The Very Stones Cry Out

The Persecuted Church: Pain, Passion and Praise

Caroline Cox, Benedict Rogers

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780826431196
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Cristianismo

According to the World Evangelical Alliance, over 200 million Christians in at least 60 countries are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith. Many face widespread and systematic persecution. The Very Stones Cry Out is a passionate challenge to the rest of the Church, and all advocates of religious freedom, to break their silence on this issue. Baroness Cox presents graphic photographs and survivors' accounts as testimony to widespread destruction, and provides powerful documentary evidence of contemporary persecution. Featuring contributions from those with on the ground experience of the nations concerned, this book details the impact that sustained persecution has on individuals, families and communities. In doing so, it provides a moving account of resilience in the face of destruction, and joy in spite of trials, making this a book that is as much about celebration as it is about challenge.

Chapter 8

Iran: ‘We Will Not Deny Our Faith’

Mark Bradley

On the afternoon of 8 August 2009 the harsh voice of a female guard echoed down the corridors of Tehran’s Evin prison: ‘Maryam Rostampour! Marzieh Esmaeilabad!’

Sitting on their blankets in their cell, the twenty-five other prisoners turned to Maryam and Marzieh. There was friendship in their eyes. After an emotional goodbye, the two Christians were led away by the guard. Inside the cell some of the inmates put their hands up in a gesture of prayer, others wept. They loved Maryam and Marzieh and hoped they would be released. But there was something in the tone of the guard that made them fear.

Maryam and Marzieh were led to a large changing room and ordered to wash and tidy themselves up. Here they learned why they had been called. They were to appear in court the next day. They had been arrested on 5 March and held in Evin since 18 March. From short conversations with their families they knew their case had been so serious the authorities had wanted bail of $400,000 – an impossible figure for an ordinary Iranian family.

From many hours of questioning, some of it blindfolded, they knew their enthusiasm for Christ infuriated their interrogators who thought of them as being ‘najess’ (unclean) and apostates. So much so that they had both spent more than a week in awful solitary confinement, hemmed in by small two by four meter cells and a silence that suffocated them. Both women had always refused to ever consider renouncing their faith in Christ, but they also vehemently denied any involvement with foreign Christian Zionist groups, an accusation their interrogators always threw at them.

Now they were going to court, but they had no idea what exact charges they would be facing. Would they be charged with being apostates from Islam? Or, worse, would they be accused of being spies? They knew their time in court could literally decide how long they lived for. As they got into the waiting police van, they managed to squeeze each other’s hands.

In the drab court room there were not many people. Maryam and Marzieh sat flanked by two female guards. When the three judges walked in, they stood up. It was the deputy prosecutor, Mr Haddad who asked all the questions.

‘Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Esmaeilabad are you Christians?’

The two women prayed silently. Unknown to them hundreds of thousands were praying for them every day as their story was on the internet.

‘We love Jesus,’ they replied.

‘Yes … but are you Christians?’, Mr Haddad repeated his question.

‘Yes, we are Christians.’

Mr Haddad raised his eyebrows. ‘You were Muslims, and now you have become Christians?’

‘We were born into Muslim families,’ replied Maryam for both the women.

‘So, you are Muslims?’

‘No, we were born into Muslim families, but we were not Muslims.’

There is a heavy silence in the courtroom. Both Maryam and Marzieh can hear their hearts beating. They have denied Islam before a Revolutionary Islamic Court. Yet, they also sense a supernatural courage inside them, even a joy they had not previously experienced.

‘How can you say you were never Muslims?’

‘We were never practising committed Muslims, just Muslims in name like many others.’

Mr Haddad paused. ‘Islam is God’s perfect religion. It is the last revelation. Do you not feel sad that you do not call yourself Muslim? Do you not feel sad that you now call yourself Christians?’

‘We are not at all sorry to be Christians. We love Jesus Christ.’

As the women spoke the name of Christ they sensed the authority of the Holy Spirit behind their words and they felt the judges listening, respecting their sincerity.

Mr Haddad drew himself up to his full length and gave an order. ‘You must renounce your Christian faith verbally and in written form. You must state before this court that you are not Christians, and then you must write down that statement and sign it.’

Without hesitation both women said: ‘We will not deny our faith.’

There was a tense silence. Again the women sensed a silent authority behind their words. The questions continued. Maryam and Marzieh again denied any involvement with politics. They felt the court believed them.

Mr Haddad then came back to the heart of the case, Maryam and Marzieh’s faith in Christ.

‘How can you believe that Jesus is divine?’

Again it was Maryam who spoke. ‘No human can understand who Jesus is. The Holy Spirit, God, must show them. The Holy Spirit showed us who Jesus is.’

Caught off guard, Mr Haddad said without much thought: ‘But it is impossible for God to speak to mere humans.’

Maryam swiftly asked: ‘Are you questioning whether God is Almighty?’

The court realized that the directness and freshness of the question had unnerved Mr Haddad. He turned to a tired tactic when an argument is lost – personal attack: ‘You are not worthy for God to speak to you.’

Marzieh was more than ready for this and gave a reply that left the court in no doubt as to where moral authority lay. ‘It is God, and not you, who will determine if I am worthy.’

Mr Haddad could not reply to this. In a tone mixed with religious concern and threat, he brought his questioning to an end. ‘I advise this court for you to remain in detention so you can think more and then to inform the court when you have come to a correct decision.’

Maryam replied for them both, ‘We have already done our thinking.’

Maryam and Marzieh, committed members of a house church in Tehran, never denied their faith. After 259 days in prison, their only ‘crime’ being their Christian faith, they were acquitted and have now left Iran.1 Their case, which attracted worldwide attention, is typical of the intimidation faced by the Church in Iran. Innocent Christians are arbitrarily arrested, their homes searched, personal belongings confiscated, while they are taken to prison for questioning. Some are released the same day, some the next week, others, like Maryam and Marzieh, after months.

Alongside all the harshness of prison, which can include solitary confinement where sometimes the victim is forced to listen to recorded religious teaching all day, there is always the utter uncertainty of what will eventually happen. If their families do make contact with the relevant official, they are usually ordered to pay an exorbitant amount of money so their loved one can be released on bail. Or, worse, there is a wall of official silence – nobody knows anything.

Since 2008 there have been over 300 cases of arbitrary arrest in over 30 cities known to human rights organizations. Given that some church networks prefer not to speak out when their members are taken, it is clear the actual number is considerably higher. Since the arrival of the Islamic Republic in 1979 there have been in excess of a thousand cases of Christians suffering arbitrary arrest and intimidation behind closed doors. Today these are the living stones who cry out for their brothers and sisters in the free world to campaign ceaselessly for religious freedom in Iran.

Ironically the official position of the Islamic Republic is that there is religious freedom in Iran. In Article 13 of the Constitution, Christians, along with Jews and Zoroastrians are specifically mentioned as protected minorities, and to the casual observer this might appear true. Iran’s two distinct Christian ethnic minorities, the Armenians and Assyrians, who together number about 250,000, hold services in their own respective languages. As do many Protestant churches – the Anglican, Presbyterian and Assemblies of God.2

However in the corridors of power there is a relentless hostility to Christianity. It is rooted in two firmly held beliefs, one religious and the other political.

In terms of religion the leaders of Iran believe Islam is perfect and Mohammad was God’s last prophet so all earlier religions and prophets are inferior. For a Muslim to leave Islam and become a Christian insults the glory of Islam. Thus according to both the Koran and the Hadiths, this apostasy is a crime. Hence there is an inherent enmity in the minds of the government towards all Christian churches which hold services in Persian, the mother tongue of the Muslim majority.

In terms of politics, the leaders of the revolution saw the Christian West as generally at war with Islam, and specifically with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Through the Shah and his import of ‘shameful’ values, the West had sought to undermine Iran’s adherence to Islam, but it is believed that this was exposed and triumphantly thwarted by Ayatollah Khomeini; then the West tried to topple the new Islamic regime through Saddam Hussein, but again the soldiers of Khomeini stopped the invaders. Now the new guardians of the revolution led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad have to deal with what they perceive as more cunning threats – reformers who would let in non-Islamic values through the back door, and the spread of other religions, especially Christianity.

The mindset of the revolution regarding missionary Christianity was bluntly stated by Ayatollah Khomeini. Missionaries were ‘agents of imperialism … with propaganda centres set up for the sole purpose of luring the faithful away from the commandments of Islam.’ He then went on to ask: ‘Is it not our duty to destroy all these sources of danger to Islam?’3 This suspicious mentality regarding active Christianity still overshadows the Islamic Republic. Certainly they are religiously motivated to see that Christianity keeps its place as an inferior religion, where weak people who cannot see the glory of Islam must be protected as a ‘dhimmitude’.4 However the hostility that sends out security guards to arrest committed believers is rooted in the fear that Christians pose a threat to the regime, that they could be a fifth column whose loyalty i...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Burma: Mystery Not Misery
• China: Labourers for the Harvest
• Colombia: Bullet-Proof Worship
• Cuba: Purified by Fire
• Egypt: Faith Put to the Test
• India: Caste and Creed – Complexity and Challenge
• Indonesia: Martyrs and Miracles
• Iran: ‘We Will Not Deny Our Faith’
• Iraq: People in The Fire
• Laos: Amazing Grace
• Nagorno Karabakh: ‘We Must Always Love’
• Nigeria: Singing in the Ruins
• North Korea: Faithful Unto Death
• Pakistan: A Frontier of Faith
• Sri Lanka: A Crossroad of Faiths
• Sudan: Smiling Through the Pain
• Vietnam: Beaten Not Broken
• Epilogue
• Footnote on Terminology
• Notes