Saudi Arabia (MNN) — It’s been nearly ten years since Saudi Arabia’s government launched Vision 2030. This initiative has transformed its public sector, economy, and society — with implications for gospel workers.
Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs, USA says that Saudi Arabia in 2016 and Saudi Arabia today are like two completely different countries. Here are two factors of the change:
(Stock photo courtesy of Bahaa A. Shawqi via Pexels)
“One was the disempowering of the religious police, who were enforcing the Quranic code. They were the people who would grab a woman off the street if she was showing some of her hair, if her veil wasn’t covering her the way they thought it should,” he says. “Disempowering them changed the atmosphere in the whole country. You didn’t have so many people living in so much fear.”
Then, some traditions or laws that were based on the Quran have been changed. One example is that women no longer need a male relative to accompany them in order to travel. Women are also allowed to drive now.
Nettleton says changes like these in Saudis cultural standards have created new spiritual openness.
“The average person in Saudi Arabia starts to question the foundation of those standards,” he explains. “‘Well, I thought this is what the Quran says. Did the Quran change, or did it not really ever say that? Well, then, what else is there that is permanent, that I could trust, that doesn’t change from year to year or from generation to generation?’”
There is also a desire within Saudi Arabia’s leaders to be more friendly with the West, Nettleton points out.
“There are biblical sites in Saudi Arabia that they are right now building superhighways to get tourists to come and see them. They know many of those tourists are going to be Christians. They want to see, you know, where Moses split the rock or where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea,” he says.
“So there is going to be a lot of opportunity for Westerners and Christians to be on the ground in Saudi Arabia in the years to come.”
A man in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Photo courtesy of Mohammad Alashri via Unsplash)
However, Christians walk carefully. Non-Muslims can live in Saudi Arabia — indeed, the nation has a large migrant worker population, Nettleton says. But for Saudi citizens, converting from Islam is prohibited by the government and severely resisted by their families. (More on that here.)
“The idea of reaching Saudis, that’s sort of the red line for persecution. That’s the red line for what the government will or could or might tolerate,” says Nettleton.
Please pray for open doors for gospel workers already in Saudi Arabia, slowly planting seeds that may take years to grow. Pray for more ambassadors to join them.
“Pray, pray, and pray,” says Nettleton. “The other thing I would encourage people [is] go to Saudi Arabia. Be on the ground. Pray inside the country for God to move. I think it’s great when Christians go with a proactive idea that we are ambassadors for Christ … even for a week of tourism.”
Header photo: Makkah, Saudi Arabia (Stock photo courtesy of Muhd Emy Jailani via Unsplash)
