Sometimes the headlines can be discouraging. However, if you look behind the headlines, you will often find encouragement. This is especially true of headlines about Iran.
Iran is known for its utter and diabolical hostility against Israel, and the West. It sends a steady stream of weapons to terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. We see video footage of bearded men talking about wiping Israel off the map. Their hope is in the coming of the Twelfth Imam who will right the wrongs imposed upon Iran by Jews. What else can we do but ask, “What’s wrong with these people?”
The Insanity Is Real
We would be foolish to discount all the evil that has come from Iran under its Shi’ite leadership. Kamran Ashtary, a victim of torture as a teenager, is the director of Arseh Sevom (Third Sphere), a human rights organization that focuses on Iranian human rights abuses. In a piece for Global Voices, Ashtary wrote: “Any form of torture can cause psychological trauma. But it is especially bad for people under 25 because their brains are still forming. It becomes permanent and lifelong…Unfortunately for all of us who have experienced trauma, there is no returning to the people we once were. There is only finding ways to dim the nightmares.”
White Torture is the name of a book by the Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi. “White torture” is also an Iranian torture technique in which inmates are held in all-white cells for long periods. The sensory deprivation can wipe out the will to resist, producing continual weeping and begging for mercy.
In Mohammadi’s book, 12 individuals are interviewed and give their story. They are journalists, members of religious minority groups, and political activists. Their stories reveal the appalling state of Iranian prisons: Health-destroying sanitary conditions and tiny, poorly lit cells. Prisoners face intentional deprivation of medical care, long hours of interrogation, horrific threats to their family members and solitary confinement for long periods.
Looking Behind The Headlines From Iran
While the “bully on the block” looks big, that’s not the whole story. The Gospel has been spreading throughout Iran for many years. I first found out about this amazing work of the Lord in the 2013 book, Captive in Iran, written by two Iranian Christian woman, Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh. In the Foreword, Anne Graham Lotz writes of her meeting with these women. One statement that they made still haunts Lotz: “They said it had been easier for them to experience God’s peace and presence and power inside Evin prison in Tehran than on the outside in America.” Evin prison in Tehran has a worse reputation than Angola, or Alcatraz in the U.S. This statement is just a small sample of the tenacity of Iranian believers and their utter faithfulness and commitment to the Gospel.
These two women from Tehran first met at an evangelical conference in Turkey. They decided that when they returned to Iran they would work together in disseminating the Good News. For three years they handed out New Testaments in Farsi cafes, gave them to taxi drivers and left them in cabs, coffee shops and mailboxes. Before their arrests, they had given out about 20,000 testaments. In addition, they started two house churches in their apartment building, one for young people and another for prostitutes. They extended their ministry with mission trips to India, South Korea and Turkey.
In March of 2009 they were arrested for promoting Christianity—a capital crime in Iran—and imprisoned for 259 days in Evin prison. The charges against them were apostasy, anti-government activity and blasphemy for which they were subject to execution by hanging. Their courage could not be hidden. There were many organizations worldwide, including the Vatican and the U.N., that worked hard for their release.
Hormoz Shariat—“The Billy Graham of Iran”
Shariat was born into a Muslim family in Iran and came to the U.S. after the 1979 revolution. He came to Christ while earning his Ph.D. in computer engineering as a graduate student at USC in 1980. He has a passion for seeing Muslims turning in faith and following Jesus. His 16-year-old brother, Hamraz, was arrested on a minor political charge and executed by firing squad. “God showed me,” Shariat explains, “that the best way to respond to this tragedy was dedicate my life to loving Muslims and sharing the Gospel with as many of them as possible.” Shariat is the Spirit-filled head and founder of Iran Alive Ministries.
In an article in The Christian Post (5/18/24) titled, “This Pentecost, let’s remember the Iranian church—one of the world’s oldest,” Shariat points to Acts 2:8-9, “and how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites…” The first people groups mentioned in this Scripture were all from Persia, known today as Iran. Shariat writes, “This diverse gathering in Jerusalem underscores the multinational impact of Pentecost, making it a foundational moment not just for those in Jerusalem but for many distant lands, including Persia… The events that unfolded in Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago continue to resonate in the religious landscape of modern-day Iran.” Shariat boldly proclaims that Iran will become a Christian nation. He appeals to Jeremiah 49:38, “I will set my throne in Elam [a part of modern Iran], and will destroy from thence the king and the princes…”
Satan has done much to snuff out the light of the Gospel in Iran. As Christianity began to flourish centuries ago in Iran, Zoroastrianism, an ancient false religion combining monotheistic teachings about God plus a dualistic cosmology, similar to that of Gnosticism, also proclaimed beliefs that were contrary to the pure teachings of the Scripture. The founder, Zarathustra, was supposed to have instructed Pythagoras in Babylon and to have inspired the Chaldean doctrines of astrology and magic. In the centuries that followed, Shia Islam became ascendant. But as Shariat writes, “The light of Christ cannot be snuffed out as many, even today, gather for worship in underground churches, secretly practicing their faith to avoid persecution.”
Iranian Revolution & Frenzy that Followed
The history of modern Iran under the Shah explains, at least in part, the revolution of 1979 that launched a militant Shi’ite government into power. An extended study by Philip Jenkins printed in patheos.com relates that the Shah’s regime from the 1950s onward was strongly devoted to modernization and Westernization, which produced a rising tide of populist resentment. Iran’s economic woes under the Shah also fed the growing fires of revolution. Large numbers of young adults faced unemployment and poverty. They were readily available to recruitment by protest movements that were rooted in traditional Islamic beliefs. Modernization campaigns that promoted women’s rights and the legalization of abortion drew a holy rage from traditionalist Shi’ites.
In the last few years there has been a rise of protest groups against the “morality police” and their harsh efforts to crack down on “rebel women” whose numbers have grown after the September 2022 death of Mahsa Jina Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman who was severely beaten. Scores of activists, including human rights defenders, members of religious and ethnic minorities and dissidents remain in prison on vague national security charges or are serving sentences after grossly unfair trials. The fact that Iranian police and security forces seem to enjoy impunity, with no government investigations into their use of excessive and lethal force, torture, sexual assault, and other serious abuses, is particularly irksome. In an almost knee-jerk reaction authorities have expanded their efforts in enforcing abusive compulsory hijab laws.
Iran remains the world’s top practitioner of the death penalty. Iranian law deems actions such as “insulting the Prophet” (Muhammad), “same-sex relations,” “adultery,” “alcohol consumption” and certain non-violent drug-related offenses to be punishable by death. A report from the Iran Human Rights Organization found that more than 700 executions took place in Iran from January to November 2023. This was a substantial increase compared to the same period in 2022.
Yes, if hearts are not changed, people are not changed, no matter how horrific and severe the penalties. The new life that believers have in Christ comes through the gentle wooing of the Holy Spirit. Recent events in Iran are a clear indication of how God is preparing the world and the church for an end-time harvest.
Download the July 2024 Prophetic Observer.
