When Christians are targets for terror, how should we respond?

Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Last year, 4,476 Christians across the world were murdered for their faith. Although persecution comes from different sources at different points in history, it remains a feature of Christian experience perennially. Currently, the vast majority of attacks on Christians are made by individuals or organisations motivated by Islam. Islamic inspired terrorism attacks were reported across the world at the end of December. Forty-six people were killed in various attacks across Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, some on their way home from church. A congregation of 177 Christians in Sudan was attacked during a prayer service. In Bangladesh, there were death threats for those attending Christian services. In Turkey, there was an armed attack on a church on New Year’s Eve. In Syria, Christian symbols were burned down and a church was attacked. Certain times of year may provoke more prominent attacks, but for the majority of Christians in the world, violence and intimidation such as imprisonment are daily occurrences. In Covenanting times, the blind Edinburgh preacher Alexander Skeldie dissected the motivations of those who were then active in persecution. As the following excerpt from his sermon shows, he acknowledges God’s involvement in sending and restraining and repurposing cruel persecution, and encourages Christians in a Christ-like response even to the experience of persecution. David’s desperation as again and again he had to evade violent and cruel attackers expressed itself in an appeal to the Lord as “a God full of compassion, and gracious …” (Psalm 86:14–15). The nature of his God, for whose sake he was being persecuted, was the polar opposite of the nature of his persecutors. This both sharply underlines their wickedness and strengthens David’s determination to trust the Lord. David, unique in some ways, provides a template for the suffering people of God in all times.

The enemies are cruel

In Psalm 86, David calls his enemies “violent and cruel men that seek after his soul.”

They may be described in this way, first, for the hatred they bear to the saints of God. It is unjust in its basis: Cain slew his brother Abel, because his own works were evil and his brother’s good. It is deadly in its aim: these wicked ones desire the utter ruin of not only a number of the godly, but all the godly without exception, that the saints of God would perish from the earth. It is, equally, implacable in its continuance: like Amalek, they are irreconcilable.

Second, in their words they express how they despise the saints of God. Sometimes they threaten to execute the extremity of their rage and fury, and sometimes they burden the saints of God with slanders and reproaches. Their words are compared to sharp arrows, burning coals, and the venom of asps, for as any of these things can grievously hurt the body, so the cruel words of violent men greatly grieve and afflict the hearts of the saints of God.

Third, their acts of cruelty are seen by some, and felt by others. When they are permitted by the Lord to afflict His saints, they carry out all manner of cruelty that can be devised, without regard to people’s sex, or age, or quality. This is why Holy Scripture calls them “troublers” (because they do not allow the saints of God to live in peace and quietness), “oppressors” (by reason of the manifold injuries which they do to the saints of God, without any cause or occasion), and “persecutors” (partly because they diligently seek opportunity to harm the people of God, and wait till they find it, and partly because they treat the saints of God as savage beasts set upon their prey).

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