We need to hear the voices of our brothers and sisters around the world even more. The persecution increases in the Middle East. Chuck Colson’s broadcast today focused on this issue. Please pray for the Body of Christ around the world.

Before the Iraq War began, Christians comprised about five percent of the population of Iraq. Since then more than half have fled the country. And with last fall’s Islamic terrorist raid on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad that left fifty-nine dead, many who are still there are planning to run for their lives as well.

The New York Times reported that an Iraqi army officer told a Christian living in hiding, “We cannot protect you.” “Cannot”? Or “will not”?

What is especially disturbing is that what is happening in Iraq is beginning to happen across the Middle East. And the implications for Middle Eastern Christians and the strategic interests of the United States and the West could not be more serious.

You probably read about the vicious New Year’s attack on Egyptian Christians. Radical Muslims bombed the Coptic “Church of the Two Saints” as worshippers left a midnight New Year’s service.

Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute noted that the bombing highlights the Egyptian government’s failure to protect its Christians, some 10 percent of the country’s population.” In fact, in Egypt, “It is extremely rare for anyone to be punished for sectarian violence against . . . Christians.”

And in Turkey the Church is being slowly suffocated. According to the 2010 report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Turkish government restrictions “effectively deny non-Muslim communities the right to own and maintain property, train religious clergy, obtain and renew visas for religious personnel… [or] offer religious education.” The result is predictable: the Turkish Church is vanishing.

Even in formerly tolerant Muslim countries, the tide is turning against Christians. Morocco recently started deporting foreign Christian aid workers and educators. Nina Shea suspects that the government is feeling pressure from Islamic extremists.

We pray to the Lord… Lord, hear our prayer!