'Modern-Day Bonhoeffer' Receives Prestigious Humanitarian Award
A man who is being called a "modern-day Dietrick Bonhoeffer" was honored for his relentless work on behalf of persecuted Christians and religious minorities in the Middle East.
Johnnie Moore received the prestigious Medal of Valor from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights organization, during the 2017 Annual National Tribute Dinner.
Moore has played a role in rescuing thousands from ISIS affected territories and he advocates on behalf of persecuted Christians.
In early 2014, Moore traveled to Capitol Hill to warn leaders about the growing threat ISIS posed for Iraq and Syria’s minority Christian and religious communities.
Later, he traveled to the region to document first-hand accounts of believers, who had come face-to-face with the violence and extremism of the terrorist group.
Moore has helped raise over $25 million in humanitarian aid and emergency assistance to assist Christians from these areas.
Moore accepted his award on behalf of the pastors, priests, and Middle Eastern Christians who live under constant persecution.
"Gratefully, I accept. But I do so on behalf of every pastor or priest whose church was burned to the ground, every mother and father whose child was sold as a slave, every one of the two million Iraqi and Syrian Christians still largely displaced," Moore said in his acceptance remarks.
He was honored alongside heroes like the late Israeli statesman Shimon Peres and World War II soldier Roddie Edmonds.
The Medal of Valor was posthumously awarded to Peres who was the former president and prime minister of Israel and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Edmonds, an American officer and POW in World War II, was recognized for standing up to his Nazi captors and saving 200 Jewish GIs despite being threatened with execution.
Moore continues to be a voice against anti-Semitism and religious intolerance.
"I've just done what I could," he said. "What if we all did what we could to help everyone we could? Soon such acts of kindness would be so commonplace that they would no longer merit the honors we celebrate tonight."
"No one person can save the world, but we all can save a life," he added. "We can prove to the world that the best of faith is still stronger than the worst of religion—for every act of love on behalf of someone another hates is the death of bigotry."