If you were a shopkeeper in Iran, you would have to put a card in your window stating your religion, ensuring that most customers would pass you buy, afraid to be seen entering. If you were a pastor, you would receive regular summons to the police station and threatening phone calls that you know are serious - another of your colleagues was killed last year.
And if you were a Muslim who had recently become a Christian almost anywhere in the Muslim world, the chances are that you would be living far from your family and home, perhaps in fear of your life.
Wiped out
Many countries of the 'Muslim world' had a Christian church long before the pagan West was evangelised. In countries such as those of North Africa, the Islamic occupation wiped out almost every trace of Christianity. In others, ancient churches like the Copts of Egypt have borne witness to Christ, in spite of oppression, until the present day. The number of Christians in even the most hostile places is increasing as Muslims are finding faith in Christ, through the witness of local or foreign believers, radio or TV programmes or even supernatural visions. But the church in the Muslim world still lives under threat of extinction.
