At the Mercy of the Idealists and their Utopian States

Although many Christians are being persecuted and even exterminated in Muslim countries, religious persecution has become the established practice in five nations of the world still committed to the idealist, progressive vision of creating a workers’ paradise. I’m talking about the atheistic-communistic “paradise.” (Even though China continues to persecute their Christians, I will not even mention this country, since it is arguably no longer communistic, leaving only four communist nations.)

The worst offender is North Korea:

• Wednesday, October 9th, 2013: This week several prominent defectors from North Korea will be testifying in front of the UK parliament on the horrors of life inside the "Hermit Kingdom." Their stories of incredible loss and escape from the world's darkest nation have helped the UN Human Rights Council for the first time establish a record of the atrocities still being committed today by the Communist dictatorship. Although this report does not mention it, North Korea is also the world’s number one persecutor of Christians. To own a Bible is illegal and we know of at least one individual in recent years who was executed for distributing Bibles. Thousands of Christians worship in complete secrecy and thousands more are imprisoned in some of the most horrific conditions on earth.

• Monday, October 7th, 2013: The President of the United States could decide to impose sanctions upon organizations or individuals in North Korea that participate in the mass persecution of Christians. North Korea is believed to have as many as 70,000 Christians locked up in labor camps around the country. Owning a Bible is illegal and punishable by life in prison or even summary execution.

The conditions are so deplorable that these internments are almost equivalent to death sentences. What is so threatening to the authorities about owning a Bible? If atheism is so patently reasonable, as atheists allege, how could the Bible represent a threat to them? How ironic that atheist-communist idealism should consistently produce the most unbelievable horrors and the most repressive societies. Laos is another of the four:

• Friday, September 27th, 2013: Across rural areas of Laos reports are coming in of Christian communities being pressure to give up their new found faith in Christ. Those who refuse are threatened with forced eviction from their homes. Animism, or the worship of the natural world, is a traditional belief system for many villages in Laos. Last year report also emerged of Christian community leaders being arrested and held in stockades, despite the fact that the Lao constitution guarantees religious freedom.

• Saturday, September 7th, 2013: As one of the five remaining Communist nations on earth, Laos continues to treat religious minorities with contempt. In rural areas Christians, especially newly-converted Christians, face intimidation and harassment at the hands of local authorities. Late last month a large group of 11 Christian families were told they must "recant" their Christian faith or face forced eviction from their homes.

Why is it that atheism-communism is consistently associated with dehumanization and repression, more so than with any worldview? There must be something endemic to it that has produced such uniformly hideous results. Cuba is now heralded among some communists as the communist “success story.” However, this isn’t the portrait that reality has painted:

• Tuesday, January 15th, 2013: The Apostolic Movement, a network of Protestant Churches in Cuba claims that the Government is threatening to destroy Church property and threatening the family members of the Church.  Christian Solidarity Worldwide says, “Once again we call on the Cuban government to uphold the religious freedom of all its citizens and to instruct government officials at the national, provincial and municipal levels to cease their harassment of the Apostolic Movement and other religious groups.”

• Monday, January 7th, 2013: There has been a “dramatic increase in religious freedom violations” happening in Cuba in 2012.

• Friday, January 18th, 2013: Christians in Cuba were optimistic when Raul Castro took over from his brother, Fidel Castro, as the country’s supreme leader in 2009. But three years later, their hope has turned into disillusionment.

Vietnam also persecutes its Christian population:

• Thursday, October 10th, 2013: In recent weeks tensions have skyrocketed between Catholics and the Vietnamese government. Much of it was spurred by an attack by Vietnamese police on September 4th that injured dozens of parishioners peacefully protesting the unlawful arrest of two fellow believers. The Communist Party of Vietnam maintains a very uneasy relationship with the Catholic church and regularly tries to repress protests by members.

• Tuesday, October 8th, 2013: In July, International Christian Concern (ICC) received a tragically long list from a well-placed contact in Vietnam. The list contained the names of 63 Christian pastors and church leaders who remain locked up in deplorable conditions in four prison camps around the country. The prison sentences received by each are staggeringly long, ranging from five to eighteen years.

Each one of the four nations that remain communistic persecutes their own people. Each one of these “progressive” bastions suppresses freedom of expression and liberty. Each of these “paradises” brutally represses contrary opinions. Why then aren’t our Western progressives repulsed by this universal failure of atheism-communism? And why has this top-down philosophy become so thoroughly mainstreamed in our universities and other Western institutions? And why aren’t its horrors deplored among honest people?