just a little jihad?

A few weeks ago we reported about hundreds of boys that asked to be rescued from a jihad camp. Of course, one of the Impact Teams complied. You don’t say “No, I’m sorry, we don’t have the funds to rescue you.”

And why is it important to put their rescue in the urgent category?

Let me explain…

There is no such thing as a “little” jihad.

There are just “little” people being targeted by jihadists.

For example:

A simple celebration. Safaratu John had just given birth to a baby, and her family had gathered to celebrate. She was with her church family … her neighbors … who were Baptist and Catholic, Pentecostal and Reformed. All Christians, all neighbors, in a small community called Honshu-Numa in Nigeria. And then the shooting started. On April 14th seventeen of the community were quietly buried. The babies father remains in critical condition in the hospital, as do eight others.

People who died in the shooting ranged from ten year old Matthew Emmanuel to eighty year old Ali Nkene. Eleven year old Ayubu shares a name with my grandson, Wambua Ayuba. It hits home in a special way when you share names.

Turn the globe slightly, and eleven month old Seth Fernado was buried with his six year old sister Fabiola and four year old sister Leona. The grave was a family grave. Their parents were slain as well. As were hundreds of others after the jihad in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. Many tombs now hold entire families. Others were not so fortunate. A mother of three, gone. A father, leaving a widow and child. An engineer, a seven year old. It’s inexplicable, horrible, shaking.

Why? Why target these people.

Because they are Christians is a simplistic answer.

Yes, they were chosen to be recipients of jihad because they are Christians. But there is more.

  1. They were practicing Christians. These were people who were living out their faith. The Christian life is joyous; people get together and celebrate simple things, like the birth of a baby. Yes, in Sri Lanka, people who happened by were also caught in the carnage, but the focus was on the Christians celebrating Easter. Like the bombings in Ninevah in 2005 around Christmas.

  2. They are in countries where the local government has a history of leaving Christians vulnerable, making it difficult for them to get building permits, and not taking jihad seriously. This creates a carte blanche for those who are being churned out of ISIS or Boko Haram schools. As the Apostolic Diocese Of Ceylon - ADC said on their facebook page, “ The attackers intentions was clearly targeting Christians as a whole. This has been a historical reoccurrence in Sri Lanka. Since Christian persecution has been negligently handled, this segment’s vulnerability can be attractive to extremist and terrorist hate cells to take advantage of. It could be considered that one possible reason Sri Lanka was selected for this attack might be due to the fact that Christians are known to be unprotected vulnerable targets, simplifying the organization of violence against them.”

It is CRUCIAL that we ask how this plays out.

First, let’s look at history. Today it is 104 years since the Genocide targeting Armenian and other Christian minorities living in the Ottoman Empire began. Twenty long years reports were sent by missionaries and diplomats to ask for help. But for reasons we may never fully understand, a blind eye was turned and about 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered. Nearly one million Greeks met the same fate. Assyrian Christians, who still worshipped in Aramaic, lost 250,000 members.

Why? Because they were Christians is a simplistic answer.

Yes, they were living out their faith. In fact, a Revival had come to the soil of what is now called Turkey. But there is more.

  1. By the end of the Genocide, the land had been “cleansed” of almost all the people who were the rightful heir of Anatolia. The Armenians had been in the eastern part of Asia Minor since 331BC. The Greeks had been there since 800BC. The Assyrians since 911BC.

  2. The Sultan and the Ottoman Empire had long looked for an excuse to eradicate these people. If any doubt of that exists, the followup population exchange - removing another roughly 2 million Greeks, also pushed the remaining Assyrians into Syria and Armenians into Armenia. But it didn’t end there. Some urban minorities remained. In the 1950s a “Krystalnacht” was ordained and the police were told to be absent while rabble was set loose to loot and rape the Christian communities of Istanbul. Those who remained after that were brave indeed.

So, by example of the Ottoman Empire, which was the seat of power for Islam from 1299AD on, we see that taking territory and removing remnant, minority Christians is an ultimate goal of a well established Muslim regime. Examples of what happened to the Coptic church of Egypt, or the Christians of North Africa, and the Nestorians who were slain by the millions under Tamerlane could be used to further this example.

How about recently?

Roughly 300 million Christians face persecution right now, according to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Of the world’s 2.3 billion Christians 13% were openly persecuted in 2018, according to  Pew Research Center. The top 50 countries on Open Doors USA’s 2019 World Watch List outlines that 245 million Believers experience high levels of persecution. Roughly 345 Christians are killed every month. Put another way, currently, 1 in 9 Christians face persecution in 50 countries on earth.

Persecution looks like torture, rape, sex-slavery, forced conversions, the demolition of churches and loss of property, murder and genocide - there’s that word again. Not to mention that once a certain level of torment and fear takes over a region, people leave. And there’s that end goal. Land conquered for Islam.

In 2018 this increased 14%.

60% of those facing this cruelty are women and girls.

That’s because the boys they take are valuable. They can be used as fodder for jihad camps.

And that brings us back to the boys ASKING to leave the jihad camp. These boys asked because they just “happened” to be a village where a team bravely travelled to show the Jesus Film. After seeing the film, these boys chose to follow Jesus. They had never heard of Him. They were convicted, repented, and gave their lives to Him. They will NOT be blowing themselves up in Jihad. They will be re-creating a healthy society in their nation.

Does this mean that we should froth at the mouth and hate Muslims? Heavens no!!!!!

It does mean:

  1. Muslims as individuals are precious people who have not yet had a chance to hear about Jesus in a way that is culturally relevant. When they do, they almost always turn to Him. Therefore we NEED TO SEND WORKERS INTO THEIR HARVEST FIELD.

  2. Where Christians ARE persecuted, we Christians who are NOT being persecuted NEED TO PROACTIVELY GET INVOLVED AND DO ALL WE CAN TO HELP THEM.

  3. Being proactive looks like either GOING or SENDING. If you can’t go, making sure you are directing sacrificial giving towards helping the local, persecuted church constructively address faoundational issues caused by jihad.

  4. The MOST VULNERABLE in this situation are the children. The children raised to be jihadi; the children captured and trained to be jihadi; the little girls captured as sex slaves; as well as widows and orphans.

  5. A constructive solution to jihad looks like equipping a local church to reach out to and provide love and care and solutions that bring hope to THIS SPECIFIC SEGMENT OF SOCIETIES RECEIVING PERSECUTION.

  6. It’s that simple. Love looks like something. Lets tangibly work together to prevent more jihad by loving better. With our Actions.