When Open Doors USA CEO and President David Curry was 17 years old, his mother gave him a copy of God’s Smuggler. The story of how Brother Andrew van der Bilj smuggled Bibles into the Soviet Union, and Curry’s own ministry in Peru where he personally experienced persecution at the hands of Shining Path, began to shape his desire to walk alongside those around the world who suffer for their faith.
I had the chance to interview Curry at the recent International Religious Freedom Summit 2021 in Washington, D.C.
Asked about the impact he believes Open Doors to have, Curry noted that participants in the IRF Summit fundamentally seek for people to have the “right to read the books they want to read and decide what they think about them. And if they want to have a faith, to have the freedom to choose a faith or to have no faith at all.” Yet, while it may seem too basic a goal for those in Washington D.C., for many places around the world that is not the case.
“You’re born into a faith, you’re stuck there, even if you don’t agree with it or don’t like it,” Curry stated.
The International Religious Freedom advocate sees these as warning signs of troubles that exist and have yet to come. What Curry believes makes Open Doors unique are teams on the ground, partnering with local churches and helping them build networks to support and offer the resources and training needed to help strengthen the local church.
Curry explains that the goal is not to lift up Open Doors, but to “lift up the church, whatever local manifestation of that that’s teaching the gospel, and be a mechanism to help serve the church.”
Teams are not always welcome or even face hostility, but Open Doors has decided that the animosity is worth their act of faithfulness to what they are called to do: to be present in support of the local church.
Across the past year, the landscape of religious freedom has continued to fluctuate. India is an example of a region that puzzles Curry. As the world’s largest democracy, the recent and sharp rise in attacks on Christian homes is contrary to the historic values of modern India’s founding and Mahatma Gandhi’s ethics of peaceful coexistence. Curry sees this as an arena of advocacy Americans can be involved in, since India is seen as a natural U.S. partner, not controlled by a rogue regime, but instead a nation with the potential to change for the better.
China is also concerning, especially with its technological reach enabling it to harass Christians not only within its borders but also around the world. This long-term threat means activities like watching church online and social media are monitored by Chinese authorities.
Positively, improvement has been seen in places like Bahrain in the last 5-10 years and there is hope that they will be an example to other states in the Persian Gulf region and beyond. Ultimately though, Curry reminds us that “no matter whether there is strong persecution or grave danger, the church of Jesus Christ exists in North Korea, it exists in India, everywhere. Faith carries on. Jesus does well everywhere His name is lifted up” and that is the focus that they hope to keep front and center.
As churches in the United States hope to support churches abroad that face persecution, Curry calls upon the church to take action and to wake up to the state of religious freedom overseas. The Open Doors USA CEO hopes that pastors here would teach and pray, lifting up in prayer and mentioning the persecuted church, every Sunday.
“If God stirs their heart, [the next step] would be to find projects — whether its Open Doors or elsewhere — where you can practically help support the persecuted church, because they need things that we have, resources we have: training, practical things like supplies and masks and all these kinds of things that the church here in the West can provide,” Curry stated. In return, the church in the West “needs to learn the lessons of the persecuted church, because it’s a strong church. They’ve counted the cost.”
Asked specifically about the plight of India’s Muslims, Curry is confident that “Christians everywhere should advocate for religious freedom, full stop. For everybody.” As a faith community that does not believe in forcing people into religious belief, Christians recognize that what makes you Christian is a “personal, internal relationship with Jesus.” And that means “we don’t have to limit our perspective to ‘we get freedom and others do not.’ And we also have to challenge the idea that exists in much of the Muslim world that wants to force conversion of Christians. That’s not right.” But we as Christians should speak out for the religious freedom of all people, to think what they want to think, read the texts they want to read and decide for themselves, their faith.
As Christians here and elsewhere seek to lift up the persecuted church, what better way to do that than to pray the same prayers? Curry shares that those experiencing persecution ask that we pray with them because they are people of prayer. They pray that God would touch the hearts of the leaders of their country, they pray for safety and strength to the church, that they have access to the Bible, Scripture, that they have the ability to meet together even if in small numbers…” And finally, Curry prays for freedom: that people would be free, have access to scripture, and be able to meet in community. For if the goal is to lift up the name of Jesus, then we must work towards making that as easy and meaningful a task as possible, for as many as possible.
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