NEWS STORY: Christian leaders urge new mobilization against religious persecution

c. 1996 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS)-Leaders of more than 40 evangelical and Catholic organizations Tuesday (Jan. 23) urged the federal government to take up the cause of persecuted Christians around the world. At the same time, the leaders, representing churches, mission agencies and political advocacy groups, conceded that the Christian community itself has not […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-Leaders of more than 40 evangelical and Catholic organizations Tuesday (Jan. 23) urged the federal government to take up the cause of persecuted Christians around the world.

At the same time, the leaders, representing churches, mission agencies and political advocacy groups, conceded that the Christian community itself has not spoken out forcefully enough on the issue.”Our consciences have been seared … by the indifference, the lack of moral outrage (and) the absolutely scandalous silence of the Christian community toward the persecution of Christians worldwide,”said former Watergate figure Charles Colson, president of the evangelical Prison Fellowship International.


Human rights groups report that Christians in many places, including China, Vietnam, Cuba, the Middle East and Northern Africa, face arrest, torture, imprisonment and extrajudicial executions.

For example, some 200 Catholic priests and Protestant pastors are currently imprisoned in China because of their religious activities, according to Freedom House, a New York-based nonprofit human rights organization.

Freedom House, co-founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt, and its Puebla Program on Religious Freedom sponsored Tuesday’s program.

Conference participants heard several witnesses describe ongoing repression of Christians by Islamist, communist and nationalist regimes.”There’s a struggle of great proportions taking place around the world,”said the Rev. Keith Roderick, secretary general of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights Under Islamization, which represents Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox groups in Muslim countries.

During a closed-door session, participants discussed specific strategies to educate Christians about the persecution issue and mobilize them to pressure the federal government to take action.

As part of the new grassroots effort, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) released a”Statement of Conscience”calling on the U.S. government to”adopt policies that would limit religious persecution,”especially among evangelicals.

The statement by the NAE, which claims to represent some 27 million church members of 47 evangelical denominations, urged several actions, including:


-a major policy address by President Bill Clinton on the issue;

-the appointment of a special adviser to the president on religious liberty;

-improvements in State Department research and documentation of religious liberty violations;

-changes in what the NAE called the”indifferent and occasionally hostile manner”with which the Immigration and Naturalization Service treats religious asylum cases;

-termination of U.S. foreign aid to countries that allow religious persecution. “Religious liberty is not a privilege to be granted or denied by an all-powerful state, but a God-given human right,”stated the NAE.”We appeal not only to our own government, but to the governments of every nation that would be free to treasure religious freedom.” In a private meeting at the White House Jan. 16, NAE President Don Argue invited Clinton to speak on the administration’s policy on religious freedom during the association’s annual convention, scheduled March 3-5 in Minneapolis. The White House has not yet formally responded to the invitation, although Argue said the president appeared”favorably disposed”to the idea.

Argue also urged Clinton to raise the issue of religious liberty during Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for a comment on the NAE statement. However, Clinton issued a letter to participants at the Freedom House conference emphasizing his concern about persecution of Christians.”My administration is committed to religious rights everywhere and for all-rights that are fundamental to our goal of furthering the cause of democracy and building a cooperative international community,”the president said.

Argue said the association’s call for federal action was not intended as a political statement.”We are not wanting to politicize anything,”he said.”This is a call to the government to step to the plate and do something regarding the documented cases of violations of religious freedom, especially of evangelical Christians around the world.” Argue added that the Christian community will not be satisfied with”just vanilla words of rhetoric”from the administration.

Catholic leaders also promised support for the campaign.”Today marks the time of a new solidarity of consciousness by Christians in this country and around the world,”said Carl Anderson, vice president of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization.


Among the participants at Tuesday’s meeting were Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based advocacy group on family issues; U.S. Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie; religious broadcaster D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge (Fla.) Presbyterian Church; Thomas Melady, an official with the Catholic Campaign for America; and Richard Land, executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission.

MJP END LAWTON

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