In a departure from our usual pattern, in this issue of Glimpses we take a look at a twentieth-century phenomenon in Christian history that has urgent relevance for us today. More Christians have died for their faith in this current century than all other centuries of church history combined. To fill us in on this little known and shocking holocaust we welcome guest contributor and journalist Dan Wooding who has reported first hand from most of the present day lion's dens for Christians.

When we finally met in Moscow, Alexander Ogorodnikov peered at me over his "granny" reading glasses. "Thank you for caring!" he said, his voice choking with emotion.

The Russian dissident, wearing a dark, pinstriped suit and sporting a ponytail, had spent seven lonely years in the former Soviet prison system, or Gulag. He had been convicted of running a Christian discussion group for other students at the Moscow State University, where he was studying film making.

I had first learned of his plight from a letter he had written to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The letter was published by Keston College, a British-based organization that monitored persecution in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In the letter, Ogorodnikov told Gorbachev that he had been in prison for five years and had not received one letter or a visit from any Christian.

"Have Me Executed"
"I know it is a sin to commit suicide, but I am so lonely that I wish to ask you to have me executed by firing squad," he wrote.

After reading his appeal, I immediately organized a letter-writing and prayer campaign on his behalf in the United States. Within weeks, thousands of letters had arrived at his camp, and waves of prayer went up to heaven on his behalf. Soon, his case came to the attention of then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher interceded with Gorbachev on Ogorodnikov's behalf, and the prisoner was released. Now running a soup kitchen for Moscow's homeless, Ogorodnikov told me, "You don't know what it was like to discover that there were Christians who cared -- who wanted me to live and who loved me."

Worldwide Persecution Continues
Now that freedom has come to the former Soviet Union, Ogorodnikov and thousands of other Christian prisoners have been released and are free to share their faith openly with others.

That is not the case in many other countries, such as Sudan. In six years, more than 1.3 million Christians and other non-Muslim people have been killed in this African nation -- more than Bosnia, Chechnya and Haiti combined.

"Sudan is characterized by the total or near complete absence of civil liberties," said Christian activist Nina Shea, during US Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearings. "Individual Christians, including clergy, have over the past few years . . . been assassinated, imprisoned, tortured and flogged for their faith."

That pattern is being repeated in country after country around the world, often in areas where Islam is strong. Christians in North America can easily forget the daily danger in which their sisters and brothers overseas live. We don't realize that our peaceful existence here isn't the standard experience of Christians around the world.

This Is The Age of Martyrs
In a recent article, Justin D. Long emphasized the startling fact that more people have died for their faith in the Twentieth Century than in all of the previous centuries combined. “During this century, we have documented cases in excess of 26 million martyrs. From AD 33 to 1900, we have documented 14 million martyrs.”