When I joined a missions organization in 2003 intending to go overseas as a 24-year-old, people didn’t understand. They asked me why. They told me there were plenty of people who needed help in the U.S. They wanted to know why I was leaving my job at the newspaper.

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.

In a couple of months, I will be moving. The stress of moving in today’s world can be overwhelming; questions like ‘How do I move my couch?’ and ‘Who will help me move?’ are only a couple of the worries.

About Alister McGrath

“On a Sunday morning, I walked towards my church and mused about the sermon, which I would have to deliver…while I was debating with Jesus the sermon, which I had to deliver after half an hour, at once a car of the secret police stopped near me, four men rushed out of the car, in a minute’s time, I was in the car, I was handcuffed, I was blindfolded. And now, I was under arrest.”

Earlier this year, I traveled to meet with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The national crisis facing Lebanon is noteworthy. A country long known for its hospitable people, towering cedars and beautiful shores has been flooded by Syrians who have been displaced by the spread of Islamic extremists and government troops.

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.”

An unspoken rule of many barbershops and hair salons is that two topics are never to be discussed: religion and politics.