Morocco (MNN) – In many Muslim-majority nations the cost of choosing Christ is monumental. Becoming a Christian can mean loss of community, denied jobs, imprisonment, or even difficulty finding someone to marry. However, for these believers, the truth of the Gospel is worth the pain and ostracization.
Lacking in Community
In addition to the stories of persecution, FMI‘s Bruce Allen says many Muslim-background believers face another struggle – connecting with other Christians. One man and his wife from Morocco, a majority-Muslim nation, came to know Christ on a trip in Europe. For years after that trip, their only Christian community was each other and their children.
(Image courtesy of FMI)
Allen says eventually the son went to university in Europe and met another Moroccan student who was a Christian. “The son calls mom and dad up in Morocco and said, ‘There are more of us!’ He just met one, and he was so excited about meeting another Moroccan believer. Eventually they got connected through that individual to some other believers.”
After years of feeling alone in their country, this pastor and his family had community. But even with that victory comes unique challenges.
A Changed Identity
In some countries, religion is a state-monitored part of a person’s identity. Conversion is legally difficult or even impossible. Allen says, “If you’re born in Morocco, by constitutional law, you’re Muslim. Well, now I’m not, but I can’t change that national ID card. Now it’s not Morocco, but I know firsthand of people in other Muslim-majority nations where they could not even get married in their country.”
(Image courtesy of FMI)
The religion on a person’s ID card dictates who they can marry, what jobs they can hold, where they live, or what schools their children attend. Additionally, many schools in Muslim-majority nations are religious and lean heavily on learning the Quran.
“A Christian family might say, I don’t want that for my child. So do I even send my kid to school? Now the kid is illiterate, and mom and dad are probably also illiterate because their parents might have made that same choice for them. That means even if FMI came in with printed Bibles, they couldn’t read them. That’s why audio Bibles are so important in many of these oral societies, or where literacy rates among Christians are so low,” Allen says.
Working with Excellence
For other Muslim-background believers, the cost of faith in Christ might be loss of job or even imprisonment.
Allen says that one Christian man he knows in a Muslim-majority country is in prison because he got a promotion at work over Muslim coworkers.
“His own colleagues, who enjoyed working with him (and he was diligent, did his work with excellence which was why he was getting this promotion) … They turned on him. They accused him of blasphemy because they’re like, ‘We can’t let you get elevated in society above us. You’re a Christian, not Muslim.’ As soon as that accusation came, even though he committed no blasphemy, he’s been languishing in prison for about four years now. That’s the cost of following Christ in some countries.”
Counting the Cost and Still Following
Despite the immense personal cost, many in Muslim-majority nations are coming to saving faith in Christ. They know the things they are leaving behind and anticipate their persecution. Yet they still commit their lives to Jesus.
It is difficult or even impossible to get to these brothers and sisters physically to help share in their suffering. However, Christians around the world can lift up the persecuted body of Christ in prayer.
Allen says, “Pray for fellowship. I think of the embers of firewood. If those embers are not close together, they cool down really rapidly. But if you bank them together, that warmth, that glow continues. Pray that they see how they can reflect Jesus in their society, in daily life, at the marketplace, at the café.”
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Header image courtesy of Tep Ro on Pixabay.
