Richard Wurmbrand was a Lutheran pastor in Romania. The Communists threw him into prison for fourteen years. They tortured him, trying to persuade him to reveal the identities and locations of secret Christian believers. However, even solitary confinement in an underground cell did not force him to break his faith.
I am listening to the audiobook version of Tortured for Christ, and the story is riveting. Wurmbrand’s story is now coming to film, and if enough people buy tickets in advance (by February 26), local movie theaters will show the film on Monday, March 5.
Some Christians in America “think” they are being persecuted, but this is prejudice, not persecution. Real persecution of Christians, like what Wurmbrand went through, is going on all over the world. Voice of the Martyrs, the organization that Wurmbrand founded after leaving Communist Romania, in 1964, for the United States, is dedicated to raising awareness of Christian persecution across the globe.
Veracity 
March 9th, 2018 at 8:49 am
A really great film. I had three take-aways from the film (and the book):
(a) The prosperity doctrine, a heresy popular in America, makes no sense in light of Richard Wurmbrand’s story. Americans Christians do not know how good they already have it.
(b) Traditional boundaries of what constitutes “true” evangelical Christians are completely blown away by the message of Tortured for Christ. In the film, Seventh Day Adventists are depicted as being tortured for their faith in Jesus. In the book, Eastern Orthodox are tortured for their faith in Jesus. When it comes to enduring persecution for the sake of upholding the name of Jesus, persecution has no boundaries.
(c) We must continue to develop a robust apologetic showing that Christian faith is compatible with science. This theme is not in the movie, but in the book Wurmbrand describes how the Communists would often chasten Christians by claiming that science has disproven God and the Bible. Those suffering persecution used a variety of apologetic arguments to defend their faith, to show that this common Communist claim had no substance. The complex distinction between Young Earth, Old Earth, and Evolutionary Creationism makes no difference when you are suffering persecution for your faith.
This was really a sobering film/book. Every Christian should read it!
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