Christians are being persecuted throughout the world, and it is a spiritual issue for us even more than it is a political one. Awareness of this fact should remind us that we have no permanent home here, that we are pilgrims on this earth, and that the god of this world (ho theos tou aionos toutou) is opposed to God and the truth (2 Corinthians 4:4). In fact, we must not allow ourselves to identify with the world as it is, because it is a fallen world, it has become a battlefield. We can evade suffering, but it will find us. We can, however, transform it within ourselves, and we should strive to ameliorate it in the lives of other people. The most powerful way to do this is spiritually. A part of our spiritual work is to help those suffering from persecution.
There are at least two types of persecution: actual outright slaughter, and hatred, prejudice and discrimination against us not leading to violence, but rather in personal, social, and career fields.
I think the first step is simply to acknowledge the fact, and let it sink in. We need to digest that, as Barney Zwartz wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on 28 January this year: “It has never been more dangerous to be a Christian than today. According to the newly released 2024 World Watch List – an authoritative survey by Open Doors, an organisation that supports persecuted Christians – 365 million Christians, or one in seven, are at high or extreme risk of persecution every day because of their faith.”
A little later, he continued: “Here are the 20 most dangerous nations to be a Christian, in order: North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Mali, Algeria, Iraq, Myanmar, Maldives, China and Burkina Faso.” Note that 16 of these 20 countries are Muslim.
“Open Doors defines persecution not just as violence or imprisonment, but any hostility experienced because of one’s identification. It can look different in every country, from rejection and isolation to being denied access to basic needs such as water, food, and healthcare. The danger may come from governments, or from extremists who act with impunity. The charity reports a sevenfold increase in attacks on Christian churches, schools and hospitals in the past year, while physical attacks on Christians rose almost 370 per cent.”
Now that is rather a broad definition of persecution. I would suggest we need to be clear first of all, about the extent of violence and imprisonment of Christians. When we better understand that, we better grasp the danger of allowing hostility to Christians in any form, even in countries like Australia. But more than that, our spirituality, how we prepare ourselves for life, the attitude we take to the world, needs to be refashioned, taking this truth into account.
There is a certain First World smugness among some contemporary Christians. They are concerned about all sorts of “social justice” issues such as “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” when all that is needed is good old-fashioned, plain unvarnished charity and justice. And one of the first demands of this is to help the poor and the suffering. Of these, those most in need are our fellow Christians in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, who are too often daily in danger of death, abduction, and rape.
Why has the world not united to stamp out the horrific persecution of Christians in Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and these countries? Why do Australians not ask their Federal parliamentarians what can be done in these countries? Even if we selected one country and alone and worked on justice for Christians in that, it would be something.
Sometimes a person might say that there is little point in trying to affect happenings in such countries. But unless sustained serious efforts are made, how do we know? Besides, it is a virtue to make the attempt.
Further, what about Canada? The argument that the country is too wild to tame can hardly apply to the land of the evil and outrageous burning of Catholic Churches especially in 2021. I cannot accept that this wave of arson is not related to the false assertion that there had been mass murder conducted by the Church which then buried the victims in unmarked graves. Trudeau should have resigned or been forced out after saying that although the arson was “unacceptable and wrong,” yet it was “understandable.” If it is understandable it is only because the god of this world is Satan. Catholics of Canada should have done something.
There is much violent religious persecution in the world, and yet there is a terrible indifference to it. It is not only directed against Christians, it is sometimes inter-Christian, or anti- and inter-Muslim, Jewish, and so on. How is it that the other nations of the world trade with China given its persecution of the Uighurs?
Indifference is merely the safe-to-the-touch handle of the knife of persecution. If we do think about it at all seriously, we are grateful that we are safe, and we hope it will never affect us. We are simply too ready to make our peace with a world which will never and can never be our true home.
In conclusion, the Beloved Disciple wrote in his first epistle: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:15-17) If we begin with God, and then order our attitude to the world in accordance with His Gospel, we will be able to rightly value the world, for a battleground between good and evil is, by that fact alone, revealed as a theatre in which there is indeed much goodness, beauty, and truth; while the Face of God abides forever. It would be a mistake to think that because the transcendent God can also be said to be imminent in the world, the world is therefore intrinsically good. The Our Father tells us that the Will of God is not done here, which is why we pray that it may be.
