Be an Esther or a Mordecai

Asif Mall, who works to stop the persecution of Christians worldwide, received a frantic call in 2011 from someone informing him that a group of extremist Muslims planned to go on a rampage the next day after Friday prayers.

The people were angry because they had been told that a Christian in their community in Pakistan had blasphemed Islam.

“I learned they were going to march and would likely murder Christians in retribution for the blasphemy, which was a lie. It hadn’t happened,” Mall told a group who gathered in the Grand Rapids, Mich., office of the Christian Reformed Church in North America to hear him talk about the persecution of Christians.

“I called up a few members of Parliament that I knew and others to see if they could intervene,” said Mall, who lives in the United Kingdom.

“The British Parliament was able to engage, and pressure was mounted on officials in Pakistan before the attack. The police got involved and arrested more than 200 people and put them in jail.”

Mall is the head of International Strategic Operations for Release International, a U.K.-based Christian organization that serves persecuted Christians around the world.

His responsibility involves oversight of Release International’s work in a number of countries worldwide; he also lobbies on behalf of persecuted Christians in the European Union, at the United Nations, and with many governments.

“So often, groups have gotten involved after persecution takes place. They go in and provide aid to widows and set up orphanages,” said Mall.

“But no amount of aid or money can bring back loved ones who are gone. What we try to do is, as we did that time in Pakistan, to preempt persecution.”

He and his group do this mainly behind the scenes by establishing relationships with people who have influence in countries where persecution occurs.

One strategy, said Mall, includes working with Christian business associations in persecution hotspots, linking Christian businesses in those hotspots with Christian businesses in the U.S. and Europe, seeking to build economic sustainability in persecuted communities and making them better able to withstand persecution.

Mall also chairs the Pakistan Minorities Rights Organization, a U.K.-based advocacy and lobbying group dedicated to speaking out on behalf of the voiceless and persecuted religious minorities of Pakistan, especially Christians.

“The group is helping develop a support network of concerned individuals, churches, and organizations in the free world who are interested in supporting the persecuted Christians in Pakistan,” said Mall.

Mall’s presentation was sponsored by the CRC’s Office of Social Justice, which Synod 2015 instructed to provide educational opportunities to churches and others about the ongoing worldwide persecution of Christians, said Shannon Jammal-Hollemans, who works for OSJ and introduced Mall before he spoke.

As part of her introduction, she said she and two other CRC representatives attended a Christian Churches Together forum on the persecuted church in early March. .

Afterward they wrote a report discussing what they learned about such tragedies as the war in Syria, in which thousands of Christians have been killed or have fled the country. They also learned of persecution by the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, and of the persecution of Christians by nationalist Hindus in India.

In his talk Mall touched on these countries and others, painting a sobering picture of how Christians are faring.

“In Sri Lanka, the Buddhist majority is killing and displacing Christians,” he said. “The Islamic State is doing this in Iraq. And the worst of all is the totalitarian regime in North Korea.”

But these places there also is hope. In these countries organizations such as his are working with Christians willing to stand up and, where possible, let others in the world know what is going on, especially before persecution takes place, said Mall.

“We want to develop and encourage Christians who live in these places to help abolish or minimize persecution or even help to stop it before it takes place,” he said.

But even with the help of people on the ground and with lobbying efforts, real change won’t come without the intervention and grace of God.

Mall suggests that people both inside and outside these countries follow the examples of Mordecai and Esther in the Bible, who stood up and put their lives on the line to keep Haman, the second in command under King Xerxes of Persia, from slaughtering the Jews.

“God intervened through them,” Mall said.

Mall pointed to the case of the community in Pakistan in 2011 for which he and others were able to alert officials, who in turn mobilized and put a stop to the murderous march planned by extremists.

And even more than having the marchers jailed, in this case the decision makers were urged to have the imprisoned perpetrators sign affidavits admitting their guilt over what they had planned to do. Mall and the others also pressed the man who had made the original complaint of blasphemy to admit it was a lie and withdraw it.

“Not a single Christian was hurt in that situation,” said Mall. “The Lord is still being worshiped and honored, and the people in that community are safe because a group of us decided to be Mordecais and Esthers.”