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Fort Worth, TX
Persecution causing church growth: author


The church is expanding faster than ever in history, but it is not without a “horrible” cost, said Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom and author of Their Blood Cries Out.

“We are living in the greatest age of expansion of the church ever.” As evidence Marshall cited the growth of the church in China from one million in 1980 to an estimated 50 million in 1999.

Marshall was part of a panel at a town hall meeting on the persecuted church held at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Tex. The panel also included Al Meredith, pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church; Karen Bullock, professor of church history at Southwestern; and Getaneli H. Getanch, a street evangelist who was tortured for his faith in Ethiopia.

Marshall said that church growth is unprecedented and is coming from places outside the West. He said 80 per cent of the church lives outside the West. “Africa will soon be the continent, if not already, with the greatest number of Christians. Christians in the world are more likely to be Chinese or Nigerian or Sudanese than Westerners.”

He concluded that the growth is due to persecution and reported several incidents that have occurred since September:

The senior Roman Catholic bishop in China, who has spent 15 years in prison and has been repeatedly tortured, has disappeared. He was last seen with Chinese government security officials. A prominent national leader in the unregistered Protestant house church movement in China was executed by a firing squad Oct. 14, the second leader of this movement to be executed in the past two months. Chechen militants kidnapped a young Baptist deacon and are demanding the church sell its building and use the money to pay the ransom. His predecessors were kidnapped and beheaded. In India, a 26-year-old Roman Catholic nun was raped and mocked for her faith. The Myanmar military government attacked 22 villages of a tribe who are mostly Christians. Witnesses said the military beat and stabbed to death many people. A Coptic Orthodox priest in Egypt was shot. A Coptic bishop faces a sentence ranging from eight years in prison to the death penalty for reporting that 1,200 members of his diocese were tortured in August and September. In Vietnam, security police raided a house church Sept. 17, arresting and interrogating an evangelist and two others. In a largely Christian Sudanese province, 700 people die from starvation each day, and 50,000 children have been sold into slavery.

Marshall said that about 200 million Christians are exposed to persecution in about 60-70 countries. Persecution is worsening in countries like China, Vietnam and North Korea, and in Muslim countries, including Sudan, Mauritania, Iran and Iraq, Muslims who become Christians face the death penalty. It is illegal to be a Christian in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, people use blasphemy laws against Christians. In some countries like India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan, Hindu and Buddhist groups persecute Christians.

Marshall said a reason for persecution is political. “In the modern age, when the church grows, democracy grows. When the church grows, human rights grow. This is an empirical fact,” he said, citing a 1997 report by Freedom House. In that report, 79 of 86 democratic countries were “culturally Christian”.

Marshall quoted two Chinese newspapers and Chinese police documents that write about the importance of squashing the church and blame Christianity for the collapse of the Soviet Union. “If China does not want these things repeated in its own land, we must strangle the baby while it is still in the manger,” a Beijing newspaper said.

In a Far East Economic Review cover story on China titled “God is Back”, a Beijing government official is quoted: “If God had the face of a 70-year-old man, we would not care if He were back. But He has the face of millions of 20-year-olds and, therefore, we are worried.”  – Evangelical Press News Service

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Last modified December 10, 1999.

© 1999 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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