There is no question that the New Testament writers believed Jesus to be the Lord. He alone is supreme and to Him alone we owe ultimate allegiance. What Jesus Christ teaches and commands has priority over all other teaching and authority, both in heaven and on earth. Contemporary followers of Jesus believe this as well.

Those who work with persecuted Christians realize we have a lot to learn from them. One of the lessons recently impressed on my mind by the underground church in China is their tenacity to carry out the task of global evangelism. At a recent gathering of mission leaders, mission teachers, and missionaries I heard a presentation by a Korean missionary who works with the underground church in China to prepare missionaries who will be sent out by the Chinese underground church. His main role is to help train Chinese missionaries who will be sent cross-culturally within China and also into neighboring countries in Asia and beyond. He said that there is no shortage of candidates from the underground churches desiring to go out as missionaries.

Having experienced the presence and forgiveness of God prepares a person to forgive others and be a gracious influence in their lives. Gracia Burnham, along with her husband Martin, were abducted and held by Marxist guerillas in the Philippines. They were in captivity for a year. Martin lost his life in a rescue attempt by government forces. Gracia described Martin’s attitude and spirit during those days in the following terms:

A part of Christian eschatology is the conviction and belief that evil will intensify in the last days (Cullmann, “Eschatology and Mission in the New Testament,” Theology and the Christian Mission, 46). This began at the Day of Pentecost when the church was born and continues until today. There have been times of relative peace and times of the intense manifestation of evil, but there is little doubt in the minds of many that the situation in the world is not getting better. It seems especially intense at the moment.

George Whitefield is well-known as an evangelist who was part of the Evangelical Revival in England in the 18th century along with John and Charles Wesley. Whitefield’s theology of persecution is explained in his famous sermon, “Persecution Every Christian’s Lot.”

The story of Wang Ming-dao, one of twentieth century’s most famous Chinese Christians who suffered for his faith, is full of powerful victories and devastating defeats. He was a contemporary of John Sung and Watchman Nee, and had an outstanding ministry as a pastor and evangelist. He developed his theology midst strong resistance, persecution, and suffering. He wrote a series of sermons from which an elementary theology of persecution emerges.

About Alister McGrath

The atrocities committed by terrorists against Christians are generally attributed to their ideology. Usually it falls into the category of radical jihadist ideology. While ideology may play a role of being a catalyst that spawns extreme violence, there is something deeper and darker that is the root cause of such evil acts. It is more than just a clash of ideologies—the infidel verses the jihadist.

J. Christiaan Beker’s suffering and persecution came at the hands of German occupation forces of the Netherlands in World War II. Beker later immigrated to the United States to become a professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He died in 1999. While not specifically suffering for Christ’s sake, he suffered at the hands of those who were idolatrous, adhering to the false religion of Naziism. This experience led him to investigate the meaning of suffering, not only because of the emotional and psychological damage done to him but also theologically. The “mystery of suffering” must somehow be reconciled with the Christian belief in “the goodness of the good creation.”

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship I doubt that he realized that he would actually live out what he wrote. He had profound insight and foresight into what true discipleship actually meant. He was personally and theologically ready to pay the price for obedience to Christ and that was required of him. Perhaps no theologian has so faithfully lived out the premises of a theology of suffering, persecution, and martyrdom as did Bonhoeffer.