Jerubbaal
Let Baal defend himself!
Preamble
On August 17, 2023, I received a series of videos and photos from the leader of a church I minister to in Pakistan, showing an animated crowd marching towards a church building, tearing down the cross on it, and torching the building and nearby homes and properties.¹
Since I did not understand the language spoken in the videos, I asked the leader. He informed me that Christians in a provincial town were being attacked by Muslims, prompting many Christians to flee in fear of the spreading violence.
Thankfully, the violence did not spread beyond that town. The carnage began because of an unproven allegation that two Christians had blasphemed Islam by defiling the Quran. Although this was only an accusation, a Muslim cleric used a mosque’s megaphone to incite an attack on the Christian community. This caused chaos, and because the government did not respond promptly initially, many Christians in the town and their properties were at the mercy of the irate mob.
It should be noted that according to the 2017 Pakistan census, Christians make up less than 1.3 per cent of the slightly more than 240 million Pakistanis, with nearly 97 per cent being Muslims.
