Interview: Legendary Bible Smuggler on Mideast Christian Converts and the Real Jihad
Saturday, Jul. 21, 2007 Posted: 11:15:54AM EST
Brother Andrew, the legendary Dutch missionary who smuggled Bibles into communist countries during the Cold War, took time away from promoting his new book, Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ, at the Christian Booksellers Association’s retailers convention in Atlanta last week to share with The Christian Post about the state of the Mideast church and what Christians worldwide can do to help fellow believers living in the hostile region.
CP: What do you think is the most important thing Americans and Western Christians can learn from Mideast Christians? What can Mideast Christians learn from Western Christians?
Brother Andrew: I think the ones that have to learn the most is us on how to hold onto faith in the face of persecution. We have lost that part because we have been spoiled by too much liberty and what we call democracy [to the point] that anything goes; even evil is often unpunished in our countries.
In their countries, the biggest evil is if you turn away from Islam and become a Christian. It’s not bad to be an atheist but to follow Jesus Christ is a deadly sin there. We can learn from them more than they from us, but yet we still need each other.
I wish we can get a lot of encouragement and inspiration from their willingness to suffer for Jesus because that is a very important biblical term often used. We have forgotten it because we think in our society, ‘Is there still need to suffer for Jesus?’’ I say ‘yes.’
CP: Is there any way to expand Christianity in the Middle East without bloodshed?
Brother Andrew: Of course there is. But again our source of information and our history is in the New Testament and there has never been an extension of the kingdom of God through revival or reformation without people willing to give up their life.
You use the word bloodshed and I don’t really like that too much. But it is true if they cut your head off there is blood. It does happen. But we in our western way of thinking shy away from that kind of suffering because we think that the whole world should have liberty as we have. If that is true, then why don’t we use the liberty we have to reach out to the world? If they use that liberty then they get into opposition, and opposition turns into persecution, and persecution turns into massacre. So that is their situation.
So how can we bring the two together? By knowing more about it, by getting involve and going there, and by putting more pressure on our governments to reach out through diplomatic ways to put more pressure on their government.
My cry in this book is more involvement, accepting responsibilities, getting there and talking, and still realizing if we lead people there to Jesus that they will be shunned by their societies and their family is honor-bound to kill them – that is the real situation and it is not going to go away.
CP: Some of the Muslim convert characters in your book see visions of a man dressed in white. Is it common for Muslim converts in the Middle East to see visions?
