victory in defeat

The New York Times released an article today about Christians in Iraq that had been paying for protection for years. Their pastor Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was threatened that unless payments were made, he and his congregation would be killed. When security in Iraq increased last year along with the news that the man behind these murderous threats had been killed, the church stopped paying. Two weeks later, Archbishop Rahho’s body was found in a shallow grave outside Mosul, the biblical city of Ninevah.

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, the population of Christians has declined from 1.3 million to 700,000. Many of the Christians in Iraq have fled the country for safety and religious freedom. But for those who’ve stayed behind, they have been faced with this difficult moral dilemma of “to pay or not to pay.”

This story is just one of many that reveal the threats facing the church today. Efforts to try to thwart the presence of religious truth abound. They range from public criticism to attempts to bully and threaten Christians in Third World countries, where persecution is overt and martyrdom is a real possibility. But whatever results through the social and political processes, God’s ways will not be overcome. For the Christian, there is often victory in seeming defeat, a point the church desperately needs to remember in an era where the appearance of victory may only be an apparition. Some of the strongest testimonies we have to God’s faithfulness come from accounts of those who have stood faithful in the midst of persecution. And with such stories come accounts of people drawn to Christ from among the former persecutors as a result of their watching such a stirring stand for the Lord.

As we live in a world that is hostile to the Christian faith, may we uphold our love and convictions with courage, peace and wisdom.