International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
“…persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed…”
How quickly we forget. As a young American in 2017 it is not uncommon for the public awareness on discussions of religious liberty to be reduced to the design of coffee cups at Starbucks around Christmas.
As a United Methodist, my understanding of the church was always of a larger connected and global body of believers spanning beyond my local community. This sentiment came to life for me at an early age when I first learned about hostility toward Christians. Passing out Bibles at my youth group, custom written for our age group and available to us free of charge, my father shared how my uncle was once imprisoned briefly for sharing Bibles of his own in Sudan many years before. I need not go to the past, as my family in Pakistan experiences violence in the form of setting churches on fire- my mother fears of reading another fatal story that may come across her Facebook timeline.
Even in the United States, refugees have arrived at our doorstep fleeing religious persecution and we may have no idea of the trauma our neighbors experience quietly while we debate our holiday coffee cups loudly. For far too many of us, what is out of sight really is out of mind. Religious liberty is a freedom not afforded to many, especially today.
The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church is upon us; for those of us who are new to the realities of religious persecution and for those of us who have experienced it personally like my own family members, there is hope and work for all of us. There are organizations doing good work that we can support and use to inform us of our neighbors to inspire action of our own.
The worldwide church today is engaged - not only in issues related to religious liberty - but in the broader involvement in international human rights. Open Doors USA is one such international, interdenominational non-profit organization with a vision for aiding Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith in Christ.
Last year, they estimated that approximately 215 million Christians experience high, very high, or extreme persecution. This follows a record three year high. From 2014-2016 the modern persecution of Christians worldwide has risen globally with countries in South and Southeast Asia rapidly rising to unprecedented levels, now ranking among such violent areas as the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Voice of the Martyrs is another such group that has been advocating for the most vulnerable for the last 50 years. They describe nations with persistent and severe persecution as “Restricted Nations”: countries where government-sanctioned circumstances or anti-Christian laws lead to Christians being harassed, imprisoned, killed or deprived of possessions or liberties because of their witness. Also included are countries where government policy or practice prevents Christians from obtaining Bibles or other Christian literature.
“If one member suffers, we all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”
1 Corinthians 12:26
To suffer with those who are suffering should no longer be something just for international agencies or special-interest groups in congregations. More and more, it has and should continue to become an ongoing interest for every Christian, just as we are called in the New Testament. The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church calls us to do just this by joining in prayer with Christians around to world for the most vulnerable among us. When we become engulfed in our own little worlds, let us choose to break through the noise to be attentive to the global community we are a part of and use the freedoms we enjoy to raise issue about real injustices that threaten the church and its people. Recognizing this International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church and lifting our brothers and sisters in prayer is a powerful place to start.
Nura Zaki was an Ethnic Young Adult (EYA) intern at Church and Society during the summer of 2017. She is a member of the Northern Illinois Annual Conference.
