it's not about muslims vs. Christians, it's about extremists

As all around the world we join in solidarity to mourn the anti-Islamic terrorist violence in New Zealand, a question keeps coming up: what about the attacks on Christians by militant Muslims in Nigeria? Why is no one talking about this? Is this a case of anti-Christian bias?

My initial response to this was twofold: first, this isn’t a contest. There are many legitimate responses to an atrocity, but whataboutism is never one of them – especially if one is a Christian and believes in the teachings of the Gospel about meekness, humility, and seeing every human as a neighbor. Dear western Christians, could you please stop trying to make everything about you, for a change?

But the second part of my response was – indeed, why not? It is right that we honor the victims in New Zealand with our grief, but why are we not honoring the victims in Nigeria, as well?

There’s a racism problem here

Unfortunately, the huge glaring answer to that question is that we tend to be complacent about violence and even genocide, when it happens in non-western nations, or in the global south – especially if it happens to brown or black people. Many refugees from Central America, displaced and fleeing violence that is directly the result of U.S. interference, are Christians, after all. And many white conservative Christians here in our prosperous nation are just fine with turning them away, sending them back – even separating their families, and incarcerating them.