The organization’s reporting helps inform Christians and people of goodwill around the world about the often-brutal oppression of people of faith. Religious liberty is disfavored by the Washington foreign policy establishment, as fighting for the practice of religion is an embarrassment to many of its members’ senses of modernity and morality. However, the absence of religious liberty, the most fundamental freedom of conscience, in numerous countries should serve as the proverbial canary in a coal mine — signaling large, potentially fatal political failures.
It is impossible to judge which of Open Doors’ activities is the most important. The public desperately needs to be educated about the problem of religious persecution. Those living in inhospitable conditions require assistance. And, most dramatically, those suffering active persecution need a champion. Open Doors takes on all three roles.
Brother Andrew was best known for actively combating persecution. Beyond the Soviet empire, he traveled to nations as diverse as China, Cuba, and Uganda. After the USSR’s collapse, he focused more on the Middle East, visiting nations ranging from Lebanon to Pakistan. Over time, he improbably met with leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban. He criticized evangelical support for military intervention and for the Global War on Terrorism.
His Dutch passport gave him access to countries from which Americans are barred. He seemingly feared no country. That undoubtedly reflected his faith, but his background helped prepare him. As a teenager, he was involved in the Dutch resistance to German occupation. Then he served in the Netherlands’ colonial army in the East Indies, which had been seized by the Japanese and soon became Indonesia. His conversion came on colonial duty while recovering from a gunshot wound in the care of Christian nurses.
Danger seemed to inspire him. In 1968, he visited Czechoslovakia, handing Bibles to Soviet troops, who had ended the Prague Spring. When Middle Eastern terrorism came to the fore, he told Christianity Today: