Andrew Brunson, the Christian pastor who spent two years locked in a Turkish prison due to his ministry, spoke at the 2024 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Asia Summit in Tokyo on Sunday, putting in stark relief the increasing persecution that millions of Christians face across the globe.

Brunson, who serves as special advisor for Religious Freedom at Family Research Council, began by recounting how after spending 23 years with his wife Norine ministering to the Turkish people through their church in Izmir, he was imprisoned in 2016 without warning and accused of “being a spy, a terrorist, [and] of attempting to overthrow the government.” But as he went on to note, “the Turkish government knew very well that all of this was false. But they wanted to make an example of someone … to intimidate other Christians, and they chose me. Eventually, they tried to use me as leverage to gain concessions from the United States, what came to be called ‘hostage diplomacy.’”

But as the pastor further observed, the strategy did not work. “The American president, Donald Trump, became personally involved,” he related, “and eventually, he took unprecedented steps to gain my release,” including imposing sanctions on senior Turkish government officials and raising tariffs on Turkish products. Brunson also described how “[former Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo … and also [former U.S. Ambassador for Religious Freedom] Sam Brownback were involved in that as well, and other national governments, many members of the European Parliament advocated my release, so I was not forgotten.”

Brunson then somberly explained that “very few people who are persecuted for their faith have an ending as happy as mine. Most are ignored. Most are forgotten by those who could help.”

The pastor pointed out that “Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world, [a] fact that is not widely known [and is] often overlooked. … There are more than 300 million Christians around the world who face discrimination or are targeted by terror groups or oppressive governments because they identify as Christian. It’s estimated that four out of every five people — 80% of those who are persecuted for their faith — are Christian. And persecution is increasing. It’s spreading, and it’s growing more intense. Recently, violent, anti-Christian persecution has heated up in sub-Saharan Africa. We’re seeing the same kind of bloodshed in northern Nigeria that happened under ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Anti-Christian jihadists have killed thousands of Nigerian Christians; they kill thousands every year.”

However, Brunson stressed, “international organizations and governments, for the most part, do not address it. They ignore it. And some even hide the crisis because they do not want to deal with the persecution of Christians for ideological and political reasons, usually. One reason for this is that the societies that have most supported religious freedom in the past are themselves becoming increasingly hostile to Christianity and to faith itself.”

Brunson highlighted how in recent years, “religious freedom for Christians is increasingly seen as an issue of the political right” in the U.S. “It should not be,” he contended. “It’s a basic human right.” Brunson used the example of how in 2018, while he was still in prison, the Trump administration organized the first Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, which included leaders from approximately 60 countries. After he was released from prison in 2019, Brunson noted that he was able to speak at that year’s event, which now had “over 100 countries represented by their ambassadors or their foreign ministers. So it was a movement for religious freedom that was building momentum.” But “the next presidential administration canceled the event,” Brunson shook his head. “Why? I don’t know, but that was such a loss to have all those governments involved. And now that stopped.”

After describing the plight of Finnish parliament member Päivi Räsänen, who is facing a third trial for her biblical beliefs regarding sexuality, Brunson observed that much of Europe views Christianity as the “oppressor.” But as he shared, a rare bright spot is the work of Tristan Azbej, a Hungarian politician who was installed as the State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program. “[T]he Hungarian government was the first, and so far the only one, that has set up a government unit specifically to help persecuted Christians,” he pointed out. Not only does this unit “provide general humanitarian aid for disaster situations” but it has also “uniquely helped Christians in the Middle East to rebuild their suffering communities, their schools, their health services, their houses, and their churches so that they can stay in the lands where they have lived for centuries and not be forced to migrate.”

Brunson closed by explaining why religious freedom is so important to Christians in particular. “Jesus said the most important commandment is to love God with everything you have. And the second commandment is to love your neighbor … the same way you love yourself. And I think this is one of the reasons why so many Christians promote religious freedom, even when the immediate beneficiaries are not other Christians, but are members of other faiths.”

“[A]s a Christian, I want freedom of religion for all faith groups, whatever religion,” the pastor underscored. “For those here who are members of other faiths, I hope that you will also stand for persecuted Christians because they need advocates. The battle to advance religious freedom is becoming more difficult, but we should continue to advocate for the persecuted, not because we’re confident that we will win in most cases — because many times we won’t win — but because it’s the right thing to do. I think this work is very important, and it’s also very pleasing to God.”