by Charles A. Collins, Jr.
(Published in the July 2018 edition of the Carolina Compass section of the Charleston Mercury .)
If he has not been released by July 1
the Rev'd Dr. Andrew C. Brunson, a missionary of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Turkey, will have been imprisoned in that
country for 632 days. Dr. Brunson, who grew up as the son of an
Associate Reformed Presbyterian missionary family that served in
Mexico, Pakistan, and Russia and whose father also taught at Montreat College in North Carolina, is a graduate of Wheaton College who
received the Master of Arts from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,
the Master of Divinity from Erskine Theological Seminary, and later
competed the Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Aberdeen and
has served as a missionary in Turkey since 1993, first under the
auspices of World Witness, the Foreign Missions Board of the
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and later with the Evangelical
Presbyterian Church. He and his wife Norine, who was originally
arrested with him but was released after thirteen days, raised their
three children there and at the time of his arrest had applied for
permanent resident status; he was serving as the Pastor of the Izmir
Resurrection Church, a small congregation in Turkey's third-largest
city. He has also been involved with theological education in that
country.
So
what gives? Why has the missionary pastor of a small congregation
been detained for so long by the Turkish government in a country
that, while overwhelmingly Muslim, is officially secularized and is a
longstanding member of NATO? His detention is part of a much larger
purge following an attempted July 2106 failed coup
d'état
in which an estimated 160,000 Turkish military personnel, civil
servants, and private citizens have been detained. Specifically he
has been accused of being related to the Gülen
movement, which has been alleged to have played a role in the coup.
For
his part, Dr. Brunson has denied any connection to to movement,
stating “I am not a member of an Islamic movement. I have never
seen any member of FETO (the Gülen
movement) in my life.” In April he had a court appearance that was
attended by Ambassador Sam Brownback, the United States'
Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and Senator
Thom Tillis (R-NC) (Dr. Brunson's hometown is Black Mountain, North
Carolina) in which he stated in Turkish that “I have been praying
for Turkey for 25 years. I wouldn't do anything against Turkey.” If
convicted, he faces the possibility of a sentence ranging anywhere
from 35 years to life. Both the Ambassador and the Senator expressed
their belief (in Ambassador Brownback's case shared by the Trump
Administration) in Dr. Brunson's innocence. The charges against him
are based on accusations from two unnamed sources and evidence
reportedly procured from his telephone.
The
Turkish government has repeatedly offered to free Dr. Brunson in
exchange for the extradition of Fethullah Gülen,
for whom the movement is named, who current resides in Pennsylvania
and has lived in the United States since 1999. That offer raises
serious doubts about whether there is any validity in the charges or
if the missionary is being used by the Turkish government as a
political pawn.
Andrew Brunson's next scheduled court
appearance is on July 18. What can readers do to assist him?
–First and foremost, lift him and
his family up the the Lord in prayer.
– If one is led, contact your
Senators and Congressmen and ask them to support Dr. ````````
Brunson's release.
– The American Center for Law andJustice has been active in working for his release
and
has prepared a petiton to that end. It may be accessed and signed at:
-- Finally, readers can keep apprised
of the latest developments in the case by following the online
resource developed by his mission board at:
Hopefully, by God's grace, Andrew Brunson will soon be reunited with his family and a free man.
The Rev'd Charles A. Collins, Jr. is an Anglican priest currently serving as a hospice chaplain in the Charleston area. He may be contacted at drew.collins [at] gmail.com
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