Release International's Voice Podcast

Elect exiles

November 04, 2021 Release International Season 2 Episode 11
Release International's Voice Podcast
Elect exiles
Show Notes Transcript

What if fleeing was your only option? Millions of Christians across the world today face that stark reality, many specifically because of persecution. November marks the International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church and this year Release International’s IDOP resources focus on the issue of displacement. 

On today’s podcast, Release International workers Kenneth and James talk about some of the places where Christians have been forced to flee, how the issue of displacement is covered in the New Testament, and how churches and individuals can participate in the International Day of Prayer this November.

For more information on IDOP and to view our resources, head to: www.releaseinternational.org/idop 

Elect Exiles

Laura:  What if fleeing was your only option?  Millions of Christians across the world today face that stark reality: many specifically because of persecution.  November marks the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  And this year Release International’s IDOP resources focus on this issue of displacement.  On today’s podcast I’m speaking to my Release International colleagues, Kenneth and James.  We’ll talk about some of the places where Christians have been forced to flee, and we’ll think about how the issue of displacement is covered in the New Testament. And we’ll discuss how churches and individuals can participate in the International Day of Prayer this November.

Laura:  Welcome, Kenneth and James, to the Voice podcast.  

Kenneth: Thank you. It’s good to be on the podcast again.

James:  Yes, thank you very much.

Laura:  You are both familiar voices on this podcast, having both been guests and even hosted episodes yourself before, so it’s great to be talking to you again today.  Kenneth, you are Release International’s Head of Content and Theology and James, you are Release International’s Lead Engagement Manager. And today we’re going to be talking about the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, which is otherwise known as IDOP, and this year it is on Sunday 7th November.  Kenneth, can you tell us a bit more about that and about how Release International is involved?

Kenneth:  Certainly. IDOP is a well-established event on the calendar now and has been around for a number of years.  Like any annual festival it serves as a reminder, really.  In one sense you would want churches in the UK to be praying for persecuted Christians on a regular basis – not just once a year – and of course many churches do.  But IDOP each November serves to remind us of the importance of doing that and perhaps challenges some of us to get more involved in this issue.  In terms of Release’s involvement, I think two things to mention briefly: first, we are contributing along with some other organisations to an online event that’s on the evening of Sunday 7th November at 7.30.  We did something very similar to that last year and you can find details of how to be part of that and sign up for that on the Release International website.  And then, second, as we’ve done for a number of years, we provide various downloadable resources that individuals or churches can use.

Laura:  Thanks, Kenneth.  We’ll make sure we’ve got that date in our diaries: the 7th November.  James, can you tell us a bit more about those resources that Release have made?

James:  Yes, as Kenneth says, we always want to encourage local churches or prayer groups to get involved and to mark that day in some way or another. Although we do recognise that some churches will have other commitments on that specific Sunday 7th November and we don’t want that to be a barrier in any way. So what we suggest is that churches choose some convenient point during that month of November to mark the day in some way.  And that can look different depending on what your setting is; so it might be dedicating a full Sunday service to the theme or it might be a 5-minute slot within your normal service structure. And then some churches might even consider doing a special prayer event during the week.  So there are loads of different ways to participate and you can be as creative as you want with that, but obviously the key idea is that we’re standing in prayer with our persecuted brothers and sisters.  

As you say, this year we’ve produced this full set of online resources to help churches and prayer groups to plan that IDOP time, and the particular theme that we’re focusing on this year is Christians who’ve been forced to flee because of their faith. That’s one aspect or implication of persecution, that Christians may be forced to flee, and the resources this year reflect that.  Maybe this year, you’ll just have a 5-minute slot to introduce IDOP in services and in that case probably the best way to do that is to use the little 3 minute film we’ve produced that gives an overview of this issue and then maybe use some of the prayer points that are also on the webpage, to inform your prayer after watching that video.  If you have a little longer than that, maybe 10 – 15 minutes, in that case you could use the short film but you could also maybe use the PowerPoint presentation we’ve put together with some slides showing a map that’s in our current magazine showing all the places in the world where Christians are affected by displacement.  It also shares some specific stories of individuals from Nigeria, Eritrea and Iran which really helps to get to the human scale of the issue.  And then there’s some project information about Afghanistan, and there are projects that we are involved with, and there are prayer points at the end of it.  So that’s another way to do it.  Alternatively, you may be able to devote the whole service to IDOP.  In that case, one of the other things we’ve added this year is a sermon outline on 1 Peter that can bring some biblical reflection to the whole subject.  So we would just encourage our listeners to consider using this material and to get your church involved in some way or another during November with IDOP.  All those resources are at releaseinternational.org/idop. 

Laura:  That’s great; thanks James.  You mention there that this year Release International’s particular focus for IDOP is praying for Christians who have been forced to flee because of their faith.  So it would be great to hear a bit more about that from Kenneth.

Kenneth, what is the extent of this problem and in what parts of the world is it an issue?

Kenneth:  Yes, there are a number of places in the world where we see Christians flee in varying numbers because of their faith, usually in the face of violence or the threat of violence.  Just to give some examples:  Take Iraq; we know many Christians have fled, often in the face of dire threats from Islamist groups, to that northern region that we know as Kurdistan.  Or again in Eritrea, where a hard-line regime has been clamping down on Evangelicals for a number of years, many Christians have fled over the border into Ethiopia, where they are now living in refugee camps.  Or again, in Nigeria there are thousands of Christians who have fled Islamist violence – although in their case they tend to move to other parts of Nigeria, which is why they get labelled ‘Internally Displaced Persons’, as the word ‘refugee’ usually implies you’ve fled to another country. Having said that, there are a small number of Nigerians who’ve fled over the border into the Cameroon.  Again, on the other side of Africa, there are Somali Christians who’ve fled from Al Shabaab into Kenya.  Occasionally, we hear of Christians in Pakistan who have fled when threats have been made against them, and they’ve ended up in places like Thailand and Sri Lanka.  So those are perhaps just some of the key areas in the world today when it comes to this issue of fleeing.

Laura:  James, I know that one of the resources you mentioned just before, that you’ve produced for our IDOP webpage, is the sermon outline on 1 Peter 1 to help churches bring some biblical reflection to the subject of Christians in flight.  So what does 1 Peter have to say about it?

James:  1 Peter is maybe the letter in the New Testament that most frequently addresses the subject of persecution directly.  So for example, in 1 Peter 4, the apostle says “don’t be surprised at the fiery trial that’s coming upon you but rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s suffering”.  Or in Chapter 3 he talks about suffering for righteousness’ sake and he goes on to explain how Christians should respond to that.  The theme of persecution generally is an important backdrop, I think, in the letter of 1 Peter.  But there’s also another interesting theme that comes out and that’s related to the idea of Christians being described as exiles or, in some translations, foreigners or aliens or strangers. In Chapter 1, Peter addresses the letter to the “elect exiles”, and in Chapter 2 he says that his Christian readers are strangers and exiles in the world.  That means that they don’t quite belong; that they live in their society but they are governed by a different set of values to the people round about them.  So in that sense he’s using this idea of exiles as a spiritual metaphor for what it’s like to be a Christian in the world.  We understand where he’s coming from with that:  in John’s gospel, Jesus talks about being in the world but not of it.  What is also interesting along with that is that when you look into the background setting of the letter of 1 Peter there is some evidence to suggest that the people that Peter was writing to were actually literal exiles.  In other words, they were people who themselves had been forced to flee their homes, probably in some kind of crackdown and now they were living in different parts of the empire as foreigners.  It’s almost as if the spiritual metaphor of exiles is actually building on a social reality of what the readers were experiencing.  

There are obvious parallels there between the circumstances of Christians today who’ve been forced to flee and possibly the readers of Peter’s letter.  And that background adds a little bit of colour to some of the things that Peter refers to in the letter:  for example, in verse 4 of Chapter 1 he talks about the “imperishable inheritance” that’s being kept in heaven for believers.  For people who’ve had their homes and possessions ripped away from them, questions of inheritance are going to be at the forefront of their minds. What am I going to pass on to my children now?  Without property, how have I got security in the world?  How am I going to provide for my family?  Peter says in contrast to the perishable inheritances of this world, the inheritance of heaven brings eternal security and identity.  So with all that said, and regardless of exactly how we interpret the background of the letter (because there is some debate about that) I think there are a couple of key points that we can take from this.  Firstly, when Christians today are forced to flee because of persecution, they don’t need to lose hope.  It’s certainly harder, probably than any of us could ever imagine, and Peter never plays that down: he recognises these readers are suffering; he talks about the fact that they’ve been grieved by various trials in verse 6 of Chapter 1.  But he’s also writing to encourage them. He talks about the living hope that they have, he talks about the joy that they experience in their relationship with the Lord.  Even now he refers to them as “elect exiles”.  To be elect means to be chosen, to belong, to have a home despite the displacement you may be experiencing.  

And then for Christians like us, who have probably never had any experience of literal displacement, the point is still equally valid because we also are “elect exiles” and we need to live in the world in such a way that reflects that. We are distinct.  We have Kingdom of God values.  Jesus is our Lord and we need to embrace the fact that that will make us, to a certain extent, foreign in our communities and in our society.  That doesn’t mean we act weird for the sake of being weird; it doesn’t mean that we retreat from our communities or act aloof around people who aren’t Christians.  We do want to get involved; we want to “seek the prosperity of our city”, to pick up on Jeremiah’s instructions to the Old Testament exiles (that may also have been in Peter’s mind here); we want to be winsome; we want to be persuasive – but we do that as foreigners, as exiles.  And our status then as exiles means that we don’t need to depend on our material possessions or our physical homes for our ultimate sense of security.  So if they were ripped away from us, as they have been from many of our persecuted brothers and sisters, it would hurt, but we wouldn’t need to despair, and therefore maybe we should be learning to hold onto these things a little less tightly than we do.  So there’s an affinity there between us and our persecuted brothers and sisters who’ve been displaced because we’re all “elect exiles” and that realisation, I think, should help us to better stand with them and pray for them.

Laura:  On today’s podcast, I’m speaking to Release International workers, Kenneth and James.  We’ve spoken about IDOP and the resources that are available to help churches participate.  You can access all of these at releaseinternational.org/idop.  Keep listening as we go on to talk about why flight is the only option for some Christians and how we can benefit by reading the Bible together with persecuted believers.

It’s really interesting to hear some biblical perspective on this topic and we’re going to dig a bit deeper into that now because, Kenneth, someone might want to ask that question: Why should Christians flee?  We talk about the fact that Christians should expect to face persecution in the world – it says that in the Bible.  We know that many Christians have no choice but to stay where they are and endure the violence and oppression and imprisonment, or perhaps even death.  Now, we acknowledge the fact that it is difficult for us to talk about this from our own comfortable position, but from your experience of working with Christians who’ve faced this kind of decision, in what circumstances is it right for them to flee and is there any biblical guidance that we can draw on to help us with this?

Kenneth:  Thank you, yes, that’s an intriguing question, isn’t it? And, as you say, it’s not one that’s easy for us to address from our position of relative safety.  I think on the one hand, yes, we would want Christians, where possible – and that’s a key phrase – where possible, to stay and to maintain a Christian presence and a gospel witness, even if that means, as it sometimes does, meeting in secret and operating as an underground church.  However, I think we do have to recognise that at times that presence, that witness, that existence is no longer possible; it’s not practical, it’s not an option and in such situations for Christians to flee becomes the only real option.  Or if I can put it slightly differently, you wouldn’t want Christians to openly deny their faith simply in order to stay, to stay in the face of intimidation and threat.  But neither should Christians be encouraged to seek persecution. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to go out of our way to get persecuted.  In the Book of Acts, there are various occasions when the Apostles flee.  More than once, for example, when it became known that a plot was afoot to kill him, the Apostle Paul fled from one place in order to resume his gospel ministry elsewhere.  And even in that act of fleeing, which we might think is a retrograde step, is a negative thing, we sometimes see God at work.  So think, for example, of those Christians who were scattered, who fled Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Stephen:  just a few verses later Luke tells us that those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Laura:  Yes, it really does strike me that there is a real point of contact between the early Church in the New Testament and what many persecuted Christians are experiencing today.  So Kenneth, you’ve been involved in this work for more than ten years now:  has it affected the way that you read the Bible, and do you see things that you didn’t notice before?  How can we, as Westerners, make sure that we are reading the Bible with our eyes fully open?

Kenneth:  Well, yes, although I had done a lot of preaching, Bible teaching and so on, before joining Release – and was aware of persecution around the world – being involved in this ministry does inevitably affect not so much the way you read the Bible perhaps (as that’s a lifelong process of learning), but perhaps it does make you more observant of persecution as an aspect of life; as an aspect of discipleship, if you like, for God’s people in Scripture.  As I’ve often said over the years, we live here in the UK in a part of the world where God has mightily blessed gospel ministry in times past down the generations. So, for example, just think how many world-famous preachers, hymn-writers, theologians, missionaries and so on have come from this little island of ours.  And that means that, in a sense, we, in this generation of Christians, we live against that backdrop; we live in the shadow of that.  We live in a culture where Christianity has sunk deep roots, even if we detect a growing antipathy towards Christianity today (that’s a separate issue).  But that cultural backdrop means, I think, that it’s not easy (it doesn’t come naturally) for Christians in the UK to think biblically, rather than just anecdotally, about persecution.  Now, I’m not sure there’s one simple recipe for doing what you ask, but just to say one or two things:  I would always encourage Christians – and not just with regard to persecution – alongside their Bibles, to read material that helps you to see the big picture of scripture; to see what we sometimes call the storyline of redemption history.  Because it’s often in that environment that you see the biblical, theological roots of persecution panning out.  In a nutshell, you see the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world and how they interact and so on.  I’d also have to say, do read material that Release International produces – and by that I mean our books as well as our regular quarterly magazine.  Earlier this year, we published a 5-part Bible study for home groups – small groups, fellowship groups, whatever you want to call them – which is called “All for Jesus”.  I know we talked about that on a previous podcast, but that series of studies encourages people to reflect biblically on the impact that persecution has on discipleship, which is perhaps an aspect of discipleship that you don’t often hear about.  So if you’re a home group leader, small group leader, and you’re planning ahead, why not make a pitch for your church to use that material in its groups next year?

Laura:  That’s great; thanks Kenneth.  And is there anything you want to add to that James?

James:  Yes, just to back up on that point there about discipleship: we often talk at Release about learning lessons of discipleship with persecuted Christians and in that sense, I think it’s so important that we read the Bible together as Christians in the broadest Christian community and we listen to the perspective that other Christians bring to that, especially those that come from a radically different background to us.  Now, we’ve got to be careful when we say that because we don’t want to succumb to the post-modern idea that every interpretation is equally valid and there’s no real access to truth or anything like that.  We can access truth but none of us do it perfectly and none of us come to the Bible as neutral, impartial observers; we’re all situated in a specific place or time and that colours the way that we read the Bible.  I think, therefore, that in order to get the most complete understanding then we need to listen to each other and discern the truth together.  And, as Kenneth says, for those of us who’ve grown up in this environment with a fairly ingrained idea of the political concept of freedom of religion: that just doesn’t exist in the 1st Century world in the experience of early Christians, and for many of our brothers and sisters in the world today.  So maybe we have a limited, or shallow understanding when we read things in the Bible like “suffering for righteousness’ sake” or “sharing in the sufferings of Christ” – big ideas that maybe our persecuted brothers and sisters can really help us to understand as we read the Bible together in community.

Laura:  Yes, definitely, I know I’ve been challenged by our conversation today, so hopefully our listeners have been challenged and encouraged, too.  So finally, how can we best be praying for Christians who have been forced to flee this IDOP?

Kenneth:  How can we best pray?  Well, I would simply say read the current Release International magazine which has a theme of people fleeing, and download those resources that we mentioned earlier – and use them.

James:  And just to add to that, pray specifically.  Use the resources and learn about the situations. Don’t just pray in general terms but pray specifically for individuals and situations.  And to pick up on the point that Kenneth made earlier, pray that in this experience of flight, there will still be opportunities to share the gospel and that the church on the move is a church that doesn’t leave the gospel behind, but that God uses to build his kingdom wherever they go.  And all the obvious things, like pray for protection and provision, pray for wisdom for our partners who are working in these situations which are often complex and difficult to know exactly what the right thing to do is.  All of these are covered in the prayer points on our website as well.

Laura:  Brilliant. Thank you, Kenneth and James, so much for talking to us today.

For the majority of Christians in the UK, home, and the security that comes with it, is something we take for granted.  But what if it was ripped away from us?  How would we cope?  Undoubtedly, it would be hard, and that realisation should stir us to pray for those who find themselves in that situation this IDOP.  But equally, our persecuted brothers and sisters demonstrate to us that displacement does not result in the end of hope.  God is faithful, and his promise of an eternal inheritance is the only source of ultimate security for all of us.

For more information about IDOP and to find out more about Release International’s work serving persecuted Christians, please visit releaseinternational.org.  

Thank you so much for listening to the Voice podcast.  Please do subscribe through your favourite podcast app so you can stay connected to the voice of persecuted Christians.  We’d love to hear your feedback on the podcast too, so please do share your comments with us.  You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube and, if you don’t already receive our free quarterly magazine or prayer alert emails, then you can subscribe now on our website at releaseinternational.org/podcast.