The Fellowship of His Sufferings
Encountering the Suffering Church & A Call for Compassion
by Caroline Cox
If you go for a walk on the hills above the English cathedral city of Guildford, you may come across a tombstone in the woods overlooking the valleys of Surrey. If, prompted by curiosity, you wonder who had chosen to be buried there and you stop to read the inscription, you will find the words: “Here lies Major Laballiere who asked to be buried upside down, because he thought the world was topsy turvy and he wanted to be right way up at the end.” I don’t know about being buried upside down, but I suggest that as Christians, we should be prepared to have our lives turned upside down by a Lord who called us to serve him—a Lord who has told and shown us that his ways are not the ways of this world—and that we have to be fools for his sake.
He is a God of love, who calls us to put love into action—for love without action is dead, as faith without deeds is dead. And love in action is what compassion is all about.
A Voice for the Voiceless
St. Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth reminds us: “When one part of the Body of Christ suffers, we all suffer.” Do we? Do we know, do we want to know about the persecuted church? Do we show solidarity with them in their persecution for their faith—for our faith? Or do we find their persecution “controversial” and prefer not to get involved?
I work with the Christian human rights organization Christian Solidarity International (CSI), which tries to help victims of repression, regardless of their color, creed, or nationality. We especially focus on people who are cut off from other aid organizations. The major organizations, such as the United Nations bodies (UNHCR, UNICEF), or the Red Cross, can only work in places where they have the permission of the sovereign government. If a government is persecuting a religious or racial minority group by ethnic cleansing, genocide, or jihad, it may not give invitations to those aid organizations. Such groups, suffering at the hands of repressive regimes, are thus denied aid and advocacy.
These are thus among the most outcast people in the world, totally bereft and often forgotten, because the world does not know about them. It is our commitment in CSI to try to be a voice for these who have no voice and to try to help them in their hour of need.
This may mean behaving in unorthodox ways—even traveling illegally across the borders of those repressive regimes, to reach people whom others cannot reach, to show them that love in action which is our Christian calling.
Often these people are Christians. There are more Christians suffering persecution in the world today than at any other time in history. When we have the privilege of being with them, we never fail to be moved by their faith. I have seen more joy on the faces of persecuted Christians, in conditions of extreme deprivation in jungle, bush, deserts, and mountains, than I have on the faces of most Christians in comfortable Western churches.
Ethnic Cleansing
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
27.2—March/April 2014
on C. S. Lewis & the New State Paganism by W. E. Knickerbocker
29.3—May/June 2016
Our Choice Is Obedience or Jesus as Anti-Christ by Anthony Esolen
31.4—July/August 2018
Life & Love Are Real Despite Theatrical Illusions by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
