Brown said that some of his fellow Christians may have lost sight of the importance of refugee resettlement, in part because of the current polarization over immigration and the surge of asylum seekers and migrants at the border.
They may not be aware that restricting refugees affects persecuted Christians, he said.
In the 1950s, when Open Doors was founded, the concern was mostly about religious persecution behind the Iron Curtain. The group’s late founder, Andrew van der Bijl, better known as Brother Andrew, spent years smuggling Bibles into Communist countries.
Today, said Brown, persecution continues under authoritarian regimes, but it also happens in countries where there’s internal conflict and strife. And while countries like China have experienced economic prosperity, he said, that prosperity hasn’t been accompanied by the expansion of human rights.
Brown hopes the report will lead Christians to pray and to assist refugees when they arrive in the United States. He also hopes they will support refugee resettlement programs.
“We’d love to see America take its place again on that global stage,” he said, “to be that beacon of freedom and religious liberty.”
This article originally appeared here.
