Secret Believers

Nowhere else in the world is it harder to be a Christian today than in the Islamic world, where converts from Islam face an automatic death sentence, and all believers face random and often ruthless persecution while the authorities look the other way. Now “Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ” lays bare the whole story of the harsh realities that Christians, and those who want to follow Christ, must deal with every day in Muslim countries – and tells the thrilling story of the Christians who meet these challenges with indomitable faith and breathtaking courage.

Brother Andrew, the fearless missionary and author of the international bestseller God’s Smuggler, and coauthor Al Janssen tell the amazing stories of Muslims who encounter Christ and determine to become Christians, despite ostracism and death threats, and of Christians struggling to become mature in their faith in the midst of a hostile and increasingly violent Muslim society. Brother Andrew and Janssen, who both work with Open Doors International (an organization dedicated to strengthening the persecuted church), introduce you to Christian missionaries who risk torture and death every day by bearing witness to Christ among Muslims. They recount the interactions of all these people with convinced Muslim believers, converts from Christianity to Islam, and even members of the jihad terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. The stories in Secret Believers are all true, although the names have been changed to protect the lives of these intrepid believers.

Amid all these accounts of awe-inspiring Christian heroism, Brother Andrew and Janssen explore forthrightly the question of why Christian communities in the Islamic world remain so small and weak, and how Christians can bear witness to the truth of Jesus Christ to Muslims most effectively. Issuing a stirring challenge to Western Christians to change their hearts and actions towards Muslims, Brother Andrew and Janssen reveal a daring new plan for more successfully engaging Muslims, and even call for a “new jihad” – of a very different kind from the one Islamic jihadists envision!

With implications for everything from political policy to personal prayer, Secret Believers is an inspiration and a challenge for Christians – and a guide to how to support their embattled brethren in the Islamic world.

Enter the world of the Secret Believers:

• Why it’s dangerous for Christians in Muslim countries to reach out to Muslims – and more dangerous if they don’t
• Why, in the words of one Middle Eastern Christian, “an effective church is the biggest threat to Islam”
• “The Christians have no rights. What can they do?” How governments in Islamic countries frequently treat Christians as second-class citizens
• “In our culture when someone hits us, we hit him twice. But Jesus says if someone slaps you, you turn the other cheek” – and other striking testimonies of converts from Islam to Christianity
• “This is what happens to apostates. Allah will reward us for wiping you off the face of the earth”: the awful sufferings of Muslim converts to Christianity
• The member of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood organization who experienced a mystical encounter with Jesus Christ
• “We stole from the Christians – we didn’t call it stealing but jihad”: how Christians in the Islamic world face not only hostile officials, but dangerous armed thugs eager to prey on them
• How Christians suffer daily persecution even in officially secular Muslim countries, which trample upon their commitment to the United Nations charter guaranteeing freedom of religion
• How officials in Muslim countries sometimes delay for years in granting Christians permits to build new churches or repair old ones – while new mosques are built right next to churches, with loudspeakers pointed right at the church
• The Muslim official who admitted: “Christians make the best citizens”, but still termed Christian commitment in the Islamic world “treason”
• “Tell me where you cannot go as a Christian, and I will tell you how you can get in”: the astounding courage of Christian missionaries in the Middle East
• How suffering Christians in the Islamic world have felt strengthened and emboldened by the prayers of the faithful elsewhere in the world
• How Christians can bear witness to Christ among Muslims despite the increasingly un-Christian messages of Western popular culture
• Why Christian witness in the Islamic world is more imperiled today than ever
• A letter from Afghan Christians to President Bush, asking him to help ease the grip of Islamic law that legitimizes the persecution of Christians in Afghanistan

Tags: Al Janssen, Secret Believers