Review - Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians

A modern-day Foxe’s Book of Martyrs is what I would call Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea.  This book highlights reported cases of religious persecution happening in our world today.  We can easily dismiss persecution against Christians as something of history – back to the Romans, lions, and crosses.  However, it is reported that there have been more Christian martyrs in the past hundred years than in the past two-thousand years combined.  Marshall,

Gilbert, and Shea take the reader on a region by region, country by country case study of persecution ranging from political, economic and relational persecution resulting in starvation, imprisonment, torture, and death in places  such as China, North Korea, Russia, India, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and other countries around the world.

If you read this book expecting the same emotional depth as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, you will be somewhat let down.  It reads more like a newspaper report, filled with facts and names and places.  At first, I was disappointed by this, but I realize that for reasons of security, as well as making the point, this may have been the most necessary means of retelling what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.  This is not a quick, light read.  It can, at times, feel a bit academic.  However, just like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, I believe every Christian owes it to themselves to know the stories of what our brothers and sisters are facing around the world on a daily basis.  May this serve as a call for us to pray on their behalf and not take our freedom for granted.  This book is a resource that I know I will return to often.

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