Hearts Of Fire: Eight Women In The Underground Church And Their Stories Of Costly Faith, by The Voice Of The Martyrs

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by VOM Press in exchange for an honest review.]

This particular book is probably not one that should be read by those who want to sleep peacefully and untroubled about the fate of Christians around the world. The eight stories in this book are about women who have suffered on account of being Christians and doing what believers do, namely being open and public about their beliefs, as best as they understand them, over the course of the last 70 years or so in such countries as Russia, Romania, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, China, and Indonesia. It bears repeating, this book is not pleasant reading. Although the women written about survived their difficulties, not everyone did, and survival often involved imprisonment, torture, humiliating conditions, illness, injury, rape, and the death of loved ones. To say that this material makes for unpleasant reading sometimes is an understatement.

This book has a couple of open agendas. One of those agendas is to give a representative flavor of the sort of pressures that Christians face around the world, whether as foreign mercenaries or as converts from other faiths that view Christianity as a political threat. The poor treatment of political and religious prisoners is something this book makes plain, as well as the fact that the same foreign support that makes Christians vulnerable to attacks also allows them to have resources to draw upon in times of difficulty. The other open agenda is a desire to see women recognized as potential leaders, rather than viewing them merely as subsidiary and subject to men. This agenda may be welcome to some readers and unwelcome to others. It would appear as if the main interest of this particular collection of stories is women, but hopefully the men who read it are the fair-minded sort who are not offended by powerful and passionate women.

The sacrifices made by the people in this book are truly moving. Many of the women risked prison, some lost husbands and children, most were scarred and abused to a great degree, risking their health and lives and even their sanity in loyalty to their faiths. Some were induced to marry in difficult circumstances, some refused to marry because of their commitment to preaching. Some of the women come from Christian backgrounds, the rest were converts from other faiths, including Islam, Buddhism, and one from Judaism. The stories vary in length from the shortest, about a Vietnamese young woman, to the longest about one of the founders of Voice of Martyrs. Ultimately, a wide variety of responses to the decisions made and suffering of the people discussed in this book can be made. Whatever one’s feeling about their faith, though, any reader ought to feel a great sense of compassion for their struggles, and a fervent desire that God’s Kingdom come, so that mankind would no longer dwell in darkness.