and “2025.” What do you see in that file? Once again, this story appears to have been defined as a “conservative” or strictly “religious” subject and, thus, not worthy of coverage. 

The violence in Syria, you see, is “political.” 

Now, I dug into the Syria story after hearing that the leader of the ancient Antiochian Orthodox church (of which I am a member) had delivered a blunt, impassioned sermon about the violence — on a highly symbolic Sunday in the Orthodox calendar. Here is the top of that column (which is long, but I hope worth a reader’s time):

In the Triumph of Orthodoxy service on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the clergy and faithful proclaim — with many shouting — bold statements of faith from the year 787.

“This is the Faith of the Apostles! This is the Faith of the Fathers! This is the Faith of the Orthodox! This is the Faith, which has established the Universe!”

These words were especially poignant during the March 9 rites at the Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus, amid reports that hundreds, maybe thousands, of ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims of the Alawite sect, had been killed by Islamist militias in Syria.

The Antiochian Orthodox Patriarch John X addressed, by name, the nation's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former ISIS and al-Qaeda militant who is also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani.

“Mr. President, two days ago, I heard a sheikh, a friend of mine, publicly say that the Noble Prophet (Mohammad) instructed his followers that, ‘If they go to war against a people, they must not harm the innocent, must not betray, must not mutilate, must not kill a woman or a child, and if they find a monk in his hermitage, they must not kill him,’” he said, in a translation by the ancient Antiochian patriarchate.

The patriarch added: “The tragic events unfolding in the Syrian coastal region have claimed the lives of many civilians and public security personnel, leaving numerous others wounded. However, the majority of the victims were not affiliated with any militant factions; rather, they were innocent, unarmed civilians, including women and children”

A member of the European Parliament, who attended that liturgy, later said that contacts with the new Syrian government and with religious groups indicated that as many as 7,000 people had died in this wave of violence.

Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a statement addressing the crisis. So did U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

This is a news story, a real news story. Why not cover the religion angle?

Well, for starters the mainstream press struggles to “get” religion. And religion on the other side of the world is even more problematic, since most American readers are tragically uninterested in global news.

Also, these stories involve politics and economics, as well as religion. Guess which subject gets left out because it is less “real” than the others? And it doesn’t help that the people who complain about the lack of coverage are, for the most part, religious and cultural conservatives. These dying Christians have the wrong allies.

But here is the question that I want to end with: Why aren’t MORE people in American pews making more noise about this kind of bloody, deadly persecution? Why aren’t they calling journalists or showing up in the lobbies of news headquarters? 

Please consider this overture from one of my columns: “Persecution — The power of apathy.”

For ages, many Christians have tried to work out the details for the apocalypse, right down to the precise arrival time for Jesus Christ's return flight from heaven.

Some of today's best-known end-times experts are convinced, based on verses in Daniel and Revelation, that the saints can count on being air-lifted, or "raptured," out of this terrestrial combat zone just before all hell — literally — breaks loose.

"For those of us living in this world today as we approach an age of growing persecution, there's something else to look forward to," according to best-selling author Hal Lindsey. "For God promises that He will take His flock out of this world just before the persecution becomes most unbearable.”

This should be comforting news to those seeing their children sold as slaves in the Sudan, their churches burned in Pakistan, their pastors murdered in Iran or their bishops locked up in China, notes Canadian scholar Paul Marshall, with obvious sarcasm. Apparently, today's suffering saints have worse days ahead. Or perhaps martyrs far from America just don't count.

Fascination with "the rapture" might explain why many Christians don't take persecution seriously, said Marshall. They expect to be given a pass.

While this doesn't require Christians to ignore "current persecution, it does in practice seem to lead to a fatalism wherein persecution is simply taken for granted," argues Marshall. … "The result is a stunning passivity that calmly accepts such suffering. Perhaps this ... could be justified if we were dealing with our own suffering. But to do this with the suffering of another amounts to theological sadism."

This sounds very up to date. Right? 

This column was written in 1997. Think about that.

There’s more to this blind spot than mere media bias.

Enjoy the podcast, if “enjoy” is the right word, and please pass it along to others.