Evangelicals have quite a week ahead of them with all their activities surrounding the persecuted Church.
This week persecuted brothers and sisters in three different countries are facing major court battles. In Iran, an Army colonel who also pastored an Assemblies of God church has been accused of evangelizing, stripped of his commission in the Army, imprisoned, and this week goes to trial, potentially facing the death penalty. In Vietnam several Mennonite pastors have been imprisoned for their faith. This week their appeal is scheduled to be heard. If their case is not overturned they face substantial sentences. Their fate differs substantially from that of Martha Stewart in that already some of them have endured frequent severe beatings by fellow prisoners who have been bribed by cruel guards to commit this brutality. A third court case involves a Christian mother of two children in Jordan. Her husband died, and an unscrupulous brother of her late husband for financial gain is claiming that he should be given custody since his deceased brother secretly converted to Islam prior to his death. This court battle, which has been waged for seven years, is scheduled to be settled this week. All this in addition to the usual concern over hundreds of believers jailed in Eritrea, thousands in death camps in North Korea, and millions targeted in Sudan—just a few of the trouble spots.
No doubt the evangelical community in America will respond to the heightened challenges of this week with a flurry of responses: thousands participating in protest marches at the various embassies, hundreds of thousands of letters to Senators, Representatives, ambassadors, and others in a position to make a difference, numerous articles and evangelical publications providing the details, Christian media giving regular updates on the various cases and activities surrounding them, efforts by evangelical spokesman to raise the awareness in the secular media, and delegations of evangelical leaders going to the various countries to demonstrate solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters.
Unfortunately, none of this is happening this week, nor has it happened any week, ever. The reality is that the evangelical community in the United States could do all of these things and more, but just does not care enough to do so. The only case in which American Evangelicals came close had to do with the plight of the Burnham’s in the Philippines, where the evangelical response went all way to the White House—proof that we can do it if we want to, but when it has the do with foreigners it’s just a lot harder to be concerned and invested.
Our inactivity is especially tragic since history shows that even some of our past minimal efforts secured relief for those being persecuted. In other words, the problem is not that we can’t do anything; the problem is that we don’t do anything, at least anything of substance.
Of course, it is understandable that we would not be able to make a special effort this week. As we come into springtime we have kids starting soccer practice, lawnmowers to get ready for the season, fertilizer to put on the lawn, all added to the other pressing demands on our time. Too bad that these trials could not have taken place during the summer, but then there would have been picnics, vacations. . . . You get the picture.
All of this reflects a serious illness. Imagine if an enemy was in the process of cutting off one of your fingers with garden shears, and with the other hand you were using the remote to flip through channels. This response would suggest either an advanced case of leprosy or serious mental pathology. Likewise, the American evangelical response to the mutilation of part of its body also reveals serious illness and the need for reformation.