by John Lindner
On this Sunday, November 3 (and November 10 as an alternate), Christians worldwide will be praying for persecuted Christians around the globe. The observance called International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church is generally referred to as IDOP.
Perhaps due to secular media’s silence on the subject, many people in the West are not aware of the overwhelming persecution of Christians around the world. Yet the IDOP website says “harassment, detention, legal restrictions, violence and even death for their faith in Jesus” looms on a daily basis for 360 million Christians globally.
The annual observance seeks to draw attention to the plight of persecuted Christians often ignored by the secular news media and urges persecuting countries to consider religious liberty as a human right.
The World Evangelical Alliance conducted its first observance of IDOP in 1996, attracting participating churches in 100 countries.
Open Doors U. S. began preparing an annual list of the 50 worst-persecuting countries in the world. In 1997, Brother Andrew, founder of Open Doors, said, “only through mobilizing the church to pray for those who are persecuted for their faith in Christ, will we see a significant shift in the involvement in their plight.”
One of the most famous answers to prayer was that of Asia Bibi (born Aasiya Noreen) in Pakistan. Fetching water for some coworkers in 2009, she picked up a metal cup and drank from it. Muslims accused her, a Christian, of contaminating their cup. Her Muslim coworkers said she should convert to Islam, but she replied that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, and then said, “What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind? Why should it be me that converts instead of you?”
She was subsequently imprisoned a year before being charged. Then both lower and federal courts determined she had blasphemed and sentenced her to be hanged. The incident became a rally cry for Christians around the world who prayed for her while two government officers defending her and condemning the anti-blasphemy laws were assassinated. The Federal Court finally acquitted her in 2018, but protests continued to keep her in prison for her safety until she was finally allowed to emigrate to Canada in 2019.
Instrumental in her defense were Open Doors and D.C.-based International Christian Concern, as well as Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need.[1]
Open Doors says the six worst persecuting counties are North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen and Nigeria.
In North Korea, any person found with a Bible in their possession can be shot on the spot, and their whole family will be sent to labor camps until they die. Yet many hunger for the truth about God, but worship must be conducted secretly. Discovery can send all participants and their families to brutal labor camps.
Some North Korean believers seek asylum by crossing the border into China. But China has recently stepped up the practice of returning escapees, especially Christians, to a dismal doom in North Korea that can affect their family members who did not seek to escape.
Eritrea is sometimes called the North Korea of Africa, due to its intense authoritarian government. The government recognizes Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Lutheran denominations, but evangelicals and Pentecostals face imprisonment under cruel conditions without charges.
Leaving Islam and becoming a Christian in Somalia is seen as a betrayal of their country and culture and can bring death at the hands of their own family members.
Those who do so in Libya similarly risk house arrest, attack, abduction, sexual violence and murder.
“Yemeni society is strongly Islamic, conservative and tribal, and the tribal punishment for denouncing Islam can be death or banishment,” states Open Doors.
Christians compose 46 percent of the population in Nigeria, but those living in the dominantly Muslim North face persecution and death. Nigeria remained the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ in 2023, with 4,118 people killed for their faith from Oct. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023, according to Open Doors.
Genocidewatch.com said that the 52,250 Christians peacefully practicing their faith in Nigeria were killed between the Muslim uprising in July, 2009 and April, 2023. During that time even 34,000 nonviolent Muslims also were killed for opposing the radical Islamic movement.
Christians in Pakistan (number 7 on the Watch List) also face murder by family members, but they are most often thrown in prison for violating the nation’s wicked anti-conversion laws, as was Asia Bibi. The judge in local courts will always convict anyone accused of offending Mohammed to save his own neck from retaliation from hardline Muslims.
Also, the Religious Global Society in the U. K. says that every year 1,000 girls aged 12 to 25 of non-Muslim families in Pakistan are abducted and forced to marry a Muslim.[2] Because the families are not Muslim, police typically take no action to rescue the girls.
Laws on the books state that no non-Muslim girl under 18 can be married without her parents’ consent, but once they are forced into Islam they can be married as young as 10 to a Muslim man.
This is what propels Christians to observe IDOP to bring the public’s attention to persecution of Christians, and to encourage prayer for those caught in this Catch 22. Major media rarely, if ever, mention it.
Other organizations focusing on persecution are Voice of the Martyrs in Bartlesville, OK (persecution.com) and International Christian Concern in D. C. (persecution.org). Local ministries such as Christian Aid Mission in Charlottesville and Advancing Native Missions in Afton help the persecuted as part of their ministry.
Smaller local ministries that also reach out to the persecuted are AIM International directed by Sarla Mahara, International Women’s Ministry operated by Autumn Nims, Global Opportunities for Christ guided by Bob Emery, and 24:14 World founded by Carl Gordon.
Dr. Rob Pochek, pastor of First Baptist Church on Park Street, said they not only observe IDOP Sunday, but pray for Christians in a persecuting country nearly every Sunday. “It helps Christians here to understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus in many areas of the world,” he said.
A copy of the Open Doors World Watch List can be obtained as a free download from opendoorsus.org. More information on IDOP can be found at IDOP.org.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Bibi_blasphemy_case
[2] https://intersociety-ng.org/jihadist-genocide-of-christians-in-nigeria-bloodiest-in-2023-8222-hacked-to-death-from-jan-jan/
