Pray for Churches in the Middle East and Africa (and anywhere else Islam is the dominant religion)

Various Churches that claim the name of Christ have been violently attacked for centuries. A reminder of the hatred toward Christianity is before us again as churches in Iraq, Egypt, and Nigeria have faced murderous violence these past few days.

Christians should pray for these churches in these places. Make no mistake, the attacks are against Christ whether the churches are faithfully Christian or not.

I am not sure if official credit has been taken yet, but we all know the attackers, once again, are Muslims doing so in the name of Islam. Surely some Muslims will say such actions are not in line with Islamic teaching, but one is hard pressed to prove such a claim from the consistent approach of Muslims relating to other religions (especially Christianity) from Mohamed to present day. It's never right to threaten people with death if they don't convert or to kill people because they have a different religious belief.

I found the reaction of Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt, to be rationally mystifying but politically predictable. After the attack on the Coptic congregation in his country, Mubarak condemned all violence that involved Christians and Muslims saying-

"This act of terrorism shook the country's conscience, shocked our feelings and hurt the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians...The blood of their martyrs in the land of Alexandria mixed to tell us all that all Egypt is the target and that blind terrorism does not differentiate between a Copt and a Muslim."

Mubarak calls this act of mass murder "blind terrorism". In reality we know this attack was not blind at all. It seems coordinated with other New Years Eve church attacks in other countries. It further seems pretty clear that it is another act of Islamic terrorism. Have Christians terrorized a mosque (or anyone else) lately and we haven't heard? Is there some other association of people, who are not claiming Islamic reasoning, attacking Christians (or anyone else) in the Middle East right now? It may be blind terrorism in that it doesn't care who it kills, but the particular religious zeal of the attackers couldn't be easier to identify.

Mubarak is right about one thing- terrorism doesn't differentiate between Copt and Muslim, he just didn't mention the common denominator when Copts or Muslims are attacked- Islamic terrorists.

There's really no chance of combatting the most common kind of terrorism we are witnessing in the world today until people admit what we have is an Islamic Terrorism problem- not just multiple cases of disassociated crazies randomly killing people. There's nothing random about what Mohamed did, the Turks did in the Middle Ages, or the Islamic terrorists are doing today. It's all very purposeful, even generally predictable.

The Coptic, Iraqi, and Nigerian Christians were attacked and killed by certain Muslims who hate Christ's Church. Period.