– Martin E. Marty

 ¢â‚¬Å“Iran Targets Christians with a Wave of Arrests, ¢â‚¬   ¢â‚¬Å“Egyptian Copts Mark
Christmas Cautiously, ¢â‚¬  and  ¢â‚¬Å“Anti-Christian Crimes Downplayed, ¢â‚¬  were all
Friday headlines that set the tone for weekend coverage of bad news. Google
some words like  ¢â‚¬Å“Christian Martyrs ¢â‚¬  and scroll down from early Christian
accounts to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will find claims
that hundreds of millions of Christians died for their faith in the
twentieth century and that several hundred thousand still do each year of
the still new twenty-first century. I ¢â‚¬â„¢ve often questioned the methodology,
definition, or mathematics of the tabulators, but when all is done and said,
it ¢â‚¬â„¢s in place to say:  ¢â‚¬Å“No matter. Even a single death for this cause is one
too many. ¢â‚¬ 

The stories are played because there is such terrible news daily, but *Chicago
Sun-Times* columnist Steve Huntley also wrote that these  ¢â‚¬Å“crimes ¢â‚¬ –and they
are that–are  ¢â‚¬Å“downplayed. ¢â‚¬  There is no reason to disagree with his
reporting of the crimes, but it is in place to ask what is at issue in the
charge that they are  ¢â‚¬Å“downplayed. ¢â‚¬  A reader has to ask who is doing the
downplaying, for which readership, and for what reason.

Huntley has a mission; look him up and you will see that he is regularly
pursuing those he regards as soft on Islam. His charges begin: American
media talk too much about Islamophobia, but not enough about  ¢â‚¬Å“the bloody
persecution of Christians in parts of the Muslim world. ¢â‚¬  That the
persecution goes on is unquestionably true. Whether it receives too little
media space or time is harder to assess. Huntley continues his mission:
merely report an Islamist threat, he complains, and you will be subjected to
charges of bigotry. But most pressing on Huntley ¢â‚¬â„¢s mind is the fact that too
much of  ¢â‚¬Å“Islamist terrorism, ¢â‚¬  backed by  ¢â‚¬Å“radical theology, ¢â‚¬  bad clerics and
bad governments is  ¢â‚¬Å“enabled ¢â‚¬  also by  ¢â‚¬Å“too much silence, or worse,
acquiescence in the Muslim world. ¢â‚¬  I think that all these charges by Huntley
are grounded, but columns like his prompt further questions which need to be
faced.

What is to be the end result of such pleading for  ¢â‚¬Å“playing up ¢â‚¬  the stories
and their meanings? Should America undertake armed intervention in the  ¢â‚¬Å“top
10 countries that are most dangerous for Christians to practice their
religion in? ¢â‚¬  (Eight of these are Muslim, according to some assessments).
First, America *is* deeply involved already. Second, should Americans find
more ways to protect endangered Christians in Muslim societies? Yes. Exactly
how that is to be done is hard to say. Will whatever  ¢â‚¬Å“we ¢â‚¬  do be better
received if we play up instead of merely play or certainly downplay the
crimes? The history of hysteria in wartime suggests that the loss of
perspective is costly, and it often issues in atrocity or blunderbuss
actions. We obviously need accurate reporting and mature interpretation, and
the media at their best can promote both.

On a different track we note that many reports chide Christians in America
for  ¢â‚¬Å“downplaying ¢â‚¬  or at least for not being sufficiently agitated and
counter-aggressive when their brothers and sisters in those eight Islamic
nations suffer. In my sightings, I do see and agree that many of them do not
put as high a priority on playing up and calling for responses to Islamic
(or other) persecutions of Christians. One hears fewer reports of Christian
identification with Christian sufferers *as* Christian than, say, of Jewish
identification with and support for beleaguered Jews in distant lands. Yet
Christians are urged first to be  ¢â‚¬Å“working for the good of all ¢â‚¬  and then,
especially, for  ¢â‚¬Å“those of the family of faith. ¢â‚¬  The two objects of their
concern are not mutually exclusive.

*Resources*

Farnaz Fassihi and Matt Bradley, “Iran Targets Christians with a Wave of
Arrests<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730704576066033828042322.html>,”
*Wall Street Journal*, January 7, 2011.

Amro Hassan, “Egyptian Christians’ Christmas Celebration Clouded by
New<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-fg-egypt-copts-christmas-20110107,0,6717027.story>,”
*Chicago** Tribune*, January 7, 2011.

Steve Huntley, “Anti-Christian Crimes
Downplayed<http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/3170704-452/christians-christian-anti-attack-christianity.html>,”
*Chicago** Sun-Times*, January 7, 2011.

*Martin E. Marty’s* biography, current projects, publications, and contact
information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

———-
*Sightings* comes from the Martin Marty
Center<http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/>at the University of
Chicago Divinity School.

Attribution

Columns may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author
of the column, *Sightings*, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of
Chicago Divinity School.