Dear Sir,
I read in the December 2013 issue of EN World in Brief, the first news item titled ‘Most persecuted’.
You quote and do not disagree with the figure of John Allen who states that 11 Christians per hour are martyred. Similar figures (eg 100,000 martyrs per year = 11 per hour) have been expressed elsewhere in EN in the past.
There are Christians who, given a range of figures, will choose the figure that looks good for their purposes and their audience. In this we do ourselves a disservice and risk bringing dishonour to Christ. Christians known for moderation and a devotion to truth should be under-estimating the number of persecuted Christians and be very cautious when using estimates.
Sometimes, a figure is someone’s best guess, then takes a life of its own. Recently, the BBC radio programme, More or Less with statistics, analysed this figure of 100,000 martyrs (listen to November 2, 2013 episode w w w. b b c . c o. u k / p o d c a s t s / s e r i e s / moreorless/all). I think they did a fair job, and I think they are right. A summary was later published on the BBC News site (www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24864587)
Basically, the figure of 100,000 per year (11 per hour) was true just for one year, when a country called DR Congo was going through civil war. Excluding DR Congo reduces the toll to less than 10,000 per year, around one per hour.
In this case I think, to be credible, Christians need to quote the lower estimate, not the discredited larger estimate.
Yours sincerely,
