Since a ‘virtual’ visit to our church by the Open Doors ministry to the persecuted, I’ve been trying once again to work out what makes Christians such a terrible threat to those who oppose them. It all seems so irrational.
But I also understood afresh why I was taught at the dawn of my Christian life that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12). I do believe we are fast approaching a time of much greater opposition than we have hitherto experienced in this country.
Already a staggering 340 million people around the globe are being harassed, threatened and tortured for their faith in Jesus.
Faith amid terror in Nigeria
Nigeria, where they are ferociously hunted down by Boko Haram terrorists and others, is currently the most dangerous place to be a Christian. The shocking case of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok in 2014 the night before their final exams (with many girls still unaccounted for) has once more become the focus of attention through a book, Bring Back Our Girls1, revealing the terror they endured as well as the remarkable perseverance of the mostly Christian students.
Bring back our girls
Threatened with execution if they refused to give up their faith and convert to Islam, they kept going for three long years through whispered communal prayers, memorised Bible passages and softly sung gospel songs – all at the risk of beatings and torture.
They copied passages from a small Bible one of the teenagers had stashed in her clothing on the night of their abduction. They even copied the Book of Job, who was tested with severe suffering without wavering in his faith.
Their story emerged through a secret diary kept by Naomi Adamu, a 24-year-old leader of the group whose life was threatened when she refused to submit to forced marriage. “If you kill me, I don’t mind. No problem,” she responded, as a result of which she was struck over the back and neck with a Kalashnikov and badly wounded.
The secret to their survival, I suspect, was their deep-rooted faith – Naomi, for example, had prayed and fasted more times than she could count to get through high school. It’s a lesson we need to apply if we are to withstand the storms to come.
A spiritual battle, not a lack of education
An indication of the general lack of perception as to what is at stake in our brave new woke world was the coverage given to this same story (and book) by the Daily Mail2. Sympathy, yes, but no grasp of the spiritual battle behind it, quoting the view of analysts who cite failure to address root causes of the ‘insurgency’ like poverty and lack of education.
Well, Western education has not prevented the emergence of a secular humanist culture committed to the eradication of a Christian ethos. What we are really talking about is rebellion against our Creator for whom we have substituted a ‘golden calf’ of false idols before which we must all bow down – diversity, gender identity, LGBT+, and the green goddess of climate change; with ‘hate crime’ applying to all who refuse to fit the mould.
The cost of discipleship
But Jesus made it perfectly clear what discipleship involved: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) That means being prepared, as he was, for torture and death, as also many of the saints have experienced.
We must be prepared to pay the highest price for Jesus, who paid so dearly for our salvation. Ancient Persia’s Queen Esther took such a risk when intervening before the king on behalf of the Jewish people, declaring: “If I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16).
The Prince of Peace brings reconciliation
The great irony of all this apparently irrational hatred for followers of the Jewish Messiah and the God of Israel is that the victims have found the key to peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6) and his followers – both Jew and Gentile – are promised peace with each other (Eph 2:14).
Already a staggering 340 million people around the globe are being harassed, threatened and tortured for their faith in Jesus.
Amidst all the recent tensions in Israel, the nation’s Messianic leaders (representing those who follow Jesus) have issued a statement saying: “We Israeli Jews and Arabs, who share the same faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord, declare that we are united in brotherly love that is rooted in our faith and based on the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament…Our prayers are that the fighting and hostility would cease and that the peace of God prevails in our land and among our neighbours.”
Rejection of God
So why are these peacemakers such a problem? While rejoicing that some of Eritrea’s Christians have been released from prison, where they have been incarcerated for up to 16 years, we are forced to ask what they have done to deserve torture and starvation in horrific conditions just for refusing to sign a piece of paper renouncing their faith.3
The real captives are their persecutors – imprisoned by their own rejection of God, leading to futile and foolish conclusions about the purpose of life, to darkness and depravity, “full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice,” having neither understanding, nor fidelity, nor love, nor mercy (see Rom 1:21-30).
This rejection of God takes different forms across the globe, allowing the enemy to try to thwart the purposes of God through terror, persecution, suppression – and dilution. That is the spiritual battle we are caught up in. Ultimately, Jesus will reign, but until that day, endurance is needed – particularly for our persecuted brothers and sisters.
The real captives are their persecutors – imprisoned by their own rejection of God, leading to futile and foolish conclusions about the purpose of life, to darkness and depravity.
As we soaked up the sun on a family picnic on Monday, I was reliving the day, exactly 51 years earlier, when I last ran the Comrades Marathon, a 54-mile race in South Africa which celebrates its centenary this year (it was founded by veteran ‘comrades’ of World War I).
I thought I’d blown it when I suffered cramp around the 35-mile mark, but after a massage and an initial attempt at hobbling along, I recovered my strength and composure to finish the race faster than I started it. Which taught me much about the Christian journey I was soon to start as I have learnt to run with perseverance the race marked out for me, fixing my eyes on Jesus. (Heb 12:2)
Let’s pray that our persecuted brothers regain their strength to persevere in the great race of faith.
Endnotes
1Featured in Evangelicals Now, June 2021, based on extracts from Bring Back Our Girls by Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw (Swift), 2021
2Daily Mail, May 28th 2021 (book of the week)
3Barnabas Aid, May/June 2021
