Syria (MNN) — Syria and South Korea established formal diplomatic relations on Thursday. It’s significant not only because Syria’s new transitional government is on fledgling international footing, but also because Syria used to be a close ally of North Korea.
This diplomatic development comes more than a month after sectarian violence broke out in Syria, challenging the transitional government’s position on religious freedom. Last week, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, extended the initial 30-day investigation of that massacre to three months from now.
Photo of shadowed Syrian flag is a representative stock photo (Courtesy of Abdalhady Mansour via Pexels)
But will more time lead to justice or religious freedom? Joe Willey serves with SAT-7, a satellite TV ministry to the Middle East and North Africa. He says that across the MENA region, people’s human rights, especially those of Christians, are not always honored.
That may mean a more helpful response to Syria’s instability is to help its people, especially its Christians, endure.
“So when we look at a country like Syria or others in the Middle East and North Africa, we really think about Christians, because there may be — if not outright persecution — it just may be that there are what we call ‘isolated believers,’” says Willey.
Through SAT-7’s gospel-centered satellite TV and digital avenues, Christians with no connections to other believers have a chance to be discipled and interact with other Christians. Willey says the technology SAT-7 uses is “virtually uncensorable” — meaning hope can’t be silenced.
“Christians are only 4% of the population in the Middle East and North Africa,” he says. “That means that there are other religions — and it’s not just Islam, but there are other religions, or even atheism — that Christians have to deal with.”
Whether Christians are viewed as minorities, as people without rights, or as people from a separate, inconsequential religion, the result is often still the same:
“Many people… are not really allowed to freely proclaim their faith. That does not mean they do not have faith. It means that their faith is not able to be communicated to everyone, one at large, like we may do in the U.S.,” says Willey.
(Photo courtesy of SAT-7 USA via Facebook)
But far from “hiding their light under a bushel,” so to speak, Willey says he’s noticed something interesting among these persecuted believers. “That is where God sovereignly has placed them, and they’re going to serve Him no matter if they’re the only one. That is so encouraging, as another Christian, to say, ‘These people are not Christians because it is easy. They are Christians because it is true.’”
Please pray! Pray that Syria’s government will truly uphold religious freedom. Ask God to open the way for believers in Syria (as well as other nations under persecution) to be able to share His love.
Pray also for SAT-7’s gospel ministry, meant as a resource not a replacement for the church. Pray their work truly does strengthen the church in the MENA in its range of needs.
Header photo: On Thursday, April 10, diplomatic relations were established between the Republic of Korea and the Syrian Arab Republic with the signing of the Joint Communiqué by Cho Tae-yul, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, and Asaad al-Shaibani, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic, in Damascus. (Photo courtesy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (South Korea) – https://www.mofa.go.kr/eng/brd/m_5674/view.do?seq=321125, South Korea-Gov, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=163426738 via Wikimedia Commons.)
