Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T00:25:48.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Christians in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Responses to Marginalization from the Peripheries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2018

Daniel Philpott
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Timothy Samuel Shah
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

Violence, persecution, and discrimination are commonly associated with Christian minorities in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In these two Muslim majority countries, political instability, corruption, and lack of oversight creates an environment that is ripe for radicalism and violence. Church bombings, suicide bombings, assassinations, and targeted killings are common in both nations which are rife with ethnic, tribal, linguistic, and sectarian distinctions. In this paper, I discuss the challenges facing Christians in Pakistan and briefly engage Afghanistan were comparisons are helpful to the context of Christian persecution in the region. I complicate the religious landscape and argue that Christians experience persecution for several reasons that are not limited to religion but also include socio-economic, ethnic, and caste issues. Next, I describe how Christians respond to persecution, discrimination, and violence and the strategies they utilize to contend political space and negotiate religious boundaries and social restrictions. While Christian persecution is a reality in Pakistan and Afghanistan, so is Christian resilience. These communities, while small and disenfranchised, are sociopolitically engaged and vigorous in their resistance to oppression.
Type
Chapter
Information
Under Caesar's Sword
How Christians Respond to Persecution
, pp. 229 - 258
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×