Violence against women is to be deplored – wherever it takes place. And the response to the tragic case of Sarah Everard, allegedly murdered by a policeman, has seen the police over-reacting with clumsy heavy-handedness to break up a vigil held in defiance of social distancing regulations.
Knee-jerk reaction
This has ominous echoes of the killing by a law enforcement officer in Minneapolis, USA, of George Floyd, which was followed by race riots and wholesale attacks on the police that brought terror and anarchy to several American cities. But we must caution against knee-jerk reaction as a growing victimhood mentality keeps looking for institutions to blame for our predicament.
We need God’s help
Similar protests over the vulnerability of women have erupted in Australia, where one poster was emblazoned by the words, “The problem begins and ends with men”.
But we must caution against knee-jerk reaction as a growing victimhood mentality keeps looking for institutions to blame for our predicament.
But it is not that simple. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome, where immorality and brutality was rife. But he goes on to provide the remedy: “And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:23f).
Stronger than death
Violence comes in many forms, with people attacked also for their faith in God.
Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh are two beautiful young women who spent nine months incarcerated in a filthy Iranian jail, being tortured and threatened with execution for the ‘crime’ of distributing Bibles. They had every right to complain – and indeed supporters around the world did so on their behalf. Instead they chose to share the love of Jesus with their oppressors and fellow inmates, including prostitutes, even starting a church in the cells.
Their freedom could have been won by simply recanting their faith; but, with courage undimmed, they demonstrated that Jesus was more precious and real to them than their lives.
With nothing to keep them warm on a freezing cold floor, the two Iranian women were forced to use blankets wet with urine. Their freedom could have been won by simply recanting their faith; but, with courage undimmed, they demonstrated that Jesus was more precious and real to them than their lives. They were eventually released, and today travel the world sharing a faith that is stronger than death. (See this video).
Self-reliance & re-education
Men suffer this type of violence too. In North Korea, tens of thousands of Christians, men, women and children, have been starved, tortured and worked to death in political ‘re-education’ camps. The state ideology, known as Juche, which is effectively a religion, is about human ‘self-reliance’. And ‘re-education’ sounds familiar in our increasingly woke world.
Believers whose only ‘crime’ is to possess pages of a Bible are executed, often in front of large crowds as a deterrent to others. One Christian was forced to curl up inside a tiny steel cage measuring 4 x 4ft, its bars heated by an electric current. And pregnant women are forced to undergo abortions.1
(On this latter point, I quote Labour councillor Joanna Reynolds addressing the aforementioned south London vigil: “We need to make sure our streets are safe for our women and our girls.”2 But surely we should also be ensuring women’s bodies are the safest possible place for unborn babies, whose chances of survival are much diminished by the high rate of abortion: an extreme violence against the most vulnerable among us.)
Still, the Church survives, and even thrives, as it does in South Korea, to which country many believers have fled from the north, and which is now home to some of the largest congregations in the world, with Christians accounting for 30% of the population.
Sudan and Cameroon
In Sudan, where Christians have suffered brutal Islamic repression for three decades, we at last appear to be witnessing a new dawn of peace and tolerance in a country that has seen more executions for apostasy (conversion from Islam) than any other modern state.
One notorious case involved Muslim clan chief, Abdalla Yousef who, after a vision in 1991, led his entire clan to Christ. But after being sentenced to 100 lashes, he and another convert were executed by crucifixion.3
Aid agency Barnabas Fund makes it their business to publicise the plight of persecuted believers such as these, and was able, for example, to provide three months’ worth of food aid to a thousand Christian families in the far north of Cameroon where tens of thousands have been displaced by a deadly wave of terrorist attacks.
Challenging empty ideologies
What is it about Christianity that is such a threat to Islamic fanatics, Communists and, yes, even the ‘Cultural Marxists’ of Britain? Part of the answer is that it challenges their empty ideologies and reveals their sinful, evil hearts, causing them to lash out as they seek to destroy the bearers of truth.
Jesus said: “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed” (John 3:20). Later, in answer to a question from the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, he said: “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37).
Cross & the switchblade
In the West, meanwhile, shocked by the blood-soaked gang warfare he read about in the papers, David Wilkerson went to New York to do something about it in response to the call of God.
We would not have nearly so much violence on our streets if this message of hope was spread through our communities by disciples of Jesus who love their neighbours.
He duly confronted these violent young men, risking his life as he held up the Bible which contained the answers to their hatred and strife. And when they saw the courage of this skinny small-town pastor, and felt the love he came to share with them, they turned to Christ and swapped their switchblades for the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:17).
Their world changed, and the whole world changed with them, so to speak, through Wilkerson’s global Teen Challenge movement that brought the hope of Jesus to young people everywhere.
This is the challenge for us in today’s Britain. We would not have nearly so much violence on our streets if this message of hope was spread through our communities by disciples of Jesus who love their neighbours.
Notes
1Barnabas Aid, March/April 2021
2Daily Mail, March 15th 2021
3Barnabas Aid, March/April 2021
