Would You Die for Your Faith? ‘Martyr’s Oath’ Author Talks Tough Questions

Around the world, Christians are being persecuted and murdered in record numbers.

Author Johnnie Moore didn’t realize how dangerous it could be to profess faith until he witnessed the oath that is part of a graduation ceremony for theology students in India. Graduates vow to be willing to die for their faith if needed.

For his new book, “The Martyr’s Oath: Living for the Jesus They’re Willing to Die For,” Moore traveled the world to collect eyewitness accounts from people who had been persecuted for their Christian faith as well as stories about people who sacrificed their lives as martyrs.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Johnnie Moore, good friend of the program, and the author of the book The Martyr's Oath, joins us now.

He is -- he is the guy who provided the inspiration to start the Nazarene Fund, and we welcome him to the program. Hi, Johnnie, how are you?

JOHNNIE: Hey, Glenn, I'm good. Good to hear your voice.

GLENN: So I don't know if you saw this on CNN yesterday, but CNN is starting a series now. They've been doing an investigation for a year, and they found out that slaves are still being sold in the Middle East. They didn't -- they didn't touch on the Christian slaves. They just touched on the -- the slaves in Libya. But I'm hoping that they will find the -- the -- the enormity of the problem soon, that it's not just happening in Libya.

JOHNNIE: Yeah. No. The situation has changed. But it hasn't improved. You know, ISIS taught these terrorists all around the world, in different places, new brutality. New techniques. And it persists. It's not what we were seeing. You know, the beheading of Christians on live television. Now it's back in the shadows.

But in Nigeria alone, Boko Haram, which pledges its allegiance to ISIS -- I mean, they killed more Christians last year than ISIS did in Syria. I mean, this is still a very, very intense, intense situation. Not to mention, you know, these communities still need to be rebuilt.

And, Glenn, I got to tell you, I was thinking really, really small, until I got on your radio program, and, you know, because of the Nazarene fund and your vision and your voice, I mean, a lot of people were helped. But we can't let up now. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.

GLENN: So Johnnie, you went over -- and this is kind of what your book is about, you went over with kind of a comfortable, Christian attitude -- an American, Christian attitude. And you met these people who are living -- we are seeing first century kind of persecution of Christians. They are now the most persecuted people on earth. And nobody is -- nobody is even talking about it.

And you saw it firsthand. And it kind of shook you to your core. Did it not?

JOHNNIE: No, it changed me. I totally changed my lifestyle. I changed my job. I changed how I was investing my time. I could not not have a good answer to this question, you know, what was I doing when this was happening in history?

And, you know, with this latest book, The Martyr's Oath, you know, we went around to 30 different countries, sent research teams everywhere to document the firsthand accounts of persecution. And I was even surprised at what was happening in countries I barely even knew anything about.

And, you know, then, Glenn, we have allies like Turkey. You know, Turkey is a country where last year the director of religious affairs, appointed an imam to the Hagia Sophia.

The Hagia Sophia was for a thousand years, the most important church in Christianity. And it has been a museum since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. But last year, Turkey, you know, under the nose of the whole world, appointed an imam to supervise one of history's most famous Christian churches.

They also confiscated 50 Christian holy sites. And so it's not just the imprisonment and beheading and the torture and all these things, you know, the thousands of people that are affected by that -- countries like North Korea where 70,000 Christians are imprisoned. But it's also this subtle discrimination and prioritization and supremacy of Islam that's erupting, you know, all around the world. And we have to keep pressure on people. And we have to keep telling these stories. And we got to help them too.

GLENN: Tell me these stories that you found in your research.

JOHNNIE: Well, one that I can't get out of my head, I met a family that had fled Syria. You know, I was in a neighboring country. You know, they were sitting across the table from me. They had converted to Christianity. And because of it, their jihadist relatives in Syria were threatening their lives. They sent them a letter. And the letter literally said, we know where you are. We're going to come find you, and we're going to crucify you, like your Jesus.

And, you know, my saw was on the floor already. But then they told me what they did. They said, we wrote him back. They wrote the jihadist relative back.

And the letter said, please, please, come find us. You know, we're ready to die for -- for our Jesus. But please don't crucify us. We're not worthy to die the same death.

And I just couldn't -- I just didn't know a faith like that. I mean, I see in it in the Bible, right? But I don't see it in our real world. And, you know, I found that as much as we've helped these people. And you know this more than anyone, Glenn. This audience saved the lives of thousands of thousands of Christians. But as much as we try to help these people, I find that they help us. They show us what's really important.

GLENN: All the time.

JOHNNIE: You know, they show us how to live because of their willingness to die.

GLENN: So what causes that? What have we lost, Johnnie, to where -- because I can't imagine -- I don't know a single Christian that I think would sit down with the family and say, let's write them back and say, please, just don't crucify us like our Lord. You can crucify us upside down. But we're willing to do that.

But just don't -- don't put us in his category. I don't know a single person here in the United States that could sit down with the family and really say that.

What happened -- what happened to us? Where is the disconnect?

JOHNNIE: You know, and I don't know that I could say it. And it causes me to look inside of my own heart. You know, in my -- in my reading of the Bible. You see a lot of this, right? The New Testament is all about persecuted people. They're either being persecuted. Or they're helping people who are being persecuted. And I'm just convinced that we cannot have a real faith life, unless we're close to people whose faith costs them something. And this is the most subtle thing, because it gets at our character. And we don't even know it's getting at us. You know, but it changes us. And it changes us in profound ways.

We don't care about truth anymore because truth doesn't cost us anything. We don't forgive our enemies. We don't forgive our political opponents, much less our enemies, because we don't have to.

And yet the Coptic church, you know, which has endured terrible persecution in the last six months, multiple suicide bombings, a bus of children massacred, and yet the Coptic pastors all across Egypt publicly said that they forgive the terrorists that killed them. It's like, crazy. Until you read the Bible, and then it's like ever present. You know, there's a role of government. You know, it's to keep nations secure. And there's a role for the church and for people of faith. And that is, by our compassion, by our service, by our testimony. We -- we cause less problems in the world for governments to solve. You know, we work on hearts. They work on security. And our persecuted brothers and sisters, they have a faith we need to learn from.

You know, Boko Haram went after this mom that we interviewed, and they were trying to behead her after they beheaded her husband and her children. And they were demanding that she say Allahu Akbar. They were trying to convert her on the spot, probably to make her one of their wives. And you know what she did, Glenn, she said to us, with a raspy voice, because she nearly died -- she said, every time they demanded that I say, Allahu Akbar, I looked back over my shoulder at them, and I screamed Jesus. She was fearless. You know, she has a real faith. And I think a lot of us sort of -- you know, we have -- we have a fake faith sometimes.

STU: Wow. I will say though, my i Phone 10 has not been delivered yet. It's been delayed. I'm very upset about it.

GLENN: He's been talking about it all day.

So, Johnnie, you know, I can't even get to the beheading part and see that kind of faith.

I am -- I'm struggling now with -- with faith. Not my faith. But with -- with religion and religionists, that we don't believe in Jesus enough to turn the other cheek. We don't believe in the message of the gospel, which is -- which is what Gandhi and Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King lived.

We are escalating the -- the trouble by not being messengers of peace. And it strikes me that we don't really believe it. We don't really believe that it works. When push comes to shove, no, it's the sword. It's not the knee.

JOHNNIE: Yeah. And it says something about us in a deep and profound place. And the only way I know how to change is to meet those people who don't have what we have, they don't have our religious freedom. They don't have our wealth and our prosperity. They don't have our security. They don't have any of these other things. But what they do have is their faith. And their faith is all that they need. And, you know, this is why for 2,000 years, we've told these stories. You know, in early America, every American home had a Bible, a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, and they had Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

GLENN: Of martyrs.

JOHNNIE: You know, it's no surprise, that there was something unique about the Judeo-Christian foundation of this country, because it was -- you know, we were close to people whose faith meant something to them.

They expected they would have to sacrifice their lives, their money, their reputation. Something. They would lose something if they were faithful.

GLENN: And that is what this book is, The Martyr's Oath. It is a new version of Foxe's Book of Martyrs. And Johnnie Moore is its author.

Thank you, Johnnie, God bless you.

JOHNNIE: Thank you, Glenn.

GLENN: You bet.

What do clay pots have to do with to preserving American history?

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Why should we preserve our nation’s history? If you listen to my radio program and podcast, or read my columns and books, you know I’ve dedicated a large part of my life and finances to sourcing and preserving priceless artifacts that tell America’s story. I’ve tried to make these artifacts as available as possible through the American Journey Experience Museum, just across from the studios where I do my daily radio broadcast. Thousands of you have come through the museum and have been able to see and experience these artifacts that are a part of your legacy as an American.

The destruction of American texts has already begun.

But why should people like you and me be concerned about preserving these things from our nation's history? Isn’t that what the “big guys” like the National Archives are for?

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1946, a Bedouin shepherd in what is now the West Bank threw a rock into a cave nestled into the side of a cliff near the Dead Sea. Instead of hearing an echo, he heard the curious sound of a clay pot shattering. He discovered more than 15,000 Masoretic texts from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

These texts weren’t just a priceless historical discovery. They were virtually perfect copies of the same Jewish texts that continue to be translated today. Consider the significance of that discovery. Since the third century B.C. when these texts were first written, the Jewish people have endured a continued onslaught of diasporas, persecutions, pressures to conform to their occupying power, the destruction of their temple, and so much more. They had to fight for their identity as a people for centuries, and finally, a year after the end of the Holocaust and a year before the founding of the nation of Israel, these texts were discovered, confirming the preservation and endurance of their heritage since ancient times — all due to someone putting these clay pots in a desert cave more than 2,000 years ago.

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So, what do these clay pots have to do with the calling to preserve American history? I didn’t understand that prompting myself until the horrible thought dawned on me that the people we are fighting against may very well take our sacred American scriptures, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights. What if they are successful, and 1,000 years from now, we have no texts preserved to confirm our national identity? What kind of new history would be written over the truth?

The destruction of American texts has already begun. The National Archives has labeled some of our critical documents, like our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, as “triggering” or “containing harmful language.” In a public statement, the National Archives said that the labels help prepare readers to view potentially distressing content:

The Catalog and web pages contain some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. NARA’s records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.

According to this statement, our founding documents are either “outdated, biased, offensive,” “possibly violent,” or a combination of these scathing descriptions. I’m sorry, the Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.” Our Constitution is not “outdated and biased,” and our Bill of Rights certainly is not “offensive and possibly violent.” They are glorious documents. They should be celebrated, not qualified by such derogatory, absurd language. Shame on them.

These are only the beginning stages of rewriting our history. What if they start banning these “triggering” documents from public view because they might offend somebody? Haven’t we torn down “triggering” statues before? What if we are no longer able to see, read, and study the actual words of our nation's founding documents because they are “harmful” or “possibly violent”? A thousand years from now, will there be any remnant to piece together the true spirit behind the nation that our founders envisioned?

The Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.”

That is why in 2008, I was prompted to preserve what I could. Now, the American Journey Experience Museum includes more than 160,000 artifacts, from founding-era documents to the original Roe v. Wade court papers. We need to preserve the totality of our nation’s heritage, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need to preserve our history in our own clay pots.

I ask you to join with me on this mission. Start buying books that are important to preserve. Buy some acid-free paper and start printing some of the founding documents, the reports that go against the mainstream narrative, the studies that prove what is true as we are continually being fed lies. Start preserving our daily history as well as our history because it is being rewritten and digitized.

Somebody must have a copy of what is happening now and what has happened in the past. I hope things don’t get really bad. But if they do, we need to preserve our heritage. Perhaps, someone 1,000 years from now will discover our clay pots and, Lord willing, be able to have a glimpse of America as it truly was.

Top 10 WORST items in the new $1.2 TRILLION spending bill

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Biden just signed the newest spending bill into law, and Glenn is furious.

Under Speaker Johnson's leadership, the whopping $1.2 TRILLION package will use your taxpayer dollars to fund the government through September. Of course, the bill is loaded with earmarks and pork that diverts money to fund all sorts of absurd side projects.

Here is the list of the ten WORST uses of taxpayer money in the recently passed spending bill:

Funding venues to host drag shows, including ones that target children

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Money for transgender underwear for kids

Funding for proms for 12 to 18 year old kids

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Border security funding... for Jordan and Egypt

Another $300 million for Ukraine

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$3.5 million for Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade

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$2.5 million for a new kayaking facility in Franklin, New Hampshire

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$2.7 million for a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people

$5 million for a new trail at Coastal Carolina University

$4 million the "Alaska King Crab Enhancement Project" (whatever that means)

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There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

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Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.