As the Westcontinues to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas which extend into the New Year,some 215 million Christiansworldwide face violence or repression. On the day after Christmas, the Britishgovernment launched a review of Christian persecution in “key countries” –especially in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa – and to seek ways the UK canhelp those who are suffering.

Christianity is on the“verge of extinction in its birthplace,” saidForeign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who ordered the report. “So often the persecution ofChristians is a telling early warning sign of the persecution of everyminority.”

Bishop PhilipMounstephen, the Anglican bishop of Truro, willlead the effort to uncover “the scale of the problem” and “offer ambitious policy mendations” to thegovernment.

Globally, 250Christians die for their faith each month.

“We are seeking toidentify additional practical steps to help stop the appalling levels ofviolence that saw 3,000 Christians murdered last year because of their faith,” saidLord Tariq Ahmad, the prime minister’s special envoy on religious freedom. “I am mitted to not onlystanding up for the persecuted, but protecting and strengthening this fundamental human right” of religiousliberty.

The report isscheduled to pleted by Easter. es as Prime Minister Theresa Mayfaces public backlash at refusingto grant asylum to Asia Bibi, a Pakistani woman sentenced to death forconverting to Christianity. Although Pakistan’s supreme court overturned theconviction, Bibi and her family remain in hiding for fearof their lives.

Bibi put a face onthe government’s seeming indifference to Christian suffering. Of the 1,112 Syrianrefugees who settled in the UK in the first three months of 2018,not a single one belonged to the Christian faith. Christians made up 0.23percent of all Syrian refugees accepted by the UK in 2017, according to theBarnabas Fund.

The government “mustdo more” for persecuted Christians, Hunt said this week.

In addition togovernment-sanctioned persecution or government-tolerated mob violence,Christians also face a loss of civil and human rights, including their right tohold certain jobs, educate their children in their religion, or own privateproperty on equal terms with others.

Fr. Gregory Jensen hasdetailed how the Guatemalan government tried to undermine property rights inorder to crackdown on Hogar Raphael Ayau, an orphanage run by Eastern Orthodox nuns, usufruct).Property rights indivisible from religious freedom.

A report onChristian persecution conducted by the international monitoring group OpenDoors confirmed that economicliberty and religious liberty are correlated. It named North Korea as the most repressive anti-Christian nation in the world. Theworst offenders also have a low regard for property rights as measured by theFraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Report, which ranks nations from one to 162.

NorthKorea is followed in repression by Afghanistan (unrated), Somalia(unrated), Sudan (153), Pakistan (unrated), Iraq (152), Yemen (117), Iran (130),Saudi Arabia (102), Egypt (147), Nigeria (118), Libya (161), and India (95).

Meanwhile, in China(ranked 105 by Fraser), police raidedevangelical house churches on Christmas Eve to prevent Christians from holdingChristmas services; the city of Langfang barredall residents from any kind of Christmas display; and the Communist Party’sdisciplinary arm likened celebrating Christmas to “spiritualopium.”

Rick Plasterer at Juicy Ecumenism warnsthat China’s totalitarian social credit scheme has dire implications forreligious freedom in the world’s most populace nation. Thankfully, the West hasbeen spared this fate in part due to physical money:

Western societies arefar removed from the personal, status-based, ideological allocation ofresources practiced or planned in China and North Korea. The availability ofresources is instead based on highly impersonal money, which can be used byanyone who has money to spend.

“Money,” wroteFyodor Dostoyevsky, “is coined liberty.”

Totalitarians fearreligion, especially Christianity which teaches “that there is another King,one Jesus” (Acts17:7). Similarly, they hate the free market, which gives its would-beslaves the resources and autonomy to live for their own ends rather than thosedecreed by the ruler.

The UK government, and all Christians, must recognize the inherent link between freedom of conscience and the right to own property in a free economy.

Asia Bibiwithherhusband,AshiqMasih,in2013. HazteOir.org. CC BY-SA 2.0.)