The Back Page | Philip Yancey: God at Large

A friend of mine recently returned from a visit to Asian countries where Christians are experiencing persecution. Christians in Malaysia told him, “We’re so blessed, because in Indonesia they’re killing Christians, but here we just have to put up with discrimination and restrictions on our activities.” In Indonesia, where Christians are indeed dying for their faith, they told him, “We’re very blessed, because in Malaysia they can’t freely publish the gospel. Here, we still can.”

In my own travels overseas, I have noticed a striking difference in the wording of prayers. When difficulties come, Christians in affluent countries tend to pray, “Lord, take this trial away from us!” I have heard persecuted Christians and some who live in very poor countries pray instead, “Lord, give us the strength to bear this trial.”

Curious, I asked an old-time missionary, who has made a dozen trips to visit unregistered house churches in China, if Christians there prayed for a change in restrictive government policies. He replied that not once had he heard a Chinese Christian pray for relief. “They just assume they’ll face opposition,” he said. “They can’t imagine anything else.” He then gave some examples of the opposition.

One pastor had served a term of 27 years at hard labor for holding unauthorized church meetings. When he emerged from prison and returned to church, he announced that he had kept a daily count on his dangerous job, and had coupled together one million railroad cars without an injury. “God answered your prayers for my safety!” he rejoiced. Another imprisoned pastor heard that his wife was going blind. Desperate, he reported to the warden that he was renouncing his faith. He was released, but soon felt so guilty that he turned himself in again to the police. He spent the next 30 years in prison.

Last year I visited Brazil and the Philippines, two relatively poor countries where the church is experiencing explosive growth. Local groups invited me to bring encouragement to the church, but I ended up as the one encouraged. In both places, when people receive Christian literature on the street, they stop and read it; when invited to a Christian meeting, they actually go. Even the media lack a veneer of cynicism. Pop music stars get converted and talk openly about their faith; evangelicals write faith-building columns in the daily newspaper. One church I addressed in Manila holds five services on Sunday; the first—which meets at 5 a.m.—has 2,000 in attendance.

Such nations are in a “honeymoon” phase with Christianity. The gospel still sounds like good news. I met Brazilians who welcome homeless street urchins into their families, and who bring food to prisoners—voluntarily, not under anyone’s organized program. Poor villages that have never heard terms like “social justice” or “liberation theology” find their economic status rising as the converted breadwinners stop drinking, show up for work on time, and start acting like responsible citizens.

Other nations have settled into a “divorced” phase. I also visited Denmark last year, a nation which vies with the Czech Republic as having the lowest rate of church attendance. Church steeples pierce the gray skies, but only tourists bother to go inside. No one could tell me a single place where I might find anything related to Denmark’s most famous Christian, Søren Kierkegaard. In the national museum, a placard explained that the cross, formerly the religious symbol of Denmark, is now regarded as a cultural relic.

Some nations are in a “mature marriage” phase. In the United States, nearly half of us attend church on a given Sunday, and Christians have a visible presence on university campuses and in every major profession. Politicians running for office compete with each other in appealing to the religious constituency. Both church and parachurch, though, sometimes seem to operate more like an industry than a living organism. We hire others to take care of the orphans and visit the prisoners; we pay professionals to lead the worship. To return from a church in Brazil to one in the U.S. is like moving from a down-home county fair, where everyone gets to pet the cows and chase the pigs, to Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, where you pay a fee mostly to watch beasts (some of which are mechanical) from behind a barrier.

At last year’s Billy Graham conference in Amsterdam, a speaker announced that Christians in developed Western countries now represent only 37 percent of believers worldwide. As I travel, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God “moving” geographically from the Middle East to Europe to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where he’s wanted. That’s a scary thought in a country like the United States, home to a robust economy and 500 satellite TV channels for diversion and entertainment, not to mention Disney World.

Related Elsewhere

Visit Christianity Today‘s persecution area to read about Christians worldwide who are following after Christ no matter what it costs them. Or click onto the latest Christianity Today news about Indonesia, Malaysia, and China.

We also offer articles on the burgeoning spirituality of Brazil and the Philippines:

For a celebration of God’s grand designs around the globe read Timothy George’s “Big Picture Faith” and CT‘s “Faith Without Borders | How the developing world is changing the face of Christianity.”

Yancey’s columns for Christianity Today include: