This Resurrection Sunday, President and CEO of Open Doors USA David Curry tells Christians around the world that amid joyous celebration, to also "be mindful of those facing persecution for their faith."
Curry told Faithwire (FW) that "believers in the U.S. and other Western countries have a responsibility to speak out about violence against Christians."
"We speak out for people who have no voice. We pray for them. ... This unity of spirit at Easter is incredibly important," urged Curry while pointing out that many Christians are in dangerous places.
"It's one of the things Jesus prayed, obviously, as He left: 'Let them be united as one.' And that is a big idea, because, so often, we're divided. We have all kinds of disagreements to discuss and argue about that separate us, but the death, the life, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the unity of the church," he added.
Further explaining how "the enemy always tries to isolate (Christians)" so he could sow thoughts in their minds that they're alone in their sufferings and that they've been neglected, Curry emphasized the relevance of remembering the persecuted.
"People who believe in the Easter story, those are our brothers and sisters, and we need to stand together," he said.
Curry also noted that in his visits to places where believers are persecuted, they do not ask to be prayed "for" but rather to be prayed "with."
"They want us to be part of the same family. It's so important to people, everywhere I go around the world, that they have a sense that they're not forgotten," he reasoned.
The Open Doors leader also argue that it's not unreasonable to hold countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia -where extremists boldly attack - accountable whenever they fail to protect Christians' humanitarian rights.
"Because there's not so many churches in these countries that they can't protect them," he said.
"We need to speak out so that Christian churches and all sacred places where people worship should be places that are protected by civil government," stated Curry with conviction.
On Monday, a report states that Sri Lanka's Catholic church demanded justice over the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings that killed 258 people, including 11 Indians. Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, also called for the arrest of government officials who ignored prior intelligence about the attack.
"It is absolutely necessary to prosecute, without hesitation, all those political leaders and officials - irrespective of the positions they held - for their failure to prevent the attack," he said. "If I knew about the intelligence information, I would have enforced a curfew, protected the churches and taken appropriate action to arrest them and prevent the attacks."
FW admits that many Christians in the West could not fully grasp the severity of persecution that other believers are experiencing in different parts of the world. Although churches in the U.S. are starting to feel "a rising sense of intolerance," Curry believes that it's nothing near to what others have to go through.
"We should take the uncomfortable things we see within our context and expand our minds to understand there are some people for whom owning a Bible is a death sentence, for whom going to church means you may lose your job.... Yet, they've counted the cost of their faith, and they're still doing it and it's a strong church, it's a joyful church. There's lessons we should learn from them," professed Curry.
