No sooner had Jesus died and rose again than His followers set out to preach the Word of God to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, these first Christians suffered persecution at the hands of the Jews and the Roman Empire, and risked imprisonment or death if caught. As the centuries passed, however, the Roman Empire fell, and Christianity grew to become the leading religion in the Western world. Today, Western countries like the United States have high demographics of people who practice a form of Christianity—typically Roman Catholicism or Protestantism—and have laws in place to protect these people from persecution. Additionally, with innovations in communication, like the Internet, communicating the Gospel to people all over the world has never been easier.
In other countries, however, persecution of Christians has continued at an alarming rate, which may or may not be sanctioned by those countries’ respective governments. This is especially obvious in communist states such as China and North Korea and predominantly Islamic countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. In cases like these, Christian missionaries have to rely on alternative means of evangelism, in the form of creative-access missions.
Creative-access missions are designed to communicate the Gospel to people in countries such as the ones described above, where access by traditional missionaries is impractical or even dangerous. Common methods of missionaries using creative-access missions include working in nonprofit organizations as well as for-profit businesses—either through being employed by an existing company that works internationally or by establishing their own companies that serve as a platform for spreading the Gospel. The latter of these two methods is known as Business as Mission.
A prime target for creative-access missions is none other than the most populated country in the world, China. With over 1.4 billion people living within its borders, the possibilities of doing mission work in China are potentially endless. Unfortunately, however, China has been governed by the Communist Party since 1949, and is one of only five remaining communist countries in the world. Like the governments of other communist countries such as the since-dissolved Soviet Union, the officially atheist Chinese government has persecuted Christians due to their beliefs being contrary to those of the Communist Party’s ideology.
Still, repression by government authorities has not stopped China’s Christian population—estimated to be made up of around one hundred million people—from practicing their faith. Across the country, numerous “underground churches” have been established that allow Chinese Christians to assemble to worship free from the government’s influence. These services generally take place in “off-hour bars, storefronts, rented homes and apartments”; however, these meetings are illegal under Chinese law, which states that all religious institutions must be registered by the government (Parker). Today, access to China by foreigners is easier today than it was decades ago, prior to the U.S.’s normalizing its relations with China in 1979; and the government’s tolerance of capitalism and foreign businesses may allow missionaries using Business as Mission methods to reach out to these underground churches and help them to preach the Gospel to the country’s diverse population.
While access to China is relatively easy to foreigners, the same cannot be said for its neighbor, North Korea. Itself led by a communist dictatorship, North Korea harshly punishes any of its citizens it views as disloyal to the government—including Christians. Such people are either executed or sentenced to hard labor in prison camps, where starvation and torture run rampant. Additionally, as of September 1, 2017, the U.S. Department of State has barred American citizens from traveling to North Korea (Ripley). This, combined with the fact that North Korea has a history of detaining missionaries, makes traditional mission work impossible and even creative-access mission work very challenging.
Communist states like China and North Korea are not the only countries in the world that place restrictions on people from practicing Christianity. Several countries—particularly those in the Middle East and northern Africa—are home to a majority of Muslims, and have incorporated Islamic law, also known as sharia law, into their legal systems. While the extent to which Christianity is either tolerated or persecuted varies from country to country, one of the worst of these offenders is arguably Saudi Arabia. Headed by a monarchy whose beliefs are firmly rooted in Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia has very little respect for religious freedom; publicly practicing any religion other than Islam is illegal, and even Shia and other Muslims who do not adhere to the country’s interpretation of Islam have faced severe discrimination (“2013 Report on International Religious Freedom”)
Despite these lack of freedoms, Saudi Arabia is a close military and economic ally of the United States, making creative-access missions possible in the country as well as many of its close neighbors. One major exception to this rule is Iran, another country with a large Muslim population. Iran differs significantly from Saudi Arabia in that its belief system is based on Shia Islam and is considered a theocratic Islamic Republic, and has been hostile to the U.S. and other Western countries since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. In fact, Iran and Saudi Arabia have often been at religious, political, and economic odds with each other, often going as far as supporting rival military groups against each other in the ongoing Syrian and Yemeni conflicts. However, Iran is little different from Saudi Arabia in that its government also harshly persecutes Christianity.
In Iran, Christianity is considered to be a Western influence and a threat to the country’s Islamic identity. Among those persecuted the most are converts from Islam to Christianity and Protestant communities involved in evangelizing Muslims, and even historical communities of Armenian and Assyrian Christians who are supposed to be protected by law are still treated like second-class citizens. Typical consequences for those involved in evangelism include arrest and violence (“About Iran”). For these reasons, any missionaries looking to do mission work in Iran, as with Saudi Arabia, should use creative-access methods. Iran’s rejection of American influence adds yet another major obstacle to mission work—with no formal relations being established between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic, American missionaries may be forced to rely on alternative means to spread the Gospel to the Iranian people.
Even to this day, persecution of Christians is alive and well all over the world. In particular, Christians in countries like China, North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia suffer repression for their beliefs, and it is difficult to evangelize citizens of these countries through traditional means. However, thanks to creative-access missions, it can still be done.