The Church's reply

I hope to remember the scene along the shores of Tripoli—the men in orange jumpsuits kneeling as one before their martyrdom, their faces fixed on the unseen. In Iraq and Syria other Christians have been kidnapped and killed without record. In the video from Libya showing the beheadings of the 21 Coptic Christians, we see these victims reciting the Lord’s Prayer, praying to the One who already has conquered death: Ya Rabbi Yasou, Ya Rabbi Yasou. Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ.

Majid, the oldest of the group, an Egyptian working in Libya to support an aging mother and three children; Luqa, a newlywed who didn’t know his wife was pregnant; Bishoy and Samuel, brothers together saving for their weddings; Milad, Abanub, Girgis, and the others. Did they see this coming? Did they talk among themselves about the moment when they would be led forth by masked captors, how they would face the cold knife and feel their own warm blood, alone but together?

Did they spend their captive days praying and singing hymns, like Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail? As they kneeled to their deaths, could they see the glory of God, like Stephen before his stoning, “and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55)?

ISIS and its terrorism are for many the obtuse topic for the news tickers and the policymakers. In Washington they ask “what’s driving” ISIS and mostly get it wrong: President Barack Obama says Islamic State fighters are “people who have perverted Islam” and fighters “unconstrained by faith, sect or ethnicity.”

Can the people of God hear in the death of the 21 Egyptian Copts the message ISIS has for them?

But what about in the church? Can the people of God hear in the death of the 21 Egyptian Copts the message ISIS means for them? “A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross,” began the apocalyptic video, going out to “the people of the cross,” and promising to chop off the heads of those “that have been carrying the cross delusion for a long time.”

The video in its five short minutes contained nine direct references to verses in the Quran—all pointing to an apocalyptic vision of Islam triumphing over Christianity. “The Islamic State’s actions are constrained by its theology, and in this case its targets are also determined on religious grounds; they were Christians,” writes Anglican pastor and Middle East Forum fellow Mark Durie. It’s a religion-based message to religious people.

In reply, churches around the world spent a day in prayer on Feb. 22 for the persecuted with moments of silence to honor the 21 martyrs. At Durie’s church in Melbourne, Australia, the congregation kneeled as he read the names of each Coptic victim. Churches in Ohio, Georgia, and elsewhere in North America responded similarly.

At her church in Canada, Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts and one of those who helped launch the martyrs’ prayer campaign, told me, “About 150 of us gathered as our pastor prayed earnestly that there would be Pauls among the Sauls who persecute the church.”

In a moment of silence a young man in Voskamp’s church stood to read from 1 Peter: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.”

After communion, the passing of the cup, and her congregation singing, “I Surrender All,” Voskamp said she wept: “All I could think of was the red waves on that beach in Libya after those men of the cross literally surrendered all to Christ,” she wrote me in an email, “and my continual prayer is earnestly, fervently: God forgive us for being chained to petty and purposeless things instead of praying for the persecuted church in chains. May we never stop praying for the persecuted church to be strengthened in Christ’s love, and those who persecute the church to be overwhelmed by Christ’s love.”

Debating strategy and devising armed response to Islamic State have their important place. But the church, we know, can do more than the Islamists with their sabers and the nations with their arsenals. It can move mountains if it asks for anything in faith. Ya Rabbi Yasou, Ya Rabbi Yasou. Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ.

Email mbelz@wng.org