BOOK REVIEW: "SECRET BELIEVERS"
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CHRISTIANITY IN MUSLIM
COUNTRIES |
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by Doug Ward |
DECEMBER 2007-I recently received an email from a man in
This email message appeared to be legitimate, and I was moved by the writer's desire to explore Christianity, a "forbidden" subject in his culture. I mailed him copies of two works of popular Christian apologetics-Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith-with the hope that he would have the opportunity to consider the arguments presented in these books without getting into trouble.
As I have learned more about religion and human rights in
Since receiving that email, I have become more curious about the situation of Christians in Muslim countries. For those who share this interest, one excellent source is a recent book written by Brother Andrew, a well known helper and defender of persecuted Christians around the world, and his colleague Al Janssen. The book is called Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ (Revell, 2007).
The bulk of Secret Believers is a narrative, a novella set in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The characters are fictitious, but the events described in the narrative are things actually experienced by people known to the authors. By this method, the authors explain, they can tell the story of the Christians in the Muslim world without putting those vulnerable individuals in further danger.
Christianity has been present in the country depicted in the
novella for nearly two thousand years, but the Christian community now
constitutes just five per cent of the population of a predominantly Muslim country.
One of the main characters of the story is Butros
(Arabic for Peter), a young man who grew up in that small Christian community.
After obtaining a theological education in
Butros and his new wife Nadira, a fellow Arab Christian, begin their ministry in Butros's home country by contacting all of the Christian
clergy in the country and learning about the needs and concerns of the
congregations there. They hear accounts of a beleaguered and slowly shrinking
church, grudgingly allowed to exist by the government but not permitted to
evangelize or even to properly maintain its sanctuaries. Then, with support
from Brother Andrew's Open Doors International and some other Christian
organizations, they establish a ministry to support the Christian churches of
their country from all denominations. Following Brother Andrew's example, their
goal is to heed the charge given in the message to the church at
Butros and Nadira find their greatest challenge in assisting a small but growing number of people from Muslim backgrounds who are coming to faith in Jesus as Savior. These MBBs (Muslim-background believers) endure persecution from family, friends, and community for following their convictions, and the Christians who help them put themselves in great danger as well.
The story introduces us to several MBBs, illustrating some of the different ways in which people in the Muslim world are coming to Christ:
· Ahmed has experienced recurring nightmares about the severe judgments of Allah. At the suggestion of a friend, he reads the Gospels and is drawn to Jesus. The peace and love he finds in the teachings of Jesus are a welcome alternative to the message of war that he has heard from militant Muslims. Excited about his new beliefs, Ahmed accepts Christ and leads his friend Hassan to do the same.
· Mustafa is a zealous member of the militant Muslim Brotherhood. He has participated in persecution of Christians. Having been taught that the Christian Bible upholds Islam, he begins studying the Bible with the hope of discrediting Christianity. But when he reads the twenty-six biblical passages that allegedly point to Muhammed, he finds that they instead seem to be references to Jesus. Following in the footsteps of the apostle Paul, Mustafa eventually joins the people he has previously persecuted.
· Salima is the daughter of a wealthy Muslim businessman. She is grateful for the education she has received but is not looking forward to the arranged marriage that probably lies in her future. On satellite television she hears the preaching of the gospel. Wanting to learn more about Jesus, who is revered as a Prophet in Islam, she orders a correspondence course that is advertised on the television program. When she begins reading the New Testament, she is impressed by Jesus' teaching, miracles, and attitude toward women. Here is the real love she has been seeking. But when her family discovers her interest in Jesus, she is beaten and confined to a dark room. She escapes at the first opportunity and receives shelter from a kind Christian priest.
· Kareem is a high government official. Educated in the West, he once received a Bible as a gift. When he reads the Bible and secretly studies Christian literature, he becomes convinced that Jesus, not Muhammed, is God's final revelation to mankind. Like a modern-day Nicodemus, he visits Butros at night to talk about his secret faith and seek counsel on what he should do about it.
As they strive to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, Butros
and the MBBs in his country face some difficult
decisions. By living out their faith, they face persecution and perhaps even
death. The novella in Secret Believers gives a compelling glimpse at the
challenges confronted by Christianity in the Muslim world. It is not a
sensationalized story or an anti-Islamic diatribe, but simply a presentation of
the kinds of events that are reported in the daily news.
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A Fourfold Challenge to the |
In the remainder of the book, Brother Andrew and Al Janssen explain
their purpose in writing this narrative. They wish to inform Western Christians
of the plight of their brethren in Muslim countries, and they hope to stir the
church to action on behalf of these persecuted believers. They summarize their
call to action in four challenges:
1. Do we view Muslims as enemies? Or are we seeking to
win them to Christ? Because of the great threat posed by militant Islam, it
is easy to lump all Moslems together as "the enemy." However, Jesus
has taught us to love our enemies (Matt
2. Are we going to seek revenge when we're attacked?
Should we not offer forgiveness instead? Brother Andrew illustrates this
point with the example of Shantinagar, a Christian
village in
3. What would happen if we accepted the challenge of Islam by striving as Christians to imitate Christ? Muslims often observe with horror the decadence of modern Western culture, which they equate with Christianity, and conclude that Islam is the world's only hope. For Christians, who too often are satisfied with being just a little bit "better" than the culture around them, it is time to show the world what true Christianity really entails.
4. Since the current struggle against militant Islam is
part of a greater spiritual war (Eph
Secret Believers presents a timely message for all Christians to hear
and heed. I highly recommend this book.
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