Western Christians Love to “Speak Up.” Suffering Churches Sometimes Need Something Harder.
Christianity Today interviews the daughter of an imprisoned Chinese pastor — and challenges Western advocacy to become more humble, more patient, and more teachable.
Christianity Today’s May 20 interview “Why China’s Persecuted Christians View Western Advocates with Skepticism” offers one of the more uncomfortable but necessary correctives Western believers will hear this month.
Western Christians often imagine solidarity in activist terms: speak louder, raise awareness, pressure governments, organize campaigns, amplify names, move quickly.
But the global church can reveal another kind of wisdom: suffering sometimes creates a theology of patience, hiddenness, and endurance that feels alien to modern Western reflexes.
That may be the harder love. And likely the more faithful one.
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3 Takeaways
- Concern for persecuted Christians is not enough by itself. It must be shaped by careful listening.
- Western activism can mistake speed and visibility for wisdom.
- A truly global Christianity requires humility, not just awareness. Suffering believers are not symbols; they are teachers too.
Bottom line: Western Christians often want to “speak up” for the persecuted church. Sometimes that is necessary. But solidarity becomes far more faithful when it begins with listening rather than assumption.
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