spoken for

Rating: 10

This is really a great book and I’d recommend it to anyone. It gives great insight on Communism, for one. I talked in length with someone about the book today but for some reason it’s now hard for me to sit down and write about what we talked about.

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand (1909-2001) was from Romania and converted from atheism to Christ when, as he says, he was a youth. I found his testimony especially interesting, a series of “it so happeneds,” a great story. An integral part of the Romanian Underground Church, Wurmbrand ended up spending something like a total of 13 and 1/2 years in Communist prisons, 3 of those years being spent in solitary confinement and all of those years bringing torture along with them. His wife, Sabina, faithful through it all, was also imprisoned, but I believe her sentence was “only” 3 years. Christians in Norway arranged with the Communists for the release of the Wurmbrands from Romania, for the cost of $10,000 (the “going rate” at that time for prisoners was $1,900). Wurmbrand testified in 1966 in front of the U.S. Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee, showing his wounds from the torture. He founded The Voice of the Martyrs to help get support for Christians in suppressed nations. Tortured for Christ is not so much his story as it is the story of all our martyred brothers and sisters.

Sometimes I would feel that Wurmbrand was being a little bit hard on Western Christians, but maybe I was just taking it personal. The book was originally written in 1967 so I can see the differences in missionary work between then and now. I believe that we have progressed, not to mention other things. But Wurmbrand speaks of this subject quite a bit.

The coolest thing, though, is that you can get this book for free from The Voice of the Martyrs! Go see at torturedforchrist.com!

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Here are some quotes:

“At a party in a lounge, someone asked: ‘If you were on a ship that sank and you could escape to an isolated island, having the chance to take with you only one book from the ship’s library, which one would you choose?’ One answered, ‘The Bible,’ another, ‘Shakespeare.’ But a writer had the correct answer: ‘I would choose a book that could teach me how to make a boat and to arrive on the shore. There I would be free to read whatever I wished.’

“The Underground Church, if helped by Christians in the free world, will win the hearts of the Communists and will change the face of the world. It will win them, because it is unnatural to be a Communist. Even a dog wishes to have his own bone. The hearts of the Communists rebel against the role they must play and the absurdities they are forced to believe.
Individual Communists asserted that ‘matter is everything’ — that we are a handful of chemicals organized in a certain fashion and that after death we will again be salt and minerals. It was therefore enough to ask of them, ‘How is it that Communists in so many countries have given their lives for their belief? Does a “handful of chemicals” have beliefs? Can “minerals” sacrifice themselves for the good of others?’ To this they have no answer.”

“When I was beaten on the bottom of my feet, my tongue cried. Why did my tongue cry? It was not beaten. It cried because the tongue and the feet are both part of the same body. And you free Christians are part of the same Body of Christ that is now beaten in prisons in restricted nations, that even now gives martyrs for Christ. Can you not feel our pain?”