This summer I was privileged to lead a seminar at New Wine exploring how to live as a Christian in a culture that doesn\u2019t accept it. In almost 40 years of tackling injustice on behalf of persecuted communities, my Christian faith and relationship with God have been deepened, challenged and grown in ways I never could have imagined when I began this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Loving our neighbours challenges us<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus\u2019 teaching in the parable of the Good Samaritan is very challenging. When we stop to look at that passage deeply, we find ourselves confronted with the truth that loving our neighbour means showing love to those who might not agree with us, or those who don\u2019t share our beliefs. And in 1 John 3:18 we are told that we are not to just love with words or tongue, but with actions and truth! That can be uncomfortable. Both Jesus and John knew what they said would be hard for their listeners to hear, but they didn\u2019t leave any room for ambiguous interpretations of their words. In fact Jesus told us that in order to inherit eternal life, we have to love the people we find hard to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we first started reporting persecution in Burma, we discovered that alongside the problems for Kachin and Karen Christians, the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine State were suffering. I was adamant that we couldn\u2019t ignore them and say, \u201cWe\u2019re only here for the persecuted Christians. The right to choose, change and practise a religion or belief freely doesn\u2019t just apply to Christians, and it doesn\u2019t just apply to people who look like us, or to those we find it easy to want to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following Jesus comes with a cost<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s difficult for us to imagine just how costly the decision to follow Jesus can be for a Christian in Iran, Nigeria or China: or indeed any of the countries on which we work. Every day we hear stories of people who have been forced to choose between their faith and their families, homes, jobs, education, and even their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You will no doubt have heard the story of Leah Sharibu, a 15-year-old Nigerian girl who was abducted from her classroom in February 2018 by Boko Haram, along with 110 other girls. Unlike her friends, Leah refused to renounce her faith in exchange for her freedom, holding on to her Christianity at a staggering cost that we can\u2019t even begin to imagine. As I write this, Leah is still in captivity and facing a very real threat to her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Leah\u2019s extraordinary courage isn\u2019t the only possible response to extreme pressure. Last year when I visited Iraq, I met a Christian family who were starved out of their home and village when Daesh (Islamic State) stormed and took over their village. Both mother and son were taken by Daesh and forced to convert. As we talked, the mother told us that she said the words but in her heart she didn\u2019t convert. And her 12-year-old son, seeing those who refused to convert and join Daesh executed in front of him, felt there was no other choice but to join Daesh to save his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t doubt that their courage was just as great as Leah\u2019s. However someone chooses to respond in a situation of such extreme pressure, we must never judge them. From the safety of our homes, we all like to think we would not renounce our faith in Jesus, but faced with death or the death of our loved ones, how can any of us know how we will respond?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our voices hold power and can save lives<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, whenever I think about what it means to be a Christian in the face of discrimination I think of Pastor Omar Gude P\u00e9rez, a church leader from Cuba who spent three years in prison among violent and dangerous criminals. In the depths of despair, Pastor Omar became convinced he had to emulate these men in order to survive. But at the moment he was getting ready to abandon his faith, his wife brought him a message from a card a little girl had written for him. It said \u2018God has faith in you, and I am praying for you.\u2019 Pastor Omar was humbled by these words and inspired to hold onto his faith: all because of the powerful message of that little girl. Never doubt that your voice holds power and can save lives.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This summer I was privileged to lead a seminar at New Wine exploring how to live as a Christian in a culture that doesnt accept it.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21897,"template":"","regions":[],"class_list":["post-31815","magazines","type-magazines","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines\/31815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazines"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines\/31815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41588,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazines\/31815\/revisions\/41588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=31815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}