Days before the start of Advent, mobs in a city 200 miles south along the Nile from Cairo burned Coptic Orthodox Christian homes and ransacked Christian businesses before attacking a church with stones and Molotov cocktails. Why? Because of a Facebook post that allegedly mentioned the Prophet Muhammad and the attackers found offensive.

These kinds of attacks are all too common in the Middle East. In addition to their neighbors, many Christians fear terrorist attacks by ISIS and al-Qaida, who are still carrying out beheadings and kidnapping women and children. Christians often face a Hobson’s choice: Align with a brutal dictator (as in Egypt or Syria) or be left exposed to these forces of discrimination and destruction.