The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, was born in Pakistan and is the first non-white diocesan bishop in the Church of England.

In 1986, the then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie arranged for him to come to the UK when, as Bishop of Raiwind in West Punjab, he found his life in danger.

Since that time, he has taken a keen interest in inter-faith relations and spoken up on behalf of the persecuted church.

Last weekend, he joined hundreds of other Christians at the UNITE event in Birmingham, organised by Open Doors, Release International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Jubilee Campaign to pray for and deepen engagement with persecuted Christians.

He shared some of his thoughts with Christian Today on the reality of persecution today:

CT: You left Pakistan because you were being persecuted. Would you consider going back there again?

BM: Well, I go back there quite often now because the reason behind some of the difficulties I was facing was removed when General Zia was killed - unfortunately for him, and I am now not doing the work that I was doing at the time with the very poor. There are other people doing that work and they are having the same difficulties.

We were experiencing difficulties because we were doing quite specific things that irritated the wealthy or stood in the way of the further Islamisation of society.

But the situation has become much worse. Now people are being persecuted for simply being Christian. That also happened then, but not to the extent that it is happening today.

CT: We heard extensively about Islamisation today. Would you say this is the greatest cause of persecution against Christians today?

BM: I think it is certainly the most important cause, yes. There are other causes of course, and there are political reasons. Christians are sometimes substitutes for others that Islamists can't get at. So, for example, if the United States does something then churches will be attacked in Egypt or Pakistan or Indonesia even though the local Christians have had nothing at all to do with what has happened.

But I think generally there is an ideological programme of Islamisation that is restricting freedom for large sections of people, including Christians. And the difficulties that are arising for Christians are arising as part of a wider framework.

CT: You spoke of a spiritual warfare.

BM: The reason I used it was to distinguish it from other forms of warfare - that the Christian response has to be the response of Christ. Spiritual warfare includes loving your enemy, bringing healing to situations of conflict, helping those who are under pressure.

But I think that it may also have something to say to the powers that be, that it is not simply through military might that this situation will be addressed. There are other very important things that we need to do.