Rep. Chris Smith put his finger on a rotting sore this week when he described a “culture of denial” around the global persecution of Christians during his appearance on Life, Liberty & Levin. His blunt warning should jolt every American who still believes in religious liberty: our voices are needed now, not later.
The hard data make his point impossible to ignore: the Open Doors World Watch List finds that more than 380 million Christians face high levels of persecution and discrimination worldwide, with thousands subjected to violence, imprisonment and the destruction of churches. These are not abstract statistics for sermon fodder — this is a genuine humanitarian crisis that the international community is watching too casually.
Nowhere is that crisis more brutal than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where terror groups and militias have turned villages and parishes into killing fields and many Western officials have been slow to respond. Recent reporting and government attention — including moves to reconsider designations and pressure on recalcitrant states — show the problem is real and growing, and that American leadership can matter if it chooses to act.
This is not limited to Africa. North Korea, China, parts of Central Asia and conflict zones across the Middle East and South Asia remain hellscapes for believers, and barbaric attacks like the Kasanga church massacre in the DRC remind us that Christians are being targeted simply for their faith. The evidence piles up while too many global institutions and liberal commentators tidy their consciences with euphemisms and geopolitical excuses.
Congress and the White House must stop treating religious freedom as a checkbox and start treating it as a strategic priority that defines who we are. If designations, sanctions and targeted assistance can be used to punish tyrants and fund suffering families, then we should use every diplomatic and economic tool available to defend the persecuted — not offer them hollow statements from podiums.
Americans of faith and conscience should demand better from their leaders and louder coverage from a media that too often turns away from inconvenient truths. This is about more than theology; it is about human dignity, the protection of the vulnerable, and the credibility of a free America that claims moral leadership.
If patriots and policymakers will not name evil and confront it, then shame on us all; the price of silence is paid in blood by those who cannot run or plead for help. Stand with Congressman Smith and stand with the persecuted — it is the right thing, the American thing, and the Godly thing to do.
