Evangelicals have become the target of choice of thug regime around the world." That statement would have aroused little media attention if it had beer made at a gathering of, say, the Christian Coalition. But it was in fact uttered this past April by a remark able Jewish lawyer, Michael J. Horowitz a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, a major think tank in Washington, D.C.

"What engages my passion so much,' Horowitz said, "are the eerie parallels between the state of the Jewish community in the late 19th century and what is going on today among evangelicals around the world."

Horowitz's "passion" has been to alert American evangelicals to the rapidly worsening conditions facing Christians throughout the world. Saying that he was deeply grateful for Christian help in the struggle against anti-Semitism, Horowitz wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal last year about the global assault on Christians.

He then sent the article, along with an open letter to 143 Christian mission organizations throughout the United States. He urged them not to abandon fellow believers on the false assumption that making a public fuss would provoke worse troubles for them. Some of the instances of persecution mentioned by Horowitz include:

*the imprisonment, beating, torture and selling into slavery of thousands of Christians in Sudan by the Islamic radical regime. Conversion to Christianity is now a criminal act in that country.

*a "blasphemy" law directed against Christians in Pakistan that calls for the death penalty for believers convicted under it.

*the imprisonment, torture and assassination of Christians in Iran and Egypt.

Horowitz's focus on the issue brought results. In January, after listening to him and to many others at a meeting in Washington, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) issued a powerful "Statement of Conscience." It calls on the White House to appoint a "special adviser to the President for religious liberty," and asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to review its rules limiting political asylum for victims of religious persecution.

The following month, there was more activity. Prompted by two heroes of the Congress in supporting the rights of Christians around the world-Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Chris Smith, R-N.J.-the House Committee on International Relations held a revealing, one-day hearing on the persecution of Christians. In April, Wolf and Smith wrote the White House asking why the Clinton administration had backed off an initial willingness to appoint a special adviser on religious persecution.

Representing the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard D. Land said the U.S. government had been "woefully

negligent" in dealing with the issue of the persecution of Christians around the world. Land pointed out that the current U.S. ambassador to China, Jim Sasser, admitted at a Washington meeting that he had never even heard of the house church movement in China, perhaps the fastest-growing evangelical movement in Christian history.

Thanks to Horowitz's campaigning, even Washington's secular media began to take notice. Washington Post editorialist Stephen S. Rosenfeld wrote in an article last February that the fate of Christians overseas had now become "a real and urgent concern" that for too long had been neglected by "our tone-deaf diplomats" and "the inattentive media."

The preeminent Christian think tank in Washington, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, has persuaded the Episcopal Church to endorse the NAE "Statement of Conscience." Two other Washington-based groups, Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and International Christian Concern, also are working hard to alert American Christians at the grass roots how to act-and how to pray-about the plight of fellow believers.

Says the Washington director of CSI, James B. Jacobson: "We are asking that Christians, first of all, no longer be silent." Thanks to a remarkable Jewish man, that request is already being answered.