Persecution: Normal and Expected

They admitted to being confused, these pastors and lay leaders who had endured decades of persecution within the now-failing Soviet Republic. Yet they agreed to share their personal, family, and church stories with the broader Christian community, hoping to help churches, mission organizations, and missionaries in the West develop a more biblical missiology of suffering. These pastors and lay leaders were intimately conversant with persecution, suffering, and martyrdom.

The confusion surfaced near the end of a series of interviews. Life histories had been shared, stories of persecution recited and documented, and tears shed while events were dissected. The testimonies were compelling. It seemed to the interviewer that this was the stuff of scripture—that he was hearing Bible stories come to life in his own time.

And that’s when the moment of confusion came, when the interviewer asked some questions that weren’t very professional or well planned....

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