On the international scene, most of the attention is on what’s happening in Ukraine. And rightfully so. What will Putin do next? And what will Obama do in response? Important stuff.
But I’d like to devote this week’s blog to something that happened recently, that’s gotten very little attention. Dozens of high school boys, almost 60 in all, were ruthlessly slaughtered by Islamic terrorists in northeastern Nigeria.
It was approximately 2:00 A.M., and the students lay sleeping in their dormitory. An Islamic militant group, known as Boko Haram (meaning “Western education is forbidden”) surrounded the building, and set it ablaze. As the innocent schoolboys tried to escape from the burning building they either had their throats slit, or were gunned down. Horrifically, many of the victims were burned alive.
This is not the first, nor unfortunately the last time, this type of barbaric carnage has been carried out by Boko Haram on innocent students. (Click here to see the blog I wrote on July 10th, last year.)
Girls in a separate dorm were spared – this time. According to survivors, they were told to go home, get married, and abandon their Western education (which is offensive to Islam.) Otherwise, they would be next.
So why is this happening? Boko Haram will do whatever they think necessary to create an Islamic state, under strict Sharia law, in northern Nigeria. (The south is mostly Christian.) These Islamic murderers intend to crush any sign of Christianity, or Western influence, including Western education.
Unfortunately, Christianity is under attack across much of the Middle East and Africa today. The targeted destruction of Christian churches and holy sites, as well as the slaughter of innocent Christian human beings, is all too common, from Pakistan, to Iraq, to Syria, to Egypt, to Libya, to Somalia, to Kenya, to Malawi, to Nigeria.
Even traditional allies of the United States, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are extremely hostile to the open expression of the Christian faith, despite the fact that we have guaranteed their security for decades, and their citizens are free to exercise their Muslim faith when they come to the United States. (Tolerance appears to go in only one direction.)
Christianity, and civilization itself, are under attack in the so-called modern day world. (The attackers want to take us back to the 7th century.) The first step towards finding a solution, is recognizing that we have a problem.
Photo of Boko Haram militants.
