North Korean woman imprisoned for faith shares how God sustained her amid horrific abuses

North Korea has been the No. 1 persecutor of Christians on the group's annual list for a consecutive 18 years, and the U.S. State Department has included North Korea on its list of countries violating religious freedom every year since 2001.| Open Doors

A Christian survivor of a North Korean prison camp describes the horrific torture she endured for her faith and how God stayed with her through the brutality.

In an interview with persecution watchdog group Open Doors, a woman identified only as "Prisoner 42" shared how she became a Christian after fleeing to China in the midst of North Korea's great famine. In China, she was captured and sent to a North Korean prison camp, where she spent one year in solitary confinement.

When she arrived at the prison camp, guards shaved her head and stripped her down to nothing. Each morning when they would call for her, she would crawl out of a door flap — typically used for dogs or cats — and keep her head bowed low because she was not allowed to make eye contact with the guards.

She recalled how, for an hour, guards would ask her the same questions: "Why were you in China? Who did you meet? Did you go to church? Did you have a Bible? Did you meet any South Koreans? Are you a Christian?"

To stay alive, she was forced to lie: "Am I a Christian? Yes. I love Jesus. But I deny it. If I admit that I was helped by Chinese Christians, I will be killed, either quickly or slowly," she said. "They will murder me in this North Korean prison. Every day, I’m beaten and kicked — it hurts the most when they hit my ears. My ears ring for hours, sometimes days."

During her year in solitary confinement, she was trapped in a cold cell and never saw sunlight or another prisoner: "I spent one year in prison, and for one year my skin didn’t touch a single ray of sunlight," she said.

So she prayed and sang a song she wrote in her head — but never out loud. Lyrics included the lines “My heart longs for my Father in this prison/Although the road to truth is steep and narrow/A bright future will be revealed when I continue.”

"It has been a year now. I don’t know how long I will survive in this place," she wrote. "One day they will call me, and I won’t move. I will have died here in a North Korean prison. They will dispose of my body, and the first new prisoner that comes in will be 'Prisoner 42.' They will wear my clothes."

One day, she appeared in court where she officially divorced her husband against her will. Officials found her not guilty of being a Christian and sentenced her to four years at a re-education camp.

In between working 12 hour days, she became sick and had to stay in the barracks. There, she saw a woman praying in tongues under a blanket.

"Inside this North Korean prison, we wound up forming a secret church. When we met and felt safe enough, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed," she said. "She was actually much braver than I was. She spoke to others about Christ as well."

But one day a car came and took her away: “When I saw her leave, I knew they were taking her to a maximum-security Kwan-li-so. I knew I would never see her again,” she said.

Meanwhile, "Prisoner 42” was released after two years. She told Open Doors the first thing she plans to do is find her husband and children.

"We haven’t seen each other in years," she said. "But God has watched over me here in this North Korean prison, and I pray and believe that He also watches over my family every second of every minute of every hour of every day."

"I need to tell them about this loving God,” she added.

North Korea has been the No. 1 persecutor of Christians on the group's annual list for a consecutive 18 years. The U.S. State Department has also included North Korea on its list of countries violating religious freedom every year since 2001. Open Doors estimates there are 250,000 imprisoned North Koreans — 50,000 of which are political prisoners jailed for their Christian faith.

North Korea has previously arrested South Korean and American missionaries for allegedly attempting to build underground churches, and very few North Korean believers risk trying to win converts, defectors say.

Recently, defector Kwak Jeong-ae, 65, shared how a fellow inmate in North Korea told guards about her own religious beliefs and insisted on using her baptized name, rather than her original Korean name, during questioning in 2004.

“She persisted in saying, ‘My name is Hyun Sarah; it’s the name that God and my church have given to me’,” Kwak said. “She told [the interrogators], ‘I’m a child of God and I’m not scared to die. So if you want to kill me, go ahead and kill me.’”

Kwak said she later saw Hyun coming back from an interrogation room with severe bruises on her forehead and bleeding from her nose. Days later, guards took Hyun away — and Kwak never saw her again.

During his State of the Union Address, President Donald Trump announced he will hold a second nuclear summit with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un later this month. A number of human rights groups and faith leaders have called on the president to confront Kim face-to-face about his country’s severe human rights violations.

“Following the scheduled meeting in February, within 60 to 90 days President Trump and the United States can determine whether North Korea is serious about opening up to the international community by including monitoring of human rights considerations as part of denuclearization talks," David Curry, CEO of Open Doors, told The Christian Post.

"The human rights violations against Christians in North Korea is unacceptable. Christians are considered the No. 1 enemy of the state of North Korea," he continued. "As the leader of Open Doors USA , I continue to implore President Trump to not shy away from our moral mandate to call Kim Jong Un to task for his litany of human rights abuses — especially his imprisonment, torture and execution of Christians whose only crime was to dare to express any beliefs other than those approved by the Communist regime."

"The situation for Christians in North Korea is vulnerable and precarious," Curry said. "Approximately 50,000 Christians are confined to prison camps — the conditions are deplorable. President Trump can bring some hope by continuing to make human rights a part of the denuclearization deal; these two items need not be mutually exclusive. The people of North Korea deserve our vocal, prayerful and relentless support.”

Muslim who sought to kill Christian cousin embraces faith after Jesus appears in dream Muslim who sought to kill Christian cousin embraces faith after Jesus appears in dream By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Christian Post Reporter

An Egyptian Christian reads an Arabic prayer book during Sunday mass at Saint Mary Church in the heavily populated area of Imbaba in Cairo, June 17, 2012. | (Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

An Egyptian Muslim who planned to kill his cousin for converting to Christianity has shared how he embraced the religion he once hated after Jesus delivered a powerful message to him in a dream.

Mostafa, a new convert in Egypt, recently shared with persecution watchdog Open Doors how he traveled to Cairo with the intention of killing his cousin, Mohammad, who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

In Egypt, converting from Islam to Christianity is seen as a betrayal of one’s family and heritage. Christian converts risk losing their family, friends, and even their lives.

After finding his cousin sitting in a Christian worship service, Mostafa slipped behind him and waited to make his move. But as he listened to the songs and prayers, he noticed that the words he was hearing appealed to him.

Following the service, Mostafa approached Mohammad with tears in his eyes: “I came all the way from our family’s village to spy on you and see if you had indeed become a Christian,” he said. “I should inform your family about what I saw, but I just can’t. I think the choice you made might have been the right one. Can you tell me more? Why did you leave Islam for Christianity?”

That evening, the cousins spent hours talking about the Gospel. That night, Mostafa had a dream. He saw Jesus on the cross, looking at him and saying: “I did all of this because I love you, and I want you to be free from your sins.”

The next morning, Mostafa told Mohammed what he saw in his dream and asked his cousin to pray together with him for his salvation.

Mostafa recalled telling God: “I planned to kill my cousin, Your follower. But now I am prepared to give my life for You myself.”

The following month, Mostafa was baptized with his cousin standing next to him. He hasn’t told his family that he and Mohammed are now followers of Jesus, and the two men are currently living as secret believers.

Egypt is No. 16 on Open Doors' World Watch List and continues to be a country that poses extreme danger and violence for Christians, according to the persecution watchdog. Various Islamic extremist groups remain the largest persecutors of Christians in the country.

Despite continued persecution, a number of Christians across the Middle East have embraced Christianity. Officially, about 10% of the 95 million population are Christian, although many believe the figure is significantly higher.

Last year, a former Muslim-turned-pastor who started hundreds of churches in Pakistantold The Christian Post that many Muslims are making decisions to convert after Jesus Himself has visited them in dreams and visions.

“It's very dangerous for anyone to preach the Word of God face-to-face in non-Western countries,” the pastor told CP. “God reveals things through dreams to evangelists/pastors. People in the East are more uneducated and unable to read the Bible so God uses this method to reach them.”

“[People] are very faithful in the East, placing themselves in positions to see the signs of God by studying the Word of God,” he added. “Eastern people watch for the signs and miracles to show that the Word of God is alive. It is a privilege, one not everyone can share in — to own a Bible in the East. In the West, people look more for wisdom, like the Greeks of old. They do not always rely on faith, which can't be seen.”

Mission Frontiers magazine also reported that out of 600 Muslim converts, 25 percent experienced a dream that led to their conversion.

A now-former shaman in a village in northwest China shared in another article for Open Doors in July that she saw Christ while on her deathbed.

"I was in the back seat of a taxi as my brother drove me toward endless darkness. But then three men, who were wearing brilliant white robes, approached. But their light was so bright, I couldn't see their faces," Ting, the former shaman, said of her experience.

"They told me I must make a choice. And as they spoke, two other men wearing black robes invited me to follow them. I knew in my heart one of the men wearing a white robe was Jesus. So I followed Him."

In 2015, an Islamic State terror group fighter who had killed Christians also turned to Christ after reportedly dreaming of "a man in white."

Family continues ministry of missionary killed in Burkina Faso 3 years ago; 1,000 orphans helped

Michael Riddering poses for a picture with children from Burkina Faso in this photograph posted to Facebook in 2013. | FACEBOOK/MIKE RIDDERING

It’s been over three years since American missionary Michael Riddering was among dozens of Christians killed by Al Qaeda in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. But today, his ministry to the orphaned and poor there continues with the help of his family.

Riddering, who along with his wife sold all their possessions in the U.S. to run an orphanage and women’s crisis center in Burkina Faso in 2011, was killed when gunmen opened fire on a coffee shop in Ouagadougou just minutes after Riddering arrived on Jan. 16, 2016.

Riddering was driving a ministry van on his way to pick up a group of about 15 missionaries at the airport. But since their flight was late, he decided to get some coffee. Minutes after arriving at the cafe, the attack began and 28 people were killed. According to Riddering’s brother, Jeff, intelligence reports have suggested that the terrorists were scouting out that soft-target location for three weeks looking to kill “crusaders.”

“So, you got two brand new vans to come in. He walks in a bright colored shirt. And the terrorists said ‘It's go time,’” Jeff Riddering, the pastor of Gateway House of Prayer in Sunset Hills, Missouri, said.

“My sister-in-law doesn’t think of it that way, that he was specifically targeted. But one thing we do know is that Christians were targeted.”

The front of Cappuccino restaurant is seen from a burned-out car after an attack on the restaurant and the Splendid Hotel, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, January 18, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Joe Penney)

Riddering left behind his four children and wife, Amy Boyle-Riddering. Boyle-Riddering and her children are still in Burkina Faso running that same orphanage and women’s crisis center, which is funded by the charity Sheltering Wings.

Sheltering Wings is a Missouri-based nonprofit that provides humanitarian care and partners with local churches in Africa to send missionaries to unreached communities in their region.

The orphanage in the northern part of the country serves hundreds of children. But in total, Sheltering Wings helps over 1,000 orphans nationwide. Most of those orphans are living with extended relatives but are sponsored by Sheltering Wings.

In addition, the children are given a free Christian education through schools built by Sheltering Wings and its partners.

“[Our sponsorship programs] make it so [the children] don’t become a burden to their extended family but even a blessing,” Jeff Riddering explained. “People have the entire courtyard with food and different things like that. It becomes a blessing and almost an honor to be an orphan in the courtyard because Sheltering Wings comes in every month. Because of that child, they bless the entire courtyard.”

Elementary school students in Burkina Faso receive shoes donated through Sheltering Wings, a Missouri-based nonprofit. | PROVIDED

A courtyard in Burkina Faso is a way to describe a group of homes that are associated with the same family. In many cases, since it is a Muslim nation, a courtyard encompasses a man, his multiple wives, their offspring, and other relatives.

The women’s crisis center that is also operated by Boyle-Riddering and Sheltering Wings assists women who may have been kicked out of their courtyards for somehow bringing shame to the family. Some examples include having sex out of wedlock or even being raped. When the women and her children are kicked out of the courtyard, they have no place to go.

But at the Sheltering Wings women’s crisis center, the women can receive job training and are eligible to receive microloans to help them get on their feet.

“We also have a ministry to the widows there,” Riddering explained. “Maybe they are elderly women no longer being cared for by their extended family.”

Sheltering Wings also partners with well-drilling organizations to help bring clean water to impoverished communities. 

As for Jeff Riddering, he lives in St. Louis. But in August, he too will sell his possessions and move to Burkina Faso. Part of the reason is to be closer to his brother’s family but also to launch another ministry that will further the Gospel in the country.

Jeff Riddering is surrounded by children on his visit to Burkina Faso in March 2018. | PROVIDED

This decision has weighed on Riddering’s heart since he saw his slain brother in a dream several months after his passing.

“I saw him coming through these double doors. He comes up to me and I say, ‘Michael, how can you be here? You are dead,’” Riddering recalled. “He kind of smiled and said, ‘Jeff continue my ministry.’ It was only four words.”

Riddering’s new ministry will be called My Brother’s Keeper. The ministry will assist the national Assemblies of God denomination in accomplishing its vision. Since Sheltering Wings began its work in Burkina Faso, the Assemblies of God denomination has been instrumental in helping the nonprofit accomplish its vision.

Now, Riddering says, its time to help the church achieve its goals.

“Without them, we couldn’t have done it,” Riddering said. “The workforce is African. All the school teachers, they are all African. All the Christians there are from the Assemblies of God denomination.”

“There are over 200 churches that are Assemblies of God churches. What we have is an opportunity to help the Assemblies of God accomplish their mission,” he added. “We want to facilitate their vision to become missionaries themselves, not missionaries outside of Burkina Faso but to the unreached people in Burkina Faso.”

Riddering said that he will be working to raise funding to help plant between 10 to 15 new churches in Burkina Faso this year.  

"There are a lot of missionaries there, some have been targeted," Riddering said of the threat of terrorism. "But if God is asking me to go, then I will not be afraid."

According to Riddering, Assemblies of God missionaries go to Kenya for training. When they graduate, the church will send the pastor and his family to a remote area of the country that “hasn’t even heard of the Gospel.”

“The reason why we went to Burkina Faso is not that it is a fruitful area but that I feel like we were called to this area,” Riddering said. “What we are seeing right now is a revival type thing that is on the cusp of happening.”

My Brother’s Keeper is also the title of Riddering’s book My Brother’s Keeper: The Surprising Story of a Modern-Day Martyr. The book tells the story of Michael Riddering’s unlikely transformation from an alcoholic yacht broker to a missionary in a desert African nation.

Michael Riddering. | (Facebook: Amy Boyle-Riddering)

Riddering recalled the day that his brother called him on the phone to tell him about a conversation he had with Jesus.

“His life radically changed at that point. His children, his wife and all the people in the church, they just couldn’t even recognize him,” Riddeering said. “He was just anti-social but then all of a sudden he has home groups at his house and he gets baptized. The pastor thought it was such a moving moment, they made him the person that did the rest of the baptisms for the church. He became the youth pastor of the church. He oversaw the food distribution stuff. One time, he joked about it. ‘Ill do anything God wants. I will move to Africa.’”

The move to Africa came about seven years after Riddering was saved, his brother explained.

“When he was there, he helped tens of thousands of people make decisions for Christ,” Riddering said of his brother. “He was only there for five years before he was killed.”

But today, Michael Riddering’s adopted daughter is following in her father’s footsteps.

“The last trip I was on she came up to me and said, ‘Uncle Jeff, my girlfriend here lives in a small village of about 200 people.’ We would like to go in that village,’” Jeff Riddering remembers. “I got 2 vans and loaded them up and brought them over to this village. In four hours, they said, of about 200 people, 111 made decisions for Christ and 56 said they were interested but couldn’t make a decision at that time. That doesn’t happen in America yet. In some ways, I believe that it will.”

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A photo of a mom cradling for her infant daughter while fielding a phone call at her office job has gone viral — and now the candid image is drumming up support for working mothers everywhere.

© Provided by Oath Inc. Melody Blackwell brings her baby to work once a week, and works from home the other four days. Her boss, who suggested the schedule, snapped this photo in December. (Photo: Dr. Elizabeth Baker via Facebook)

A photo of a mom cradling for her infant daughter while fielding a phone call at her office job has gone viral — and now the candid image is drumming up support for working mothers everywhere.

Dr. Elizabeth Baker, who owns Maryland Farms Chiropractic in Brentwood, Tenn., was walking past the desk of her employee, Melody Blackwell, when she spotted the new mom bringing new meaning to the term multitasking. Blackwell had recently returned from a 3-month maternity leave and was bringing her baby, Nora-Jo, into the office once a week while working from home the other four days. In an instant, Dr. Baker knew she had to capture the moment and share it on Maryland Chiropractic’s Facebook page.

“That was one of the first few days Melody brought the baby in the office,” Dr. Baker told Yahoo Lifestyle. “I honestly was taking it to post onto our office Facebook page for our patients who had been asking about how mom and baby were doing since she had been gone for three months. I wanted to share that with our little following for the office. I never thought it would get so many comments and shares!”

In the post, the chiropractor praised the “sweet and content” baby as well as Blackwell, who “makes it look easy.” She asked people to share the photo — and to share their own photos — to encourage “more small and large businesses to see this is doable and should be allowed more often.”

Dr. Baker said it was she who suggested that Blackwell work from home and bring the infant in once a week for a half or full day, mainly so she could attend the weekly staff meeting. In fact, the conversation started as soon as she learned her employee of more than four years was expecting.

“Once she got pregnant I knew we needed to figure out a way to make this work,” Dr. Baker said. “We had nine months to plan, at least!”

© Provided by Oath Inc. Dr. Elizabeth Baker gets some cuddle time with baby Nora-Jo at Maryland Chiropractic. (Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Baker)

While Blackwell was on maternity leave, Dr. Baker says she and her other two employees started shuffling the responsibilities and trying to pick up the slack.

“We did have to bug Melody sometimes,” the chiropractor admits, but she says they largely realized that a lot of what Blackwell does — insurance billing — could be done remotely. So when she revisited the conversation with Blackwell at the end of the 3-month leave, she officially extended the offer, and Blackwell accepted.

“I was excited when she said that was a possibility,” Blackwell told Yahoo Lifestyle. “I didn’t know if it would be.” She said her plan, if Dr. Baker hadn’t had such a flexible policy, was to work something out to have family watch her — but she assumed she’d still have to bring the baby in from time to time. “I knew it was going to be hard for me to leave her when she was so young,” she added.

Blackwell says she empathizes with moms who don’t have that option. “I know it’s hard to drop them off at daycare when they’re just 2 or 3 months old.”

Dr. Baker told Yahoo Lifestyle that as a chiropractor, she’s holistic-minded, so she’s inherently sensitive to the fact that baby Nora-Jo, who is now 5 months old, and her mom need to stick to a strict schedule of breastfeeding, napping and diaper-changing. The flexible work schedule seemed to strike a perfect balance between honoring the mother-infant bond and retaining a valuable worker.

© Provided by Oath Inc. Melody Blackwell still works full-time at Maryland Chiropractic while being a full-time mom. (Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Baker)

Blackwell says she’s grateful that she gets to care for her daughter and work full-time. She told NBC affiliate WPTV that she usually breastfeeds Nora-Jo as soon as they get to the office, and that the baby will then either nap in her mother’s lap or in a nearby carrier. “All the patients love to see her when they come in,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle. “But so far no one has asked to hold her, probably because she’s so young.”

Blackwell’s colleagues, on the other hand, love lending a hand. Dr. Baker says she and the whole staff takes turns tending to Nora-Jo when she gets fussy or if Blackwell is too busy. “We’re an all-female staff, so we all have that mothering instinct,” Dr. Baker said. “It really does take a village.”

Blackwell is also grateful for the help but says she certainly doesn’t expect it. “I know it’s not their responsibility, so I never ask them, but they want to.”

Dr. Baker said the hefty costs of daycare also inspired her decision. “It’s sometimes worse than not having a job at all,” she said. Blackwell added that she knows a couple of moms who decided the cost of daycare was outright prohibitive. “It made more financial sense for them to quit their jobs,” she said.

The chiropractor realizes that remote work situations — and allowing babies in the office — are not always possible everywhere, but she encourages employers and employees to at least open up a dialogue about it. “If it’s an environment where baby crying is okay,” she said, “I think more small and large businesses should look more toward allowing that.”

Passion 2019: God's heart is to be Father to anxious generation hurt by divorce, iPhones and suicide

Louie Giglio speaks at Passion 2019 in Dallas, Texas, on Jan. 2, 2019. | (Photo: Sterling Graves)

God is revealing himself as the "perfect Father" to a generation plagued by the heartache from fatherlessness, rampant divorce, and anxiety brought about by iPhone addiction, said Louie Giglio at the Passion Conference 2019.

Speaking before thousands on the first night of the conference in Dallas, Texas, Giglio recalled two events that have shaped Generation Z more than anything else: the 2007 launch of the iPhone and fatherlessness, something that has escalated with no-fault divorce. Giglio noted that in 2010 all 50 states had adopted a no-fault divorce law, enabling families to easily dissolve.

"There is a father issue in the world and a phone issue in the world. And you had nothing to do with either one of these things," he said.

"But yet both of these things have a lot to do with you."

While iPhones have put the world at the fingertips of people, showing both the good and bad things happening, the amount of time people spend in front of screens is unhealthy, he asserted. And the fatherlessness that has transpired in the United States over the past several decades has made it far more normal that a father is not present in every home.

"The result of all of this is that we're all living in an uber-anxiety driven world. Depression is off the charts," and something worsened with drug use, he added. This is so much of an issue that the life expectancy in America has dropped for the first time in 60 years due to the increasing number of suicides, he noted.

Giglio said he, too, knew what it was like to be "incapacitated" for months, weighed down by terrible depression and anxiety.

"But I also know this: God is still alive. And God has a plan."

He recalled a time where God prompted him with the knowledge that a young girl was contemplating suicide while at a youth conference where thousands of high schoolers attended. Giglio had a visual impression from the Holy Spirit that someone in the room had devised a plan to commit suicide, and had written a letter in the journal to her family and the details of how she would end her life.

Wanting to be attentive to the Lord in that moment, he interrupted the conference at an opportune time and asked everyone to bow their heads, close their eyes, and began to encourage the crowd, noting that God sees the letter and that she is not alone. He briefly explained what God had shown him without giving details, and asked that if anyone had made suicide plans for them to raise their hand for prayer.

In a room full of approximately 4,000, somewhere between 100 to 200 young people raised their hands that they had made plans to kill themselves. Giglio was later told that where he was ministering that night took place in the ZIP code with the highest teen suicide rate in the nation.

The next day he received a message on social media telling him that she had scrapped her suicide plan, that God had moved in her heart, and that she was going to live for Him. When Giglio clicked on the profile picture, he realized that it was the girl he had seen in the vision. That event set the trajectory for the Passion Conference and his wanting to speak life into a generation riddled with anxiety, and teach them to reject the cultural premise that anxiety and depression is a part of life.

The goal of Passion 2019 is to be "sent out" but before that happens, it's important to know your identity, Giglio stressed.

"God isn't interested in getting you to do something. He wants you to understand that He sees you just like you are, right where you are, and He loves you. And His prayer for you is that you'd let Him set you free in these days."

Being free means knowing deep down in the depths of one's being that one is a beloved son or beloved daughter and that God is the perfect Father, he explained.

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear. But you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him, by this Spirit, we cry, Abba, Father," he said, reading from Romans 8:15.

The primary relationship with God is not as students of the Bible, workers in the Kingdom, but father and child, he went onto say. And thus, he added, the enemy's goal has been to shatter fatherhood.

"If the enemy succeeded in smashing up your view of Father then it's possible that you're going to have difficulty with that primary relationship that God wants to have with you," Giglio said.

Bad earthly fathers, be they abusive, absent, uninterested, or passive compound this problem, he said.

He finished his talk by inviting the crowd to receive the love of the Father, as Abba and for anxiety and depression to break, and for people who were planning to commit suicide.

Passion 2019 is the first year the conference has been held in four different venues — two in Atlanta, Georgia, one in Dallas, Texas, and one in Washington, D.C. — simultaneously. As a result, there has been around 8,000 more attendees this year than in previous years. The Passion Conference began Wednesday and will conclude on Friday.

Evangelizing in America when Christians are afraid to stand out, distrust is growing

Christians worship in this photo uploaded on November 16, 2017. | Acts 29

As the religious landscape of America continues to change and those identifying with faith continues to decline, the fear of standing out as a Christian is growing.

And that is impacting evangelism efforts.

There’s a greater apprehension among those who do count themselves as Christians to not only share their faith but to even appear differently from the rest of society, according to Bo Rice, assistant professor of evangelism and preaching at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. They’re too afraid to stand for beliefs that might be seen as offensive to others in a diversifying culture.

“I believe in the politically correct, politically charged climate of our culture today, believers are afraid to take a stand and to look different for fear of being accused of being intolerant toward others. Unfortunately, we have reached a point in American history where Christians are afraid to speak biblical truth in love out of fear of retribution,” Rice told The Christian Post.

“Many Christians have just assimilated into the culture of the world so they won’t ‘offend’ anyone."

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Charles "Chuck" Kelley Jr., who earlier in October announced he will be retiring from his position, makes a similar point in his recently released book, Fuel the Fire.  

Kelley laments that Christians are simply blending in with the secular world.

Overchurched to underchurched

While it can be argued that the older generations might have been "overchurched," the reality today is that some people have "never stepped foot in a church,” said Noel Heikkinen, lead pastor at Riverview Church in the Lansing, Michigan.

Many people in the current generation don't have the church experience that previous generations were exposed to.

As a result, “their view of Christianity is what they have seen in pop culture, and what we are seeing even more so is that it's derived from social media," Heikkinen explained to CP.

He said that for a lot of younger people, "their whole perception of Christianity is not about the Gospel, or Jesus, or any of that.”

Unlike previous generations, young people today “have very much an 'a la carte' approach to spirituality," meaning that they want to "pick and choose what strands of their spirituality are important to them,” the Michigan pastor said.

"Even if they hear a preacher say Scripture has to be the ultimate authority in their lives, there is always going to be an asterisk" next to that, and they will turn to their “own truth” if they hear something they disagree with, he noted.

For many young people, “there is no real truth that lies outside of their own personal experiences, biases and assumptions."

“The self becomes the arbitrator of personal truth; personal truth becomes greater than absolute truth,” Heikkinen said.

Rice also believes that the number of people in the U.S. who have never heard of Jesus Christ is growing.

“We are seeing and hearing of more stories right here in the U.S. of people coming to faith in Christ after hearing about Jesus for the first time. However, I do agree, in America, we often encounter those who are ‘disillusioned’ with ‘religion’ altogether,” Rice said.

Christianity in decline

Many polls have painted a complex picture of the religious landscape in America. One overarching trend that has emerged in most surveys and analyses is that the proportion of those identifying with Christianity, especially young people, is shrinking.

A study by Gallup in April found that while 71 percent of Americans identified with a Protestant denomination back in 1955, the percentage decreased to less than half (47 percent) of the population in 2017.

Roman Catholics retained a more stable rate of identification, making up 22 percent of the population in 2017, compared to 24 percent in 1955.

Young people were found to be one of the chief drivers of the rising "nonreligious" demographic, with 33 percent of those aged 21 to 29 stating that they follow no religion.

J. Warner Wallace, a cold case detective, author and senior fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, chronicled more than 50 similar surveys back in January and concluded: "Fewer people claim a Christian affiliation than ever before, and those who claim no religious affiliation are the fastest growing group in America." 

Researcher George Barna of the American Culture & Faith Institute noted, following a survey of 9,273 American adults in November 2017, which found that only 31 percent of adults identify as born-again Christians, that faith is undergoing a "substantial challenge."

"The Church at-large is not likely to grow in the future unless some fundamental changes in practice are made," Barna warned.

The survey found that people are most likely to accept Christ as Savior before they finish high school, with two out of every three individuals who say they are born again revealing they made the choice before the age of 18.

Evangelism efforts

Baptism ceremony, May 31, 2016 | Acts 29

Currently, evangelism — defined as the act of proclaiming the message that Jesus Christ is Lord — in America is in what Rice calls a “confused” state.

One of Merriam Webster’s definitions of confusion is “a state or situation in which many things are happening in a way that is not controlled or orderly.”

“I believe that this is a good picture of evangelism today. We are not seeing the large-scale, structured evangelism campaigns emphasized as strongly in present-day churches like we have in the past,” Rice, who is also the dean of Graduate Studies at the Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated NOBTS, observed. “So we have lost the ‘controlled’ aspect of systematic approaches and more accurate reporting of numbers.”

Evangelism is still being done by individual churches and individuals but for Rice, the main question is whether their approach is effective in “reaching people for the Kingdom of God.”

Heikkinen is, meanwhile, involved in another approach to evangelism: church planting.

He serves as the U.S. Midwest network director for Acts 29 Network, which focuses on planting churches in areas that have "a lot less Gospel influence.”

There are certain pockets in America where there’s been a good response to church planting and evangelism.

“Some of the most successful efforts in the past 30 years” have been "primarily in suburban areas,” Heikkinen noted. "It's been a much easier place to plant churches.”

He acknowledged that churches in America are "declining faster" than they are growing. And church planters are struggling to plant in an urban context as well as in rural small towns.

In the major cities, people, especially in economically disadvantaged zones, are "suspicious of those coming in from outside" and would ask "why are you here?"

Obstacles

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Suspicion against the church has intensified with the rise of the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements. People are seeing churches "as a place to cover up" sexual assault and to "protect those that are hurting vulnerable people,” Heikkinen added.

Church planters are encountering a lot of that sentiment, particularly from the younger generation.

Both the Protestant and Catholic world have been mired in sexual abuse cases. The sexual assault accusations against and downfall of high-profile megachurch pastor Bill Hybels, as well as Andy Savage in Tennessee, have prompted much discussion on accountability in evangelical circles. While the Catholic Church has faced scandals worldwide, decades of clergy sex abuse and institutional cover-ups were revealed in Pennsylvania and other states earlier this year.

Underlying those scandals have been the thousands of #ChurchToo stories shared in online circles by people, mostly women, who say they have suffered rape and other forms of sexual abuse by Christians in leadership and others within churches.

All of this has a direct consequence on how Christianity is perceived in America and creates difficult challenges for evangelism, both Rice and Heikkinen affirmed.

“Unfortunately, I do think when a believer falls, especially clergy and lay leaders, it's a deterrent to the advancement of the Gospel,” Rice commented.

“Satan uses the ‘fall’ of leaders whether it be through the abuse of innocent children and the abuse of women, adultery, and addiction, to name a few, to attempt to destroy the credibility of believers and of the Gospel. Through this, the sin is magnified and these ‘Christians’ are made out to be ‘worse than the world’ so that all who see their fall and who do not know the story of Redemption through Christ have no desire to be associated with them.

“However, it is our job to make sure we preach the Redemptive portion of the story. … We need Jesus because of those very sin issues.”

Heikkinen reflected that there is mistrust in the U.S. toward authority in general, and that mistrust "bleeds into the church," especially when it comes to cases of sex abuse.

Looking at just how many people have been accusing Christian leaders and churches of varying degrees of abuse and cover-ups, the Michigan pastor said that he can't claim to be surprised.

“But I would say I am heartbroken,” Heikkinen said.

"I truly believe that sin is real," he added, stressing that when looking at history, people know such abuse has "always been there.”

Moving forward

"I want our churches to be a light to this world," Heikkinen emphasized, admitting that "it's hard right now to be a voice in our culture" due to the scandals.

Christians need to regain trust and the universal Church has to take big steps in that regard.

He pointed to 2 Timothy in the Bible, where the Apostle Paul says in part:

"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my Gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.”

Rice turned to Acts 1:8, which reads:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth.”

Rice insisted that the future of evangelism in America is not bleak.

“If the believers of Christ will look to Him for His promised Spirit, direction, and power, then we will see Him accomplish great things through us,” he underscored. “In short, evangelism will be successful because Jesus is on His throne, and He still desires to use His people to bring about His purpose and will.”

How to evangelize

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Traditional methods of evangelism include preaching on the streets, which was popular in the '70s, but it might not be as effective as before.

For Heikkinen, the most effective way to spread the Gospel message and bring people to Jesus is through relationships.

”I think what we are discovering is that evangelism is about being friends with people,” speaking with them honestly, and not hiding one’s own sins, he explained.

Rather than starting with theological teachings right away when engaging with nonbelievers, he emphasized the importance of building friendships with them first.

When something happens in their lives and they need someone to talk to, the Christian friend can step up and share how their beliefs have helped them, he said.

“Some of the people I have personally been able to lead to faith in the last several years have all been my friends first,” he revealed.

Heikkinen noted that the opportunity presents itself when something happens in people’s lives, and then they think of him: “He is a pastor and a Christian, I should talk to him."

That strategy is also discussed in Friend of Sinners: An Approach to Evangelism by author and pastor Harvey Turner, also of the Acts 29 Network. The book details how the approach mirrors the ministry of Jesus Himself, who had conversations with everyday people and chose to be a “friend of the sinners.”

Rice noted that while his personal approach to evangelizing hasn't changed much, he also tries to practice what he called "Gospel conversations," namely "taking the time to develop relationships with people (even if it’s in a short amount of time) and then transitioning to a Gospel presentation in regular conversation.”

And that presentation must be the “full truth,” Rice stressed.

“To many, the Gospel and biblical principles are controversial and offensive. But we are called to be witnesses of the full truth, not just the parts of the Bible that make us ‘feel good’ or ‘comfortable,’” he said.

“So yes, the culture is changing and the context of ministry might be more difficult in our postmodern world, but that doesn't mean we should water down biblical truth just to make it ‘easier’ for us … because if we do that, what Gospel are we preaching? Our own? May we never make a mockery of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in such a way.”

Christians must also not forget to extend a clear invitation to respond to the message of Jesus Christ.

Rice observed that in recent decades, fewer evangelicals ask for an “explicit response to the Gospel.”

“Some no longer extend an invitation because they are fearful it might come across as manipulative,” he cautioned.

“I believe we must never use any form of manipulation in calling people to respond to the Gospel, but we must call for a clear and decisive response of people to repent of their sins and trust in Christ as Savior and Lord. We must plead and urge people to respond to the truth.”

Heikkinen often wonders what the state of Christianity in the U.S. will look like in the future.

"The trend that I see happening, and I hope I am wrong, is that American churches will [continue] declining in influence,” he said.

But that doesn't leave him pessimistic in seeing more people in America gain salvation through Jesus Christ because the work of evangelism will still go on, but not always from within.

There's another trend that can't be ignored — the Christian faith is growing overseas, such as in China and in parts of Africa and South America. And they will send a new “generation of missionaries to come to the United States and preach," Heikkinen said.

Those overseas churches are earnestly praying for faith in America, he highlighted.

"God is going to use that.”