Bill Maher’s shocking defense of Christians — and what it reveals

For decades, Bill Maher has mocked religion with missionary zeal. He built his career sneering at scripture, scorning believers, and branding Christianity a fairy tale for fools.

Few men have done more to cement their place as America’s most committed unbeliever. And to his credit, Maher has never hidden his contempt. Week after week on “Real Time,” he lampooned pastors, derided prayer, and preached his own brand of secular gospel — cheap, cynical, and completely godless.

If even he can recognize evil when he sees it, what excuse remains for those who claim to serve God?

That’s what makes his latest remarks so shocking.

On a recent episode of his show, Maher did something few in the modern West dare to do: He defended Christianity. He spoke not with irony, but with indignation, condemning the genocide of Christians in Nigeria. If this were any other group, he argued, it would be on every front page — and he’s right.

“The fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar — it’s pretty amazing,” Maher said. “If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck. You are in a bubble.”

“I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches. … These are the Islamists, Boko Haram,” he continued. “This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.”

The fact that it takes an atheist to say what many Christian leaders have not and Western journalists will not is a sobering sign of our decay.

While Maher’s words are rare, the blood he described is not. Just a few weeks ago, armed insurgents stormed the Christian community of Wagga Mongoro in Adamawa State in the dead of night. Four were killed, many more wounded. Homes, shops, and a church were set ablaze.

Earlier in August, coordinated assaults swept through farming villages in Benue State. Nine Christians murdered in five days. In June, over 200 butchered in a single weekend — parents, priests, and children alike.

Across Nigeria, Christians are being hunted for their belief. The perpetrators — Boko Haram, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, and radicalized Fulani militias — share one mission: to wipe out Christianity and impose Islamist rule.

It’s nothing less than a slow, systematic genocide.

Under former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, this campaign flourished. Militants gained ground while soldiers stood aside. Entire villages vanished. Churches became tombs. What the world calls “unrest” is, in truth, organized extermination. It’s “genocide” by every definition.

Since 2009, more than 50,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Nigeria. Churches reduced to rubble. Priests hacked to death at the altar. Worshippers gunned down mid-prayer. These are not isolated horrors but rather part of a single, unbroken chain of persecution.

Yet in the West, this bloodshed barely registers. If thousands of Muslims, Jews, or atheists were annihilated, it would dominate headlines for months, and rightly so. But when Christians die, the press looks away.

And silence, in this case, is complicity.

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OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT/AFP via Getty Images

Over the past decade, the United States has poured over $7.8 billion in aid into Nigeria — funds meant for peace and progress. Yet the country’s most vulnerable, the rural faithful, are left defenseless. The Nigerian government shrugs, Western governments continue to provide funding, and the media remains silent. It’s easier to ignore a massacre than to admit moral failure.

Aid without accountability is blood money. Every dollar sent to Abuja should demand justice — protection for Christian villages, prosecution of terrorists, and dismantling of jihadist networks. Anything less is an endorsement of evil.

Nigeria is not alone. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, ISIS-linked rebels have killed thousands. In Burkina Faso, pastors are executed and churches incinerated. In Mozambique, Christian towns have been erased from the map. Across Africa, a perverse pattern repeats — the union of radicalism and Western indifference, and the victims are nearly always Christian.

But Nigeria stands apart. It is Africa’s most populous nation, its economic and political heart. If it falls, the shock will reverberate across the continent.

So I ask, where is the outrage? Where are the protests, the headlines, the hashtags?

The same media class that rushes to champion every self-proclaimed victim of oppression falls curiously silent when the oppressed are believers. The same outlets that preach “diversity” intentionally turn blind eyes to the destruction of a faith followed by 2.6 billion souls. The hypocrisy would be laughable if it weren’t so lethal.

The modern left has grown so morally inverted that an atheist must now defend the faithful. Bill Maher’s rebuke should pierce the conscience of every journalist, pastor, and policymaker who claims to care about justice.

If even he can recognize evil when he sees it, what excuse remains for those who claim to serve God?

For years, Western leaders, particularly those on the left, have droned on about defending the weak and giving voice to the voiceless. But when the victims are Christian — often barefoot widows in burned-out villages clutching starving children — matters of justice don’t seem to matter. What could be weaker than that? What could be more deserving of compassion?

Nigeria now stands at a crossroads — and so does the West.

The issue isn’t whether Christianity can survive persecution — it always has. The question is whether nations built upon its moral foundation still believe in the values they inherited.

Because when an atheist must defend the faith, it isn’t just Christianity under siege. It’s the very conscience of the civilized world.