it doesn't have to be about us

One word: Afghanistan.

So much turmoil and trouble and grief and guilt and pain and suffering.

And a hefty dose of misinformation and drama running around as well. For which I wrote this post and actually put it up on FB.

In the midst of the takeover of Afghanistan, there are undoubtedly churches and Christians at risk, and Christian groups in the west are going to be praying for them.

However, please be wary of reposting every alleged atrocity that crosses your dashboard.

eg. a post came to light on one of the groups I’m in, where the missionary Judith Carmona in the city of Chihuahua in Africa reports that 229 Christian missionaries are about to be brutally executed by Afghan Taliban in the city of Quaragosh. The post exhorted Christians to provide ‘prayer cover’ for them.

Chihuahua City is in Mexico, not Africa. The city of Qaraqosh is in Iraq, not Afghanistan. And 229 Christian missionaries – most likely from Western countries – are being executed by the Taliban and not a scrap of media attention being paid to it?

(“Oh, but Sel, the western media hates Christians. Why, they’d watch us all slaughtered in the blink of an eye and never so much as make a peep!”)

If you google "judith carmona missionaries" and limit the results to before mid-last year, the first result on the page is a data scrape website that dates back to 2018. Other reports indicate that Ms Carmona and her missionaries actually first appeared in dire need of prayer cover back in 2009.

Basically, Judith Carmona's 229 Christian missionaries have been waiting in anticipatory terror of their beheading for at least three years, possibly up to twelve years, now. If they died, either in 2009 or in 2018, possibly both, then they have clearly been resurrected through the power of the risen Lord!!!!! ...and transported once again to a place where there is unrest and trouble in the Islamic world, that you and everyone who sees this rebirthed story may fire up their outrage against Muslims, Islam, and the primitive tribal peoples of that area who don't know the proper kind of civilisation and politeness that we in the west are party to.

But, taking the sarcasm font away...

Seriously. We are Christians, we should value the truth. So fact-check before reposting stuff like Judith Carmona and the 229 missionaries.

And don't come at me with, "But there are other atrocities happening to Christians even now!" Have I denied that there are?

But also be aware: this isn't Christian-specific persecution: this is a generic 'anyone who stands against the Taliban' persecution. Christians will absolutely and undoubtedly fall under this category, but it's not as though non-Christians will be untouched.

So let's also be wary of making out that this is "Christian persecution", because it's more than that. There is persecution because people are Christians, absolutely, but there's also persecution because people worked with the allied forces, or because women behave like they should have the same rights as men, or because journalists might report things that the Taliban doesn’t want shown, or because communities aren't as obedient to the teachings of the Koran as the Taliban thinks they should be.

Frankly, it’s not ‘Christian persecution’ so much as ‘anyone who isn’t 100% “Taliban YAY” persecution’.

So let’s pray, fellow Christians, by all means, but let’s also not make it all about us, mhmm?

I have no idea how it's going to be taken among my conservative FB church friends. But I did preface it with: "Buckle up. This gets grumpy."