Open Doors, an organization that advocates for persecuted Christians, recently released its latest World Watch List—a report that highlights and ranks the 50 worst nations to be Christian. It found that 2015 was the “worst year in modern history for Christian persecution.”
Who claims the lion’s share of this unprecedented persecution? Muslims—of all races, nationalities, languages, and socio-political circumstances: Muslims from among America’s closest allies (Saudi Arabia #14 worst persecutor) and its opponents (Iran #9); Muslims from economically rich nations (Qatar #21) and from poor nations (Somalia #7 and Yemen #11); Muslims from “Islamic republic” nations (Afghanistan #4) and from “moderate” nations (Malaysia #30 and Indonesia #43); Muslims from nations rescued by America (Kuwait #41) and Muslims from nations claiming “grievances” against the U.S. (fill in the blank __).
The report finds that “Islamic extremism” is the main source of persecution in 41 of the top 50 countries—that is, 82 percent of the world’s persecution of Christians is being committed by Muslims. As for the top ten worst countries persecuting Christians, nine of them are Muslim-majority—that is, 90 percent of nations where Christians experience “extreme persecution” are Muslim.
Still, considering that the 2016 World Watch List ranks North Korea—non-Islamic, communist—as the number one worst persecutor of Christians, why belabor the religious identity of Muslims? Surely this suggests that Christian persecution is not intrinsic to the Islamic world but is rather a product of repressive regimes and other socio-economic factors—as the North Korean example suggests and as many politicians and other talking heads maintain?
Here we come to some critically important but rarely acknowledged distinctions. While Christians are indeed suffering extreme persecution in North Korea, these fall into the realm of the temporal and aberrant. Something as simple as overthrowing Kim Jong-un’s regime could lead to a quick halt to the persecution—just as the fall of Communist Soviet Union saw the end of religious persecution. The vibrancy of Christianity in South Korea is suggestive of what may be in store—and thus creates such fear for—its northern counterpart.
In the Islamic world, however, a similar scenario would not alleviate the sufferings of Christians by an iota. Quite the opposite; where dictators fall (often thanks to U.S. intervention)—Saddam in Iraq, Qaddafi in Libya, and ongoing attempts against Assad in Syria—Christian persecution dramatically rises. Today Iraq is the second worst nation in the world in which to be Christian, Syria fifth, and Libya tenth. A decade ago under the “evil” dictators, Iraq was ranked 32, Syria 47, and Libya 22.
