benefit from his continued collaboration with authors. without any further ado, let me introduce eric metaxas. [applause] >> thank you so much. a lot of that is actually true. it's because of my parity of the ripley's believe it or not books that i was invited to moderate this panel today. i went to thank you for noting the existence of god. there's one copy left. no, i hope i'm not here because of that, although i'm glad someone is aware of it. i am here for many reasons as my concern of the issue of persecution is not only creations, but anyone for religious reasons around the

world. something that obviously get little coverage it seems to me. i was asked to write the foreword for this brand-new book by these distinguished authors i was profoundly honored and thrilled to do it. there's so much to talk about them we will get to that. i've got a brief 45 minute presentation that will get to the three of you. i can do it in 42 if i talked fast. thank you for laughing. that's not true. i only want to say up front that would treat me into the subject of persecution and religious freedom was writing my book on "bonhoeffer." this is not something any very much at all. i confess to having been ignorant about it, but i say

that only because they are speaking to many people at home who would hear about this, who are a rare and in particularly the american church is tremendously at her and i miss someone who proudly considered himself a non-card-carrying member of the american church had been ignored for so long tells me we're talking about this and have come and have come as a privilege to do my part because i do think this is at the heart of so many issues, not least what is freedom in the world touches on stem cells that you hardly know where to begin. one thing i saw from the book is an religious freedom begins to be eclipsed, it leads inevitably to genuine persecution and in america suddenly religious freedom is being very seriously threatened. no one seems to be talking about

it. i just talk about it at seatac office is, but i do think this is vital. it's a fight of issue to so many things, which we are seen around the world in such measure that we can hardly believe it. most of us are ignorant of it and that's why it's so excited about this book. this book for anybody out there of a guttering faith, that they say if you've read this book, it will profoundly strengthen your faith. so be careful if you decide to read it, but it will do and what faith you have. if you have no fate that may give you some. there's so many questions i want to ask the panel. and a little bit will open things up for the audience. our panel, i hope you know who's sitting here.

lela gilbert, paul marshall and nina shea. they prefer true or false questions. if you can't come up with feature or false question, multiple-choice does. thank you very much. so anyway, i really mean to facilitate the conversation. there's no right or wrong answers. we really want to facilitate a conversation. my first question before i sit down and it will is why did you write this book? if that's not enough of a softball at good others. but how come i get this wonderful product will be my follow up question. for any of you, you won't have to answer this, but that is the main question. i've got some thoughts on that, but we are interested in yours.

anyone who wants to lead off and will just have a conversation. >> first of all, really appreciate your taking the time to be here and really draw public attention to this important story. all of us, and i'll let my colleagues speak for themselves, have been working on this issue documenting religious freedom violations in christian persecution for many years. we have other books from 60 years ago on the same subject. so we thought we would combine forces this time and highlight the fact that religious persecution is one of the greatest human rights abuses of our day and christians are the most widely persecuted group in the world today and that is not just our finding. it's also reinforced by the pew

research center, economist, "newsweek" magazine, the vatican, compass direct and so on. it's almost irrefutable that this client that christians are the most widely persecuted group located globally. they zanotti muslims founded in both places and are persecuted in both places. so this is a story that not very well known in america. it's not widely reported in the churches themselves do not even take notice sometimes. we just thought it was time again to retell the story and some of you in the room have been working with us for many, many years on this issue and we

had a great deal of success 16 years ago when we got to work together with churches and human rights groups to have congress adopt and president clinton decided the international freedom's religion not identified some good state department reporting, but we feel it's a great wave of persecution and not too many people are paying attention. >> private sector and all of that inhabits phenomenal, which is growing in the last 10 to 15 years to reinforce one of the points nina made by people in north america, usually don't know about this. if there's a particularly horrendous and today, say the

bombing of the cathedral in that matter bombing of churches in egypt, didn't make it on cnn. but then it dies away again. the actual phenomenon is continuing. 10, 12 people do. so there's very the wellness of what is happening and in some cases the communications, in many cases, communities which are 2000 years old. >> pollen i wrote a book together in 1996, 97 it came out called the blood cries out and covered the same issue. it became more and more out of date as the problems increased in the world. i set aside the christian

persecution when i went to jerusalem in 2006. it crossed my path over and over again because people came from cherokee, casa, all over the middle east with terrible stories. christian teachers, christian missionaries to start areas that were leaving and i began to see the increase and of course watching now the arab spring explode, arab spring as close as we always say, has made things so much worse and it's not look with tickets going to get any better. we began to talk about this a couple years ago, but it became necessary to activate and give a current report. i think we might as to egypt in a different chapter if we did it

yesterday. we have at least an out-of-date report now. >> i just want to follow up that this is increasing. why is this increasing? >> most of the increase is focused in china, the dominant so on. back is up and down, but is relatively stable. if i could just add, china's just saying don't interfere with us here. but you are getting increased radicalization and that is where you see these increases. countries, which were free, places like indonesia or my recently molly k. attacks in

indonesia with purchases per year. you see this increase and islamist groups like al qaeda are just extremist groups in egypt and elsewhere very much want other people to do the same, so they are trying to some success to get a feel program. so it is increasing in intensity and not service may be happening. >> it sounds like what you're saying that this is a muslim issue. ultimately when you say increase at the muslim issue. so what does this mean? muslims around the world who had not previously been radicalized are being radicalized and led to believe an expression of their faith is christian specifically?

>> most of us would not radicalized the coming so. indignation again, senegal, mali for religious freedom about five years ago. but now, there's definitely radicalization. egyptian ours had been in syria, libya and iraq. so why muslims are becoming radicalized and many other muslims are deeply worried because they become troubled as well. same forces that persecute christians are also persecuting the other minorities.

and admittedly stare largest non-muslim minority. so they are taking the brunt of this, but muslims are definitely affected as well as groups. just a few examples of what's happening right now, there's an american pastor imprisoned facing possible death in iran right this minute. >> is he an american citizen? >> he's an american is the sin of iranian origin. he was sentenced to eight years, but often the sentences mean that he and can be changed at will at win. >> just to underscore this as much as possible, an american citizen is being held for his religious release imuran. the question is what is the american government done thus

far? >> not enough. secretary kerry issued a statement after nine months of prison that. you shoot a statement friday night after the business we closed, talking about mr. albertini in expressing concern. he never mentioned he was a pastor and being sent 10. but with all referred to libya. papa christian from egypt and libya was tortured to death. in egypt itself, there is a mother of seven children whose entire family was sent insta 15

years. her converting to christianity. >> i want to hear more -- i want to go back. but i'm not .. traditionally obviously things are put out there so they don't get attention. why would the current administration do that?

what would their reasons be for not b being more vocal about it, or for not mentioning this to the pastor? or is that just an oversight? >> i can't believe it's an oversight. there's a pattern here. congressman frank wolf held a hearing on iran last week. the administration refused a witness. >> refused to send -- >> a witness to this hearing to talk about the pastor. >> could you guess why that would be? >> i really think it's misguided multicultural, an unwillingness, political correctness, unwillingness to say that christians are victims in that part of the world. trying to be nice, trying to be like and i can't find any other explanation of why -- >> has that ever worked? >> no. no. it really doesn't. in fact, we have case after case

where people have been freed from prison, and there are two iranian christian converts who are now in the united states who were imprisoned in '09. they just wrote a fascinating book where they were saved by the voice of america, reporting their story. it prompted amnesty international and jubilee campaign of getting the outcome of sending thousands of letters freeing them. so it's just the opposite effect really. it sends the wrong signal. >> if i can add to this, the iranians, those are individual cases. if there's enough it usually works. one reason -- let me also add, a fairly common pattern in dealing with christians, the u.s. government statements do not say

what religion they are. just these things happen to these people and it's bad. one reason they offer for that, which may have some plausibility, we don't want to single out their christians because america is defended christians or christians getting together, and so forth. but a country like iran does not -- if you're getting with, say, -- [inaudible]. the state department very properly will say they are imprisoned. in other cases and you refer to the reason but very often it doesn't. >> i would also add that there's a book called "silenced" which have to do with the discomfort in the west of speaking against rall is -- radicalized islam has been an intentional us move within the islamic world as well

as cooperation in the western world, people on that issue. so i think some of it is in reflected and not taking a strong stand or maybe avoiding monday morning news, kind of keeping the quiet. we all try to be careful because we all know people that are muslim that are anything but terrorists. they're working very hard. but it's become a sort of stigmatized to address at all. >> is this just a kind of typical and lamentable left, right divide that when reagan as president and he will call the soviet union an evil empire and are going on the left will attack it and say that's not helpful, that will cause trouble. at his thesis would be that on the contrary, this kind of confrontation is good because it projects strength and we must project strength and that's all

they listen to. i mean, this seems to be, when i hear that john kerry would've done this kind of thinking his thesis will be we don't want to confront, it's going to be counterproductive, but you're suggesting that a confrontation in fact is the way to do with these kinds of issues. is that there? >> when we say competition let's be clear, we're not saying military confrontation. but if there was, of docket in iran, the state department has no hesitancy, intimate a major issue of these cases. but it seems like when christians are involved, there is, they shot away. another example of this, and it actually is found in both administrations on some very key issues. bush on iraq, and but in 2010

there was the last church in afghanistan were shut down by the karzai government. it was a 99 euros, canceled by a court. that was the last remaining church in afghanistan. our diplomat, our defense contractocontracto rs have to go and hide in their worship behind behind a wall, the. afghanistan while the search was going on over 100,000 american troops on the ground, joined saudi arabia as the only other country in the world that became so intolerant that they do not have a single church. the obama administration knew about it and actually reported about it in the state department religious freedom report, which is still the gold standard for human rights reporting. but at the time it was happening they said nothing and did nothing. so on our watch this has

happened. the bush administration, two-thirds of the christians, iraq, were driven out. we have it in the book about some conversations we had with secretary rice at the time saying coming you know, please speak up for them, please protect them. again with 100,000 troops on the ground and she said no, we cannot get involved in sectarian effort. meanwhile, the united states have just installed a shiite government in iraq and was negotiating on behalf of sunni leaders to get sunni appointments in a government. so it just didn't ring true. >> it does seem as i listened to something educated educated, i'm a civilian listener, that some rights are more equal than others, right? in other words, we're talking about the universal concept or standard of let's say women's rights, then we can speak out ot against it the other seems there's been a shying away from doing that with regard to religious liberty, that we are

at least it seems to me, at least current administration but to some extent the previous administration is willing to some extent to throw this under the bus or what they perceive as the greater good of peace, but it sounds like it's not working. >> i think that's happening. for a while the, president obama and secretary of state clinton had gotten into the habit of using the expression freedom of worship. which would be about 10% of freedom of religion, most of religion involves other things other than worship. there was enough criticism that they stopped, but it was very worried they did it. another rhetorical device is to speak about religious toleration, which is sort of like how we all get along. i like religious toleration. it's not the same thing as religious freedom. religious freedom is, you know,

the legal right to do certain things even if you do happen to be and tolerant. so there is a temp to serve redefined issue without, out of the way but it's not given centrality it deserves. one important thing we want to emphasize, and lela mentioned the book that we had called "silenced," and we look at blasphemy codes in the muslim world and make the point that this stifles debate within islam and it empowers the radical because, you know, liberal muslims by which liberal in this context i mean committed to freedom, don't condemn radical blasphemy as it goes the other way around. so freedom loving muslims -- [inaudible]. if you want good things to come out of, say, the arab spring, you can't have a sore blasphemy culture going round which cuts down debate, and that's a really

important issue. the pew forum, brian, roger and others have done studies with respect to religious freedom on the status of women, economic developer, economic growth, militarization. all has strong positive effects. there's a good -- very good correlation. goes both ways. so there's also probably off the face that religious freedom is a guard at something on the side to what you do on sunday. but if you don't have religious freedom, you will not have democratic development in any country in the world. >> i want to just touch on that, this difference between freedom of worship and freedom of religion. i recently spoke about that. i don't know my speak about this subject, but there is as you said a tremendous difference. it's almost laughable to use them interchangeably. i know that hillary clinton

infamously something like 18 months ago was talking about freedom of worship, and chuck colson, the late chuck colson, noticed this and began to speak out against the. and it's when i got involved in these issues and other, my goodness, this is a chilling thing because freedom of worship, they have freedom of worship in china. of freedom of worship end of the third reich. freedom of worship is laughable. image in go into a little building and do your little weird religious rituals with a modicum out of the building after euro 90 minutes or two hours, you belong to us and you are, whatever it is you believe, must bow to the secular or other orthodoxy of the state. so that's a lack of religious freedom and it's important i think the folks who don't know what and again i didn't know it until recently but this idea of religious freedom which is at the heart of the order of freedom of america is the kind of freedom that must be expressed outside of the place where one worships. in other words, it has to do

with the freedom ideas, the theme of conscious. the id of freedom of worship or tolerance as you mentioned is a very far cry from genuine religious freedom. so i just want to thank you for making that point, and want to underscore because i think again those of us who only come to this recently don't realize freedom of worship is practically meaningless. those are real words if i've ever heard him. >> one of the issues that immediately comes to mind of this is what we used to call witnessing as christians aren't evangelizing. it's become a dirty word. it's also in many muslim countries and also in china, trying to spread christianity, which is one of the tenants of the gospel, a call to spread the word. and, therefore, does not fall into the category of religious freedom. but that word -- >> yeah, what we call christians

call sharing the news spent it's a basic human right. the u.n. to his credit put out a very important report on this very subject about how it is a grave human rights concerns that evangelizing for profit allies in is now repressed and so many countries spent it's a free speech issue. >> is a freedom of religion issue. u.n. special rapporteur on religion says this goes really to the heart of religious freedom to be able to talk about your beliefs to others, to each other about your police. so that it's a free speech, freedom of association asia and its a freedom of religion speak since we're talking specifically about this widespread and increased persecution of christians around the world, you ask this question. why isn't the american church or the western church, but specifically the american church, speaking out about this issue, or are they?

>> certainly some members of the church are speaking out about this. very dedicated organizations work on the there are congregations work on this. but i would say compared to 15 years ago, there's much less attention to this issue in the american church's. people very quickly want to be, introverted -- i mean introverted within about the situation within the united states. often, particularly if i'm doing call-in radio on this issue, one first causes us to be where prosecutor here in america as well. my reply to the, it's an increasing problem and they deserve attention. but whatever, i know this program deals with that a lot. we don't deal with what i'm talking that's why just want to focus on that. so that's important.

[talking over each other] >> political correctness. [talking over each other] >> again, misguided multiculturalism, we don't want to insult anybody, want to be unpleasant to want to get along. 's i think that's a big part of it. >> okay, this leads at least me and inevitably to to unpleasant words, dennis rodman. are maybe i can swap out north korea. you and your book and other places have talked about the horrors of north korea. wind commune of, but generally misguided dennis rodman, misguidedly in my estimation went over there, i thought two things. i thought that this is like jane fonda sitting on the guns are

and i would love to be corrected on this, but it struck me that this was a way to prop up a murderous regime committing some of the worst atrocities along the lines, which you described in your books. what is your perception of the? and do you think that our state department could've done anything to prevent this, or the new about this? because i, frankly, was so stunned especially since it's north korea, you know, there's gray areas and then there's north korea. what do you all think about that and what you think of the role one place in doing things like that? reaching out in that way, it seems to me, as i said, misguided, naïve. what do you think? can anything good of its? >> let me comment first on the situation of north korea and then i will defer to my co-panelists to say what she did about it. north korea is probably the worst place to be for any number of things, being a human being.

probably the worst. it's probably also the worst place to be a christian. persecution is the most intensive. i just want to go back to north korea but used as intro to the communist post comments war with china, vietnam, korea, north korea still stand out on its own. and then the post-soviet countries. there's widespread persecution in these countries, too. that affects more christians than phenomena in the muslim world. so that's another huge patent which we look at. but you very correctly say that north korea stands on its own. >> yeah, i'll have any insights into dennis rodman. >> neither does dennis rodman. [laughter] >> but it is coming, we have

cases that we discussed in our book about north koreans being shot summarily executed for being found in possession of a viable. families to three generations being put in their detention camp system because they have been revealed to be christians. it is the worst repressive country in the world. then you have five, only five churches there as one of our cases said, they are all fake. they are there for western benefits. they are there to fool the west. but, you know, this is going on in china, into a lesser extent but they have moved to a more regulatory system where we fight up the world, put come as

countries become more involved international trade, they become more self-conscious about human rights, and they take, they don't use, we are not seeing so much the brutal message as we've seen in the past. in a place like china, pastors increase may be put in weather cams but they also just is like to be put into retirement homes for detention. a kind of house arrest the in vietnam they're still bulldozing monasteries and churches and graveyards to put an echo tourism resource. and get particularly brutal in the outlying areas where the international media is not present in the remote tribal areas. dennis rodman is one way that they're trying, what ever dennis

rodman was thinking we will never know, but what the north koreans were thinking, what pyongyang was thinking if we're going to use this guide to fool the west, as speech i was going to fool the west, again, i think of a corollary of the soviet union, when somebody would go over there and have a photo op, that it served to prop up that regime. and my understanding is that prisoners in the gulags would suffer when that happened. when somebody would speak out a relatively, as reagan did a couple of crimes, their situation would improve. so it seems to me that rodman was used, but i guess another question just because i'm interested in own administration, our own government's role. within not know who's going over there? we do not have at least had to give some tacit approval to

this? do you have any sense of that? i was stunned that this could even occur. >> [inaudible] >> i don't know. i don't know how he went, what he went through china or some other third country. i really don't have the insight. spent could you make something up? [laughter] >> it happened after the book so we have another research. >> if the north koreans out they could just dennis rodman this way, it backfired. this is the regime that the onion named their president the sexiest man in the world. replayed it as a serious news story. so dennis rodman is not the guy. he was really put down. but having gone in, whatever, i don't know. >> i think it might be worth pointing out that henry talked about islam, why the communist countries persecute christians.

and what we talked about in the past on the subject is that christians bow to a higher authority. and although this is not religious, on religious persecution, i got in a plane sitting on the wager, he said, religion is responsible for all the recount in the world, all the worse in the world. we need to get rid of religion. this is a common statement. these countries are not religious but their anti-religious because christians will not have the need to a lesser god. i think that's why we have to remember that we are dealing with atheism of a sort. it sort of becomes religious in its own way but it is atheism. but it's so threatened by christians and other people of faith, that they strike out just as violently as if -- >> i think what spoke to transition to audience questions. u.s. the timing on the?

i think we are, is that right? someone winked at me. thank you. so are going to do that as i said before only to our false question, please. let me ask one final question. actually closer to the end. so anybody who has got a question you have to limit of 14 syllables. >> and wait for the microphone. there is a microphone being passed around. >> and please identify yourself. >> the microphone will be moved to -- here it comes. and if you don't mind, actually we do have a -- please bring a question in the form of a question. >> not a declaration. >> there is a gentleman here who had his hand up. right there. you just passing to the man with his hand up. thank you.

go ahead. >> [inaudible] >> going back to iran for just a minute, in libya we had an american in jail for proselytizing as well. an american suspect he was arrested with south african others. there's nothing from the state department nor will the painting from the state department because, if this is the question, are we are we not doing this maintaining a routine that we had with the soviet union. we pick up and up and we're only going to talk about persecution of christians in iran. because we you lived in egypt

and all the other muslim brotherhood controlled nations no matter what they do, whether the arrest americans or not, that's okay because they're against iran. we are in our main any routine that we were with the soviet union when the armed the mujahideen spent i think that was more than 14 syllables but we will that ago. thank you. >> that was what was a mystifying about secretary kerry's statement, where it didn't even mention the fact that he was christian or that he was being sentenced essentially for proselytizing. even if iran is the main hostile force, we are not even willing to speak out really much there either. so i wouldn't even go that far, as far as you've gone. >> there is that, going easy on our friends for people to want to be our friends. so that tends to be more of a

concentration say, on iran and less outspoken on afghanistan your about what happens there. >> you mentioned egypt earlier. >> just to mention by the way, several months ago an egyptian court sentenced several americans to death in connection with that movie trailer thing. that included pastor terry jones was not one of my favorite people. but when foreign courts are condemning americans to death, exercising their first amendment rights within the united states, i think there should be some comment about that. >> microphone to the front row, possibly. here it comes. >> my name is fred weber. true or false -- [laughter] >> the dramatic rise in the persecution of christians worldwide, but especially in the

muslim countries, is a direct result of the rise in opposition to our country to the anti-american feeling that's been crescendoing especially this past decade. >> i'm not sure that is the case. within the muslim world i think some of that is connected, or at least with radical islam, if you go through al qaeda statement, things of this kind, then you will see america is hated because it's thought to be christian. christians are not hated because they thought to be americans. they see the world in religious terms. bin laden, no, says the buddhists have a seat on the u.n. security council, why can't we? what's he referring to? he's referring to china. so everything is put in religious categories. christians would be seen as a problem anyway. just add another writer.

we cover 60 or 70 countries in the book. don't want to get down into the weeds of each individual country but most of the rise is in the country world -- since the end of the sure rank and war. thankfully that is over. but that also means the government is nothing more confident, to put attacks on religious minorities of muslims and christians, and you see there are problems elsewhere but the big increases are in the muslim majority world. >> and while michael is moving, when did we lose c-span? at 15 after or 30 after? does anyone know? that's what i thought, thank you. proceed to a raised hand. i will leave it to you. thank you. >> nathan. recently, our organization in egypt one official government registration after an eight-year

process with a lot of back and forth. at one point the egyptian media reported that registration denied -- like the carter center for quote threats to national sovereignty. so that's a preface. now to my question. what come in situations like egypt, where there's a strong phobia about foreign money, for and political influence, how do we work without exposing indigenous christians as we've seen even among our indigenous staff to charge as being foreign spies, working anti-national political interests? >> well, i'll take a stab at it. i think the key, the operative phrase is foreign money. in other words, u.s. money. we are basically about, we are promising egypt's government

upwards of $10 million either you are direct aid, military aid, economic aid, debt forgiveness, $2 billion debt forgiveness, approval for imf loans worth about $5 billion right there. so the egyptian government has not at all adverse to foreign money. it's just adverse, it wants its for itself but not for anybody else. we have to use our leverage. we have to put some conditions on our foreign aid. to protect the rights of minorities, to protect human rights, and to promote our interests in egypt, such as the flourishing of real democracy can of liberal democracy, and a strong civic society. that's the only way back to munich on the other interesting

thing about, paul mentioned the correlation between women's rights and religious freedom and so forth. there's also the converse is true. when there is religious repression and religious restriction, there's instabili instability. and t-2 ha wtu has documented t. so it's in our own national interest, not just our ideal to have, to ensure that the country respects the rights of its nationals of its citizens. so i think that the answer is, that we have to start making clear that we expect religious freedom and protection for the cops and protection for human rights in general with our generous aid. >> just to add to that in terms with egyptian ngos of all kind, lots of american money goes into egypt but the government wants it all and is

cut off other to the second thing is there's lots of foreign money going into egypt from the gulf. and that's very, i seen any documentation of that, but all the revival people i know say it is the case. so it's only certain types of money. of course, that doesn't help an ngo if it runs afoul of the law of the foreign money. i think the main thing would be, yeah, what does the organization itself want. the democracy and human rights activist in egypt was company -- commented on this a year or two back and said, ask the organization. it's probably the best judge of its own risks and what it needs. so that's all i can suggest on that. >> i'm with the investigative

prosecutor terrorism to our ordination tracks domestic islamist groups with brother such as counsel of american islamic relations, islamic society of north america, and you've been able to see that this is a close correlation between these groups and lobbying the obama administration. they have come out and supported the brotherhood in egypt and elsewhere. you think they are having an impact on how the administration deals with indigenous christians in the muslim world? >> quick canvass. we would have no idea on what are the dynamics, just observe the phenomenon, the current administration, also with the bush administration at least as far as where do with iraq did not raise this issue, did not focus on the persecution of christians.

so i think there are many dynamics, sort of one of political correctness whereby the u.s. and also just doesn't want to be seen as a christian nation simply defending christians. these how the modus opera could have the decision-making goes on i don't know. >> and i think that there's a "blind spot" -- a plug. you can put it up. about when journalists don't get religion. but i think there's also a blind speech you've only written one book on the subject? [laughter] sorry to hear that. >> there's a "blind spot" in her and is either and it made a couple obvious missteps recently. one was bringing over a woman that sam on our staff was in the back uncovered the fact issues to get a human rights award, egyptian national who had

tweeted her congratulations for the attacks on 9/11 against the united states and wanted to see america burned and that kind of thing. and also attacks on israel, and celebrating jihadists attacks. and so when that was uncovered, the state department of course was embarrassed and center back in without the award. on the anniversary of 9/11 last fall, the embassy, when the youtube trailer that paul mentioned came out, the embassy put up a statement saying that this was an abuse of freedom of speech. this is the same kind of characterization that egypt's government itself has used for many years in the event that we must not use -- abuse freedom of speech. i think there is a problem coming from that embassy as we well. >> if i can just add and say,

nina mentioned this book, "blind spot," one of my co-editors was lela. one of the phenomenal explores in this is that most journalists with of course many honorable exceptions don't understand religion. here on the target of persecution and i'm not talking of christianity alone. in general, many have a very effective mindset which itself is okay but actually don't really know what goes on outside that bubble. and so there are many things i miss. they just don't see. so if you're dealing with persecution, they can sometimes happen in the capital of caution but often in remote areas. and if in the capital talking to othea journalist, you're talkino diplomats and other people, and then often you don't know what's going on in the country you

cover. so there's a more general phenomenon of journalists missing things. >> yes, i'm with jubilee campaigns. you mentioned that north korea is worst place in the world for christians. the world watch monitor has said it is the most violent place in the world for christians. now, of course, i imagine that you can distinguish between the two because one is state-sponsored and the other is a sex sponsored persecution. but given that nigeria had more christians killed than the rest of the world put together in 2012, could you maybe speak to this, and the differences between the two?

>> yeah, obviously there's a bright commission were talking about persecution. you may have noticed we said christians are the most widely persecuted group that involves more people than any other group in the world. we wouldn't want, i steer clear of single most persecuted because much of what that means like the hives are more intensively persecuted. but they are much smaller so less widespread. similarly, for myself at least whatever for to go through, i think all of us view as the worst place, there is no creation in north korea who is not persecuted. it's there, it's total, its repressive. in nigeria you have 55, 60 million christians. and as you greatly say, the death toll is in the thousand. this is another area that state department has been reluctant to speak out on, speak out on some of these issues.

so in terms of defcon, yeah, i'll be similar christians are killed in nigeria than anywhere else. we probably should spend more attention on this because it's also one of the largest christian areas in the world. it's the intensity of north korea. how many christians -- we don't know how many there are. probably 200,000 a every one of them is persecuted. in nigeria and 60 million, there are thousands of deaths. many christians, they are not facing that. as you know, mainly in the middle belt and the north. so that's the way we're using the term. there are many dimensions of which we can get countries. >> and there's no doubt that there is horrific persecution in nigeria. last easter of course a series of churches were bombed full of

worshipers. and this just happen repeatedly over and over again. i think in june, like every sunday we saw a bombing, a church bombing. and again more recently. so it's just a horrific situation. and again, the link between stability and religious freedom could not be clear. the state department should be making this a priority instead of giving speeches as the assistant secretary did after the bombing of one of the other think tanks in town saying that this had nothing to do with religion. spoke of these very name attacks. and has made no, has not tried by the fact that they want to impose an islamic state on the country. really cleanse the area of christians, so-called religious cleansing. >> let me just add that i think

jubilee has just issued a report, at least i got an e-mail. imagine when went to istanbul last week, and so documented the number of attacks and tammy were killed because there's a lot of confusion. >> faith mcdonnell from the institute. thank you all for the book and for your moderation, eric. my question is, i'm seeing in my own work a tendency of our government and media and others to make the perpetrators into the victims. and i want to -- and i wonder if you could talk about that at all and the idea of moral equivalence which we see with the state department has chosen to call them victims rather than perpetrators. >> this does happen in the example you've given, that often

boko haram attacks are labeled religious clashes or sectarian clashes whether or not. there had been religious clashes in nigeria. but boko haram is a terrorist organization bombing churches almost every sunday. there's a tendency to say well, it kills muslims as well. widgets are because. it kills traditional muslim leaders and then attacks the military, police and the government. but it's focused on killing police and other things isn't because they're muslim. it's because they represen repre state. so it is attacking the state and christians. and so that gives me was cast because there are muslim deaths, then it's not religious. this still goes on in newspaper and sometimes even state department coverage of egypt. that if there's a conflict they

called a sectarian clash, at which know, it's a program. i mean, that's like calling ku klux klan in coming, 1920s in the south, oh, there were racial clashes in alabama last night, 25 people were killed. it's not. the violence, there may be retaliatory violence but the aggression is going one way. how many mosques in egypt have been burned or attacked? to my knowledge, zero. large number of churches. again, i do want to say that all muslims are attacking all christians or anything of this kind, but in terms of the violence is not just a clash between two forces. it's radical islamists, and christians are one of the principal targets. >> one of the cases we talk about in the book is the massacre in october 11, and in cairo, and these were a group of

copts that got together, mostly topic use the got together, most of them, to protest the burning of their churches that had been going on whether government failed to come to the rescue or to give them any protection. and the government set out to break up this protest by opening fire with live ammunition on the protesters, and running them over with tanks. and the pictures are up on the internet today. grotesque and horrific. >> when was this? >> this was in 11 to october 31 of 11. just the beginning of the arab spring. the first year of the arab spring. i remember, never forget how the u.s. government put out a response condemning it and saying, asking for both sides to refrain from further violence.

>> because some of the tanks were damaged last the. >> sam said, sam wrote at the time, he said well, maybe i should tell the military to stand down from killing the copts. and i said tell the copts to stop dying. it's a perfect example of that phenomenon. >> i just want to add a question because as i said at cpac i gave a speech about this, and how we seem to have lost the understanding in america where we, one place where i think we have this understanding, of ordered liberty and how you cannot have so-called democracy or self-government without the protection of religious freedom. and it seems to me that both republicans and democrats have gotten this woefully wrong. you can't just sprinkle democracy dust and you get democracy the future not have built in protection for

minorities and religious freedom. and the arab spring quote unquote seems to be a classic example of this, this idea that we're willing to tolerate certain things so we can get democracy because we believe democracy will lead to all kinds of good things. and iron it is just the opposite it seems to be happening, that democracy becomes meaningless and my bro and his understanding of the ordered liberty that the founders gave us is so different from what we're talking about. this is sort of faux democracy. >> yeah, and i think that we feel that the citizens, the good citizens of america need to speak up at this point. and this is why, goes back to your initial question why did we write the book. we want everyone to know what's going on. because we cannot rely on our political leaders to lead us. we have to lead them at this point. >> what can we do to speak up?

>> we need to become informed as american. we need to use our citizenship to appeal to our political leaders. we have written this book but we've also want to introduce today, we are unveiling today a new website called persecution reports.org. and this website is an aggregator of all the top stories of religious freedom in the world. it's going to be updated weekly and it's going to cover all religious groups, not just christian but and it's going to cover the whole world. but it's going to be a resource or the media, resource for the average citizen, a resource for church groups. and anybody else come human rights groups, that want to know what's happening in the world today regarding persecution. >> did you say that is up-to-date? >> that is just being an aspirin a. breaking news.

>> persecutionreports.org. >> in terms of what we can do, the answer is, ma a whole lot. just one story. nina wrote about 16 years ago, so did lela and i on the persecution of christians. in both of those books we asked what's the worst place now? the answer is clear, sudan. so maybe particular focus in subsequent years on sudan. and there's tremendous lobbying in the united states. by a whole range of groups but in terms of the number of bodies, most of them were dealing with christians. because there are 350,000 congregations in this country. you can mobilize far more people. but take your focus on the sudan, the bush administration on colin powell when he came into will get rid facility of special envoys. it messes up the minds of

authority and the state department. but against the pressure that was strong lobbying by the coalition in the united states to have a special envoy for sudan which was granted. he did a very good job, and there were many other countries involved and it don't choose mean the american church. those with the central players, the largest players. that led to a cease-fire in sudan, and it led to a referendum and the creation of the news country in the world. so that is quite an effort to make a new, create the conditions for a new country. that's another thing, you want -- it shows it is a real focus on this sort of thing, it's amazing what can be -- >> and the question would be, why was the focus? why do you think this was different from what we are seeing now? >> can i just add a little footnote to what paul said. the sequel is the state department and religious freedom report when it came out last

summer noted that south sudan, this place that had seen genocidal lever of persecute had no reports of persecution whatsoever or no even reports of discrimination. either by the government or by forces within society. so that's an amazing transformation. >> what do we think it was in 97 and onward? what do we think -- >> one of the things was a great shock -- other leaders we have lost as well. dozens of columns about christian persecution and the situation in sudan at the time. and i think that there's a complacency. there was a complacency afterwards. that's the north-south conflict, darfur a now the mountains is dreadful. and the repression of christians

is horrible. there was that success and then there was the international and religious freedoms act coalition that succeeded as well back in those days, the late '90s. so i think those two things, the coalition fell apart and often made with a mechanism within religious freedom act, and the government could take care of it. and no, we must be vigilant about our freedom. >> since we're talking of north korea a few moments ago, what do we think accounts for the reticence of the koreans, the south koreans? that is a privately christian nation, and i know that there are many very successful korean american christians. are they not speaking up enough? wouldn't that make a difference?

>> many of them are, and one story which needs some attention one of our cuts in college has written about is communist, the exodus of north korea's -- north koreans into china. the networks which exist in china, a whole range of people including mainly koreans, this is the only hole in that fortress of north korea. i think that leakage may affect them. as to why the administration is worried, well, it's to do with nuclear weapons. we are at war with north korea. so those issues overshadow it. of course, will all work out those as well. but i worried about the fact that human rights questions are seen then as a side agenda to the realism of international relations.

in fact many cases they are not. if we go back to the old soviet union and the third basket of helsinki which was regarded as keep the human rights ngos have a. but has major effects with the soviet union of providing treaty-based form of criticism. so these issues should be seen as, it ties in with other foreign policy agendas. >> i think we have time for one more question. perhaps in the front row here. we have a hand. we have a microphone. microphone approaching, approaching. and we only have just a moment left. >> i was the president of the first north korean pinkalicious i do a lot of things there. i just want to making something

about the state department, kind of a history. we have an infiltration of islamic sympathizers. i am actually concerned about that. [inaudible] she has a very strong link to the muslim brotherhood. but just something broke yesterday which answers your question, john kerry's son-in-law, it didn't come out in the vetting process with him for second state. his son-in-law is an irony. iranian-american with very close relatives and iran. that is a breakdown of the vetting process. and so i will ask you all. are you concerned about this? >> i would have to know more about the iranians. most iranian americans are strong opponents of the iranian regime's i don't know about this person. >> this could be a problem, too, in terms of pressure and black and. i would be concerned about that.

i would say at the state department is not aware of the fact, they may take steps to protect him in some way, or put in some of the portal. but i don't know about the situation. >> since we're losing some media coverage, i just want to reiterate that there's a book called "persecuted: the global assault on christians." three of the three authors are here on this panel. we are grateful for your time. also new website, persecution report.org. please don't neglect to visit that and to keep up on these important issues and maybe a round of applause for the authors of this brand-new book. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you. >> any closing comments? i don't know -- i know there are some the question that anything you would like to say before we

break up? >> again, thank you all for thinking of thanks to our heads and staff who is helpless with the new website. but i would like to have you think about some of the real cases and that's what we tried to do in this book, put faces and names on these stories. people like asia db in pakistan on death row, mother of five for blasphemy of christians. in china, a lawyer who defended christians has been in prison for about seven years. fatherly in vietnam, and there are just so many others. thank you. >> i would second that, and add to my earlier comment, two related things. one is we mainly stressed the negative things which are happening. the book also seeks to be encouraging and enlightening and inspiring a. inspiring. because many of these stories

involve suffering. but they also involve victory and faithfulness and are very inspiring. then my comments about the staff that what can make a great deal of difference on these issues if we work hard and we are focused. >> i don't agree. i also think it's important to remember that we could all make noise. we tried to the look at it of the paper. weekend ask for prayer and our churches. keep it in front of people. keep people aware of the. it's up to was really that you know about it to communicate to people that are less informed. i've been speaking about another book that i've written, and i spoke a lot to jewish audiences and they are very shocked. they're very shocked that christians are not more mobilized about christian persecution because they may fight with each other but when it comes to persecution, they

are together and work very, very hard but i think we can learn from them and learn how to mobilize ourselves in small ways and in big ways. we can make a difference and we can work with the system we have come and we can pray which is not to be taken lightly. >> thank you, lela. thank you, thank you very much. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at the booktv@c-span.org. or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> here's some of the latest headlines around the publisher industry this past week. the pink one group have announced a biography of margaret thatcher will be released on april 23. a week after the former prime minister's funeral. margaret thatcher, the authorized biography volume one was commissioned in 1997 under

the condition it would be released following her death. the biography is written by former telegraph editor charles moore. this week, barnes & noble has announced the release of milk breast. the company's new self publishing platform. in the press allows authors to write, edit and publish their works through the know. authors can sell the publications do not oppress and receive royalties. the city of newark will pay the occupy wall street movement and their librarians $47,000 to settle a lawsuit over stolen and destroyed books. occupy wall street sued the city after about 3600 books were seized during an overnight raid in november 2011. according to the lawsuit, the city returne return only about 0 books to the occupied library. the city will also cover lawyer fees for occupy wall street for this case. stay up-to-date on breaking news about authors, books and

publishing by lighting us on facebook at facebook.com/booktv. or follow us on twitter at booktv. .. and find it somewhat foreign. it's also written for the parents of other students as well. >> souvenir asked as a college

professor, what will make my son or daughter successful, what is your short answer by >> my short answer is independence and responsibility and that's the thing parents may not want to your guess that means they have to pull back. when we get to my college, it's a chance for them to be responsible for what they need to do and that is the most part skill for that. >> what is your responsibility as a college professor to make that successful? >> guest: my job is to challenge them and that is something people are quite ready for would make it here. we want a friendly environment for them. this is where we want them to feel it's open to consider new ideas. my job is to take bad, give them ideas, but thinking new race they they haven't before. >> host: hueneme student, kidney now predict who will be

successful and he won't? >> guest: now, if verse not at all because they are all very pleasant. most of the students are going to be successful. said that's the good news. it's almost impossible to predict who will be more successful than others. >> host: what are some of the downfalls? >> guest: there's lots and lots of distractions here or any other university. that's probably the biggest downfall, not paying attention to what they need to do. not going to class, not doing the studying is the most day in terms of making sure they have the best opportunity to succeed. >> host: what's the most common questions students ask you? >> guest: what's going to be in the test. that's simply not the right question to be asking. they had to be engaging with us in the material.

as part of the dialogue we have, don't know what's on the test. they'll be part of it. >> host: professor trained three, has personal type knowledge he changed how you teach? >> guest: we now have to compete with these other calls on students attention. so they come to class with their salt is with them, smartphones. there's of other things they can do if they're not excited about what going on in class. at the same time we used it ologies to bring it into the classroom. we can really make some of these things come alive and give them an opportunity to test were talking about in the classroom on the theoretical issues and what is happening in the real world. >> host: is important to give students letter grades?

>> guest: import and for whom? them or others? i don't find it to be as useful as others might, the students want them and they want that because that is what they're used to, that they've all been competing for that anything that is what employers want. frankly, we can get a whole lot more out of me writing evaluation and a more detailed way that talks about the strengths and weaknesses, with more like a better recommendation than a letter grade. >> host: define the difference between students who take out student loans or had their parents pay for it? >> guest: knockback, but i do find the difference between students who work in those who don't. said the students who work as their money. students who take out the lawn is eventually going to be their money, but to then it is

somewhere in the future. those working for them to sweat right now to get the education they are more serious student and demand or all of us in the classroom. >> host: in your book, "how to succeed in college" you have a chapter, subchapter, the liberal ivory tower. can a conservative student -- can a student who is conservative be successful at harvard, and american come at a you can? >> guest: absolutely. attorneys in the book to dispel the myth. these are not students of liberalism that are unfriendly. what we're after here if i'm doing my job, and a student is going to have this preexisting views challenged, whether they're liberal or conservative. those kids will be challenged to think about what they believe

in, to take in the information family with their own view of the world. that are to be exciting and to some extent freight ain't to students to monitor what their political debates because ultimately we want them to be critical consumers of information no matter what they end up believing. >> host: you do say college professors and campuses tend to be more of a broken society in general. >> guest: that's not so much about being a college professor. generally people who have phd's tend to be more liberal than others in society. there's also something about let's face it, most of us who are college professors have decided money is not the most important thing for us because we'd be doing other sorts of things. whatever perspectives are, ideology is very certified conservative professors

throughout an institution as well as liberals. if we do our jobs right, our students don't know our ideology. the best compliment i ever got from a student was one who had no idea what i ideology was until she came to babysit our kids one night and saw my wife's bumper sticker because what they really could professor does is take him or herself out of his or her background out of that conversation with the student. our job is to challenge them to be critical consumers of information. postcode his tenure helps students the be successful? >> guest: if we are successful they will be more successful. tenure gets its freedom of inquiry and allows us to look at what we think is important without worrying about someone

saying that an unpopular idea. inc. that unpopular ideas, we would not be understanding gravity. it would be understanding the world is spherical is supposed to square. after tenure gets us in that case faculty who is able to do a full inquiry, for the knowledge, further science in the students benefit not only because were able to import that come under students participate in those projects. so if i'm a consumer critical education and what my moneys worth, i'm in favor of that. >> host: professor gould, what you teach? >> guest: i teach over in the college of the school of public affairs. very teach law and society. >> host: what sparked you to write "how to succeed in college"? >> guest: i've been teaching for over 20 years now and i was

beginning to see some of the same problems from students over and over again, things like not understanding how to cite material and getting themselves in trouble with plagiarism. this great new world and take advantage of every name but in the classroom. i regularly e-mail my student and i was sending the same e-mail out year after year and i thought it's time to write the book. that way i can see by the book so i don't have to keep sending e-mails out. >> host: what is the best thing parents can do for their kids? >> guest: one is the academic side. the best thing students can do is reading and writing. i know that sounds old school, but it's as true today as it was in the olden days. it's the best thing we can do to have them prepared. the other thing parents can do

is get the students ready to live their lives underground. we hear so much about helicopter parents today. the most important things parents can do this for that. not to be there. this is how do you do laundry at your college, but it's much more to the point of how you going to get yourself up each day and do what's required of you? how are you going to balance a social life of academic life. those are life skills and the kinds of things parents are to have their kids ready for. >> host: we've been talking with american university professor jon gould about "how to succeed in college (while really trying)." thank you or been on booktv. >> guest: my pleasure, thank you. >> it's an important book in that it shows you how the court works. there's so few good books that explain the process. how did they decide these cases? what are they saying to one

another? we see these i split the court right before. to their personal feelings get into with? it's not just capital===?=== punishment?. =t's also how the court===== operates.?=?= >> host: when you dig in the==?= nose= of library of congress, t= memoranda, the notes back and forth and a lot of stuff is available. i'm not a=?? lawyer >> up next, "after words" with author and columnist david

wessel of "the wall street journal." this week, neil irwin in his book, "the alchemists: three central bankers and a world on fire." and it, mr. irwin gives central banks before examining the choices that today's central bankers and their effect on economies worldwide. the program is about an hour. >> host: meal, this is a really ambitious book. i did a book as well as you know, that you try to do the whole world here. tell me how this came to be. >> guest: we've been through a remarkable few years. it started the subprime crisis and of course this turn into something much bigger and more global come with much broader effects in anything having to do with mortgage security in the united states. the deepest and darkest days of the crisis was the fall of 2008.

he wrote a wonderful book on that. i wanted to try and capture slightly different story. the global story, first of all, of what started will be thought of as a housing crisis in the united states and the financial crisis became this conflagration that is dated towards european unity has worsened the british economy for years and years has had this global reach that has affected almost everybody honors. the story that seems most logical is the global central bankers, who again and again have been the ones who try to corral this rapidly spreading fire, whether it's in europe with the yours on cray says come in the u.s. with ben bernanke and the federal reserve. i view a lot of the books written in 2008, 2009 to capture

the intense stage as a starting point and capture how it went from there and the entire arc of the last several years. >> host: how long did it take to do a? >> guest: in some ways it started coverage in 2007. i started about a week after what is the first scene in the book. it's all my fault. the first day the european central bank intervened. a week after that, i wouldn't have put the two together, but i started covering the fed. i've been trying to think through what it all meant. i started thinking about a book in late 2010 and reporting on the book in 2011. >> host: is the cover shows, unit at a number of central bankers. not only ben bernanke, but er