“Christianity is the greatest faith in a world of thriving religions,” writes John O’Sullivan. “Sometimes it's hard to hear, since it is the mental image that grips most Westerners, including many Christians, it is a dying faith in a disenchanted secular universe in which God is not so much dead as retired. The reality is very different. In the 2015 the four largest religions (conventional) of the world were Christianity in descending order (31,2% of the world population), l’Islam (24,1%), Hinduism (16%) and Buddhism (7%). Looking ahead to population projections for the 2060, this image changes only slightly but significantly. Islam surpasses Christianity as the world's largest religion. More worrying than the overall numbers is the distribution of Christianity's decline. Almost all of the growth in Christian numbers is occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. And the decline occurs in the traditional heartlands of Christianity, namely Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and the Americas. In Europe the decline is absolute and relative. European Christians are declining as a percentage of all Europeans in part because they have a lower birth rate than others, partly because many simply abandon their religion. Between the 2015 and the 2020 the number of Christians in Europe will decrease by 8,2 millions. In addition to demographics, Christians around the world face two additional and growing dangers: religious persecution and the lack of powerful friends. They are not, Obviously, the only believers who face persecution. The murder of Jews in France; the attempted genocide of the Yazidis in Iraq and Syria; the repression of the Zoroastrians (among others) in Iran; the recent mass murder of Muslims in New Zealand; These and other examples show that religious persecution is rampant, widespread and largely unashamed throughout the world. However, Christians in particular are attacked from three directions. First of all, in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Nord Africa, Iran, Pakistan and Türkiye, the Christians (together with the Jews) they are victims of a growing wave of Islamist and jihadist fervor. Sometimes governments persecute Christians directly as in Sudan; sometimes they try to curb and punish mass attacks on Christians, as recently in Pakistan; sometimes they turn a blind eye to crimes such as religious murder and church fires (to whom, effectively, police and soldiers take part) like in Egypt. The second source of anti-Christian persecution is militant in atheist governments suspicious of all social activities not directly under their control. North Korea is the most extravagant and horrific example of such oppressive totalitarian regimes. But China – which exploited the Internet to create the first panopticon state – is the most subtle, persistent and effective. Facing persecution, almost all religions can turn to protectors. Muslims in particular have a strong advocate in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that brings together 57 Islamic governments to negotiate their rights in non-Muslim states. Christians in non-Christian states used to enjoy even greater protection from Western governments during the imperial period. Today, However, persecuted Christian communities outside Europe can expect a little help from Europe and, most surprising thing, a little refuge. A surprisingly small percentage of Syrian refugees who have received asylum in Europe are Christians, that is to say it 0,2 percent. And when it was suggested – as it was then by Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Australia – that a special category would be created for them, this was discriminatory and ran into the sands of bureaucracy. This is a classic case where an abstract principle of non-discrimination is used in such a way as to ensure an actual practice of discrimination that harms people. Many reasons explain this lack of interest. The Western military and economic power that protected overseas Christians directly or through diplomacy is no longer as impressive. Even if that wasn't the case, Western European governments have no particular sense of responsibility for Christians abroad, since they no longer think their countries are Christian in any serious sense, also cultural. Effectively, the transformation of Western liberalism – once the foundation of Western concern over massacres of Christians abroad – into a doctrine of strict neutrality between religions is often interpreted to favor other religions over Christianity abroad as well as at home. As the late Kenneth Minogue pointed out in an essay on 'Christophobia', Western European governments do not want to give special protection to Christians abroad because that would weaken their claims that they represent a post-religious liberal international order rather than a specific Christian point of view. This is the closest thing to a religious imperative in Western diplomacy, and was confirmed informally a few years ago during a meeting in Washington between State Department bureaucrats and religious pressure groups. When asked why the United States has not requested the admission of more Christians as refugees, the spokesperson responded: 'You won't like my answer. The Europeans asked us not to do it' (…) All in all, the image is dark with more dangers and few comforts. Much of traditional Christianity is transforming into a vague humanitarianism that seems to believe that man lives on bread alone. He is reduced to confronting the truth of the persecution because he does not want to think badly of the persecutors, and asks the Good Samaritan a parable of why Christians should be the last to be helped".
source – http://www.controversoquotidiano.it/2019/04/09/i-cristiani-sono-i-piu-perseguitati-al-mondo-ma-non-hanno-amici-e-loccidente-si-bea-di-umanitarismo/