Missions in contexts of suffering, violence, persecution and martyrdom
Articles from the July 2008 double issue edition of Connections focused on missions in contexts of suffering, violence, persecution and martyrdom
A Biblical Theology of Persecution and Discipleship
It is well recognized by those who work among persecuted Christians that few attempts have been made to develop a biblical theology of persecution. Most attempts consist of selected texts arranged thematically which, while helpful and better than nothing at all, fail to reveal the extent to which suffering for righteousness is addressed in the biblical text. Much of the problem, it seems to me, comes down to a failure to adequately consider many of the scriptural passages on suffering in their context.
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A Global Dialogue
Throughout this edition of Connections, you will see threads of a global communication between mission societies, mission movements and mission leaders as they respond to questions of doing mission in contexts of suffering, violence, persecution and martyrdom. These agonizing issues are reality. As we hammer out policies and guidelines as safeguards to our most precious resource, missionaries, let us look to each other how to handle different issues so as to glean best practices from one another.
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Best Practices
The Code of Best Practices for ministry to and with the persecuted church around the world is designed as a benchmark document to guide the policies and practice of organisations in their involvement. It is not intended to establish legal standards or liability. Rather the motivation for the development of this code is based upon the responsibility toward all participants and partners in religious liberty work, that they are served with the highest standards possible.
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Biblical Reflections on Ministry and Suffering
When we look at the missionary challenges of our day, we see that suffering is a necessary ingredient. We are called to serve people who suffer, in contexts of war, extreme poverty and persecution. And those willing to go will not only suffer because of living in such contexts, but because they witness the extreme suffering of the local people. And often the missionary presence and service will seem insignificant in facing the huge challenges of such a context.
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Challenges, Dangers and Hazards of Ministry
The context of our missionary endeavors in Africa fits very well into the context described by the Lord in Matthew 10, which contrasts the challenges, dangers and hazards of the missionary enterprise with the blessings, securities and insurances provided by the Lord of the Harvest Himself. Most of our fields are located in the highly resistant Muslim areas of West and Central Africa or the worn torn regions of countries like Liberia and Ivory Coast. Our missionaries have been operating in the face of dangers and in environments and situations fraught with hazards. Therefore, our policies concerning the dangers of being a missionary under the Christian Missionary Foundation, whether on a short-term or career basis, derive from the Lord’s own policies as contained in this chapter of Matthew as well as that of Luke 10.
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Christian Martyrdom is Act of Love
Pope Benedict XVI highlighted Wednesday to thousands of pilgrims that the deaths of Christian martyrs in the past and present are an act of love.
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Code of Best Practices
We believe that everything we do and say has the potential to build or undermine the trust of our team members and our international partners. It is with this understanding that we commit ourselves to following these Best Practices for Cross-cultural Visits to Restricted Nations.
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Connecting – Facilitating – Developing
Working internationally is a powerful experience; a privilege that is also motivating. The synergy potential is enormous as member care know-how is shared between experts, practitioners, counselors and mission pastors from other continents and regions.
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Deliver us from evil
This report was emailed by Rev. Dr. Richard Howell, General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, based in New Delhi. Over recent months, similar reports of serious attacks on Christian believers in different parts of India have arrived with depressing frequency. For these our brothers and sisters, suffering, persecution and even martyrdom are no abstract theory to be debated, but the immediate context within which every day they must bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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EFI NEWS
Pastor attacked in Andhra Pradesh An independent Pastor working in Tandur Bellampalli Mandal in Asifabad of Adilabad district, Andhra Pradesh was attacked by the Hindutva Radicals belonging to RSS (Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh) group on March 29th 2008…
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Filling Up the Suffering of Christ
Mission invitations for people to accept God’s call to serve Least Evangelized peoples and cities are often met with the question, “Is it safe?” Celebrated missional churches often trumpet quick, pain-free, sanitized forays among these “hard peoples”—after which these envoys enjoy the prestige of having done missionary work…and return to their “normal” lives, whether in Singapore or Seattle, London or Lagos, Sao Paulo or Stuttgart.
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First Step Forum
After serving WEA and the global church for almost ten years and visiting some 100 nations, I became more and more aware of the weaknesses we Evangelicals have. Unless we are brave enough to see them and to deal with them, we do not really need an enemy; we will be our own worst enemy and we will not be the agent for change God wants us to be. I found four major weaknesses in the global Evangelical community: 1. We are a divided community worldwide 2. We are re-active, not pro-active 3. We have a tendency to see enemies instead of possible partners 4. We do not give high value to Christians outside the "Evangelical circle"
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From my Corner
Persecution has always been part of the expansion of the Gospel. As a child, I remember stones being thrown, by orders of the Catholic priest, at the tent my father raised to start a new church in one of the neighbourhoods in Campinas—incidentally the same area where my office is now. Swedish missionaries had invaded Catholic territory, ignoring any “comity” law, and in the early 1960’s there was no dialogue between Evangelicals and Catholics in Brazil. Thirty years later I experienced the same hostility from representatives of the majority church when preaching in the interior of Paraguay.
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From the Heart of the Mind of the Editor
This s a difficult and painful journal issue craft, because essentially its contents are laced with challenging, painful and discouraging realities. Writer Harry Hoffman (coordinator of the Mission Commission Global Member Care Network) says it well in his terse article “Too many sad stories”. The missional church faces multiple challenges as we grapple with the multiple reports of Christians encountering extraordinary challenges, conflicts and suffering in mission, perhaps because of their personal discipleship journey or as a result of their specific context and ministry focus.
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Guidelines for Crisis Management and Prevention
The Global Connections Guidelines for crisis management and prevention are designed to assist dealing both with critical incidents and also when working in highrisk situations. They are designed to apply to any UK based organisation or UK churches sending staff or volunteers overseas. The principles should be applied to all types of staff such as mission partners, volunteers working overseas, national staff and UK staff visiting field locations. Agencies and churches should also apply them in all contexts, both long and short term, although some different procedures might be needed in each context. Some of these guidelines have been formed specifically with high-risk areas in mind, but most of the principles can also be useful in lower risk situations and wherever or whenever crises arise.
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Martyrdom in the Context of World Evangelization
“Do you consider the two Korean missionaries who were killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan to be martyrs?” a colleague pointedly asked me after the incident took place. After a thoughtful moment I responded, “Yes I do.” Regardless of opinions concerning the circumstances leading up to, during and after the kidnapping of this short-term team, the two who were savagely killed can rightfully be considered martyrs of the Christian faith.
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Missions in Contexts of Violence
By Keith E. Eitel. Evangelical Missiological Society series Number 15, 415 pages; ISBN 978-0-87808-389-3
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Model Policy Recommendations
Crisis Consulting International (CCI) has identified the need for a core set of twelve policy guidelines addressing four critical areas of crisis management. Although the circumstances of specific organizations may create the need for additional policy guidelines, these twelve core areas are considered the foundation necessary for adequate crisis management preparation.
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News from the Refugee Highway
Farad* directed a major Afghan newspaper. When a regime change brought terror and murder threats, he and his family were forced to flee. After first hiding in the countryside, they eventually traveled via Pakistan and Russia to the Netherlands. But the Dutch government denied their request for asylum. What next?
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Partnership in Suffering
The knock on the door came soon after dinner. I was already in my hotel room, in bed for an early night’s sleep after a day leading seminars with my hosts. We had been meeting quietly in a double room of a small hotel. For two days we had crowded in, all fifty two of us, sitting on beds, the floor and a few chairs. We came to the room in small groups so as not to draw attention, and I spoke through interpreters. At the end of the day, I wanted to go to bed early to rest for our last session on the following morning. When I heard the knock on the door unexpectedly, I thought that perhaps we had been detected by local authorities, but my apprehension was quickly dismissed when I opened the door and found two of the ministry leaders seeking to speak with me. I invited them in and listened to their request.
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Persecution Information on the Web
The Internet provides ample evidence that persecution of Christians is an extensive international tragedy. Google (http://www.google.com) yields some 200,000 hits from a search for “persecution of Christians” (with the quotes). Searching for websites dealing with persecution of Christians in a particular country, such as India or China, further demonstrates the scope of the problem: entering the words “persecution Christian India” (without the quotes) into Google results in nearly 400,000 hits; substituting China for India gives a similar result.
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Reflections from a Missions Pastor
When a Kingdom worker reports for duty to be obedient to the calling of the Lord, the last thing that a missions Pastor is thinking about is suffering, persecution, kidnapping or hostage victims. You are just glad that there are some people who are willing to take the Message to the ends of the earth that you do your best to help him or her to do just that.
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Reflections on Mentoring and Suffering
Whenever the topic arises amongst my friends on the theology of suffering and martyrdom, I am reminded of the life of Stephen (as recorded in The Book of Acts). Not only was he the first recorded believer who died for Christ, but his response clearly displayed character that could not have been expressed without the help of the Holy Spirit. We all need this character for the times of persecution that are to come.
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Reflections on Suffering and Danger
Tentmakers in contexts hostile to Christianity face danger and suffering for their faith in Jesus. It feels fraudulent to be writing about this as I sit in my study at home in one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Yet, I write as a retired trainer of tentmakers and missionaries. I write as a long-time pastor and also as a former missionary.
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Religious Freedom in the World
Religious Freedom in the World. By Paul A. Marshall. Rowan and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD; Paperback, 499 pages; US$ 95.00.
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RLP Purpose Statement
The purpose of the Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP) is to encourage and nurture partnering and collaboration among Christian organizations focused on religious liberty. The RLP will more intentionally work together in addressing advocacy and in raising the awareness of religious persecution globally.
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Seven Lessons Learned
The hostage case of twenty-three Koreans in Afghanistan provides us with important lessons in the midst of sufferings and damages. It was the first case of its kind for Korean churches and missions and they were very much unprepared and reactive instead of proactive. We must remember that the incident happened in God’s providence, and we must find lessons from it to improve the practice of world mission, especially from the Majority World.
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South Korean Mission Groups Re-Strategize for High-Risk Areas
Mission groups in South Korea have been discussing new practice procedures after being harshly criticized by the international community for sending inexperienced Christian workers into a high-risk area in Afghanistan – resulting in what was the largest abduction of foreigners in the country since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
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Special Advisory
The release of the surviving 19 South Korean hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan since July 19, 2007 carries very real increased risk to missionaries and faithbased workers. 1. The South Korean government made an agreement with the Taliban to ban future missionary activity in Afghanistan, a watershed event that had been resisted in prior hostage negotiations for kidnapped Christians. 2. The Taliban, now an insurgency (or, at best, a non-state actor) rather than an incumbent government, was able to elevate itself by directly engaging a state (South Korea) in negotiations.
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Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom in Turkey
On April 18, 2007, some terrible news shook and changed the course of the missionary movement in Turkey forever. I was driving my car to the service of the funeral of a dear brother’s father when I got the call. It is not advisable to answer such a call when one is driving. Just after the incident occurred, this brother, A.S., was telling me, “Three of our brothers from Malatya have been killed, they have been slashed by the throat!” More calls followed, “Are you sure? Who are they? But, how? Misinterpretations rose, “Four were killed, not five; no, they are not dead; yes, they are all dead, but one…” One of the first persons I called was the pastor from our church in Izmir, brother in law to one of the victims. From the vague news, I tried to comfort him, reassuring him that he was still alive. But, the fatal truth was about to come…
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Tentmaking Missions
There are about eighty-one countries in the 10/40 window where the least evangelized people live. There are 1739 ethno linguistic groups of more than 10,000 that do not have a Gospel witness.
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The Case of the Korean Hostage Incident
Twenty short-term workers from Sammool Church left the Incheon International Airport like any other similar teams leaving the country to serve in different parts of the world. Since there were already a number of short-term trips taken by the Sammool Church, it seemed to be no different from other prior trips. There were at least several other short-term teams representing different parties operating within Afghanistan and there seemed to be no imminent danger. There was one single woman worker sent from the same church situated in one locality for almost a year and a number of other NGO workers who had been there for some time— not many could blame them for having sense of false security. Nonetheless, it is necessary to revisit the incident to assess what lessons could be learned from each stage of the incident: pre-hostage stage, the hostage taking stage, and finally, the post-hostage stage.
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Too many sad stories
Very good intentions but too many sad stories. That’s how I would summarize missions. Changed lives, but at an unexpected high price for many. Please don’t skip the word "unexpected". There are many attempts and approaches to reason with suffering, but hardly any, if any at all, satisfying answers for victims. "God is good!", "God the healer" "By his stripes we are healed" … doesn’t really cut it.
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Two Books on Suffering and Persecution
India, China, Iran, Sudan, Indonesia, and other hot spots of persecutions and sufferings do not dominate headlines in the news, nor are they well remembered in the life of the Church; in fact, for the Church in the West, the fervor to pray, to shoulder and uplift our colleagues, fellow pilgrims, and sisters and brothers in Christ must be rekindled.
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Visiting the Persecuted Church
1. Culture shock It will be most helpful for the sending organization to conduct a brief orientation for visitors and staff, prior to arrival in Sri Lanka. This will help them grasp the local situation and be culturally sensitive. Such orientation is essential to the safety of visitors and local pastoral workers serving in hostile environments.
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When Trouble Comes…
Trouble of many kinds comes to most missionaries. Usually it falls into one of five categories: health, relationships (including relationship with God), success in one’s assignment, family, or finances. However, trouble also comes from civil unrest, war, violence, the break-down of law and order in a country, hostile ideologies, etc.. In view of these matters, Wycliffe and SIL, who partner together in the care of shared workers, think in terms of the following; written in this article.
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