The ISIS Threat to Christians in Iraq

It has been more than a year since the last of Mosul’s 60,000 Christians were entirely displaced, killed or trafficked at the hands of ISIS.

Now, the only Christians remaining in the entire Nineveh Plain of Iraq are those held as sex slaves, and nearly all of the region’s ancient churches and monasteries have been destroyed or converted into a mosque, madrassa or prison.

In some places the ISIS genocide has been so thorough that the militants have taken chisels to the crosses engraved on tombstones in Christian cemeteries.

A community that took 2,000 years to build has been destroyed in a matter of months. In the 21st century.

The overall situation in Iraq and Syria has been characterized by the United Nations as the worst in our modern era. Yet, for the world’s two-billion-strong Christian community, it is even more consequential. Paul wrote to the Corinthians at another time when Christians were being beheaded, “If one member of the body suffers; all suffer together.”

We have an obligation to empathize and raise our voices on behalf of justice and do as King Solomon advised us to do, “rescue those being led away to death.” We are to, as Hebrews 13:3 says, “remember those who are in prison as if you were together with them.”

We have a biblical mandate to be engaged in this crisis, and at the very least we must raise our voices in solidarity and protest.