I am on the mailing lists of several organizations who probably do not read this blog though they really should. Among them are the AFA and, most recently, a group called the Persecution Blog. I get emails from both of them and still other organizations about once a week. The Persecution Blog is managed by a very sincere-sounding person named Stacy Harp. A few weeks ago, Stacy emailed out this message:
Persecution Blog News
REVIEW IRAN DESPERATE FOR GOD FOR FREE ON YOUR BLOG
WE WILL SEND ANY OF YOU A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK, As and E-BOOK IN PDF FORM IF YOU WILL AGREE TO REVIEW THIS ON YOUR BLOG
Being the charitable and open-minded fellow I am, I took her up on the offer and requested my free copy. It arrived via email as a PDF attachment sometime last week. The “book” is 152 pages long and divided into chapters based on the conversion or evangelical efforts of certain Iranians within their country. The first chapter tells of a 6 year old boy who is converted based upon television shows being broadcast in Iran by Christian ministries. Another story details a kindly old Iranian Christian who was imprisoned by “plain-clothed police” and only freed after his relatives begged the judge with a payoff. Still another is the apparently remarkable conversion of a life-long Muslim man who had been living a life of iniquity while waiting for the prophesied Islamic messiah, the Madhi.
There are two points about the entire book which stood out to me in reading it. The first is that all the stories sound very much like what we might have read concerning Christians in East Berlin or Russia during the Cold War. Substitute the Soviet Union for Iran and atheistic communism for Islam and the stories still work just fine.
The second trend is how all the stories of conversion and astounding faith have a common thread of involving evangelical resources provided by the Voice of the Martyrs, which just so happens to also be the parent company of the book’s publisher. This raises the question of a vested cash interest in not only the money raised from the sale of the book, but also from the numerous “ways you can help” listed in the final pages. It is in the best interests of the Voice of the Martyrs if you, being a charitable and kind person, believe those stories are true and that VoM is intrinsically tied to continued efforts at evangelism.
I decided to call up the book’s publisher for a little more information on this and other subjects I had questions about. To be fair, at the time I called I had not paid attention to the fact each story’s author is listed in what appears to be their own signatures below the respective titles. This fact becomes important a little later.
The VoM and Living Sacrifice book company appear to share the same toll-free number out of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. After getting past the receptionist who had a voice so kind she simply must be someone’s perfect grandmother, I spoke to Vic. The first questions I had were about the book’s authors and how they compiled the information. Vic told me he hadn’t read it yet and I could hear rustling of papers and opening drawers as he looked for a copy. After a few minutes of this, he put me on hold so he could track down a copy.
When he came back to the line, Vic told me he was going to transfer me to someone who might be able to help a little more than he was able to at that time. This brought me to Alan, who hadn’t read the book either but seemed to know a little more about it. Alan was very nice as he tried his best to get answers to my questions of who wrote the stories and where those stories came from. He politely placed me on hold once more to track that information down.
While on hold, both with Vic and with Alan, I paid attention to the looping messages of their in-house hold system. An urgent voice informed me that 5000 Sudanese Christians were placed in concentration camps by Muslim militia under the threat of “give up Jesus or die”. It seemed odd to me that the Muslim government of Sudan would be paying attention to that alleged number of Christians when they have their hands full with ethnically cleansing the country. However, holocausts are always good wagons to ride if you feel so persecuted that your website domain is literally www.persecuted.com.
Alan came back on the line, happy to report a little more information. He didn’t know all the names of the authors (again, remember they appear below the titles to each story) but he could say with confidence that at least one of them was by Tom White, the executive director for VoM who, he was quick to point out, was actually imprisoned in Iran in 1979. I asked if this was when White found the story and waited until now to report it. Alan seemed a bit puzzled and said he believed the stories were all more recent than that but couldn’t say for sure.
He got the idea to transfer me to their News Services department, who he believed could finally answer all my questions. While on hold, I learned that the riots over unflattering cartoons of Muslim religious leaders were just an excuse for Muslims to hunt down and kill Christians in Nigeria. Also, in Uzbekistan, the government is secretly rounding up Christians because they are afraid the growing Muslim population might take matters into their own hands if the government didn’t act first.
The line was picked up by Myrtle Dodd, the Administrative Assistant for News Services. Myrtle was polite and very nice, just like everyone else I had spoken to, but she had a stern quality to her voice which gave me the impression she might have once been a school teacher in the 1950’s.
In response to my question about the book’s authors, Myrtle said she didn’t know if 7 was an accurate number or not but that all the authors were VoM staff writers. She assured me, however, that all the stories were real and were the result of face to face interviews conducted by these writers “all over the world”.
“Oh?”, I asked, “They weren’t interviewed in Iran, where all this bad stuff is happening?”
Myrtle explained the writers traveled to wherever it was necessary to ensure the safety of the interviewee and that she had a “need to be very careful”, “to be very cautious” that nothing was “tracked back” to them or the interview subjects.
She then turned the tables and asked what my interested in knowing all this was about. I explained about Stacy Harp, the Persecution Blog, and the call for a review of the book on my blog. Myrtle confirmed Stacy and her blog were under the supervision of her department and that she would pass along some of my questions to others who might get in touch with me. She then explained that she was “not going to be able to offer real specifics in order to protect our ways of speaking to these people”.
During the course of our conversation, there were often long pauses from Myrtle wherein I thought she had either hung up on me or the connection had been dropped on my cell phone. It turned out, however, that Myrtle was simply choosing her words “very carefully”, presumably to once again protect their ways of knowing all this stuff.
I thanked Myrtle for her time and finally ended the call. It seemed remarkable to me that such important work as Christian evangelism in Iran, a trendy country to talk about these days, did not merit enough attention from the very company which authored the book to even have their personnel read it.
This was proven when I opened the book file once again and noticed, with some embarrassment, that the authors personally signed each story.
To bring this full circle, it was clear to me that this book was simply another in a long line of propaganda pieces from similar organizations who make their money by telling us of a problem and then selling us the solution. Whether it is hyped-up and misleading on-hold messages or books so hastily prepared and compiled in such volume that even the staff didn’t read them, the interests of the VoM and what you can do for them is best summarized on page 146 of the book.
The page is titled “How You Can Help”. It lists several things you can do which all have to do with contributing money to fund their television broadcasts, distribute their “Jesus Film”, and help pay for their Bible hand-out program.
The very last thing on their list, from a company supposedly doing holy and important work to save the souls of a blighted people, is to pray.
No comments:
Post a Comment