Blood-stilling silence

If you haven't already marked Sunday, September 29, on your calendar, do it now.

The date is especially important in this election year, for on September 29, evangelical Christians throughout the United States will be focusing their thoughts and prayers on fellow believers in other parts of the world who are being persecuted for their faith. As they seek ways to alleviate that persecution-which hundreds of times this year alone will result in death for Christians-the political process in the United States will be part of the equation.

Even last week, religious-liberty activists were waiting to see whether President Clinton or Republican candidate Bob Dole would be the first to pick up the challenge to join in the protest against the persecution of Christians in other parts of the world.

Note the difference here between mere discrimination against Christians and overt persecution. As distasteful and prevalent as such discrimination has become in the United States, it is a trifling inconvenience compared to the ugly and sometimes brutal offenses that are common in China, Vietnam, North Korea, and a number of predominantly Islamic countries.

The most celebrated recent case is that of Robert Hussein of Kuwait, who after professing faith in Christ was declared apostate by an Islamic court. The penalty for such an offense in Islamic society is death-although Kuwait itself provides some civil protection. But the fact that such a sentence could be handed down just five years after thousands of Americans risked their lives to protect Kuwaiti freedom from Iraq is especially repugnant.

But that's just one of dozens of issues:

Newly confirmed reports say Christians-especially children-are being sold as slaves in Sudan. The Baltimore Sun last week did a three-day front-page story on the subject.

Christians are having their eyes gouged out in Ethiopia.

Five Protestant women in China were arrested and detained after a cruel government crackdown on a house church, and one of them lost her front teeth after being struck repeatedly by the police.

Even if the Kuwaiti sentence proves to be mostly bluff, the real blood of Christian martyrs around the globe is frighteningly fresh. Where Christians are not literally dying, terrorism against them and their homes is being documented week after week.

But none of that has yet arrested the attention of the two men vying for our nation's top office next November. The closeness of their race, however, and the intensity of each candidate's desire to win, could yet prompt at least one of them-or maybe even both-to join the chorus of protests against the persecution of Christians.

Mr. Clinton seemed to be on that path a few months ago, having made a promise to deliver a major address on the topic at last March's annual meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals. The NAE had just adopted a 40-point statement suggesting specific things the U.S. government could do to relieve persecution against believers (see WORLD March 2, 1996). But Mr. Clinton reneged on his NAE engagement, and backed out also on an indicated promise to appoint religious-liberty expert Nina Shea as his special adviser on persecution issues.

Striking out with the president, Ms. Shea and an equally competent cadre of religious-liberty colleagues surrounding her have subsequently tried to get Mr. Dole to pick up the challenge. By one account, he's come close. The official draft of a speech Mr. Dole was supposed to give recently included a reference to religious liberty abuses as "the main human rights issue of the 21st century." Well and good-except that Mr. Dole has yet actually to give that speech or even to raise the issue as part of his campaign.

Oddly, while a notable gathering of evangelical leaders has joined the effort, the really powerful (and articulate) voice on the issue right now belongs not to a Christian but to a Jewish lawyer from Washington. Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute, says he's grateful for the help of Christians in opposing anti-Semitism in recent years, and wants to return the favor. He also believes that "evangelicals may well be the Jews of the first half of the 21st century," in terms of religious persecution around the world.

While Mr. Horowitz would dearly love to see at least one of the two presidential candidates join the cause, he says he's not holding his breath. He thinks the real challenge is to get evangelicals themselves alerted to and energized over the issues. So he's working overtime side-by-side with folks like Charles Colson, D. James Kennedy, Richard Land, Bill Bright, Don Argue, and Gary Bauer to prepare thousands of evangelical churches to highlight the plight of the persecuted on Sunday, September 29.

The Southern Baptist Convention recently added its backing to the statement, as did the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. The momentum is growing. Will American evangelicals at large hear a Jewish lawyer and a growing host of their own leaders? Their ability to do so may well determine this fall whether noble-sounding statements can be translated into political clout to make a difference for dying and hurting Christians. A practical response is for every WORLD reader to find out soon what's scheduled to happen in his or her local congregation on September 29.