Mervyn Thomas's blog series on the role of the Americas in combating global religious persecution.

This week I'm looking at Congressman Frank Wolf's uncompromising challenge to Church Leaders in the West.

"Have we in the West ceased to be salt and light? Has our comfort led to complacency?"

These words were still ringing in my ears when I visited Frank Wolf on Capitol Hill this week. His recent letter to hundreds of Protestant and Catholic leaders is an impassioned plea to Western churches to speak up on behalf of those millions around the world who suffer because of their faith.

"God forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing to intervene."

He quotes a story from the book When A Nation Forgets God by Erwin Lutzer, a German Christian. Lutzer recounted how the trains taking Jews to death camps would pass by his church every Sunday during the Holocaust. "Their screams tormented us," he wrote, "but what could anyone do to stop it?"

"We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.

Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians and yet did nothing to intervene."

Congressman Wolf argues that Christians in the West today are all too close to those Christians who stayed silent when they knew Jews were being killed simply for being Jews. Right now, 75% of the world's population live in countries with high restrictions on religious liberty. How can we stand by in silence?

Witnessing brutal Christian persecution for the first time

Frank Wolf, a man of deep faith and a religious freedom activist has been a US Congressman for over 31 years and spent his career fighting at the highest levels for the rights of persecuted Christians and other religious minorities. He authored the International Religious Freedom Act (1998), a pioneering piece of legislation that sought to make religious freedom a foreign policy priority for the United States. Through it was created the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (IRF) as well as a State Department office and Ambassador for IRF.

My personal friendship with Frank goes back to 1985 when we were both in Romania in the days of the notorious despotic leader Nicolae Ceacescu. I remember it well because I was arrested, and threatened with deportation for visiting a dissident priest, and it was Frank Wolf who prevailed upon the Speaker of the Romanian Parliament to allow me to stay. For both of us it was the first time we had witnessed brutal Christian persecution first hand, and we both determined that in the years ahead we would do all in our power to campaign for religious freedom.

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed for his part in the Nazi resistance during the Second World War. The German church leader famously said "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

I have been challenged and deeply moved by Frank Wolf's reminder of Bonhoeffer's words. I would like to ask you to read the whole of his letter, and then ask yourself what you are going to do in your church to ensure we are not guilty of standing silent in the face of suffering.

As Frank writes,

"The Church globally is under assault. Our response must not be to simply sing more loudly thereby drowning out the cries for help from our brothers and sisters. Rather we must speak out, advocate and act on their behalf."

Next week I'll tell you what happened when CSW helped organise a Central Asia briefing on Capitol Hill at the time of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC.

Until then, be challenged not to stay silent.

Mervyn Thomas
CSW Chief Executive