Guerrillas surround the home of Nazarene pastor Peter Nyabusa. They tie up his wife in a sitting position and force the pastor to sit on her. Then they slit his throat from one side to the other. Pastor Nyabusa's blood flows all over his wife as the guerillas watch him die.

In another nation, a group of young people waves a large banner reading “Tolerance is nonsense; slaughter Christians.” “‘Burn churches!’ shout others in the restless crowd, estimated at upwards of 200,000. Although it sounds like something from Nero's persecution of Christians in the first century, this particular scene took place only a few days ago in a country where the Church of the Nazarene is ministering.” So reported the January 21, 2000, edition of NCN Weekly Summary.

Martyrdom Today

The 20th century produced more martyrs than the first 19 centuries of Christian history combined. According to the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, an estimated 164,000 lost their lives in just the past 12 months (David Barrett, January 2002). Millions more are being persecuted for their faith.

A Global Problem

While Christians in Western nations have long faced opposition, they generally have not faced persecution. In some nations, however, it is actually illegal to practice the Christian faith. In countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia, sharing one's faith may result in punishment by death.

Many people in the West find it difficult to imagine living in constant fear of being punished or killed for their faith. But terrifying and deadly incidents happen throughout the globe every day. Witness this report of a Nazarene missionary:

This week the Lord once again allowed me to meet men and women who are committed to God even through tremendous persecution. This nation has gone through extreme political unrest over the last several months. . . . The streets around our churches became hotbeds of riots, killings, burnings, and destruction.

Our pastors told stories of Muslims surrounding their churches during services and demanding them to stop the services or face the burning of their churches. They have been forced to meet in homes to hide from danger. One Nazarene pastor's father (also a pastor) was lured to his church because of a plea for help-only to find that the Muslims had set up an ambush. They executed him on the spot. They knew that his son would come to the funeral and tried many times to take his life, too (E-mail to the author, January 2000).

In spite of the danger, the Christian Church, including the Church of the Nazarene, is growing very rapidly in this Islamic country-so rapidly that the government has stopped publishing religious statistics. Let us pray for all ethnic and religious groups in this unnamed nation. Pray for the poor who need work and food. Pray also for the Muslim population.

Father, Forgive Them

These problems do not pertain just to the Church of the Nazarene. Missionary Graham Staines was director of the Leprosy Mission in India's Orissa state, where he had served as a missionary for more than 30 years. Fluent in several languages, he had been influential in the publication of the New Testament in the Ho dialect in 1997. In 1999, as they lay sleeping in their jeep during an evangelistic mission in Orissa, Staines and his two young sons, ages six and nine, were burned alive.

Just after midnight . . . the windows were broken out of Staine's [sic] jeep; gasoline was poured on and ignited; the jeep was then enveloped in flames. The screams that were emitted did not incite sufficient help to prevent the horror from continuing. But they may have awakened the nation. There are at least two obvious things that India has been made keenly aware of: the horrors of the Hindu and fundamentalist movement's most radical fringe, and an authentic faith with a depth of Christian spirituality hitherto unrecognized by many in India (Russell Shubin, “What Is True Spirituality?” Mission Frontiers, March-April 1999).

Within days of the killing, Graham Staines' wife publicly issued a statement forgiving the perpetrators of the crime. Then she and her only surviving child, Esther, sang “Because He Lives” at the funeral.

The forgiveness demonstrated in the Staines case has had a tremendous impact on the people of India. All across the nation, people have been impressed. Shubin reported that one Hindu exclaimed, "This is true spirituality." Hearts and minds have been opened to Christianity, and we Christians better understand how we should forgive all who are persecutors, whether Muslim, Communist, or Hindu, and how we should pray.

Christian Awareness

About 300,000 churches globally now observe the annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church in mid-November. Cataloging the worst areas of persecution is difficult, but here are a few:

Chechnya: Radical Muslims continue to kidnap and martyr Christian believers.

India: The Hindu Nationalist movement remains violent.

Indonesia: More than 500 Christians have been killed on the island of Ambon, although most of Indonesia's population is not extremist.

North Korea: It has been called "the last Stalinist state." Only three Christian churches are permitted and those only for visiting Westerners. Some Christians do survive-deep underground.

Pakistan: Blasphemy laws were amended in 1986 to allow the courts to issue death sentences.

Saudi Arabia: Even expatriate foreigners are arrested and imprisoned on alleged evidence that they engaged in Christian worship.

Omar-A True Story

In a country we cannot disclose, government officials sent Omar to the local Church of the Nazarene to be an informer. As Omar listened, he was so attracted to the gospel that he became a Christian. At a praise service a year later, Omar was so thrilled that he rose in public testimony: “It wasn't supposed to be this way . . .” and he told the whole story of how he became a Nazarene. But he said too much. Apparently another informer was in church that day. Within a few days Omar disappeared, and his family has not heard from him since.

And Half a World Away . . .

We call him Joseph. He lives in a country in Eurasia that we can't name. When word got out that Joseph was translating the Scriptures, local officials asked him on three different occasions to renounce his faith. Each time he refused. The first time he lost his job, the next time his son was kicked out of school, and finally he and his family were chased out of town. Joseph asked for prayer, but his request was not for the obvious-that he would get his home or his job back. Instead he said, “Pray with me that I will be able to carry my cross all the way to Calvary and not set it down in the middle of the road.”

A Call to Action

The persecution of believers is nothing new; it is as old as Elijah, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Daniel, James, Peter, Paul, and John. Christians are not immune to suffering. I heard Elisabeth Elliot say, “Christians who think they should never suffer forget that God allowed John the Baptist to be beheaded, Stephen to be stoned, and His Son to be hung on a middle cross as a love gift to the world.” Awareness of the suffering church calls us to a new level of stewardship of our lives so that we Nazarenes really will be committed to suffer loss for the Master.

Pakistani Christians sing with one hand on their neck, signifying that they are willing to die for Jesus. Are we willing?

Charles Gailey is a missions speaker and author of Mission in the Third Millennium. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Missiology.