What Christians Could Learn from Jews When it Comes to Helping Their Own

Despite differences among them, the Jewish community is very good at coming together when their own people are under attack but Western Christians have had a hard time mobilizing to help their fellow Christians in the West, said Lela Gilbert, author and long-time advocate on behalf of persecuted Christians.
 
The title of Gilbert's book "Saturday People, Sunday People" comes from a slogan in the Middle East. 
 
"First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday, or more specifically on Saturday we kill the Jews, on Sunday we kill the Christians," Gilbert said.  She said the countries that killed the Jews decades ago are the ones where Christians are being persecuted now.
 
In an interview with CBN News, Gilbert said there are a few reasons why the Western church isn't so active in combating Christian persecution.
 
"One of (the reasons) is that Christians in the West have a very narrow view of what a Christian looks like and how a Christian worships," Gilbert said.  
 
"We have a huge community of old churches that are the ones that are most persecuted now, the Assyrian Christians, some of the Orthodox, some of the Roman Catholics, and there are Christians in the West that don't really think that these people are Christian, even if they've got a knife to their throat and they're speaking the name of Jesus," she said.
 
Gilbert said it's also difficult because Christians in the West don't always know what to do besides giving a donation and praying.
 
"There's not much mobilization of Christians because they don't come together," she said.  
 
"Unlike the Jews, who despite the fact that they're rather fragmented and they argue and quarrel over certain things, when their people are at risk, they come together.  They march on Washington, they march on New York.  They get on the front page and they say we can't let this happen," she added.