Congressman Frank Wolf, a committed Christian from Virginia, has been an outspoken advocate for international human rights for the past 30 years. After visiting hotspots for persecution and human rights abuses from around the world, he was asked if America—especially the churches in America—were failing the oppressed peoples of the world. Wolf replied:

I meet many people [from around the world] who are baffled and concerned that the West doesn't seem to be that interested in their plight. Three nuns from Iraq just came to my office. They said they feel abandoned. Half the Christian community in Iraq is now living in ghettos in Damascus, Lebanon, and Jordan.

I was in Egypt last month. The United States has given the Egyptian government over $50 billion [since the late 1970s]. And yet the Coptic Christians have been persecuted during that time. If you're a Coptic Christian in Egypt, you can't get a government job, and you can't be in the military. They wonder why the church in the West hasn't spoken out.

In China, you have roughly 30 Catholic bishops who have been arrested. You have hundreds of Protestant pastors and house church leaders being imprisoned and persecuted.

The church in Sudan has suffered persecution. In southern Sudan, 2.1 million people have died—mainly Christians, but also some Muslims and some animists. I had one woman tell me, "The West seems more interested in the whales than in us."