Outside the US, this story is huge. Inside the US, it’s getting very little coverage at all. In Japan, where my family is currently visiting relatives, it’s the lead story on the news every night: The Taliban in Afghanistan is holding 23 South Korean Christians hostage and has three times moved back deadlines to murder them.

It’s hard to find a more stark contrast than that between the way members of two of the world’s great religions are behaving in this ordeal. The South Koreans left their safe country and traveled to Afghanistan to work in hospitals among the country’s outcasts; the Taliban captured them at gunpoint and are threatening to behead them in order to gain concessions from the Afghan government en route to recapturing power in that country.

These Koreans are living out the Christian faith in ways most of us can’t and won’t live up to. The Talibanis are unfortunately living up to their faith in a way that’s become all too common.

Please keep the 23 hostages in your prayers.