International Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The UN chose this date because January 27th, 1945 is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Unfortunately, in the 69 years since, hatred against Christians and Jews has become fashionable again. In predominantly Christian countries Christians are now being branded intolerant, narrow-minded, radical, and dangerous, labels far more appropriate for their accusers. Many challenge Israel’s right to defend itself from nuclear annihilation and act as if they should just sit there patiently waiting for whatever genocidal radicals want to launch at them. Atrocities against Jews and Christians can be waved off while crimes against other groups make international headlines. The true scope of what is happening has been cruelly narrowed by the mainstream media.

We are arguably in the midst of another holocaust, one in which most of us stand idly by as Christians, Jews, and others are raped, tortured, imprisoned, massacred, threatened, mutilated, and slandered while they are driven from their burning homes or livelihoods. Even some Americans are being illegally held and tortured for their faith in other countries, with the current administration doing very little to bring them home.

The Christian advocacy group Open Doors estimates that 100 million Christians are being persecuted around the world. This will only get worse as radical Islam spreads and Westerners feel that they can’t speak out against it for fear of being socially unacceptable. One only need look at pictures of Christians being starved to death in Syria or the bullet-riddled bodies of children in Sudan to find evidence of this growing threat that seems hell-bent on dragging civilization back to the Dark Ages.

Millions of people around the world are going through hell while most of humanity turns a blind eye. For this reason I believe that persecution will continue to spread across the globe and has the potential to consume many more human lives than were taken in the mid-20th century. Millions of people are far too preoccupied with alcohol, drugs, sports, tracking who their favorite celebrity is having sex with, and other idle past times that keep their focus on themselves and pleasure rather than the stark reality most of the planet lives in. As we’ve forgotten about God we’ve begun to lose our humanity as well.

Einstein said that the world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. Some statistics show that in the 20th century alone more than 260 million people died at the hands of their governments, whether through mass murder, politicide, or mass murder. In my lifetime my country alone has lost another 55 million lives through abortion. Somehow someone always finds a reason to justify taking others’ lives while protecting their own.

This Monday, please take a moment to reflect on what has happened in the not so distant past and what is happening all over the world in the present. You might not agree or identify with Judeo-Christian values, but please remember that those values have been the foundation for freedom and liberty. If you can read these words then you have benefited from them. And if you don’t stand up for your neighbors, then who will be left to protect you when some twisted regime decides you’re threatening and disposable as well?

Martin Luther King Jr. said that he who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. Where do you stand today? Are you ignoring the suffering and deaths of others or are you actively standing against it? Are you willing to call out evils that seek the mistreatment and murder of others for what they are?

Please think about the great responsibility we as a race have for our fellow human beings, right here, right now. If we stand silently by while the forces of darkness swarm over the planet, then we are allowing something far more insidious than Nazism to multiply and prosper. We have said “never again”– but how then do we explain what is happening all over the world this very night?

For more information, please see:

Barnabas Aid

Open Doors

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Jerusalem Prayer Team Here you can find out how to help the startling number of elderly holocaust survivors that are struggling with poverty and homelessness.

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Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.
-Elie Wiesel

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