New scorecard will grade lawmakers on support for persecuted minorities

WASHINGTON—Members of Congress will soon be graded on how much they value religious freedom, as terrorism eviscerates minority faith groups around the globe.

Former Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.—whom WORLD named its 2014 Daniel of the Year—announced the new scorecard Tuesday, in collaboration with the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative. Wolf, who retired from 17 terms in Congress to concentrate more attention on international religious liberty, said he hopes the tool will help apply pressure on lawmakers often apathetic to human rights issues.

“The scorecard allows people to understand what is happening in Congress and it encourages people to fight for religious freedom,” Wolf said.

Religious liberty advocates who joined Wolf for Tuesday’s announcement touted the scorecard’s ability to raise awareness for the plight of people most Americans will never see.

“The United States has not understood this—they think the struggle of religious minorities in Middle Eastern countries is an internal issue,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, author and former member of Pakistan’s National Assembly. The U.S. views religious freedom “as a soft issue, not as important as the nukes and the toys for the boys,” she said.

In July, Wilberforce and Wolf will publish mid-term grades, releasing the final scorecard next January. It will give each legislator a letter grade, A through F, that indicates the degree to which he or she supported international religious freedom, determined by bills, resolutions, and co-sponsored measures. The scorecard, according to Wolf, is an educational tool and is not designed to endorse specific legislation or candidates.

Open Doors released it annual World Watch List last month, noting 2015 saw the most prevalent and sustained attacks on Christians in modern history. Boko Haram, the Islamist terror group operating in northern Nigeria, killed more Christians than any other group last year, according to Open Doors.

“We’re seeing the greatest peril posed to religious freedom since the rise of Nazism and Communism,” said Nina Shea, the Hudson Institute’s director for the Center for Religious Freedom. “This administration has been too silent.”

According to Ispahani, not only are groups killing Christians in the Middle East, they are uprooting them from their communities as well. And sectarian governments enforcing blasphemy laws against non-Muslims furthers the systemic discrimination.

“The 12 million Christians in the Middle East will likely reduce to 6 million by 2020,” she said. “Thousands of years of history of the Christian community in the Middle East will be wiped out.”