Awareness of Persecution is not Enough
by Jeff Taylor
LOS ANGELES (Compass) — If a recent poll of Americans is any indication, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) has been effective in raising awareness of Christian persecution. But motivating people to help the persecuted church may prove much more difficult.
More than 80 percent of Americans are at least “somewhat aware” that Christians around the world face persecution for their faith, according to a recent Zogby poll commissioned by U.S.-based Christian Freedom International. Yet less than 25 percent of those polled believed that Christians in free countries are responsible to help.
While the poll did not mention IDOP specifically, leaders of the IDOP movement believe the annual prayer day — scheduled this year for November 12 — has been influential in awakening the Western church to the plight of persecuted Christians.
“I believe IDOP can take a large measure of credit for raising the issue in the Christian community,” said Terry Madison, president of Open Doors USA and a founding IDOP board member.
For years, Open Doors USA had its Suffering Church Sunday, to which a number of churches were very faithful, but a catalyst was needed to dramatically increase interest in Christian persecution, Madison said.
That catalyst seems to have been IDOP.
Starting as a relatively unknown movement in 1996, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church saw about 300,000 churches participate worldwide in 1999, including an estimated 70,000 in the United States.
“Somehow the global church was ‘ready for it,’ and many organizations started to work together for the first time ever,” said Johan Candelin, director of World Evangelical Fellowship’s Religious Liberty Commission.
About 200 million Christians worldwide suffer discrimination and persecution on a daily basis, and millions more are under threat. As U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright said during the September 5 release of her department’s second annual religious freedom report, “The sad truth is that religious intolerance remains far too common in far too many places.”
For years, it seemed that much of the Western church was oblivious to the fact that Christian persecution had continued past the first century. But that has changed, thanks to a team effort, says Steve Haas of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.
“The movement that has awakened to the cries of the persecuted church has been all of us at work,” Haas said. “IDOP realized that the greatest agency for good on this subject was asleep to the gravity and breadth of this subject — the church.”
Yet while the Zogby poll showed a higher awareness of Christian persecution, at least in the United States, the poll also indicated that moving from awareness to direct action may prove difficult. Fewer than 25 percent of the Americans polled believed that Christians in free countries were responsible to help persecuted Christians around the world. More than 40 percent delegated the responsibility to the United Nations and international government organizations.
“We’ve shattered the silence (a theme of IDOP), but what do we do with the noise,” Haas quoted one of his staff members as saying.
“Anytime the U.N. trumps the church in caring for the world, I think we should have reasons for concern,” Haas said. “The church is God’s active agent for reconciliation and love. It is why most of the great compassion movements over the last two centuries have had at their center lives committed to the Man from Galilee.”
WEF’s Candelin believes that human rights violations, including Christian persecution, follow a three-stage pattern: first, disinformation; then discrimination; and last, physical abuse, or persecution. It follows that proper awareness can help negate disinformation. But to turn the tide of persecution, more active, personal action — by individuals and churches — will be needed.
IDOP leaders stress that the ongoing need for concentrated prayer is the major element in bringing positive change. But direct intervention must follow.
According to Madison, “It gets us back to the theme verse on which Open Doors began, Revelation 3:2 — ‘Awake … and strengthen that which remains.’ There’s the sense in which, now that we’ve been awakened, what do we do? That’s where I think the numbers begin to fall apart on us.”
He added, “There seems to be a real strong disconnect between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing something about it’.”
Some have suggested that the lack of action by Christians in free countries may be due to so-called “compassion fatigue.” But Madison said that one possible explanation for the “disconnect” is that Christians simply don’t know how to respond.
“I think the ongoing ministry of IDOP has raised the alarm … and gotten everyone’s attention,” he said. “Now we need to show them creative, practical ways on both the church level and the individual level of what people can actually do.”
Candelin encourages local churches to appoint a person to inform the congregation about the persecuted church and to develop a relationship directly with a suffering church. He would welcome the added involvement.
“I feel like I’m feeding the army with one small spoon,” he said. “The good news, of course, is that the army is marching.”
NTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH
November 12, 2000