A YEAR or so ago, a friend introduced me to an organisation called, ‘Open Doors.’ Each year it gathers data to publish the Open Doors World Watch list, to record countries where freedom of worship is threatened.
According to the UN high commission for refugees, by mid-2021 the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had surpassed 84 million. Many of these were Christians and members of other faiths, fleeing persecution.
China has increased centralised control of religion and in May 2021 new rules in China required religious leaders to ‘love the motherland, support the leadership of the communist party and the socialist system.’ Surveillance cameras are in all state-approved religious venues.
A similar approach has been enthusiastically adopted elsewhere, and not only in former communist countries.
However, ‘World Watch’ gives us hope that crushing and destroying the church is not succeeding, and records that in spite of suppression, the church is in fact growing; almost unnoticed lives are changed in the most unlikely of places; in the toilet blocks of North Korean labour camps, behind closed doors in Somali homes, discussed as chats over coffee in African cafes, or in remote villages of central Africa – wherever two or three are gathered together in Jesus’s name.
All around the world Christ is building his church and nothing will prevail against it, this is clearly revealed by the ‘Open Doors’ research.
My heart rejoiced recently when in our country the position of prime minister was filled by a man of Hindu faith; in our country we have freedom to worship in the faith of our choice and faith remains significant. We have just remembered those who gave their lives in the service of our country and the remembrance events contained a central dimension of faith reflecting our values, not government directive.
Lynette Weekley, Holy Saviour Church.
