The good jihad

Books: Noted companion of persecuted believers, Brother Andrew has another way to fight terrorism | Priya Abraham

For Westerners, the Muslim radical's cry for jihad—holy war—means suicide bombings and 9/11. But Brother Andrew, the Dutch evangelist famous for sneaking Bibles into communist Europe, has a milder sense of the word. When the apostle Paul says he has "fought the good fight" in 2 Timothy, an Arabic-language Bible translates it as "the good jihad." It's time, Brother Andrew says in his new book, for Western Christians to help much-oppressed Muslims who convert to Christianity to fight well.

Fifty years have passed since the spry 79-year-old man known as "God's smuggler" drove his first load of Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. Now, through his organization Open Doors, he has turned to Islam. But he remembers the "good old days" of communism. Islam "is a far more cruel system," he told WORLD on a visit to Washington. "Communists would take you prisoner. The Muslims kill you."