“They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”
- Revelation 12:11
- Revelation 12:11
Islam was spread by the sword and the blood of those who opposed Muhammad. Christianity was also spread with the blood, the blood of the saints and martyrs willing to die the same way as their Lord and Savior did. The persecution started with Jesus and Paul summed up the attitude of a saint - if an evil world horribly murdered our Master then we should feel honored if the same thing happens to us.
The word martyr comes from a Greek word meaning witness, and the common
usage has come from the New
Testament of the Bible. Thus there were no 'martyrs' before Christianity,
it began as a Christian concept from the moment Stephen was stoned for
preaching about Jesus at the beginning of the book of Acts. Islam which
came much later borrowed the concept of martyrs from Christianity (as well as
many other things).
When I believed myself to be a Wiccan, I read a lot about how supposed
Christians killed witches and burnt people at the stake and all the evils done
by Christians but it wasn't until I read the Bible that I saw there was a
difference between the true persecuted church and the ones that spread their
own agenda in the name of Jesus. People from the beginning have used God's name to try to justify their own
evil practices. As God is love, those that spread hate in the name of Jesus don't know
Him at all! But God has a special compassion on both the poor and the
martyred - "blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness
sake" and gives a promise that those murdered out of a hatred for their witness
of God will be avenged.
A book called Foxes Book of Martyrs, which is a classic,
documents the beginnings of how Christianity began with the bloodshed of the
faithful, especially through Rome where Christians were set alight and thrown
to wild beasts for public amusement. And it makes sense that if the world
is evil, as the Bible tells us, under the rule of the wicked one Satan, that
there will be opposition to the true church. And the death toll of the
true church climbs because, like with the crucifixion Jesus, the world does not
know His followers either.
Today the evidence is that there are more
Christian martyrs than ever. The International Society for Human Rights documents
that Christians are (by far) the most persecuted religious body on the planet
and 80% of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed
at Christians. According to the Pew Forum Christian martyrs are made in 139 nations,
almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth and it’s said an average of
100,000 Christians have been killed each year for the past decade. So to put it in perspective, there are 11 Christians killed somewhere in
the world every hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year, for reasons
related to their faith.
Yet, these stats are changing and not for the better, but for the worse.
Open Doors does studies on the worst 50 countries for Christian persecution
and has noted Christian martyr deaths around the globe doubled in 2013 with
2,123 killings, compared with 1,201 in 2012. That’s not even counting the
accounts of discrimination, imprisonment, harassment, sexual assaults, and
expulsion carried out in countries all over the world.
In North Korea an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 followers of Jesus are
suffering in prison camps for “crimes” such as owning a Bible, going to church,
or sharing their faith. It is reported they got the worst treatment in
the country because (the same
as in ancient Rome) they do not allow the worship of any other being than the
Supreme Leader, who expects to be treated as a deity. Many die of
malnutrition, having to exist off insects and/or rats and have to suffer
horrible tortures like being forced to drown their own children.
In Syria it is Islam or death and if Christians refuse then they can
suffer the most horrible of fates. Whole churches and villages have been
burned to the ground because of the anger over those resisting the Islamic
agenda. India has also been known for this type of persecution.
Women raped, children kidnapped and men brutally killed all because they will
not submit to the mighty hand of Islam. In the African country of Eritrea
Christians are sent to prisons which are described as “giant ovens baking
people alive.”
But there is another side to this, just how C.S Lewis said it was wrong
to talk about human sufferings without also talking about heaven. There
is an eternal promise that makes sure these persecuted ones do not die in
vain. If it was all in vain it would be a horror upon horrors, but there is
hope. There is a witness of
many who know God has heard their cries and will avenge them and give them a
future. I don’t just glibly believe it, I know it to be true, and so do the ones
risking their lives for a chance of letting others know what the living,
personal God means to them.
