Jihadists Target Egypt's Christians 

The chaos that has gripped Cairo since the removal of Muslim Brother President Mohamed Morsi spread throughout Egypt this weekend. The death toll from the violence surged past 800. This morning Islamist militants executed more than two dozen police recruits in the Sinai Peninsula. 

The headlines have focused on the fighting between the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Virtually ignored is the increasing ferocity of the jihad against Egypt's Christian population. Dozens of churches, Christian businesses, schools and homes have been ransacked and burned. 

The Christian Science Monitor reports that a mosque in Al Nazla incited violence during morning prayers, telling Muslims, "Your brothers … are being killed by Jews and Christians." Surely the mosque's leaders knew the charge was false. But the mob was whipped into a frenzy and churches and Christian families were under siege all day long.

According to a British media report a Catholic school in the Cairo suburbs was attacked. The cross was ripped from the gate. The classrooms were burned and the nuns were "paraded" through the streets "like prisoners of war." The black flag of Al Qaeda has been raised over numerous churches. 

Sadly, the western media and Washington's political elites have expressed more concern about the treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood. Members of Congress are demanding that the U.S. suspend aid to the Egyptian government battling the radicals. The Obama Administration is urging the interim government to negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood, but he has made no demands that the Muslim Brotherhood stop attacking Christians. 

Meanwhile the king of Saudi Arabia is standing with the Egyptian military against the Muslim Brotherhood. Something is terribly wrong when the president of the United States appears more sympathetic to Muslim extremists than the king of Saudi Arabia. The BBC reported over the weekend that the U.S. foreign policy, reputation and credibility are "in tatters." 

It's not surprising that media and political elites are silent about the plight of Christians in Egypt. But it is mystifying and heartbreaking that so few pastors find this a worthy topic to discuss from the pulpit. 

Christianity in Egypt predates Islam by centuries. Egypt's Coptic Church traces its founding to Saint Mark who was martyred in Alexandria. Over the years, I've heard Christian leaders and believers say, "Well, Gary, this is what the Lord promised us would happen." And they stop there. 

Yes, Jesus tells us that those who follow him will be persecuted by the world. But it is a theological fallacy to conclude that believers are to be silent in the face of such persecution. The Christian faith also teaches that evil will quicken as we approach the end of history. That fact does not pardon us from our obligation to fight that evil. 

If your pastor did not mention the persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt this Sunday, I would ask you to respectfully request that he speak up soon. The plight of Christians in Egypt is a reminder that as Islam advances, so too does the threat to religious liberty. Wherever Islam obtains majority status, religious minorities are not only in legal danger, but also in physical danger. 

NSA Under Fire 

Disclosures Friday by the Washington Post that the NSA has spied on Americans who are not terrorist threats have set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill. It has also exposed Obama in what appears to be repeated misstatements of the facts about domestic spying. 

During his latest appearance on Jay Leno's show, Obama said, "We don't have a domestic spying program." The president went on to say, "None of the revelations show that government has actually abused these powers." Today those denials sound absurd. 

Unbelievable amounts of data about U.S. citizens are being collected by the NSA. The DEA and the IRS are using it and, most troubling, they are being told to lie about the source of the information. Now we know that there have been routine violations of privacy rules. 

The Obama Administration claims that the privacy violations were inadvertent and stopped as soon as they were discovered. But it is an understatement to suggest, in view of recent scandals at the IRS and the Justice Department, that administration's credibility is at rock bottom. 

It appears that the administration did inform the House Intelligence Committee about some problems. But the president's statements implied that all members of Congress were aware. Yet many members of Congress on the left and the right have said that they did not have the same level of detail as members of the Intelligence Committee. 

This whole episode is even more outrageous because this is an administration that everyone concedes has virtually stopped surveillance of radical mosques and failed to act on intelligence that could have prevented the Fort Hood massacre and Boston Marathon bombing. 

In its effort to combat terrorism, the Obama Administration is casting an extremely wide net, gathering tremendous amounts of data on virtually every American. At the same time it is minimizing the surveillance of radical Islamists. 

That is an issue the libertarian right and traditional conservatives should be able to agree on: We need less surveillance of folks watching "Duck Dynasty" and more surveillance of folks named Mohammed frequenting extremist websites. 

The President of Class Warfare 

President Obama returned to Washington yesterday from his "1%" vacation on the uber-elite island of Martha's Vineyard. ABC News calculates that he played 27.5 hours of golf while he hobnobbed with the rich and famous and stayed in a $7.6 million mansion. Meanwhile his good friend Oprah was making news after she felt discriminated against while trying to buy a $38,000 handbag in Switzerland. 

Don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with wealth or presidential vacations. But it rises to a whole other level of hypocrisy when someone stokes the fires of envy and class warfare as Obama does, and then lives at taxpayer expense the same lifestyle he says is evil. 

If the left had any intellectual consistency, the "Occupy Martha's Vineyard" movement would have been harassing Obama on every green during his six rounds of golf! 

Shifting Attitudes On Sex Scandals? 

The campaigns of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer have provided a lot of fodder for late night comedians and headline writers. But what do they suggest about the values and priorities of voters when it comes to political sex scandals? Read more in my latest opinion piece at Politico.