The recent Lausanne Congress 4 in Incheon, South Korea, provided a significant platform to address contemporary challenges to Christian mission, including the pressing issue of persecution. However, as a convert from a Muslim-majority country where persecution is a lived reality, my participation in the Congress revealed the theological and missiological limitations in how the Lausanne movement, and much of the evangelical world, understands and engages with persecution. This reflection critiques the Congress’s approach to persecution and offers an alternative theological vision that emphasizes the sacred and communal dimensions of suffering within the Church.
Lausanne and persecution: a narrow focus
One of the more concerning aspects of Lausanne 4 was its reduction of persecution to an emotional appeal, primarily linked to evangelism and/or the victimization of Christians. While the Congress certainly aimed to address persecution, the discussions often fell into a familiar framework—portraying persecuted Christians as either victims or tools for evangelism and church growth. This framing not only risks commodifying persecution but also neglects the sacred, communal nature of suffering in Christian theology.
I have observed a disturbing tendency to commercialize the suffering of Christians.
Having lived through persecution myself, I have observed a disturbing tendency to commercialize the suffering of Christians, particularly converts, by turning their experiences into narratives designed to garner support, promoting church growth or demonize Muslim-majority countries. This was evident in some of the stories shared at Lausanne, where persecution became a platform for boosting evangelism or church growth, mobilizing sympathy through evangelistic narratives that portrayed the enemy as being “defeated” by making "them" “one of us.” The problem with this approach is that it reduces persecution to an evangelistic marketing tool, encouraging converts or persecuted individuals to frame their stories in such terms, rather than recognizing it as a sacred participation in the suffering of Christ.
Persecution, in its essence, is sacred because it links directly to Christ’s own suffering on the Cross. It is through the Cross that Christians are called to bear witness to the world. As St. Gregory the Great highlighted, martyrdom is not simply about individual suffering but a communal act of witness involving the entire body of believers. The sacredness of persecution is also rooted in its connection to the Eucharist—the body and blood of Christ—where the suffering of the faithful is united with the suffering of Christ for the redemption of the world.
The Church as the heart of persecution
It was the Church, not just I, who suffered.
This is one of the key theological insights that was overlooked at Lausanne 4, that persecution is not an individual experience, even though it may be experienced individually. When I reflect on my own story of persecution, I cannot see it as “my” story. I see it as the story of the Church. It was the Church, not just I, who suffered. When I was imprisoned and mistreated, it was the Church that sustained me and paid the ultimate price. Many of her members were arrested, and eventually, our church was shut down, losing many of its members to migration or to the world. As I see it then, the pain of the Church was much greater than my own. This communal dimension, which also involves the Holy Spirit, is central to understanding the true nature of persecution.
Whenever people ask me to share my story, they want to hear about my individual experience, as though persecution were an isolated event in my life. Now, I live a fairly comfortable life in the West, yet my church is still struggling. With persecution being a communal experience any theological reflection on the subject must acknowledge this. The Church, like Christ, bears the Cross together. It is in this solidarity that the Holy Spirit moves, binding the persecuted individual and their faith community in a sacred unity that empowers the Church to give birth to new lights that shine with the resurrected Christ.
The missiological crisis: from witness to commodity
Another theological concern with Lausanne’s (and the Evangelical church in general's) approach to persecution was its failure to engage with the broader missiological implications of suffering. Because the Congress largely viewed persecution through the lens of evangelism, treating it as a means to an end—the conversion of “the other”, it missed the sacred nature of persecution as a witness to the faith and to the call of “let there be light”. This is more than just an opportunity for evangelism. A great example of such enduring witness is the Coptic Church in Egypt.
In regions like Iran, where Christianity is growing, often in response to political disillusionment, the Church faces complex challenges. How will the Church sustain and support these converts once their faith is no longer defined by opposition to a hostile regime, but by the need for community-building and theological formation? Lausanne missed the opportunity to address such critical missiological questions, focusing instead on persecution as a story to be told, rather than a reality to be lived and responded to holistically.
It is imperative that persecution is understood as a sacred witness.
It is imperative that persecution is understood as a sacred witness, not merely a tool for evangelism or a narrative for raising support. The Church’s response to persecution should not be driven by emotional appeals or abstract theological concepts, but by a deep, incarnational solidarity with those who suffer. Again, this solidarity is not just with individuals but with the Church—the body of Christ—that endures persecution as a collective witness to the world.
Theological failure and the need for a holistic response
Lausanne’s failure to engage with the deeper theological dimensions of persecution reflects a broader crisis in evangelical theology, which often prioritizes evangelism over deeper theological reflection. This was evident in the organizational and theological tensions that surfaced during the Congress, including the apology issued after Ruth Padilla’s talk. The Lausanne movement, once a platform for theological engagement and evangelical unity, seems to have shifted toward becoming an organization with its own preferred theology, one that struggles to engage meaningfully with the lived realities of persecuted Christians in non-Western contexts.
The experiences of persecuted Christians was reduced to binary dynamics of “persecuted” versus “persecutor.”
The Congress also revealed a troubling Western-centric bias in its approach to persecution. The experiences of persecuted Christians in the Majority World were often simplified, reduced to binary dynamics of “persecuted” versus “persecutor.” This narrow focus overlooks the broader, systemic factors that shape the experiences of marginalized Christians and the Church in these regions. It reduces persecution to an emotional appeal rather than a call to a transformative, missional response that integrates the lived realities of those facing persecution daily and the future of the Church.
A call for a sacred, communal vision of persecution
To move beyond this theological and missiological impasse, the Church must begin to see persecution as a sacred witness, not just as a problem to be solved or a story to be told. It is a participation in the suffering of Christ, which unites the Church across time and space, calling for a deeper response within the context. The Holy Spirit stands with the persecuted, not just as a Comforter, but as the one who empowers the Church to bear witness to the truth of the Gospel in the face of systemic oppression and violence, and to find solutions to ease the pain within the context.
The persecuted are not isolated individuals but active agents in the Church’s mission.
When we see persecution as not an individual experience but a communal reality that binds the Church together, we see a reflection of the Trinity uniting Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect communion. In this sense, the persecuted are not isolated individuals but active agents in the Church’s mission, bearing witness to the saving power of Christ through their suffering—“let there be light” (Genesis 1:3).
The Church’s response to persecution must be rooted in this sacred, communal vision. It must move beyond emotional appeals and the commodification of suffering toward a holistic, missional approach that recognizes the profound spiritual transformation persecution can bring. Only then will the Church be equipped to support and sustain persecuted Christians in regions like Iran and beyond, offering not just sympathy, but a deep solidarity and theological engagement with the realities of suffering, resilience, and hope.
In conclusion, persecution is sacred because it is a participation in the suffering of Christ. It is communal because it is the Church, not individuals, who bear this cross together. As the Church faces the challenges of persecution in the modern world, it must reclaim this sacred, communal vision, standing in solidarity with the persecuted and bearing witness to the hope of the Gospel.
Originally published on LinkedIn. Republished with permission.
Dr Sara Afshari is originally from Iran. She is a Research Tutor at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and the current Admissions Tutor. She received her PhD from Edinburgh University in Media Religion and Culture. She is co-founder and former Executive Director of SAT-7 PARS, a Christian television channel in Farsi/Persian language. She has MTh in World Christianity from Edinburgh University and an MA in Media Communication from Wales University. Her recent book is titled: "Religion, Media and Conversion in Iran: mediated Christianity in an Islamic Context". Sara also service on the Lausanne Global Analysis Advisory Board.
