CHRISTMAS DAY – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:  Urgent Agenda is published 365 days a year.  Thus we publish on Christmas Day.  We maintain the same publishing schedule as a daily newspaper, although we're not a newspaper.  But our schedule allows us to be up to date every day.  What it does to my sleep is another matter entirely.

On this Christmas Day, let us not forget that Christianity is now the most persecuted religion in the world, by far.  From Sky News: 

Christianity is facing "elimination" in the Middle East at the hands of an Islamic State "apocalypse", the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby used his Christmas Day sermon at Canterbury Cathedral to say IS is "igniting a trail of fear, violence, hatred and determined oppression".

He branded the Islamic extremists as "a Herod of today" - a reference to the Biblical despotic king of Judea at the time of Jesus's birth.

"Confident that these are the last days, using force and indescribable cruelty, they (IS) seem to welcome all opposition, certain that the warfare unleashed confirms that these are indeed the end times," he said.

"They hate difference, whether it is Muslims who think differently, Yazidis or Christians, and because of them the Christians face elimination in the very region in which Christian faith began.

"This apocalypse is defined by themselves and heralded only by the angel of death."

COMMENT:  I'm very surprised, and somewhat angered, by the silence of many Christian organizations in the United States toward the persecution of Christians elsewhere.  Recall the words of Hillel:  "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? But when I am for myself, then what am 'I'? And if not now, when?"

Barack Obama, a few days ago, finally got around to offering a prayer for persecuted Christians.  But the persecution is growing, especially in the Mideast.  If not now, when?

December 25,  2015