EDITORIAL: The fires of persecution

I received the following email late last night.
    Dear Brothers,
    I have cancelled my program because of Orissa Crises! Please pray for Orissa Believers because they are now under bad situations and many are killed by VHP (Viswa Hindu Parisad), RSS and support of BJP Political Party, This are all fanatical Hindu political Parties. This is going on in Kadaman District of Orissa.
    We are in prayer.
    In Christ, Dr. Subimal Dutta
    Subimal Dutta, a pastor in  India’s state of Orissa, had planned a visit to Virginia when suddenly his plans were changed by circumstance. Every pastor I know has experienced some milder version of Dutta’s interruption, but no U.S. pastor I know has come close to the pastoral challenges facing our Indian brother.
    To recap the circumstances briefly, the Christian population has been steadily growing and now numbers nearly 900,000 in Orissa alone. This sounds impressive until one considers the staggering total population there of 36.7 million. Christians make up only 2.4 percent of Orissa’s population.
    Still, the rate at which the mountain people in the interior are converting to Christianity has received the attention and engendered the deep resentment of Hindu traditionalists.
    On Christmas Eve of last year, the resentment led to violence as Christians were attacked, driven from their homes into the forests, and in some cases, killed. (See a related story at www.religiousherald.org/ 2064.article). Survivors watched helplessly from a distance as their homes and churches burned.
    The most recent attacks were in reaction to the murders by suspected Maoists of a Hindu Leader Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his disciples on Aug. 21. Despite the Maoists Communists claiming credit for the deaths, Christians were blamed by the Hindu clerics, who fanned resentment into a rampage. As of Thursday, Aug. 28, hundreds of Christian homes and churches had been burned in at least 114 separate attacks.
    According to Compass Direct News which monitors world-wide persecution (www.compassdirect.org), at least 21 Christians have been butchered or burned alive.
    It isn’t the first time in history Christians have been blamed for disasters caused by others, of course. The Roman emperor, Nero, found Christians of his day a convenient scapegoat on which to fix the blame of Rome’s great blaze. We can hope, pray and trust that the eventual outcome will be the same: that Christians transform their culture. We pray that the truth of Tertullian’s famous observation that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” will prevail.
    In fact, what has so deeply touched me in Dutta’s request is its simplicity. All he asks for is our prayers. It is devoid of self-pity and vengeance. He doesn’t ask for political or military intervention. No, the need is too great for that.
    He asks for prayer. Prayer to be faithful despite fear and pain. Prayer to provide the pastoral care his people need in spite of his own inner anguish. Prayer that the church will rise to that greatest of all challenges: to love the very ones who hate them. Prayer that the hatred of their persecutors will melt in the intensity of the Holy Spirit’s convicting fire. Prayer that among the persecutors will be those Sauls of Tarsus whose eyes will be opened as they are confronted by the living Christ.
    We Christians in America have our own challenges, of course. And like our Indian comrades, our greatest need is for prayer. I wonder, which is the greater threat to the church? Is it the fiery persecution of Orissa’s Hindus or the tepid indifference of Virginia’s Christians?
    In both cases, our greatest need is for the Holy Spirit’s presence; to soothe and sustain in their case and to challenge and create courage in ours.
    Obviously, not all Virginia Christians are tepid or indifferent. Gladly, there are many noble exceptions. But many have succumbed to settling. We have settled into our comfortable and predictable patterns of church work. We have settled for half-hearted service offered at our convenience. And, worst of all, we have settled for transformation in moderation.
    I pray for the Christians of Orissa. And I am praying for Virginia Christians as well. I pray that the fires will be less consuming there and that the Spirit’s fire will be more consuming here.
    I don’t want to be the kind of Christian that burns others with blistering blasts of pompous piety. But I long for the Spirit’s fire to ignite a passion within his people. I pray that with mind and soul and bodies and strength the light and heat of Christ will create purposeful excitement within us and burn away the chaff of apathy.
    Identifying with the suffering saints of Orissa will help that happen. Consider a portion of a report from there: “Hindu extremists today killed pastor Samuel Naik of the Bakingia Seventh-Day Adventist Church at Kandhamal, and Jacob Digal and Gopan Naik of Damba village were slain this morning. Also killed today was Golok Naik of Pidinanju village, and yesterday pastor Mukunda Bardhan from Mukundapur, Gajapati was burned to death.
    “Three other people whose names have not yet been verified, said the source, were killed in Katingia village of G. Udaygiri, along with a pastor belonging to Operation Mobilization from the same area. In Badimunda, nearly 25 Christian homes were burned down. There were many reports of Christians being pulled from their homes and killed or beaten, with many homes of Christians torched in Baliguda. Orissa Police Chief Gopal Chandra Nanda downplayed the violence, telling Reuters that incidents were only ‘sporadic’ and that ‘some prayer houses have been attacked and vehicles have been burnt.’”
    It’s time to pray.