Despite both conversion from Islam and sharing your faith being illegal, Muslims are rapidly coming to Christ in Iran. So rapidly, in fact, that Iran’s government leaders are acknowledging the exponential growth of the church.
Compared to roughly 500 known Christians in 1979, there are now around 500,000 (some sources say up to 1 million secret believers). Of course not all of these may be evangelicals but more Iranians have become Christians in the last 20 years than in the previous 13 centuries put together since Islam came to Iran.
Addressing a gathering of Shia Muslim leaders, Iran’s Intelligence Minister, Mahmoud Alavi, openly admitted to summoning Christian converts for questioning, saying that mass conversions ‘are happening right under our eyes’. Alavi admitted that his agency is collaborating with Muslim religious seminaries to combat the perceived threat of mass conversions to Christ across the country.