National church remembers the persecuted

WASHINGTON – Not all Presbyterian congregations were persuaded by the denomination’s boycott of the evangelicals’ date and language for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

By John H. Adams

 The National Presbyterian Church (NPC) in the nation’s capital, where China’s intransigence on human rights issues continues to be hotly debated, held a moving "National Service for the Persecuted Church" on Sept. 28.

Despite the Syracuse GA’s decision not to pray with evangelicals on that date, NPC unapologetically promoted the International Day of Prayer and the church’s kinship with the World Evangelical Fellowship and the National Association of Evangelicals on behalf of persecuted Christians.

NPC also publicized the assessment of evangelical groups, including Frontier Mission, of Christian persecution in China: "Since 1994, Christians in China have experienced the worst persecution since the late 1970s. Christians are arrested and beaten to death by Chinese police. More Christians are in prison or under some form of detention than in any other country. In 1996, three Chinese Christian leaders were beaten to death by Chinese authorities, and in the first three months of 1997, over 100 church leaders were arrested."

Dr. Craig Barnes, senior pastor of NPC, said that during his preparation for his sermon he read secular press reports of the persecution of Christians in China and other countries.

"I was amazed at these statistics and reports…," Barnes said during his sermon. "I was broken-hearted after all the stories I read. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know it was this bad. I began to tell some of you what I was discovering, and every time you responded the same as I did – ‘I didn’t know.’ You asked, ‘Why aren’t we hearing about this?’ Again I would say, I don’t know. But it is time to start talking about this. It is time to shatter the silence."

NPC’s service shattered the silence in Washington. The service, which began at 9 a.m., lasted nearly two hours and delayed the opening of the 11 a.m. service by 10 minutes. Clyde Taylor, a retired diplomat who is director of programs at NPC, said the service attracted a number of members of Congress. President Clinton sent an assistant secretary of state to read a statement about the president’s concern for persecuted Christians.

NPC was not alone in joining the evangelical movement on behalf of persecuted Christians. Organizers of the International Day of Prayer say that, based on the number of information kits they sent out, more than 60,000 churches participated.

And President Clinton did attend one of the services – at Malibu Presbyterian Church in California. Malibu’s pastor, Rev. David Worth, said he learned from Secret Service agents only ten minutes before the service that the President would attend.