Just catching up after Easter has gone, but the Telegraph expresses how tough things are for Christians in the Middle East:

Abroad, Christians are facing persecution and even death in many countries; the Arab Spring is threatening to turn into winter for Christian communities and the conflict in Syria is fraught with menace for a minority that is being driven out of parts of the Middle East it has inhabited for two millennia. The Coptic Christians in Egypt are suffering murderous attacks and the Lebanese patriarch is warning of dire consequences as a result of revolution across the Middle East, with militant Islamists now looking like the main beneficiaries rather than secular democrats. The courage of the embattled Christian communities in those areas is the most eloquent embracing of the Easter message that could be imagined. For the Easter drama illustrates the worst and the best of human behaviour: Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s craven denial, Pilate’s abdication of responsibility, contrasted with the humility, sacrifice and forgiveness of Christ. Christianity is no soft option.

via A message of consolation that still endures – Telegraph.