I have a Confession to make

I do not value the Gospel enough to...

SHARE THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS

There is a price to be paid for the privilege of serving the persecuted Church.

As soon as my friend Colin walked into the meeting at Release International, I could see his exhaustion in the weary way he slumped into the chair. 

Colin had been visiting Eritrean refugees. He had just returned from a tough trip, travelling for days in a worn-out van with rock-hard suspension.

With an overflowing heart Colin began to describe what he had seen and heard from those driven from Eritrea, a land described recently by the Guardian as a ‘giant prison’.

As the words began to flow I pecked out some notes: 

Most of the key pastors and church leaders have been rounded up, Colin said.

200+ held in shipping containers…  Christians singled out, tortured systematically.

Believers in the containers pass round scriptures copied onto scraps of tissue paper… Those caught sharing their faith or worshipping are savagely beaten.

We saw the scars on their legs and feet. As they relived their experiences you could feel their pain…

One man was imprisoned five times… thrown into a tiny cell. After three months the general asked him if he wanted to be released. All he had to do was sign to show he’d given up his Christian his faith. He refused. 

He was beaten unconscious then thrown back into the cell with his wounds untreated.

Another punishment was to tie a prisoner’s hands then looping them round a tank barrel, which was raised, suspending the prisoner by the wrists. 

One Christian was hospitalised for his injuries in the same ward as the officer who beat him. He went over to the soldier and told him: 'I do not hate you - because Jesus loves you.'

We saw some who were broken emotionally and spiritually. But most were neither beaten nor depressed, but humble, courageous believers who see their suffering as part of following in Christ’s footsteps.

Upwards of 2000 Christians are in prison in Eritrea for their faith. Where prison is an underground hell-hole or stinking, searing, shipping container in the desert. To go free, all they have to do is surrender their stubborn, unreasonable faith that so enrages this military junta. 

But these Christians choose instead to share the fellowship of Christ's sufferings.

It is their great privilege. It is Colin's privilege to carry their pain in his heart. And it could be yours, too.

I think I would recant and sign that paper in a heartbeat. As I study this stuff I am repeatedly confronted with the fact that I can think of no advantage that my life of faith has brought me that is worth enduring persecution for. After over 30 years of supposedly being a Christian it has brought me nothing that is worth suffering or being tortured for.

I am not attacking God, Jesus, or Christianity even; I am simply stating that what Christianity has brought me is not worth being tortured for. Hell is too nebulous a concept to be really real to me and I can not think of one thing that years of Christian service, Bible study and faith has brought me in the here and now that is worth being tied to and suspended in the air from a barrel or having toothpicks stuck in my genitals (a Chinese torture) for.