Juno News - The government has a responsibility to protect our religious freedoms

00:00:00.000 Christians are the most persecuted community of faith in the world, but I'm pretty sure your

00:00:10.280 newsfeed doesn't tell you that because it doesn't fit the mainstream media's narrative. Regardless

00:00:15.240 of the fact, this is the absolute truth. Open Door Society stated that in just 50 countries

00:00:21.380 in the last year, in their 2020 World Watch List, that over 260 million Christians actively live

00:00:29.280 in places where they experience high levels of persecution. Nearly 3,000 believers have died for

00:00:35.560 their faith. Nearly 9,500 churches and buildings owned by Christians have been attacked or burnt

00:00:42.860 to the ground. 3,711 believers have been detained without trial, arrested, sentenced, or imprisoned.

00:00:52.560 One example of such persecution stems out of Iraq, where before the 2003 invasion, Iraqi Christians

00:01:00.720 numbered over 1.6 million, whereas today there are less than 250,000 of them. And then if we jump over

00:01:10.600 to Mozambique earlier this month, there was a mass beheading, a mass execution of Christians by an ISIS

00:01:17.320 affiliate. And on Christmas Day in 2019, the local Nigerian ISIS affiliate group Boko Haram targeted

00:01:27.560 Christians, killing 11 of them. And the mainstream media was largely silent about this. And while I am

00:01:34.440 grateful and thankful that here in Canada, we live in a free society where we get to freely worship our God,

00:01:41.320 regardless of what God you worship. We also must be reminded that freedoms are fragile,

00:01:47.240 and must be exercised to be maintained. And that to the right to worship isn't an alienable right,

00:01:53.800 granted to us by God, not the government, but what the government is charged with protecting.

00:02:00.120 In a time where during the COVID-19 pandemic, churches are being shut down, temples, mosques,

00:02:06.600 and even synagogues are being told to restrict their attendance. I am reminded, as a Christian

00:02:12.920 myself, that I am to not forsake the assembly of myself with other believers. And this is a protected

00:02:19.800 charter right that we as Canadians truly possess, and that the government is to protect and defend and

00:02:26.920 promote for further flourishing. Religious freedom doesn't just matter for those of us who live in free

00:02:34.040 societies, but for the hundreds of thousands who are seeking to flee persecution for that very belief

00:02:41.480 that we here in Canada have been blessed with living out freely. For True North, I'm Matea Myrda.

Juno News - November 30, 2020