Convicted by the realization that more people had died for their Christian faith in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined, our coalition first met on January 23, 1996 at a meeting convened by Nina Shea, the director of the Center for Religious Freedom

This weekend holds another special event, in addition to the 237^th birthday of the United States Marine Corps on Saturday, November 10, and Veteran’s Day on Sunday, “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” November 11 is also the annual observance of the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP). This year marks the 16^th anniversary of this special day to remember those persecuted for their faith around the world.

I was privileged to be part of the coalition that created IDOP. Convicted by the realization that more people had died for their Christian faith in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined, our coalition first met on January 23, 1996 at a meeting convened by Nina Shea, the director of the Center for Religious Freedom (then at Freedom House, now at The Hudson Institute). The group consisted of many Christian organizations, including IRD, along with tireless advocates like Michael Horowitz and the late Chuck Colson. On that day, the National Association of Evangelicals issued a “Statement of Conscience and Call to Action” in which it pledged to end “our own silence in the face of the suffering of all those persecuted for their religious faith.”

After that inaugural event, a smaller team – mostly local to Washington, DC, along with Chicago-based Dwight Gibson, the U.S. representative of the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF, now World Evangelical Alliance) – began to meet regularly to plan the first International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. The late president of IRD, Diane Knippers, and I were heavily involved in the effort. Diane worked as the Day of Prayer’s liaison with the mainline denominations, requesting endorsement of the Day of Prayer from denominational leaders, the National Council of Churches (NCC), etc. (We also reported to those church members whose denominational leaders, along with the NCC, refused to endorse the observance, protesting that we should “not just pray for Christians.”), I helped to create resource materials distributed by WEF, and drafted a resolution on the worldwide persecution of Christians that was passed in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate in September 1996.

Outside of the political realm, we all worked to encourage churches – not just in the United States, but all over the world – to commit to participating in IDOP. The first IDOP was planned for September 29, 1996. By early September, 110 countries had signified that they would be actively taking part in Day of Prayer. Listed among the 110 countries were Sudan, China, and Iran. One of the most powerful, and quite humbling aspects of IDOP is knowing that Christians who are themselves experiencing the greatest persecution are still looking beyond their own circumstances to pray for others who are persecuted! Another highlight for me, as an Anglican, is that the very first formal resolution of newly-created American Anglican Council was statement endorsing IDOP. The bishops of the American Anglican Council sent a pastoral letter to the whole Episcopal Church, commending observation of the day.

I wish I could say that sixteen years of intentional prayer for the persecuted church around the world has stopped persecution, or even lessened it, but that is not the case. Two years after IDOP began, the United States Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act. IRFA has been a great help for advocates, putting in place some of tools that are answers to the question, “What can I do?” once someone has become aware of the overwhelming reality of global religious persecution. It was also a watershed moment for the United States government in that for the first time it enshrined religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy. But persecution continues. Just as Jesus said that poverty would always be a reality, he indicated that persecution would be part of the “normal Christian life.”

This year’s IDOP – as promoted by World Evangelical Alliance for November 4 – focused on praying for the persecuted Christians of Iran. When we first began to meet in 1996, the martyrdom of some of Iran’s top Christian leaders, including Pastor Mehdi Dibaj and Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr weighed heavily on our minds and hearts. Today, although there have been amazing answers to prayer in the release from prison earlier this year of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, or like Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad in 2009, so many others are still in prison, and the climate for religious freedom remains at repressive and life-threatening as ever. And that’s just Iran.

If your church has not made plans to pray for the persecuted this weekend, please encourage your pastor to set aside some other upcoming Sunday for this important issue. IRD has many resources available, including special litanies for the persecuted church. Take as your motto Hebrews 13:3 – “Remember those in prison, as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

Faith McDonnell is the Director of Religious Liberty Programs at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IARD).  She has a BA in English from Eastern Nazarene College and a MA in Englist from the University of Maryland.  Faith is a member of Church of the Apostles, Anglican, and serves on the church’s international missions committee.   This article appeared on the IRD blog and is used with permission. 

[Editor’s note: Original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]