DBU gathering urges prayer for the persecuted

Dallas Baptist University’s Institute for Global Engagement hosted a global gathering to pray for all persecuted religious minorities, Oct. 24-25.

DBU offered the event in cooperation with Pepperdine University’s Program on Global Faith & Inclusive Societies, Christians Against all Persecution and Templeton Religious Trust.

Featured speakers who addressed the importance of working for religious freedom for all included Elijah Brown, general secretary and chief executive officer of the Baptist World Alliance; Knox Thames, author, lawyer and Capitol Hill advocate for global religious freedom; and Sam Brownback, former ambassador at large for international religious freedom.

‘Speak freedom with courage’

“Will the international community raise their voice for the victim?” Brown said a Baptist New Testament professor in Myanmar asked through tears, when she escaped soldiers who were going door-to-door in search of her for denouncing the military.

Religious freedom is under threat globally. People of all faiths are facing growing harassment. In Myanmar, both the growing Baptist population and Rohingya Muslims have experienced grave persecution and violence, but “we can make a difference when we speak freedom with courage,” Brown asserted.

Preaching from John 11, Brown pointed out insights into standing with the oppressed that can be gained through Jesus’ interactions with the apostles.

This story of the apostles’ apprehension about Jesus returning to Judea to raise Lazarus, under threat of stoning, shows Jesus calls his followers to go with him into the context of suffering, even when there is real risk.

The text also shows Christians are to mobilize others in standing with the oppressed. It was Thomas in John 11:16, not Jesus, who convinced the other disciples to follow Jesus toward risk.

For Christians privileged to live in places with a great deal of religious freedom, mobilizing can look like praying for the persecuted or contacting representatives, urging them to make religious freedom a priority.

Brown cited statistics showing 10 constituents emphasizing a concern is enough for a representative to view that issue as a priority.

Finally, Jesus calls us to self-sacrifice. Christians are to live, not with closed hands or open hands, but with crucified hands, Brown asserted. Approximately 20 people are killed for their faith every day.

But, Brown said, every person can take steps to aid the cause of religious freedom for all. Step one is to become more aware, such as by signing up for a monthly email update from 21Wilberforce, a human rights organization focused on international religious freedom.

Additionally, every person can pray courageously, speak out for persecuted people and give generously to support religious freedom.

Called to ‘love our neighbors’

Thames explained 2 out of 3 people live in places where religious freedom is very limited. “There’s this community of suffering, and Christians are a part of it,” he said.

 Thames agreed with Brown that Christians’ first response to religious freedom violations ought to be becoming more informed about religious freedom concerns.

He acknowledged the natural tendency to think of oneself first. But Scripture—John 3:16, the 400-plus times justice is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the parable of the Good Samaritan, and Micah 6:8—demonstrate the mandate to “love our neighbors, frankly, is more than a challenge; it’s a calling,” Thames said.

The Great Commission and the Great Commandment are not either/or, Thames reminded the audience. Rather, “we’re more effective at each when we do both.”

But, “in the religious freedom space, I think we’ve got work to do,” in serving the least of these, Thames said.

He urged Christians to be mindful of religious persecution of all faiths, not just Christians. Failure to work for religious freedom for all tarnishes the gospel message and undercuts Great Commission efforts, Thames pointed out.

Future of the religious freedom movement

Brownback spoke about the future of the religious freedom movement. When the first Religious Freedom Act was passed under Bill Clinton, Brownback said there was “a real question whether or not he was even going to sign the bill.”

Religious people tend to be troublesome, difficult to negotiate with, and have base principles “you just can’t move them off of” he said. So, it took some nudging from Madeline Albright for the State Department to include religious freedom as a focus.

The plan was to have an emphasis inside the State Department, but also a pure entity outside the state department—United States Commission on International Religious Freedom—that would be more difficult to manipulate for political purposes.

These offices were minimally effective, in Brownback’s opinion, until the Trump administration, when Thames, Brownback and other religious freedom advocates in the State Department took advantage of an opportunity to host the “biggest religious freedom summits the State Department had ever held.”

“Those were a huge success,” Brownback said. “And, to me, that kind of launched the whole movement.” More religious freedom ambassadors were being appointed, though the U.S. State Department still had “more religious freedom staff than the whole rest of the world combined.”

But the movement picked up steam, and the organization of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance saw more countries become interested, Brownback explained.

Parliamentarians have become a “great way” for countries to become involved because parliamentarians can be involved as individuals, not as representative of the entire country they serve.

At first it was only the religious groups who were involved in the religious freedom movement, Brownback said. But now, democracy groups have started to realize religious groups are likely one of the best ways to get into places and work toward other democratization efforts.

The democracy groups realize, “If we can get religious freedom, we’ve got a chance at being able to build some of the rest of this stuff. And often times in these countries, the only people left that would stand up to a government are the religious people. Everybody else has left or been driven out or killed or put in prison.”

So the groups left, who can’t get out, are minority Baha’i, Muslims or Christians. These people of faith will stand up to fight back against the persecution and are good to have on the side of democracy, Brownback said.

The United States’ role in the religious freedom movement is, “we should be an organizer; we should be a facilitator; we should be putting information out; we should be an agitator pushing all these things forward; and our fingerprints shouldn’t be on everything, but we should be engaged in all of it one way or another,” Brownback said.

However, he noted, much of the time it would be better if U.S. involvement was more behind the scenes than visible.

“This is the only human rights movement (from the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights) in the world right now that’s got any juice,” Brownback noted. “Eighty percent of the world’s population is religious. Everybody’s persecuted somewhere, not everywhere, but somewhere.”

And with the global rise of authoritarianism, it has become a governmental strategy to either control/exploit religious people for the authoritarian’s purposes or to eradicate religious people altogether, he continued.

Most people aren’t activists, Brownback pointed out. It’s “pretty normal” for a movement to be limited to about 20 percent of a population. With technology available right now, it’s possible for authoritarians to identify and work to silence that 20 percent who would oppose them.

“The ability to control what people get information-wise is growing rapidly,” he noted. And the ability to deceive through technology is already becoming so difficult to detect, “if you don’t know where you sit now, you’re going to be deceived” with this technology in the hands of malevolent actors, Brownback asserted.

He repeated the urgency of getting behind “religious freedom for everybody, everywhere, all the time,” when it’s the human rights movement “that’s got juice.”

Participants at the gathering also heard from several organizations engaged in global religious freedom initiatives, persecuted Christians and from Baha’i, Yezidi, Uyghur and Latter-day Saints practitioners about persecution faced by each of their faith communities. Then, they were led in praying for all the persecuted.