Religious toleration is the governmental allowance of all types of religion. Citizens who do not enjoy this freedom include 12 recently murdered Ethiopian Christians and 1500 forced Islamic converts.

Situation: In a country with a state religion, toleration means that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion.  Additionally, the government swears to protect rather than persecute its citizens of all religions.  Governments of all types and religious commitments have failed to enact toleration and have contributed to religious persecution. Catholic governments supported the vicious persecution of Muslims in the Crusades. The German pagans slaughtered millions of Jews in the Holocaust.  In the current day, Islamic governments seek and destroy Christians.  Even in a supposedly enlightened age, zeal for persecution displaces zeal for toleration in many countries.

Statistics: Statistics abound on this matter.  Nowhere is the situation worse than in Eritrea.  The 2002 declaration to ban evangelical churches marked the beginning of a series of raids in which Eritrean officials arrested Christians without charges. At the end of 2005 there was an estimated 1,750 Christians in prisons and military camps. Currently the estimate has increased to nearly 2,000. Among these 2,000 individuals, an ICC source reports that as many as 50 children are imprisoned with their parents.  Eritrea is merely one example of many around the world of such atrocities.

YOU SHOULD CARE because numerous governments are turning on their own citizens or allowing certain religions to persecute minority religions.  People are not merely suffering from a lack of religious toleration; in many cases, people are dying brutal deaths from the hands of those sworn to protect them.  Join this cause and add your voice to those who will not stand for persecution of people of any faith or creed.

• 03/28/2007 09:16
  • 03/28/2007 09:10
  • 03/28/2007 08:52