Faith on Trial 

The Persecution of Belief in a Silent World

Introduction

In every generation, truth comes to court.  Sometimes literally.  In Finland, a medical doctor, parliamentarian, and grandmother of seven found herself standing trial not for incitement, corruption or violence, but simply for quoting Scripture.  Päivi Räsänen, a member of the Finnish Parliament and former Minister of the Interior, was charged with “hate speech” for publicly affirming biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality.

Her case, while unfolding in a democratic nation, exposes a growing tension in the Western world: the conflict between freedom of belief and the modern creed of expressive individualism.  The question beneath the legal and cultural noise is ancient, will we allow God’s Word to define truth, or will truth be defined by shifting human consensus?

Yet the plight of Räsänen is only one facet of a larger global story; one of escalating persecution, silenced voices, and moral inconsistency.  While the world readily rallies around certain causes, it often looks away from the quiet martyrdom of Christian faith communities, from Nigerian villages burned by jihadists, to underground churches in China, to displaced Christian and Druze families in Syria.

Why is the world so selective in its compassion?  Why does suffering faith so rarely make headlines?

While the world readily rallies around certain causes, it often looks away from the quiet martyrdom of Christian faith communities.

To answer these questions, we must see persecution not merely as politics or prejudice, but as a cosmic conflict over sacred space and allegiance, the same pattern that has run from Eden to Calvary and will continue until Christ returns.

Truth on Trial: The Case of Päivi Räsänen

In 2019, Päivi Räsänen posted a tweet quoting Romans 1:24-27, questioning why her church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, was sponsoring a Pride event.  She followed this with a small booklet she had written nearly two decades earlier on biblical anthropology.  For these actions, she was charged under Finland’s hate speech laws. Though acquitted twice, most recently in 2024, the fact that she stood trial at all reveals a seismic shift in Western societies. Yet, in the seventh year of her “hate speech” case, Ms Räsänen again faced Finland’s Supreme Court last week.

Räsänen’s calm and respectful defence of Scripture was not an act of hostility but of conviction.  “If expressing my religious beliefs is considered criminal,” she said in court, “then I am prepared to defend them whatever the consequences.”

Her trial recalls Jesus’ own words: “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18).  It also echoes Isaiah’s prophecy: “Truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14).

In an age that celebrates diversity, biblical conviction increasingly stands alone.

Räsänen’s courage invites us to ask: has Western culture, the historic cradle of religious liberty, forgotten the sanctity of conscience?  In an age that celebrates diversity, biblical conviction increasingly stands alone.  Yet her story also calls the global Church to solidarity, to remember that persecution, whether overt or subtle, is one continuum of spiritual opposition to truth.

The Geography of Suffering: Persecution Across the Earth

Every January, Open Doors International releases its World Watch List, documenting the fifty nations where Christians face the most severe persecution.  The 2024 report estimated that over 365 million Christians, one in seven believers worldwide, live under high or extreme levels of hostility.

Nigeria: The Valley of Blood and Faith

Nigeria ranks among the most lethal places in the world to be a Christian.  According to Open Doors, more believers are killed for their faith in Nigeria than in all other countries combined.  Islamist militias such as Boko Haram and Fulani extremists have burned villages, abducted pastors, and displaced tens of thousands.  The violence is not random; it is targeted at the Christian identity of entire communities.

The violence is not random; it is targeted at the Christian identity of entire communities.

It is primarily because the attacks continue relentlessly, and the fact that the Nigerian government has failed to stop the Islamist attacks on Christians, and the fact that the rest of the world hardly seems to care, that Donald Trump has threatened military intervention in Nigeria, warning that the US may enter the country “guns-a-blazing” and halt all aid.

The Nigerian Church remains resilient and prayerful.  For many, the words of Psalm 91: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty,” become a daily confession, not just a metaphor.

Other Frontiers of Faith

On the other side of the word, across North Korea, believers risk execution or lifelong imprisonment simply for the ‘crime’ of possessing a Bible. In Eritrea, hundreds languish in shipping containers for attending underground churches.  In Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, conversion to Christianity is tantamount to treason.

Even in regions of the Middle East where Christianity once flourished - Syria, Iraq, Egypt - communities are shrinking under the twin pressures of war and extremism.  The Druze and Yazidi minorities, too, have faced persecution and displacement, their villages emptied by cycles of violence.

 In Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, conversion to Christianity is tantamount to treason.

And in China, the Uyghur Muslims suffer one of the gravest human rights crises of our time, mass detentions, forced labour, and suppression of religious practice.  Their suffering, though outside the Christian fold, shares the same underlying logic: the repression of conscience and the fear of faith.

In each case, persecution seeks to erase sacred space, to silence witness and break allegiance to a transcendent truth.

The Cosmic Dimension of Persecution

Dr Michael Heiser’s concept of cosmic geography sees persecution, not just as a sociopolitical tragedy but as a theological battleground.  While the whole issue of ‘territorial spirits’ has long been much debated in Christian circles, Heiser believed that the earth is divided into territories, places claimed by spiritual powers opposed to YHWH’s rule. Persecution is the clash between the kingdom of God and the dominion of darkness (מַלְכוּת הַחֹשֶׁךְ / malkhut ha-choshekh).

Psalm 2 would seem to portrays this: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against YHWH and against His Anointed.”  In this light, the rebellion of nations is not merely political, it is spiritual defiance, and wherever believers confess Jesus is Lord, that territory becomes contested space.

revival and persecution are often outworked hand-in-hand ...

This is why revival and persecution are often outworked hand-in-hand, and why truth-telling provokes outrage. To declare that Christ is King is to proclaim an alternative sovereignty.

This concept is especially prominent in Islamic thought, developed from the earliest days of Islam, with the notion of the world being divided into of Dar al-Islam (territory of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (territory of war), the latter being areas not subject to Islamic rule, or areas which formerly were Islamic and are no longer. Interpretations of this vary, and it is not stated explicitly in the Qu'ran, but it is a concept intrinsically linked with Islamism and jihad. 

Just as in Eden, where the serpent opposed humanity’s vocation as God’s image-bearers, persecution today targets the same reality, image-bearing, truth-speaking humanity.  Yet just as in Eden, God’s plan to reclaim His world cannot be stopped.

Silence and Selective Outrage

The question that haunts global observers is not only why persecution occurs, but why the world remains largely indifferent.  News cycles and international outrage often ignite around conflicts with political or ideological appeal, while quieter, chronic persecution of faith communities draws scant attention.

In contrast to the rapid global mobilisation around certain geopolitical crises, the systematic destruction of Christian villages in Nigeria or the imprisonment of pastors in North Korea rarely sparks major protest.

We must recover the prophetic vocation, to name injustice, to defend the persecuted, to pray for enemies, and to bear witness even when the world looks away.

Part of this silence may be spiritual: the world resists confronting evil when it unmasks its own idols.  Jesus said, “Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

Part of it is also moral fatigue, compassion shaped by media visibility rather than intrinsic worth.  But silence itself becomes complicity.  As Proverbs 31:8 commands, “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

The Church cannot rely on worldly institutions to speak for it.  We must recover the prophetic vocation, to name injustice, to defend the persecuted, to pray for enemies, and to bear witness even when the world looks away.

The Theology of Suffering and Witness

From the prophets to the apostles, Scripture presents suffering not as divine absence but divine fellowship.  Paul writes, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

The Greek term martyria (μαρτυρία) means both “witness” and “martyrdom.”  In biblical theology, the testimony of suffering saints extends the presence of Christ into hostile spaces. Their faith keeps sacred space alive where darkness seeks dominion.

From the prophets to the apostles, Scripture presents suffering not as divine absence but divine fellowship.

Heiser’s “imager” theology helps us frame this: believers are living representations of God’s authority in contested territory.  Each act of courage by a persecuted believer redraws the spiritual map, proclaiming that no land or law can silence the reign of Christ.

In this sense, Räsänen’s courtroom, a Nigerian village church, and a Chinese detention camp are spiritually connected; each one a frontline in the cosmic geography of witness.

The Eschatological Hope: When the Silent Are Heard

Revelation’s vision gives ultimate context to persecution.  John sees “the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God” crying out from under the altar (Revelation 6:9). Their plea, “How long, O Lord?”, echoes through every century of suffering.

But Revelation does not end with silence.  The martyrs’ cry is answered by the Lamb who conquers, not through vengeance, but through resurrection.  Their blood becomes seed, their witness song.

At the end of the age, “the dwelling place of God is with man” (Revelation 21:3).  The geography of persecution becomes the geography of peace.  The nations that once raged will walk in the light of the Lamb (Revelation 21:24).

The stories of the persecuted are not simply to be admired but to be joined. 

On that day, no believer will be forgotten, not the pastor in Eritrea, not the mother in Nigeria, not the parliamentarian in Finland.  The Judge of all the earth will do right.

Life Application: The Call to Courage and Compassion

The stories of the persecuted are not simply to be admired but to be joined.  Hebrews 13:3 commands, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them.”

Practically, that means prayer, advocacy, and solidarity.  Churches in freedom must be voices for those without one.  As Jesus taught, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

It also calls us to personal courage.  Western believers may not face imprisonment, but we are called to faithfulness in the public square, to speak truth with grace, as Räsänen did, knowing that love and truth are never enemies.

Persecution, whether in the wilderness or the courtroom, is a summons to courage and compassion, the twin signs of Christ’s kingdom breaking in.

Every prayer, every act of courage, every tear shed in faith, extends the borders of the coming kingdom.

Conclusion

From the deserts of Nigeria to the courts of Europe, from the camps of Xinjiang to the ruins of Syrian villages, the story is the same: the world resists the reign of Christ, yet the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).

The persecution of believers, though grievous, is not defeat but participation in the cross-shaped geography of redemption.  Every prayer, every act of courage, every tear shed in faith, extends the borders of the coming kingdom.

One day, the silence will break.  Every hidden suffering will be heard.  Every persecuted saint will stand vindicated in the presence of the Lamb.

Until then, may we, like Päivi Räsänen, stand firm, gentle yet unyielding, as witnesses to the truth that sets the world free.