Religion, as Marx is often slightly erroneously quoted as saying, is “the opiate of the masses”. Yet, Marx didn’t say those exact words. Nor did he intend what he actually said as the insult that many of his followers have taken it. The (mis)quote is distilled from a much longer passage where he elaborates that, religion is “the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world.”
Still, that Marx was indeed hostile to religion is shown by the rest of the (real) quote: “the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness”. Marx’s followers were nothing if not eager to follow his prescription, often bloodily and destructively.
Yet, the demand for the solace of religion, one religion in particular, has resisted all efforts by the communists to stamp it out. Bible smuggling has a long history of often extraordinary bravery in the faces of violent anti-Christian persecution.
Unsurprisingly, the Cold War was a boom time for Bible smuggling.
Dutch factory worker Andrew van der Bijl, known as Brother Andrew, joined the Worldwide Evangelism Crusade in 1953 and began smuggling Bibles during the Cold War, in 1955.
Brother Andrew founded an organization called Open Doors, which supported his work with refugees in Eastern Europe. Despite KGB infiltration, the organization spread, following up on his mission by providing printing presses, among other services.
The Eastern European Mission was founded by several couples who moved from Texas to Vienna, Austria, in 1961. Their mission was to smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union.
It was a dangerous business, necessitating innovation, if nothing else.
They found increasingly creative ways to print the Bible. The books were mostly printed small, so they would be mistaken for a packet of cigarettes. Bibles were also stored in really odd places, such as spare tires.
Door of Hope International, originally called “Evangelism to Communist Lands”, began smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
The organization smuggled 500,000 Russian New Testaments during the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The cover had the perfect disguise: the Olympic torch.
Still, it was a risky venture.
[Door of Hope] was founded by Haralan Popov, who spent over 13 years in prison for being a Christian in Bulgaria […]
The American Protestant organization Underground Evangelism was listed by the KGB as a dangerous anti-Soviet organization.
The organization recruited volunteers in English churches to spend summers camping in Bulgaria. They would smuggle Bibles, of course. The operation was so well run that volunteers didn’t even know the organization they were working for.
A famous smuggler was Reverend David Hathaway (pictured), who posed as a tour guide. He was eventually caught with Bibles in his tour bus and sentenced to prison.
But if the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Bibles could finally be freely distributed in the former communist states, prescriptions still remain in some countries. Bible smuggling is far from a dead trade.
But how are Bibles distributed in a country with super-tight restrictions?
The answer is hydrogen-fueled balloons. They are launched from South Korea and land in remote areas of North Korea. Drones have also been used.
Radio broadcasts run by North Korean defectors are also a way to try and reach North Korea’s growing underground Christian movement. “What those Christians are doing literally undermines the very veracity of the North Korean regime. If Jesus is Lord, then Kim Jong Un can’t be,” said Todd Nettleton of Voice of Martyrs Radio […]
In North Korea, just saying the word “Jesus” can get a person into trouble, while owning a Bible can land you up to 15 years in a hard-labor camp. In 2014, an American tourist named Jeffrey Edward Fowle was arrested after allegedly leaving a Bible in a restaurant toilet at the Chongjin Sailor’s Club.
While the communists are hostile to religion in general, other countries are hostile to Christianity in particular.
The organization Open Doors runs competitions on social media and other websites in the Middle East. These consist of questions about various chapters of the Bible, and are a way to encourage Bible readership among Christians in the Middle East.
The strategy is proving to be popular. According to Open Doors, around 5,000 people have participated in their online Bible competitions.
MSN
Brave souls, without a doubt, in countries where being openly Christian is very often a death sentence.
