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.”

About Alister McGrath

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.

Many of us, when we encounter persecution in other countries, begin to wonder about our own freedom, security, and prosperity when others are suffering. How can we enjoy our freedom and painless Christian walk while others are suffering so much for Christ, we think? In some countries, some Christians enjoy freedom while others, in the same country, are being persecuted. We can only attribute this to God’s sovereignty and purpose. When it comes to suffering for the Lord, there is no randomness nor is it entirely the malevolent actions of evil men. God ordains suffering and if we are not suffering for Christ at the moment, it means that God has other plans for us.

There was a time when Christians would complain that we were ignored or misrepresented by mainstream media. That is no longer entirely true. The events in this world are so explicitly clear regarding the persecution of Christians that it is nearly impossible to ignore it, mainstream or backwater media. The idea, I suppose, was that in the past Christianity was so dominant in our culture that it was getting a lot of attention and now it is time to turn our attention to other religions, cults, and bizarre organizations in order to be equitable. But world events have not cooperated with this new attitude and mainstream media is forced to report the targeting of Christians for violence in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, it is taking radical acts of violence against Christians to get Christianity back into the news.