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| UPGs and Persecution: Neither the Chicken nor the Egg (1/3) Posted: 03 Dec 2013 01:00 AM PST This is the first of three posts examining the relationship between unreached people groups and persecution, represented respectively in the maps above. It doesn’t take an expert eye to see outstanding similarities in the two maps above. In fact, one could easily assume that, with a slightly different color scheme, each map measures the same thing. But this is not the case… at least not primarily. The first shows unreached people groups (UPGs), red representing areas in which people groups are least reached. (“A people group is unreached when the number of Evangelical Christians is less than 2% of its population.” For more information on people groups, unreached people groups, and unreached unengaged people groups, check out the International Mission Board – Global Research.) The second marks the countries of the world in which Christians are most persecuted for their faith, red representing the countries in which it is most severe. The overlap between the two maps won’t let us ignore the apparent link. But just how exactly are they linked, and what does it mean? It could be that unreached peoples exist because of persecution. Both common sense and history will tell us that many unreached peoples persecute the gospel messengers attempting to bring them the good news. Clearly unwelcome, Christians stop going to the persecutors (whether from inability or fear), and they remain unreached. However, it could also be the case that persecution exists because people are unreached. After all, Christians are persecuted by the unreached because the unreached are enemies of Jesus (Matt 12:30), and by extension, of his followers also. The reality of these two scenarios – both equally true in their own right – are evidence that these two maps and the phenomena they represent are more intertwined than any simple cause-and-effect analysis could reveal. Our exploration into the relationship between UPGS and persecution, then, should not center around the question of “which came first?” |
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