Time to Stand with Asia Bibi and Mike Pence

  One of the blessings of my life was when I had the privilege of writing The Voice of the Martyrs Persecution Blog, when it was first being developed.  I wrote the blog for eight years, Monday through Friday, and posted three stories a day, fifteen stories a week and literally hundreds of blog posts a year.  I learned a lot during those years and the Lord opened my heart and eyes to see the suffering of the Christian church universal.

One of the stories that I covered was the unjust arrest and imprisonment of Asia Bibi.  Asia was arrested in June of 2009 and charged with blasphemy because she engaged in a religious discussion with some coworkers.  Asia was one of only a few Christians, working on the farm of a Muslim landowner and while she was at work, the Muslim women would often pressure Asia into recanting her faith in Jesus Christ.  Asia never caved to the pressure, but instead remained a bold witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.

During one intense discussion, Asia boldly proclaimed to her coworkers, “Our Christ sacrificed His life on the cross for our sins…Our Christ is alive.”  After this declaration, Asia’s life was put in more danger and she received a beating from some of the Muslim women and eventually she was arrested and taken into protective custody.  She was then  put on trial and ultimately sentenced to death by a judge.

Two people have also been assassinated for defending Asia.  The first man assassinated was Salmann Taseer, who was a Muslim who defended her, and then there was Shahbaz Bhatti who was a Christian member of Pakistan’s cabinet who was also assassinated.

In July of 2011, the Voice of the Martyrs launched a Call for Mercy petition campaign with the goal of raising awareness about Asia’s case and also gathering one million signatures.  Here it is 2015 and there are only a total of 692,624 signatures (as of the time of this writing) and the astounding thing and very troubling thing to me is that only 247,300 of them are from America.

I find the lack of interest in this case from Americans pathetic.  I truly do.  It’s been almost four years since this petition drive was launched and the goal of one million signatures isn’t even three quarters of the way to one million signatures, and yes, while the majority of signatures are from Americans, what really should shame Americans is that over 171,264 of the signatures on this petition are from those in Pakistan where they do not have the religious freedom we have here in America.

Now let’s contrast a current petition over on MoveOn.org that is trying to recall Mike Pence from Indiana, who recently has come under vicious attack for signing the new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), in Indiana, which opponents are mischaracterizing as a discrimination bill against homosexuals. As of the time of this writing there are 90,613 signatures to recall Pence, and the MoveOn petition has only been online a few days.

My point in contrasting these petitions is to show you that the enemies of religious freedom and Christianity, have no problem signing a petition and making their voices be heard.  I think it’s about time that real bible believing Christians made their voices heard.  No one in America is going to be murdered for signing a petition in support of Asia Bibi.  I think it’s time for Americans and especially American Christians, to step up and sign the Call for Mercy petition and demand that Pakistan set Asia free.  Our voices do matter and when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer.  We also need to call up Mike Pence’s office and tell them that we support him.  Call 317-232-4567 and thank Mike Pence for his leadership and defending religious freedom.

If we don’t speak now, we may not have a chance later.  It’s time to step up and I am calling on every pastor in this country to make Christian persecution a topic of your sermons and I am calling on all the pastors in this country where we still have religious freedom, to take a stand for the One who sacrificed His life on the cross, because Christ is alive!  What better week to stand with a living Christ, then the week we are remembering that awesome sacrifice for our sins.