Lately, there has been a lot of discussion concerning the violence and persecution, directed against christians, in the Middle East. This mad eme think about something. I think most of us are familiar with cases, where orthodox christians have acted violent against non-orthodox religions in orthodox countries.
Churches being set on fire, pentecostals having their church demolished and jehovah's Witnesses being attacked in public to mention a few examples.
I am in no way saying that these two forms of persecution should be considered equal in measure, however, can we, as orthodox christians, allow ourselves to criticise the muslim world, when many people are experiensing discrimination in orthodox countries?
Yes. We should be criticising any persecution anywhere regardless of whether the perpetrators or the victims are Orthodox. The governments and people in predominantly Orthodox countries shouldn't get let off without criticism, but nor should the fact that abuses exist within our sphere prevent us from criticising similar, or worse, abuses elsewhere.
James
