A lack of religious freedom in sub-Saharan Africa has thrown the region into turmoil.
“This is the first freedom, so to speak,” says David Curry, of Open Doors USA, while describing religious freedom. “It’s the place where . . . people are being pressured for issues of conscience. If you cannot decide for yourself if you’re going to be able to read a Bible and worship freely and go to church . . . you’re not free at all.”
And that certainly describes the situation in Nigeria, along with Cameroon, Chad, and Burkina Faso. Militant Islamic group Boko Haram has been ravaging the land for years, killing and kidnapping Christians and others. And the situation only seems to be growing worse.
Curry says, “You have a clash of civilizations of sorts [with] a lot of Christians in the South of Nigeria, and Islamic Sharia law states in the North. And for a long time, Nigeria has been the most violent place, that we can measure, against Christians.” Curry says North Korea, for instance, may be a more violent place for Christians, but the danger there is not as easily measured.
Boko Haram is always getting bolder, Curry says. “You have weak, weak governments that are responding very slowly and ineffectually and it’s really emboldening Boko Haram in a way that I think is problematic. We could see them conquering . . . what they would call a caliphate where they feel like they own an entire region that would cross three or four different country boundaries.”
SOURCE: Mission Network News, Kevin Zeller
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