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Black lives matter to woke Westerners — unless they’re African Christians being massacred during worship. Then the news barely makes a blip on the radar of social justice warriors. Where are the marches in solidarity, and the monuments lit up across the world to mourn the dead?

News of more than 50 Nigerian Christians massacred in church by Islamists last weekend will pass with barely a raised eyebrow.

They were the wrong kind of victims, gunned down by the wrong kind of killers.

If only they were Muslim rather than Christian. And if only they had been slaughtered by white people — rather than by blacks — the world would care.

Not Worthy of Notice

Christians are second, no, third-tier victims. And black lives only seem to matter if they are killed by whites, preferably white police.

Murdered African Christians serve no political agenda. So their deaths will quickly be forgotten, just as the 4650 Christians killed in 470 separate attacks on Nigerian churches last year have already disappeared from view beneath reams of more worthy news.

Will the Eiffel Tower be lit up in the green and white of the Nigerian flag? Ne sois pas idiot!

Will a world leader don Catholic garb in the way New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wore a headscarf to show solidarity with Muslims when they were murdered in Christchurch? Of course not.

Will world leaders denounce Christianophboia? They don’t even believe it’s a thing, despite reports that Christians are the most persecuted religious group on earth.

Will the UN Human Rights Council express outrage? Not unless they can somehow blame Israel for the atrocity.

Will churches in the West take even a minute to pray for their persecuted brothers and sisters? It’s unlikely our pastors even know about the massacre in Owo.

Woke Western churches are far more likely to mark the anniversary of George Floyd’s death (as a major Sydney church did recently) than raise a voice in protest at the martyrdom of their own.

Such is the state of the church in the West, you’ve more chance of hearing a perfunctory Welcome to Country from the pulpit this Sunday than an impassioned prayer for the traumatised Nigerian faithful.

Families Mown Down

The 1200-seat St Francis Catholic Church in Owo was packed last weekend as Christians gathered in their Sunday best to mark Pentecost Sunday.

Armed gunmen burst through the church doors mid-service, setting off explosions that sent terrified families scampering for the exits.

More gunmen were waiting just outside the doors.

For 30 minutes the armed men wandered through the church auditorium, shooting those trying to hide beneath the wooden pews.

“They killed to their satisfaction,” one church member who survived the attack by hiding under rubble from the initial explosions, told the BBC.

According to reports, the presiding priest was kidnapped.

And then the killers were gone.

The sound of automatic gunfire was replaced by the screams of worshippers trying to revive loved ones.

The church altar was covered in blood.

The church sanctuary was strewn with human remains.

“I saw entire families being wiped away, friends, relatives, those I knew,” a church choir member told journalists.

A BBC report described the carnage …

Some of the children killed were unrecognisable — the high-calibre bullets scattered flesh and bones.

According to the BBC, the incident bore all the hallmarks of a Boko Haram attack.

If the attack was not perpetrated by Boko Haram thugs, there are Muslim herdsmen moving south, seeking to dispossess Christian farmers of their grazing land and implement sharia law. Christians have been living in fear for months.

Partying Politicians

If surviving Nigerian Christians wondered where they stood, they soon found out.

President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and other members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) were pictured eating and laughing at a state dinner just hours after the slaughter.

Nigerian doctor Chinonso Egemba echoed the outrage of Owo Christians.

“Many of us slept in sadness, some went to bed without eating. We’re consumed with grief and anger. The President and the Vice President whose jobs are to protect the lives of Nigerians went to have a banquet. They don’t care about you,” he tweeted.

The attack comes exactly a week after the head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria was abducted, along with two other pastors in the south-east of the country, and freed after paying a $240,000 ransom.

Also, two weeks ago, two Catholic priests were kidnapped in Katsina, President Buhari’s home state in the north of the country. They have not been released.

President Buhari condemned the attack:

“No matter what, this country shall never give in to evil and wicked people, and darkness will never overcome light. Nigeria will eventually win.”

Evil. Wicked. Darkness. All very true, and all very non-specific.

Authorities seem at a loss to know who committed the massacre. The killers “wore khaki trousers”, according to reports. They could have been anyone.

The devil works hard at killing. Politicians work harder still at being vague.

Nigerian Christians hold little hope of the killers being identified, let alone held to account. There’s about as much hope of that as anyone outside of Owo even remembering the grieving Christians of St Francis Catholic Church a month from now.

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.
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Main photo by Lucxama Sylvain.