The new episode of Holy Smoke is about the persecution of Christians. That’s a familiar concept, even if we don’t read much about it in the media. But here’s what it means in 2019:
- The rape, murder and dismemberment of pregnant Christian women in Nigeria by Islamist thugs.
- The use of face-recognition technology by the Chinese government to monitor, control and, where it deems necessary, eradicate Christian worship by demolishing thousands of churches
- The evisceration of ancient Christian communities in the lands of the Bible.
- The relentless torture of Christians in North Korea.
- The burning of Christian villages by Hindu nationalists in India, and vicious attacks on Christians in Sri Lanka and Burma by Buddhists, egged on by bloodthirsty monks. It’s hard to overestimate the threat to religious freedom posed by the spread of Asian religious nationalism.
Meanwhile the Church of England builds helter-skelters and crazy golf courses in its cathedrals, while the Vatican is manoeuvred by Beijing into signing a concordat that legitimises China’s government-run parody of the Catholic Church.
It’s a scandalous situation – though, to be fair to the Church of England, the new Bishop of Truro, Philip Mountstephen, has just published an impressive report for the Foreign Office into the global persecution of Christians.
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