Rumanian Pastor Richard Wurmbrand spent fourteen years in communist prisons and endured torture because of his work with the Underground Church. There is nothing more humbling and challenging than to read about those brave and amazing Christians of the persecuted and underground church around the world. I’d say with certainty that Wurmbrand’s book, “Tortured For Christ”, rocked my world! Below are some of my favorite passages/quotes from the book:
A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for. P64
The Underground Church is a poor and suffering church, but it has no lukewarm members. P79
No prison and no torture can frighten the Christians of the Underground Church. Just as in the Early Church, persecution only deepens their dedication. P116
The answers Christians of the Underground Church give, when brought before Communist courts, are divinely inspired. One judge demanded: “Why did you attract people to your forbidden sect?” A Christian sister answered; “Our aim is to win the whole world for Christ.”
The message I [Wurmbrand] bring out from the Underground Church is:
“Don’t abandon us!”
“Don’t forget us!”
“Don’t write us off!” P131
God is “the Truth.” The Bible is the “truth about the Truth.” Theology is the “truth about the truth about the Truth.” Fundamentalism is the “truth about the truth about the truth about the Truth.” Christian people live in these many truths about the Truth, and, because of them, have not “the Truth.” Hungry, beaten and doped, we had forgotten theology and the Bible. We had forgotten the “truths about the Truth,” therefore we live in “the Truth.” … In our darkest hours the Son of man came to us, making the prison walls shine like diamonds and filling the cells with light. Somewhere, far away, were the torturers below us in the sphere of the body. But the spirit rejoiced in the Lord. We would not have given up this joy for that of kingly palaces. P73
