That's a pretty arresting headline, right? Perhaps a tiny bit manipulative, but certainly difficult to ignore. Most of us prioritise the safety of our families – whatever form they take – above all else. Almost every morning, I pray that my wife and children would be safe from harm, and I'm certainly not alone in that practice.
So the idea that my family might be under threat ranks peerlessly high on my priority list. Instinctively, we all want them to be protected, safe, able to enjoy their lives without fear of harm.
Recent events here in the UK might have made us all hug our children a little more tightly as we tucked them in at night, but the truth is that the level of danger they're faced with here is mercifully low. We live in a free, largely safe democracy, where in spite of our differences, we all try to get along and tolerate each other. Our streets aren't full of guns, our neighbourhoods aren't patrolled by militia groups. On a global scale, my family lives in one of the least dangerous places possible.
Except... who is my family? My wife, and my children certainly; our parents and other immediate relatives for sure. But as a Christian, perhaps my definition needs to be a bit wider than that. The New Testament talks a lot about family, and seems to suggest over and again that when we decide to follow Christ, we're adopted into a global family which is much more than a tribe or a social network. In Romans 12:5, Paul writes: 'We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another,' so we're related, interconnected, united through Jesus. In Galatians 6:10 he talks of the church as 'the household of faith'. He uses the same phrase again in Ephesians 2 as he describes the church as a family structure with Jesus as the cornerstone.
And in 1 Corinthians 12:26 he writes this: 'If one member suffers, all suffer together.'
So when I consider the safety of my family, that top priority about which I pray every morning, I wonder if my focus is a little narrow. Because if my family as a Christian is defined as the entire Church, that extraordinary, billion-strong movement which spans every part of the globe, then the truth is that some parts of it are a lot safer than others. For those in the least safe parts, danger and risk are daily realities, especially if they're to practise their Christian faith. Paul writes that if one member suffers, all suffer together. So how true does that feel to those of us living in the safe places, where we're free to believe whatever we want?
The persecuted Church charity Open Doors estimates that 322 Christians a month are killed for their faith around the world. Another 772 are violently attacked, raped, forced into marriage or abducted. That's well over 1,000 members of my family – of your family if you're a Christian – killed or scarred forever because they follow the Prince of Peace. The numbing effects of the daily news cycle and creeping compassion fatigue can scandalously disarm a statistic like that, so just let it sink in for a moment. Your family, in places like North Korea, Syria and Iraq, are in extreme, mortal danger, right now.
A combination of the distance and the fact that we can choose to look away from this reality and carry on buying that coffee or scrolling through Facebook, means we generally choose to do nothing in response apart from feeling a bit sad and overwhelmed. Thankfully, there are real things we can do, and at least one that we can do right now.
At the end of this year, Open Doors wants to deliver a million-strong petition to the United Nations, and to the UK and US governments, reminding them of their responsibility to protect persecuted religious minorities (not just Christians) around the world, and particularly in Syria and Iraq. That level of lobbying can have a serious impact on policy, so whatever your reservations about the effectiveness of petitioning, please take a moment today to sign it.
In the USA, the petition is here.
In the UK, you can sign here.
There's much more that we can do of course, supporting organisations like Open Doors financially, writing personally to our local democratic representatives and more. As a first, simple step though, the petition is a real way of creating urgency among policy makers to consider the horrific reality for so many religious believers. Please sign – and more than that, share with others.
Harper Lee once wrote that, 'You can choose your friends, but you sho' can't choose your family.' As Christians, these real people, being killed and tortured just because they hold the same faith we do, aren't just sad statistics, they're in some extraordinary way our real brothers and sisters.
Signing a form, praying, and really caring about what happens to them... these things are the least we can do for those many, many people around the world who are not just a persecuted church, but our persecuted family.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
