Are Christians a majority in New Zealand? It’s an interesting question to ponder. If you look at the last census figures then the answer is yes; 57% of New Zealanders identify with one Christian denomination or another. That’s quite a few people when you stop to think about; close to two and half thousand people here in this community alone. But, of course, it also raises some questions. Like, what is to be to a Christian? Is a tick in a box all that it takes? And, why on Sundays is attendance so much lower?

Interesting as these questions are, the point I want to highlight is we still live in a country where box ticking Christians are a majority. So for us, though we may differ in the way we express our faith, we are unlikely to suffer for our beliefs. Most people don’t really care what we believe, as long as we don’t get in their way. We can go to church without hindrance; we can read our bibles and listen to Christian broadcasts; and most people are willing to tolerate prayers and hymns at public services, such as those observed on ANZAC day.

But it was vastly different in the early Church. This church, for example, is named after a 3rd century saint who was executed for his Christian beliefs. And in the New Testament lots of stories are told of those who suffered because they followed Christ. In John’s Gospel, a few weeks back, we heard how the disciples locked themselves in a room out of fear for those who killed Jesus. In the book of Acts, in a reading from last week, we read how Stephen was stoned to death because he dared speak out about his faith. And the first letter of Peter is written to a suffering church. There, the writer exhorts his readers to do what is right, to not repay wrong for wrong, and to follow the example of Jesus. ‘Remembering that Christ endured bodily suffering’, he writes, ‘you must arm yourselves with a temper of mind like his’.

Through the centuries, Christians, as well as other religious minorities, have suffered at the hands of the majority. And let’s not forget, we too have been that majority! And the persecution of minorities continues in our own day.

I read recently, in the Church Times, the story of Fr Yassef Abel Aboudi. Fr Aboudi was a Chaldean priest, was married with a family and ran a Christian school in one of the safer areas of Baghdad. Not that there are many of those! Earlier this month, a group of insurgents warned him to close the school or be killed. When he refused, he was shot dead, in front of his wife. It’s a tragic story; but many other Christians living in post-2003 Iraq suffer for their faith. Some under duress have converted to Islam, some have fled for their lives, and still others have faced persecution and death.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the International Director of Barnabas Fund, an organization whose task is to support and to draw attention to the cries of the persecuted church, has said: ‘It is next to impossible to continue to live in Baghdad as a Christian.’

I wonder how we would react in the same circumstances. Would you convert to the majority view? Would you take refuge in a neighbouring country, often living amidst squalor, for the sake of family and your own lives? Would you seek revenge for wrong done? Or would you continue to stand up for what you believe in, no matter what it costs?

And what about here in our own country: How do you view and relate to minority religious groups? Do you offer them encouragement and practical support? And what have we done, as individuals and as a community, for those suffering for their faith around the globe?

Again, Sookhdeo writes, in relation to what is happening in Iraq:

‘Christians cannot stand by and allow this genocide to take place, as we did during the Armenian genocide of a century ago, and as we did during the Sudanese civil war which had killed two million mainly Christian Southerners by the time it ended in 2005… There comes a time when Christians must stand in solidarity with their brethren, must speak out for them and for justice and righteousness.’

Today we’re challenged to consider our response to Christians suffering overseas. Do we pray for them? Do we speak out on their behalf and support them where we can? And we’re challenged to consider what it means to be a Christian in this land. Is it simply to tick a box every five years? The writer of first Peter urges his readers to follow in the steps of Christ. What would it look like for us to walk in Jesus’ steps? How would our lives be different if we took his words and his example seriously?

But we’re also here today to remember. On Friday, some of us gathered at the Memorial Gates at Muritai School. We remembered those who died on foreign shores, and those who’ve served or continue to serve our country in foreign places. But I suspect few of us were aware that on Thursday, the day before our commemorations, millions of Armenians around the world, including here in Eastbourne, were remembering others who died on Turkish soil. Not at Gallipoli, but in the genocide which began on the 24th April 1915.

Armenia today is a landlocked country, surrounded by Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey. And it prides itself on being the first nation to officially adopt Christianity as its religion; even before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of Rome!

But because of its location, and its Christian heritage, in the opening years of the 20th century Armenians found themselves off-side with the majority rulers, the Ottoman Empire. At the outbreak of World War One, the Young Turks saw an opportunity to solve the Armenian problem forever. As our young men were preparing to land on the shores of Gallipoli, 250 or so Armenian leaders and intellectuals were in the process of being arrested and murdered, setting in train some of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen. In less than three years, upwards of one million people were murdered. Some were sent to the front lines, others were executed, and many more were forced out of their homes and villages, marched into the Syrian desert, and left to die.

The other day I came across the story of a man called Elia Kahvedjian. Elia was five years old when the genocide began. He was one of the fortunate ones to survive and later found refuge in Nazareth. In his account, he remembers the day Turkish soldiers entered his home and took him, his mother, a sister and two of his brothers away. ‘Soldiers came and started pushing my mother,’ he says. ‘She tried to go back to the house but the soldiers hit her with rifle butts and she had to take the children and start walking.’ Then they had to walk for weeks through the desert with soldiers on both sides. Offered neither food nor water, they ate only plants and drank brackish water.

Near the end of the trek, Elia’s sister having already been abducted and his younger brother abandoned, he remembers his mother saying: ‘I think they’re going to kill us.’ She saw a Kurd passing by. So, she called out and told him, ‘Take this boy and go.’ The Kurd took Elia and the boy remembered, ‘At the top of the hill we turned around and saw the soldiers killing everyone.’

Today we remember.

What does it mean for you to be a Christian? Is it simply to tick a box in a census form? Or is it to have your life radically transformed by the life of God? Inspired by all those who’ve gone before us, I pray it may be the latter. May we follow in the steps of Christ, standing tall for what we believe is true, living lives of compassion and hope, seeking to forgive those who harm us, reaching out to the poor and persecuted, for there has to be a better way!

Today we remember. Let us not forget.

A sermon preached at St Alban’s on Sunday April 27 2008
(Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21)

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