Tortured for Christ

Imagine a place where faith in God is forbidden and belief in a future judgment between good and evil is banned. What would people be like in such a world? How would they behave toward one another?

If you are having trouble visualizing such a place, it is only because you have been blessed to live in a time and place where Communism is not the state religion. For Lutheran pastor Richard Wurmbrand, such a world was not a world of make-believe. It was the cold, hard reality of what happened when a million Soviet troops poured into Romania in the aftermath of World War II.

Communism starts with the idea that all property belongs to the state, to distribute for the good of all. The idea of distributing things for the good of all is certainly appealing. But shouldn’t the one who decides between good and evil be the One who actually created all things? If God exists, how did the state come to sit in his place?

That’s the basic rub of the communist system. It is why every communist state, from Red China and the USSR to North Korea and Romania, must declare war on God. Human beings are not just material beings. They have, not only a body, but also a soul. This is just a fact of human life, an inescapable datum that hounds anyone who attempts to deny it.

Without saying so, the Communists themselves were forced to admit it. They quickly learned that, because of the unbreakable connection between body and soul, you cannot control all things without also controlling the soul. Atheism isn’t the natural outflow of Communism, it is the religion upon which it is built; and its orthodoxy must be brutally enforced.

That brings me back to the original question. What is the result in the hearts of men when Communism succeeds in snuffing out any understanding of eternal rewards and punishments? Wurmbrand explains in his book, “Tortured for Christ,” published in 1967: “The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe. When a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil that is in man. The Communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’”

A state cannot maintain absolute power without stamping out every idea of the soul, eternity and a God who creates it all. So, when the Soviets had taken over every other Romanian institution, they turned their sights on the Church. Organizing a “Congress of the Cults,” they seduced thousands of prominent churchmen to give speeches saying that Communism and Christianity were basically the same.

Wurmbrand and his wife, Sabina, were at the conference. Having grown up a self-described “militant atheist” and only coming to faith as a young adult, he ached to see his fellow countrymen deprived of the one thing that gave meaning and hope to his entire life.

Sabina pleaded with him to stand and tell the truth. He turned to her and whispered, “You do know that if I speak now, you will have no husband.” She replied with tears in her eyes, “I don’t need a coward for a husband.”

This exchange is portrayed in a new feature-length film produced for the 50th anniversary of “Tortured for Christ.” This powerful film, which I just previewed last night, portrays the life-long consequences of that pivotal decision. On February 29, 1948 (70 years ago Thursday) Wurmbrand was kidnapped on his way to church and spent the next 18 years in and out of Communist prisons.

It is a hard movie to watch. But if Wurmbrand could endure living it, perhaps we owe him the honor of hearing his story. There are hundreds of thousands of stories like his. But nearly all of them died with their authors in communist cells and torture chambers. Others were silenced by threats of atrocities against family and friends should they be told.

It was a sheer miracle that we have access to Wurmbrand’s story. In December, 1965, after a total of 14 years in communist prisons, he was ransomed by a payment of $10,000 to the Soviet government. They were confident that he would remain silent about his experiences just like many others whom they had threatened and released. But he was not like the others.

He spoke and wrote. He testified before Congress, stripping to the waist to show the marks of his torture. He broke down the wall of silence that hid the evils of Communism from the western world. “Tortured for Christ” has been translated into 65 languages, and has sold millions of copies around the world.

But Wurmbrand’s story is much more than an exposé of communist atrocities. It is an exploration of the power of divine love. Much to our amazement, he relates story after story of people who died under torture while praying for, and loving, the very men who were killing them.

One sequence of the movie tells of his bed-time routine. Each night when he heard the town clock strike 10:00, he knelt in his cell in forbidden prayer. Each night his jailer would look in to find him praying, and take him to the torture room for punishment. Then, bloodied and bruised, he would be brought back to his cell to sleep.

This went on night after night until one night when the exasperated jailer asked, “after having everything taken from you and no hope left, what on earth are you praying for?!” Wurmbrand’s reply was calm and warm: “I was praying for you.”

That’s the other-worldly beauty portrayed in this remarkable film. Time, and again, we are beckoned to see the beauty of self-sacrificial love. We are invited into the glory of passionately loving even those who hate you with the deepest of hatred.

In one particularly compelling passage, Wurmbrand writes, “Later, the Communists who had tortured us were sent to prison, too. Under Communism, Communists, and even communist rulers, are put in prison almost as often as their adversaries. Now the tortured and the torturer were in the same cell. And while the non-Christians showed hatred toward their former inquisitors and beat them, Christians took their defense, even at the risk of being beaten themselves and accused of being accomplices with Communism. I have seen Christians give away their last slice of bread (we were given one slice a week) and the medicine that could save their lives to a sick Communist torturer, who was now a fellow prisoner.”

On Thursday, March 8, Evanston will have an opportunity to see this film. Many of us have worked together to bring “Tortured for Christ,” to the biggest venue we could find, Evanston Alliance Church. Tickets can be purchased online at: https://new.tugg.com/events/tortured-for-christ-movie-f-a0. Every ticket purchaser will also receive a free copy of “Tortured for Christ,” and will be contributing to Christians around the globe who are being persecuted today.