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by by Judy NelsonThere are now more martyrs in this century than all previous centuries combined. What's going on?
Today, around the world, more than 480 Christians will die. Not because they live in war-torn countries. Not because our brothers and sisters do not have enough food. And not because believers face natural disasters. Instead, Christians are raped, beaten, beheaded and cut down because of what they believe. Totalitarian governments and regimes of hatred persecute and kill Christians in more than 60 countries worldwide simply because they follow Christ.
In southern Sudan in 1995, a Christian man trekked north to locate his wife and two daughters who had been kidnapped for slave labor. Risking torture and death, the man found his wife and 5-year-old and bought them back with his life savings. The 9-year-old is almost old enough to be a concubine; she costs more. The going rate is five head of cattle per child. He cannot afford to reclaim her yet. The young girl is only one of more than 1 million Sudanese, mostly Christians and non-Muslims, who have been abducted or killed by the National Islamic Front.1
In Morocco, Rachid Cohen, a Jewish Moroccan who had converted to Christianity, was arrested for being an "unauthorized guide." Cohen was tortured for 10 hours a day, burned with cigarettes, shocked repeatedly in a low-voltage chair and dunked in his own excrement.2
In China, Amnesty International reports examples of Christian women hung by their thumbs from wires, beaten, shocked with electric probes, starved and dehydrated. Communist leaders there call underground evangelical and Catholic congregations "a principle threat to political stability."3
In the Lion’s Den
An on and on and on go the stories from Cuba, Egypt and Nigeria, from Lebanon, Uzbekistan and North Korea. So many that there are now more martyrs in this century than in all previous centuries combined.4
In 1960, more than 70 percent of all evangelicals lived in North America and Western Europe. In 1990, however, 70 percent of evangelicals lived in the Third World.5 That number continues to grow, presenting an increased threat to totalitarian governments. Although there are 1.7 billion Christians in the world, believers represent a religious minority in 87 territories and countries.6
"Christians are the chief victims of this religious persecution around the world today," says Nina Shea in In the Lion's Den. "Christians are targeted by ruthless dictators who demand total power and control, intolerant of those who believe in the Supreme Being--the Transcendent God--or in the dignity of all persons created in God's image. They serve as scapegoats for societies that aim to vent, foment, and popularize hatred of the West, and most specifically, the United States. . . . By their faith, Christians pose inherent threats to those regimes that rely on bribes and threats to maintain power."
Until recently, these atrocities and injustices against Christians were greeted with silence by the West and the evangelical body, save a few courageous Christian and human-rights groups such as Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors and Christian Solidarity International.
Richard Land, president of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, blames the government silence on ignorance and apathy. The indictment against the evangelical church, however, is harsher, according to Dr. Paul Marshall, one of the world's leading authorities on religious persecution. Marshall asserts, "Many evangelicals in particular seem to be so obsessed with their own well-being that they cannot get their noses out of their own navels to pay attention to the plight of their brothers and sisters around the world."7
In his book Their Blood Cries Out, Marshall also blames evangelical silence on:
–an obsession with end-times prophecy,
–a nationalist form of Christianity that confuses God and America,
–a popular "success" theology that emphasizes prosperity and inner comfort as results of spiritual integrity,
–a competition for fund-raising dollars, and
–a lack of information.8
Intercession: A Call to Action
The tide of silence turned to a murmur, however, in January 1996 when more than 100 Christian leaders and activists discussed strategies to end Christian persecution. Ministries and denominations from Campus Crusade for Christ and the Family Research Council to the Southern Baptist Convention and the Christian & Missionary Alliance organized an International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, observed by thousands of churches countrywide on September 26, 1996.
The National Association of Evangelicals also issued an unprecedented "Statement of Conscience and Call to Action" that pledged to end "our own silence in the face of suffering of all those persecuted for their religious faith . . . [and] to do what is within our power to the end that the government of the United States will take appropriate action to combat the intolerable religious persecution now victimizing fellow believers and those of other faiths."
An unlikely noisemaker on this issue is Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, who challenged his fellow Jews not to be silent in the face of "persecutions eerily parallel to those committed by Adolf Hitler."9 Horowitz also called on Christians to consider the implications of their reticence: "America's Christian community is most directly challenged. Its moral authority will be gravely tarnished if it fails to exercise its growing political influence on behalf of people now risking everything to engage in the 'simple' act of Christian worship and witness. . . ."10
Today the murmur is becoming a buzz, according to Steve Haas, U.S. coordinator for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. "I wouldn't have said this two months ago," admits Haas, "but people are beginning to wake up."
Haas cites a few sounds of life around the country, including: a significant growth in prayer groups for the persecuted church; a Denver church that raised $10,000 beyond their collection for the cause; and godly men and women in government like Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Tony Hall (D-Ohio), who will introduce bipartisan legislation to Congress concerning the issue of Christian persecution.
"Once awake," Haas cautions, "let's make sure we don't go back to sleep. [This plight] has everything to do with our understanding of our citizenship in God's global kingdom."
These are our brothers and sisters. Paul encouraged the Church to care for its family members, exhorting, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10, New International Version). Your opportunity may be to pray, or to write a letter to the government or your local paper, or to support advocacy groups. Forbid it that God should find us forgetting His body.
This year's International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church is November 9. For more on how your church can become involved, call (630) 668-1745 or visit their web site: www.persecutedchurch.org.
1.Testimony by Kevin Vigilante, representing the Puebla Program on Religious Freedom of Freedom House, before the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, March 13, 1996; 2. Robin Wright, In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), p. 81; 3. Terry Mattingly, "Allegations of Christian Persecution Spur Congress to Act," Scripps-Howard News Service, September 28, 1996; 4. James and Marti Hefley, By Their Blood (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996) p. 637; 5. Religious Liberty Commission of World Evangelical Fellowship newsletter,September29, 1996; 6. "The Suffering Church," Christianity Today, July 15, 1996; 7. Telephone interview of Paul Marshall by Kim A. Lawton, May 15, 1996, quoted in In the Lion's Den, page 15; 8. Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out (Dallas: Word, 1997), p. 152; 9. "New Intolerance Between Crescent and Cross," Wall Street Journal, July 5, 1995; 10. Ibid.
