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More Christians Murdered in the Last 100 Years than in the Church’s ENTIRE History!

“We found it impossible to include a biography on every Christian martyr of the twentieth century. The World Mission Digest, published by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, cites the World Evangelization Database as accounting for the martyrdom of 119 million Christians during this century. Many, if not most, of these martyred believers died as the result of genocidal attacks by brutal dictators and political and religious zealots. Though little known on earth, their names will be heralded in heaven.”

– By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century’, James and Marti Hefley, preface, Baker Books, 1998, Second Edition.

“The Reality of the Present Persecution got me Questioning Reality.”

Last Sunday, was ‘International: Day to Pray for the Persecuted Church.’ I had the honor of delivering the message at Faith Community Church in Wichita, Kansas. [Yes, that’s me in the prison uniform. It seemed appropriate for the message, yeah?] And after the service a man came up to me and said,

“I’ve always known about the history of persecution since the beginning of the Church; but, hearing the current numbers and seeing the headlines…the reality of the present persecution got me questioning reality. I had no idea that it was happening like this today. It really hit me right in the gut.”

This is a normal response. While many believers know that persecution happens–and many are aware of the long history of persecution that is the story of the Church–many more, it appears, especially in the west, are tragically uninformed of the gravity of the current crisis that Christians are facing internationally.

Although many Christians do not hear about the persecution of the Christian Church, and the issue never seems to be featured in any of the mainstream news sources on any television channels, the issue IS very real AND IT IS being published. Unfortunately, it is something you have to search for.

Here’s a few headline screenshots I took. Scroll through, you’ll recognize the publications:

Do Any Of These Headlines Surprise You, Or Catch You Off-Guard?

• FORBES: Recognizing The Phenomenon Of The Persecution Of Christians Globally
• FORBES: Persecuted Christians Are Not Given Much Hope In 2020
• FORBES: One In Seven Christian Minorities Under Threat In 2022
• BBC: Christian Persecution ‘At Near Genocide Levels’
• The Guardian: China’s Crusade To Remove Crosses From Churches ‘Is For Safety Concerns’
• Newsweek: Christian Persecution And Genocide Is Worse Now Than “Any Time In History,” Report Says.
• The New York Times: Decapitated Churches In China’s Christian Heartland
• AP: Officials Destroying Crosses, Burning Bibles In China

World Watch List 2023: The Report That’s Bringing The Startling Truth To Light Globally

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There’s Not 2 Churches: The Persecuted and Non-Persecuted.

“Oh friends, what about these heroic spirits? What about those faces that look at you today through that blinding smoke and those devouring flames? Are there then two standards of service, one high and Christlike for them, and one much lower, made to meet the case of little, lean, and cowardly souls? No! Are there three paths for the feet of those who travel towards eternity? One wide and broad for the wicked; another straight and narrow for the martyrs and martyrs spirits; and then another: a middle-sort of a sliver-slipper path, for those who would have the Pearl without the Price, the Crown without the Cross? Nah! Nah! Nah! Look again at those martyr-men. They stood up there before heaven and earth, and said in the loudest language that can be spoken in this or in any other world, that they gladly gave up, not only friends and kindred, lands and money, and ever other earthly treasure, but life itself…for the truth and love and cause of Jesus Christ!”

– William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army

We often refer to our persecuted family as ‘the Persecuted Church’ or ‘the Underground Church’, but the truth is this: There is ONLY ONE CHURCH. There is only one body of Christ. There is not two kinds of Christian.

“The life, the self-sacrifice, the blood, which they are ready to shed for their faith, is the greatest argument for Christianity presented by the underground church. it forms what the renowned missionary in Africa, Albert Scheitzer, called “the sacred fellowship of those who have the mark of pain,” the fellowship to which Jesus, the Man of sorrows, belonged. The underground church is united by a bond of love towards its Savior. The same bond unites the members of the Church with each other. Nobody in the world can defeat them.”

– Richard Wurmbrand, Founder of the Voice of the Martyrs. He spent 14 years in a Communist Prison in Romania.

We ARE ONE Body

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Ephesians 4:4

When we read the stories of people like Deborah Samuel – who shared her faith at school and was beaten with rocks and sticks and then burned alive (last May) by a mob of her own class mates because they felt that she had blasphemed the prophet Mohammed –

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

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