Beheadings, enslavement, kidnappings and rape plague minority religious communities across the Middle East. And it’s time for President Barack Obama to fill a job created to address their plight, a group of prominent evangelicals, scholars and other religious leaders told the White House.
In the seven months since Congress created a “special envoy for religious minorities in the Middle East and South Central Asia,” the extreme violence against these groups has only escalated, the religious leaders wrote to President Obama on April 20. Nominate someone, they implored.
“The persecution and even eradication of religious minorities in the Middle East right now is the biggest humanitarian and national security crisis that we face,” said Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“There is a moral imperative to do everything we can to advocate for imperiled religious minorities.”
The letter, sent by the Washington-based International Religious Freedom Roundtable, was signed by Moore, 22 other religious freedom activists and more than 30 groups.
(RNS)
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