The Suffering Church
Many of us are deeply concerned about the fate of the Suffering Church around the globe. Recent events in Turkey – see below – and even more recent events in Pakistan are profoundly worrying. Many Christians in the affluent West have not a clue about the appalling conditions daily experienced by thousands of fellow believers – and often Christian females, girls and women, are most vulnerable of all! – but often there appears little desire to be informed. It is too far from their comfort zones, perhaps. Even if the awareness, the knowledge, is present, many keep strangely silent. It is not politically correct, after all, in our multi-cultural pluralistic society to be critical in public of certain religious groups and point out intimidation, discrimination, abuse, violence and worse. But not to say ensures that the status quo will remain unchanged.
Of course one is not saying that all adherents endorse the behaviour done in the name of the religion! However, it is imperative that people of faith and none, and those of this particular faith, make their condemnations heard. Freedom to practice one’s religion is a fundamental human right. Not to reiterate this non-negotiable principle in public enables those who disregard it to get away with it.
For those who wish to know more about the Suffering Church around the globe, the website of the VOM is a good place to start, or Baroness Cox’s Christian Solidarity Worldwide. For those especially concerned about Christians in Islamic countries, see Barnabas Fund; Anglican Mainstream’s ‘Building Bridges’ also has a specialty here.
http://www.persecution.com/
http://www.csw.org.uk/
http://www.barnabasfund.org/
I finish with a brief revisiting of the dreadful occurrence in Malatya, Turkey, just weeks ago. Three men in their prime were brutally cut down, tortured and finally murdered as they met to study the Bible. Their crime? Their faith. Next time you gather with fellow Christians, perhaps you will remember and pray for their grieving families, their wives and children whose daddies are now in heaven, and their other relatives and friends. As I write this I have to ask myself what I would do in similar circumstances. I think it only right and proper for us all to do some soul searching, and if nothing else, do what we can for our suffering sisters and brothers. We now have our own Stephens — and they looked like us, wore modern clothes, were family men, and died by inches. What were they thinking of, I wonder, as they realized they would not be rescued, that their deaths were nigh, that this was it?
The following excerpt comes from World.
‘The day began like any other. On his way out the door, 35-year-old Turkish native Necati Aydin, a pastor and father of two, kissed his wife goodbye and departed for a morning Bible study. In another part of Malatya, Turkey—known for its apricots—46-year-old German missionary and father of three Tilman Geske said his morning farewells. Ugur Uksel, a 32-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity like Aydin, was the third man joining the group for the study at the church office, which doubled as a Christian publishing company.
What unfolded between the hours of 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on April 18 could add another chapter to Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. As the three men joined together for Bible study, a dozen assailants tied them to chairs, then brutally interrogated and tortured them for two hours about their church activities. A videorecording made with a cell phone shows the men being disemboweled, dismembered, and stabbed hundreds of times. Their throats were slit when police arrived. Copies of a letter found in the pockets of the killers gave a glimpse into the motives behind the atrocity: “We did it for our country. They are trying to take our country away, take our religion away.” ’
‘No Turning Back’, Jim Nelson, 05 May 2007, World.
See http://www.worldmag.com/articles/article.cfm?eid=BDD4242B-0906-F75D-4C16E5F812690D73 for the article in its entirety.
‘And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.’
Elie Wiesel in his acceptance of the Nobel Prize, Oslo, Norway, 1986.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
