Brothers and Sisters Under Pressure

Brothers and Sisters Under Pressure

In the past few months I’ve been in several conversations about persecuted Christians in the modern world.  In light of this, I want to say something on the issue.  Nothing I’m about to say is intended to endorse any political response to what is happening in the Middle East and elsewhere, but simply to focus on what is sometimes missed in news reports.

I want to put a human face on what I’m about to say. 

A few years ago a young woman named Aisha began attending our Friday Evening Bible Study.  She was a friend of Clair’s, another young woman attending at that time.  Both Clair and Aisha were graduate students.  We knew Clair’s parents back in Texas where her dad was a pastor near where I served.  Aisha was from the tiny island nation of the Maldives, located in the Indian Ocean, southwest of India.  Aisha—named for Mohammed’s favorite wife—is Muslim.  Still, she seemed to enjoy coming to the Bible studies—if we put the dogs away because she was terrified of dogs.  Screamingly terrified of dogs!

She said she had never been around dogs before and, more significantly, told us she had never known Christians before.  We ate together, laughed together, took her and Clair apple picking and out to eat in Plain City, and discussed Bible passages together.  She told us about her life in the Maldives, about witnessing the tsunami in 2004, and how she missed fishing for her family’s meals. 

I don’t now how much we influenced Aisha.  No one pressured her to become a Christian; we simply tried to show her Christ’s love.  I hope she sees Christians differently than she may have before.   Yet, had Aisha converted, she almost certainly could have never returned home to fish for her family’s meals or tell her family about Jesus—the New Testament Jesus.   The Maldives government proudly proclaims the nation to be 100% Muslim; there are no Christians, no Hindus, no Buddhists in the Maldives—at least they’re not there openly.

I’ve told you about Aisha because we have met Christians from other lands.  Aisha is a non-Christian, a real person who is also an object of God’s love, an individual who, were she in her homeland, could not read a church advertisement on a billboard, start going to that church and eventually make a profession of faith; and then celebrate the decision with her new friends at the local Applebee’s. 

Our life here involves rare freedoms.  The church at its best remembers people without such freedoms, whether they are Christians or not.

Now, since I am going to be focusing on some non-Western governments and some non-Christian religions, in the interest of fairness, I am going to make a confession.  To our shame, Christians have sometimes been intolerant.  This intolerance has usually been the product of the church being too closely aligned with the state; it has never been because the church was too closely following the teachings of its Founder.

--Representatives of Western Christianity have sometimes coerced conversions.  The most notorious were the Spanish Conquistadors who stood before a subjected people and read a document stating they were now subjects of the Spanish king and were now Roman Catholics.  This document was in Spanish so those hearing it usually had no idea they had been “converted” to another religion; still, they were punished for continuing their former customs.  The French and the English did not follow this practice.

--On occasion, there were outbreaks of violence against those holding unpopular religious beliefs after the founding of the United States.  From the 1830s to about 1860, anti-Catholic mobs led by the Know-Nothing Party or other Nativist groups attacked churches and property.  The best-known example was the 1834 burning of the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts.  But many other Catholic churches were destroyed or attacked during these years.  In 1854, churches in Sidney and Massillon, Ohio, were destroyed.  Remember, these were the actions of radicals—they were breaking the law, not enforcing any law.  This was never government-endorsed policy and, on occasion, local police and militia were posted to protect Catholic property.

--Albert Menendez and others sometime mention the treatment of the early Mormons as an example of American intolerance.  Most Americans thought Mormons a little strange but tended to ignore them.  Others acted against the Mormons in ways that were morally and legally wrong.  

The usual explanation is the group’s practice of polygamy, but that’s a bit simplistic.  The movement’s founder Joseph Smith began to portray to himself as a military commander and treat his followers as an army, drilling them and arranging them in militia units; this was often seen as a threat.  Smith was killed in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844, when rioters attacked the jail where he was being held on charges of destroying a newspaper office.  Smith, who deserved a fair trial and  had probably instigated the destruction of the newspaper, was now viewed as a martyr.  Under a new leader, Brigham Young, the Mormons began moving west.[1]

Today, of course, Mormon churches are in every sizable community and Mormons are free to pursue whatever goals they may wish—including the presidency of the United States.  Or the presidency of “Big Ten” universities, as long as they don’t joke about Catholics.  Ironic, ain’t it?

But, make no mistake: No Christian is going to become the president of Tehran University, no Christian is going to lead the Kabul Better Business Bureau.  And, there will be no picnics handing out book bags and New Testaments in Riyadh.

Today, there are two vast arenas where Christians face intense persecution, the Islamic world and in the nations where totalitarianism prevails, often in the form of Marxism.  Persecution takes place elsewhere, but in these areas it is systemic.  In both areas, it is the policy of the governments either to suppress Christianity and all other religions or to so favor one religion that all other religions are effectively suppressed. 

There are nations where religious freedom is the official policy but where the expression of that freedom is increasingly limited.  The primary example of this is India where religious freedom is guaranteed yet limited by recently passed (2006) anti-conversion laws making it illegal to convert from one religion to another without a 30 days notice to local authorities and the permission of those authorities.  Such laws are believed to be directed specifically at Christian evangelistic efforts.

In some parts of India, violence against Christians and non-Hindus is a major concern.  In August of this year, a representative of the ideological wing of India’s ruling party announced a program to convert Muslims and Christians back to Hinduism.  He boasted, “In two to three years the rural hinterland will be free of Christians.” 

Despite this, Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey sees dynamism within Indian Christianity: 

Today Christians form just over 2 per cent [sic] of the population but their relative failure has perhaps been exaggerated.  There are more Christians than Sikhs in India.  Christians outnumber Buddhists in the birthplace of Buddha by three to one.  In three of the very small Indian states, Christians form a majority.  In Nagaland, near the north-east [sic] frontier, nine of every ten people are Christians, primarily Baptists.  It is the most Baptist state in the world, even more so than any southern state in the United States….[2]

I mention India as a reminder the promise of religious freedom does not guarantee religious freedom.  Now, I want to turn to areas where persecution is a set policy.

The Islamic Nations

Good scholars disagree about whether the Quran and Islamic tradition encourages the suppression of other religions or allows for forced conversions.  But, I am not going to try to resolve what may or may not have happened in the seventh century.  Instead, I’m going to focus on today.

Today, there is no Islamic nation where Christians have real freedom.  In 2000, a watchdog group published a list of the top ten nations known to be persecutors of Christians.  Seven of those ten nations are Muslim, with Saudi Arabia at the top of the list.

In several of these nations, for a Muslim to covert Christianity or for a Christian to entice a Muslim to convert is a capital crime.   Due to international pressure, the sentences are often commuted but the threat is still there; and, with the increasing radicalization in some areas we don’t know how long that will be true.  Nor, do we know what happens in those regions away from the attention of the international press.  At the same time, it seems as if a number of Christian leaders, once released from jail, have been victims of fatal “accidents” or unexpected heart attacks.       

Yet, there are Christians in Muslim nations—some belonging to churches that date from before the beginnings of Islam and some who were prompted to trust Christ through the testimony of their few Christian neighbors or the influence of Christian radio, internet witnesses, books, and what can only be described as profound encounters with Christ through dreams and visions.  In fact, in the early 1990’s some Muslim observers believed the intensifying anger toward the West was inspired, in part, by the growing number of converts to Christianity in Islamic nations. 

In Islamic nations, those born into Christian homes have limited freedom and sometimes are targets of oppression.  Recently, in Mosul, representative of the Islamic State told the Christians there that they must convert or leave.  Some 200 families chose to leave the city.  Outside the city, there are a number of Christians who were born into Muslim families but converted to Christianity.  They must keep a low profile for they face a greater threat:  Return to Islam or be killed.

Across the Islamic world, Christians face varying degrees of pressure.  We’ve read stories of how the ancient Coptic churches in Egypt were the targets of violence.  In some nations, foreign Christians who have come to work on building projects have been arrested for carrying Bibles and for praying. 

Still, many native Christians have sought ways to honor Christ and share the good news with their neighbors.  They have done so by demonstrating Christian love, hospitality, and compassion.  They have done so by attempting to appeal to the natural curiosity Muslims have about Jesus, since he is mentioned in the Quran as a prophet and miracle-worker who will be involved in the final judgment.  They have even attempted to use Muslim holidays to find occasions for sharing the gospel.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, scholars believed Africa could become a Muslim continent.  Today, Christianity is the fastest growing religion in sub-Saharan Africa.  The religion of Jesus continues to make inroads into Muslim lands.  At least a few new believers have announced their conversions online, maintaining anonymity for obvious reasons.  The Italian newspaper La Stampa in its monthly Vatican Insider magazine, reports there has been an increase of conversions to Evangelical Christianity in Muslim countries.  Christian news sources in the Middle East also reported that a member of the Kuwaiti royal family has become a believer; in his testimony he stated, “If they kill me…I’ll go into the presence of Jesus Christ and be with him for all eternity.”  If this is true—there are some sources that deny it—it shows the power of the gospel to breach “closed” doors. 

The Totalitarian World

Jesus once warned that no one can serve two masters.  This appears to be the one statement of our Lord’s that nations like North Korea take seriously.  Being a Christian there is perceived to be a threat to the devotion demanded by the government and the nearly-deified Kim family.  A recent UN report states:

The State [of North Korea] considers the spread of Christianity to be a particularly serious threat, since it challenges ideologically the official personality cult and provides a platform for social and political organization and interaction outside the realm of the state.

Groups like The Voice of the Martyrs believe there may be thousands of North Korean Christians locked away in prison camps.  In prison, Christians are treated as if they were the worst of criminals. 

 A defector reported how his two sisters were imprisoned for practicing Christianity.  One nearly starved before he could pay a bribe to free her; the other disappeared into the system and was never heard from again.

Of course, devotion to Jesus is seen as a threat to most totalitarian regimes.

After the death of Mao, the Chinese government began to be more open to the west.  In order to do this, the government had to modify some of its policy toward religion.  That modification may have been largely superficial and temporary; for the government discovered if you give religion a little freedom, it can get away from you.  Repression has returned.  In other words, Beijing  hasn’t thrown open its doors to Evangelicals to come in and set up Bible bookstores on Tiananmen Square.  

Across China, Christians continue to face trial and imprisonment for acting out their faith. 

In 2012, Wenxi Li was sentenced to two years in prison for attempting to set up a Christian bookstore in Shanxi province.  His wife and children were left without any provision.  Local believers quietly help them.

A week ago 100 Christians were arrested when police raided a house church in Foshan city in China's Guangdong Province.  Though authorities claimed the church was illegal, the church had been meeting for some twenty years.  At the same time, several licensed churches have recently been closed.  Chinese Christians believe this is further evidence of the government’s increased suppression of the church.

Journalist Daniel Wiser reports:

Public security officials in recent days forcibly removed crosses from two churches in the southeastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the New York Times reported. Authorities have now issued orders to demolish more than 100 churches in the province—most of them state-approved, as opposed to the illegal underground communities suppressed by officials.[3]

So, even official recognition is no protection from a fearful government.

But remember.  Closed doors don’t always stop the gospel. 

Some researchers estimate there are over a million new Christian converts in China every year.   China may be the epicenter of church growth.

Myths and Opportunities

I want to end by talking about some myths and opportunities.  First, the myths.

1.  The first myth states that persecution is a thing of the past.  You already know that’s not true.  Not everyone you meet will.

2. The second myth states that persecution is “good” for the church.  While Tertullian may have said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” that observation can be misunderstood.  Yes, the early church did continue to grow despite persecution but the persecution of the church was never unrelenting.  The persecution came in waves, sometimes with decades between the times of trouble. 

There were once hundreds of churches in Persia—modern Iran—and the eastern portion of the Arabian Peninsula.  Most of those churches have disappeared.  Philip Jenkins believes this was the result of the unrelenting pressure on the area’s Christians following the Muslim conquests after the 7^th century.

I’ve heard some foreign speakers say their churches occasionally pray for American churches to face persecution.  They believe it will benefit our churches.  They forget that Paul urged his churches to pray for peace, so they might be unhindered in sharing the gospel.

This brings me to our greatest opportunity.

We can pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters.  We need to remember they are our brothers and sister living under pressure.  Pray they might know peace.

We need to pray for their faithfulness, for their opportunities to ground new believers in the truth of the gospel, for leaders who will nurture the churches.

We need to pray that our national leaders and other national leaders will step up and speak out on behalf of persecuted Christians.  This is no time to allow politics to govern their responses.

Our church has recently created a Mission Education Committee.  Part of its purpose is to help our church in Ohio be informed about the church in other places, especially those places where being a Christian is difficult.

Above all, we need to pray that we will use the rare opportunities we have to share the gospel openly and fearlessly live our faith with quiet integrity.

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[1] Once settled in Utah, Young began speaking about building an army that could stand up to the US Cavalry.  Their only encounter with the cavalry was a bloodless draw.

Menendez, who has a few axes to grind when it comes to religion, is even offended because the Mormons had to give up polygamy in order to win statehood for Utah.  But, again, this was not persecution as Christians face persecution in much of the world.  The Saints apparently could have gone on “marrying and giving in marriage” had they chosen to pass on statehood.

[2] G. Blainey, A Short History of Christianity, Lanham:  Rowman and Littlefield, 2011, p. 532.

[3]  “China Ramping Up Persecution of Christians,” The Washington Free Beacon, 29 July 2014

Stigmata

Galatians: A Study of Christian Freedom

Lesson 23: Stigmata                       Galatians 6:17-18

We began the study of Galatians several months ago.  This is the twenty-third lesson from the letter that outlines the foundations of the gospel of grace.  I hope you come away understanding why Paul was so passionate about the situation in the churches he cared about.  And aware of why we need to keep the fundamentals of the gospel at the center of our message, especially since legalism is still a threat to our churches

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In these closing verses of Galatians, Paul used a word with an interesting place in the Christian tradition.  The word translated as “marks” gives us the word “stigmata.”  In Christian history the word has come to refer to marks  spontaneously appearing on the hands, feet, or backs of some individuals.  These “stigmata” make it seem as if that person has suffered crucifixion.  While the stigmata are often intensely painful, there is no record of the wounds becoming septic.

Those so afflicted (or blessed) are thought to be persons of great piety, though not necessarily meriting formal elevation to sainthood.  The Roman Catholic Church has recorded some 600 such cases.   St Francis was among the first of these stigmatics. 

Although the stigmata to which Paul refers were not invisible, the apostle would certainly argue that every Christian bears such marks.

¹⁷ From now on, let no one make trouble for me;

Several times in the movie Forrest Gump, the title character says, “That’s all I have to say about that.”  Paul’s final comment also suggests he has said what he intended to say and intends to say no more. 

Two Messianic-Jewish translations use the word tzoros for “troubles” in their rendering of this verse.  It’s a Hebrew term used for intense trial and stress.  The problems in the Galatian churches were no minor matters; they weighed heavily on Paul.  We can imagine them causing him sleepless nights and great worry.  He was profoundly distressed because they had abandoned the gospel of grace for that which was no gospel. 

This distress led him to write his passionate letter to the Christians there. 

Now he says, “Enough.” 

On the one hand, Paul could say “Enough” because he had thoroughly refuted the false teachers. 

 He had refuted their claims by showing he was an apostle appointed by Jesus Himself to proclaim the gospel of grace.

 He had refuted their claims by showing how the gospel of grace is the only “gospel” (“good news”) that works in the face of our profound sinfulness.

 He had refuted their claims by showing how the gospel of grace was foreshadowed by God’s dealing with Abraham.

 He had refuted their claims by showing how the gospel of grace best honors what Christ accomplished on the cross.

He had refuted their claims by showing how the gospel of grace brings the Spirit into our lives to transform us.

Then, too, Paul could say “Enough” by pointing to more personal evidence.

for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.

This is a statement that demands we adopt Paul’s perspective.

His opponents were motivated by the desire to make things easier for themselves.  So, they promoted circumcision to deflect the hostility of those within the Jewish establishment seeking to silence Paul and others who shared his message.  His opponents pointed to their bodies and to the bodies of their Gentile converts as evidence of their commitment.

In response, Paul pointed to his own body.  What did he see?  He saw scars from beatings and  abuse at the hands of his persecutors.  Although this may have been early in his career, he seems to have already experienced physical reprisal for his preaching the gospel of grace.  Within a few weeks of his conversion, there were plots to kill him.  This was when he had to be lowered over the walls of Damascus in a basket to escape the plot.  In Lystra, the maddened crowd actually stoned him, leaving him for dead; but he revived.  The text doesn’t make clear if this was a miraculous recovery or the result of an inept attempt at execution. 

That alone would have left scars but there were other incidents not recorded in Acts.  In Second Corinthians 11, Paul speaks of being imprisoned and receiving “severe beatings.” He writes, “Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with a rod.  Once I received a stoning.”  We can’t put a date on each of these occurrences but keep in mind Paul ministered for several “silent” years after his conversion and before appearing again in the Acts narrative.  The Corinthian list indicates he had been physical beaten by both Jews and Gentiles.  Some of these experiences would have occurred before he wrote the Galatians.

From Paul’s perspective, the scars he bore were “the marks of Jesus.”  Whereas the circumcisions of which his opponents were so proud were signs of compromise, Paul’s scars were evidence of faithfulness.  While some think Paul was describing his scars as “the marks of Jesus” to confirm his being crucified with Christ, I think there might be an additional idea.

Some translations render the term “marks” figuratively as “brands” or “tattoos.”  The words picture two different situations.  If Paul had in mind branding, he was referring to the marks some slaves received to show ownership.  The slaves would have received their brands unwillingly; Paul received his willingly; he gladly saw himself as Jesus’ servant.  To those of us in the twenty-first century, Paul would say, “You, too, belong to Jesus.”

If Paul had in mind “tattoos,” he was probably thinking of the practice of members of some religious groups to have themselves tattooed to show their devotion to the group. 

In either case, he had in mind a freely chosen “belonging” to Jesus.  Belonging to Jesus certainly meant celebrating Jesus’ cross—the focal point of the great work he did.  The cross was not to something to be ashamed of or denied.  It was the God-appointed means of dealing with our sins.  Failing to appreciate the cross was to fail to appreciate the mission of Jesus.

Belonging to Jesus meant Paul would neither attempt to escape the challenges involved in serving him or condone that which would dishonor him.  The false teachers who threatened the Galatians and harassed Paul were doing both.

Calling people to the grace-way of salvation is hard; calling people to the law-way of salvation is “easy.”  Those who proclaim a law-way of salvation do not run the risk of implying that we must depend totally upon God’s grace, that our efforts cannot earn God’s favor.  People like to hear they can improve their standing with God.  Ironically, the law-way is easy to hear but hard to live.  It is hard because returning to a rule-based, law-way to salvation (whether Jewish or pagan) would have the same result—spiritual slavery.  It involves asking people to do what they cannot do.  But that is often lost sight of because proclaiming and embracing the law-way of salvation is so easy.  Easy, because it is flattering; hard, because when it comes to holiness there is nothing about us to flatter.

The marks Paul bore on his body were evidence he remained faithful to the more challenging task; he had continued to proclaim the grace-way of salvation. 

At the same time, Paul would not follow the example of the Judaizers because their message dishonored Jesus, to whom Paul was so devoted.  Earlier he had made it clear: Suggesting we may actually earn salvation through self-effort has shocking implications.  If we could behave our way to salvation, “Christ died for nothing.”  The cross was unnecessary; Christ’s suffering was a tragic mistake, a travesty.  Paul, a marked man, endured suffering rather than change his message and diminish what Jesus had accomplished. 

So, Paul unquestionably committed to the gospel of grace, says, “Enough, that’s all I have to say about that.”  He will say no more because his life backs up his message. 

But like any good preacher, he has one more thing to say.

¹⁸ May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. ^_

If Galatians was Paul’s first letter, this final benediction is important because it looks ahead to the benedictions he will add to his other letters.  Almost every one of shows “grace” to be Paul’s great desire for the scattered congregations.  That being so we have to resist the temptation to say too much about his using the word in his benediction for the Galatian churches; yet we also have to avoid saying too little.

Paul began the body of this letter with, “Grace to you.”  So, he begins and ends on a note of grace.

Certainly we can explain why Paul would end Galatians on a note of grace, but why all those other letters.

Paul was aware we all need grace (he used the plural “brothers,” which in Greek would mean “brothers and sisters,” in this setting); every one of us needs grace at the deepest level of our being.   “With your spirit,” Paul says, or as one paraphrase puts it, may this grace “be deeply and personally yours.”

We need grace to keep us from despair when we fail, when we do those things we ought not to do and leave undone those things we ought to do

We need grace to keep us from judging when others fail, when, like us, they fail to live up to the goal of Christlikeness.

We need grace as a church to see what God sees in the flawed “saints” who share the pews with us; and the flawed “saints” who share the pews with them.

We need grace because legalism is alive and well in our churches and; no matter how often we sing “oh to grace, how great a debtor,” we will forget.

Conclusion:

The word Paul used, translated as “marks,” gives us two English words.  First, it is the root of “stigmata,” a term usually associated with Christians known for their holiness.  Even though the physical stigmata (the signs of crucifixion) were psychosomatic in origin, the Christians who experienced these signs were usually models of Christian devotion.  They were admired in their day and now.

Yet, as you’ve already guessed, the word Paul used also gives us “stigma.”  You know it is a matter of disgrace to bear a stigma. 

The stigmata Paul bore showed his commitment to the message of grace.  Centuries of Christians have admired him for that commitment.  Today, Christians are often stigmatized for their commitment.  They are anything but admired.  

While millions of Christians around the world face physical persecution, Western Christians often face psychological and social pressure for their faith.  They are “marked” as bigoted, arrogant, and sometimes ignorant.

Those marks are different from the ones Paul bore.  But those Christians who remain faithful in the face of such pressure, also bear the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.