Christian Persecution Around the World

[nChrist]

Stop the Martyrdoms
By Doug Bandow
Published 3/31/2008 12:06:06 AM

* Last year in Turkey five Islamic extremists bound, tortured, and killed three Christian religious workers.

* In Malaysia the nation's highest court ruled that a Christian convert could not change her official religious affiliation without a ruling of apostasy in Sharia court -- punishable by death or prison.

* Earlier this year Christian converts in Bangladesh were beaten and expelled by Muslim villagers.

* Last year in Sudan demonstrators demanded death for a British teacher -- convicted and then deported -- for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohammed."

* In 2006 the Afghan government, which survives only because of allied military forces, sentenced a Christian convert to death, before allowing him to emigrate for reason of "mental illness."

* In Nigeria last year a Muslim mob murdered ten Christians, injured scores more, and destroyed nine churches in response to a claim that a Christian student drew a cartoon of Mohammed on the mosque wall at school.

* In Iraq in early March the body of kidnapped Chaldean Archbishop Paulus Faraj Rahho was discovered. Up to half of the prewar community of 1.2 or so million Iraqi Christians have fled abroad.

So it goes throughout the Islamic world. Not every Muslim hates Christians, Jews, and members of other faiths. And no, not every Muslim country persecutes religious minorities.

But pick any persecuting nation at random. There is a good chance that it will be Muslim, even if it is formally allied with the U.S. government.


YOU WOULDN'T KNOW that from the Western reaction. Right now, talk of interfaith dialogue and Muslim persecution is in the air.

Last November more than 300 Protestant leaders publicly asked for forgiveness for Christian sins against "our Muslim neighbors." Vatican officials and Islamic leaders have been meeting to plan an interfaith summit. President George W. Bush recently named a special envoy to the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, which is dedicated to combating "Islamophobia."

Fine. But the first item on every agenda should be the fact that most Islamic nations persecute their religious minorities.

This matters because persecution is an affront to any faith which claims to speak on behalf of a loving God. The hypocrisy of Muslim regimes that complain about the treatment of their co-religionists in the West while brutalizing members of minority faiths at home is more rank than usual. Consider the predictable protests in these very same Islamic nations against the online release of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders's film criticizing Islam.

Pervasive hostility and violence towards Christians and Jews provides a flourishing environment for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists. The fact that most Muslims may not share these attitudes is irrelevant if they remain silent in the fact of violent attacks on members of other faiths.

Westerners need to speak truth to Muslim power. "Islamic aggression, hatred, and intolerance must be confronted, named and shamed," argues Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern (ICC).


CHRISTIANITY HAS HAD its own ugly historical persecutions, of course. But these days governments in "Christian" nations increasingly refuse to acknowledge their religious heritage, let alone persecute minority faiths.

That is almost never the case in Islamic countries -- except, ironically, under ugly secular dictatorships in Syria and, formerly, Iraq. Even in Turkey Islamists are growing increasingly active.

In some majority-Muslim nations, like Kuwait, the government supports Islam but does not disturb other faiths. Christians generally don't proselytize, but are otherwise free. "We've never had any serious interference at all," Rev. Jerry Zandstra, a pastor at the National Evangelical Church, told me.

More often, however, Islamic governments enforce Islam. Keith Roderick of Christian Solidarity International speaks of "decades of violence, hatred, discrimination, and disenfranchisement."

Persecution is intense in many Islamic societies. Both the State Department and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) single out Muslim nations as among the most serious persecutors.

International Christian Concern has created "The Hall of Shame," half of whose members are Muslim states. Even the less brutal Islamic nations usually offer inhospitable terrain for Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities.

Where to start? Saudi Arabia is essentially totalitarian. As ICC explains, Riyadh "has a zero tolerance policy towards other religions."

The State Department is more diplomatic, but no less clear: "There is no legal recognition of, or protection under the law for, freedom of religion, and it is severely restricted in practice."

In theory, private worship in Saudi Arabia is okay, but "this right was not always respected in practice and is not defined in law." Even if the monarchy is committed to modernizing Saudi society, freedom of conscience is on no one's agenda.

[nChrist]

Stop the Martyrdoms
By Doug Bandow
Published 3/31/2008 12:06:06 AM

BRUTAL STATE REPRESSION also is evident in Iran, which targets Jews, Baha'is, Sufi Muslims, and Zoroastrians as well as Christians.

The ICC reports: "The 1990s [in Iran] were a time of severe persecution. Spies infiltrated congregations, and church buildings were seized or closed. Seven Christian leaders were martyred and others have had to flee for their lives."

Sudan's decades of civil strife and war have killed well in excess of a million people, many of them Christians, who are most populous in the South. Christians suffer discrimination and occasional persecution elsewhere in the country as well. Sharia is enforced in the North. Islam must be studied, even in private Christian schools, and conversion from Islam is punishable by death.

Pakistan makes ICC's Hall of Shame. Islamabad's blasphemy law criminalizes criticism of Islam and often penalizes Christians. Christian women are vulnerable under the Hudood Ordinances, which treat rape victims as adulteresses unless they can produce four male Muslim witnesses stating the contrary.

Pakistani mob attacks on Christians and Christian churches are rarely punished. Converts risk death, making foreign flight the only escape for some families. A Methodist pastor, Rev. Emanuel S. Khokha, told me that Muslims "blame us because Christians are linked to America. They blame us for Israel and the problem with the Palestinians. And they blame us because we are Christians."

Indonesia traditionally leavened Islam with tolerance, but recent government rules make it virtually impossible for Christians to build churches in majority-Muslim areas, i.e., most of the country. Three Sunday school teachers were convicted of the "Christianization" of Muslim children in a trial highlighted by mobs demanding the women's death.

Churches and Bible schools have been bombed and torched. In October 2005 a crowd beheaded three Christian school girls. The wife of the pastor of an evangelical church on Java lost a leg in a bombing in 2001, and a year later their home was burned down. As one Indonesian minister told me, being a Christian "is difficult" there.

Christians suffer in other Muslim lands -- Brunei, for instance, as well as Gaza and the West Bank, Turkmenistan, Egypt, and Bangladesh. The amount of violence varies, but Islamic persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities is widespread.

Particularly shocking is persecution in both Afghanistan and Iraq, which were supposed to have been liberated by allied forces. Kabul's threatened execution of Christian convert Abdul Rahman in 2006 gained worldwide attention. Discrimination and persecution are increasingly evident. Acknowledges the State Department: "Condemnations of conversions from Islam and censorship increased concerns about citizens' ability to freely practice minority religions."

In Iraq, the government does not actively persecute, though Baha'is and Wahabbi Sunnis face some legal disabilities. But the collapse of Iraqi civil society has left Christians particularly vulnerable to criminal violence.

Even worse, Islamic extremists are consciously destroying the historic Christian community. Carl Moeller of Open Doors USA observes, "Christians are targeted specifically for being Christians."

There is occasional good news. A few years ago Indonesia's Moluccan Islands were aflame in a conflict that killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands. The Crisis Centre Dioceses of Ambonia celebrated the conflict's end "based on mutual understanding and readiness to forgive."


BUT THE MOLUCCAN ISLANDS' reconciliation was the outlier in the otherwise tragic and intractable problem of peaceful religious co-existence in Muslim lands.

There is no good foreign policy answer to religious persecution. As bad as it is, persecution isn't the same as terrorism when it comes to justifying military intervention. And enthusiasm for humanitarian warfare died in the rubble left by Iraqi IEDs and car bombs.

Increased private dialogue might help. Before Pope Benedict XVI visited Turkey, Ali Bardakoglu, head of Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs, warned would-be jihadis: "We Muslims condemn all types of violence and terror, regardless of whoever commits it against whosoever."

His remarks should be repeated in mosques around the world. Today a shocking number of Muslims choose violence and terror, and even more choose acquiescence to violence and terror. Although Christian persecution of Muslims belongs to history, "Muslim persecution of Christians and other religious minorities remains a present evil," notes Jim Jacobson of Christian Freedom International.

Only after suffering through significant sectarian injustices did Christians of all stripes learn to tolerate those who believed and thought differently. Millions of Muslims living in the West have benefited from that transformation. Islamic lands should similarly transform themselves.

_________________________________________________

[nChrist]

Friday, April 4, 2008

An American team’s encounter with the Radical Hindu Protection Agency (RSS)…

REDLANDS, CA (ANS) -- On Thursday, March 6, 2008, a group of 7 Americans, 6 of which were women, one man 9myself), and an Indian pastor from the state of Tamil Nadu, traveled to a small village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As the bulk of their work was in Bangalore, this was to be considered a short side trip. Pastor JR had started work in this tiny village 2 years prior. He started by introducing free tutoring for the local children by employing a local teacher. He also began planting a church there.

The American team spent about 3 hours at the village the first afternoon, playing cricket, volleyball, and Frisbee with the kids. The team returned next night to show a movie called “The Hopegiver,” a presentation set on an Indian train, and a very realistic animated depiction of Jesus’ life, crucifixion, and resurrection shown throughout. When the team returned on Friday, March 7th, they arrived late to the village and started playing and singing again with the children.

Once the movie started, strange things started happening. A local man came up to me twice with a cell phone, saying his friend wanted to talk to me. A little while later, this “friend” showed up to the village with some other men and said he wanted me to pray over him for his business. These other men (not from the village) were standing around intently watching this.

The men that showed up started taking out digital cameras and tried to take pictures of our group. The women covered their faces with their scarves. They were also using the video function on their cameras to record the movie we were showing. At one point 2 women in our group went with the local teacher to find a bathroom, and several of the men broke off from the group and started following them into the darkness. The women said they heard hissing. Our Indian friend, JR, went over and got the men to come back to the main group.

As the movie was ending, JR was noticing all this tension rising in the village and told us that as soon as the movie ended, we were to gather up all the video/sound equipment, pack up and leave – no praying with the children or talking to anyone. So as the movie ended, we started packing up the stuff, and this is when the chaos started.

Men came up and started grabbing the equipment out of our hands and shouting at us that they were taking everything. We later learned that this was the radical, often violent Hindu Protection Agency (known as the RSS). At this point the whole village was getting hyped up; people were shouting and running all over the place. We decided the equipment wasn’t worth it, so we ran for our van. Men were coming at us telling us to give them our cell phones and one even felt my pockets for a phone. We all made it safely to the van except for JR, who we saw being hustled off somewhere by a couple of the men.

We later learned that they had tried to kill him. Two men held him while another tried to smash a brick over his head. They missed and hit his stomach, and then as he fell they punched and kicked him all over. Some villagers were able to get him out and hide him in one of their homes. We also found out later that they had beaten him because he wouldn’t take our team to another village so they could kill us.

Meanwhile, we were effectively held hostage in our van. People were opening the back door and trying to steal stuff, while a couple men came in the front door and screamed at us for our cell phones, asked us what we’re doing there, and told us we’re doing illegal things there by converting people. Someone had stolen the keys from the ignition and thrown them off somewhere. Our driver himself left after a few minutes. We weren’t able to see outside the van because it was so dark, but we could hear a crowd of people and could tell there were around 50 people outside our van. A policeman finally showed up after 30 minutes or so in the van, but he didn’t speak English and the only one to interpret was one of these men who attacked us. So it was more of him yelling at us while asking us questions. JR was accused of coming to the village and forcing people to convert, raping women in the village, and some other horrible things. But finally JR came over to the van and told us that he was okay and that he thought we all might be going to the police station.

We could see a mob of people now about 100 feet away listening to someone talking on a balcony of sorts at a house. Finally, after an hour and a half locked up in the van, some police came from a larger city nearby and took us all into their police truck to go off to a police station. Eight of us were crammed into a space designed for four, so we’re all sitting on top of each other. But at least we were out of the van and out of the village. There were moments we all thought we might not survive the night, but we were all praying and looking back, we all know God was with us.

As we drove from the village, JR could hear the police saying someone was following us. And sure enough, a car was right behind us. It was just us and them, out in the middle of nowhere. We came to learn that this group was a Hindu fanatic group whose purpose is to protect their religion and in turn their culture against other religions. They have murdered in the past and use violence regularly to intimidate pastors and missionaries. We learned someone in the village had called some leaders of this group who live locally and informed them of what we were doing.

The police had to set up a mini-blockade with another cop car to stop the other car from following us, and then we left the city we were heading to and went a different direction to lose them. All the while the policemen were telling us in English that we’re safe and that they are there to protect us. We weren’t convinced of that. But finally after an hour and a half or so in the back of the police truck, we made it to a police headquarters of sorts and are led into an interrogation room. The policemen made copies of our passports and videotaped us signing a form saying that we received our passports back, and then we had to say our names into the camera. They asked us what we were doing there and why we had picked that village, etc. The police were pretty nice to us but we were still all very uneasy about being there. So after an hour at that station, our van showed up! Our driver was able to hotwire it and the police brought him to the station where we were being held. So after JR was scolded by the police no to bring “innocent” Americans into danger and to let them know next time he came so they could protect him, we were on our way back to Bangalore. The police sent a vehicle escort with us along with 4 policemen in our van too. During the 6 hour trip back to Bangalore, the number of cops slowly decreased until for the last hour of the trip we were alone. We were very happy to make it back to our hotel in Bangalore safely and had quite a story to tell the rest of our group.

The hardest part for me was seeing so much hate in someone’s eyes who I had never met before or ever wronged. They wanted to kill us all – I’m convinced of that. We really experienced the power of Satan there in that village, and we got to see that the One in us really is greater than he that is in the world. A little girl came to the saving knowledge of Christ that night. It made everything worth it.

The author is currently working as a high school Math teacher in Riverside, CA. He attends Oasis Christian Fellowship in Redlands, CA, and has been involved in full-time outreach. He has co-led Oasis International teams for the past three years and is married to Debbie and they are currently expecting their first child.

____________________________________________

[Soldier4Christ]

China escalates Bible crackdown
Bookstore owner re-arrested after being cleared of original counts

The Chinese owner of a bookstore near the 2008 Olympics complex in Beijing has been re-arrested and detained, only about a dozen weeks after he was cleared of allegations of illegally publishing Bibles and Christian literature due to "insufficient evidence," according to a new report from Compass Direct.

As WND reported earlier, Shi Weihan was released in January after being taken into custody shortly after Thanksgiving 2007 during police raids on his home and office.

China Aid Association then reported the fact he was released, along with several others, although the government offered no explanation for his case.

An American friend, businessman Ray Sharpe, had told WND at the time of the earlier arrest that Shi is a businessman who also works as a travel agent, and had gotten governmental permission to publish some Christian book titles.

Compass Direct now is reporting that the 37-year-old father of two was re-arrested on March 19 and is being held without any communication with his family, according to reports from his wife, Zhang Jing.

Compass said she had gotten no word on her husband's condition and is prohibited from bringing him food or clothing. Since he has diabetes, she is "very concerned" about his health, Compass reported.

Compass cited an Asia Times Online report that said Shi and his Holy Spirit Trading Co. were accused, again, of printing Bibles and Christian literature without government permission.

"Believers across China report a shortage of Bibles and other Christian resources. The China Christian Council (CCC) claims that Amity Press, the only legal publisher of Bibles in China, is producing enough Bibles to meet the demand. The Council, however, puts the total number of Protestant believers in China at only 16 million – including only the members of government-approved churches – whereas a survey carried out by the East China Normal University in 2005 and 2006, published in February 2007, stated that China had 40 million Protestants," the Compass report said.

Some estimates on the total number of Christians in China rise as high as 130 million. The fact is, Compass said, "In some areas, house church members still take turns reading the only available copy of Scripture."

The report said Shi's arrest "appears to be part of a crackdown on religious groups that the government fears could raise dissident voices during" the coming Olympics.

WND reported earlier on a "blacklist" of people and groups of people China has been targeting specifically because of the coming publicity that will accompany the Olympic Games in August. Those targeted include religious leaders.

WND also documented a report that China would ban Bibles from its Olympic village for athletes. Chinese officials denounced that report, but have maintained on the Olympics website a demand that visitors to the Games bring no more than a single Bible with them.

The case involving Shi has gotten considerable attention at least partly because he is the father of a U.S. citizen.

Sharpe told WND questions were directed to both the Chinese government and the U.S. embassy because the man's daughter, Grace Shi, 7, is a U.S. citizen, and was forced last fall into hiding with her Chinese mother and 11-year-old sister.

Sharpe, who said he was able to confirm information about the family because he lived for a number of years in China, told WND Shi is a life-long resident of Beijing, but was arrested then "in his Christian literature bookstore in a high-class business tower near the Olympics Village."

He said Shi's younger brother and Shi's wife, Jing Zhang, also were taken into custody but were released after questioning.

The daughter, Grace, is an American citizen because she was born during the family's visit to the U.S. in 2000. She and her older sister, "Lily," were distraught because they witnessed the raid on their home, Sharpe said.

WND previously has reported on China's apparent crackdown on Christians and Christianity in advance of the 2008 Games, including the expulsion of more than 100 foreign Christians in China in just a 90-day period, the biggest assault on the presence of Christianity in China since 1954.

[Shammu]

 Protestants in Russia face Moscow's antipathy
By Clifford J. Levy
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

STARY OSKOL, Russia: It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began.

First came visits from agents of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a "sect." Finally, last month, they shut it down.

There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir Putin.

Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin's surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.

This close alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church has become a defining characteristic of Putin's tenure, a mutually reinforcing choreography that is usually described here as working "in symphony." Putin makes frequent appearances with the church's leader, Patriarch Aleksei II, on the Kremlin-controlled national television networks. Last week, Putin was shown prominently accepting an invitation from Aleksei II to attend services for Russian Orthodox Easter, which is this Sunday.

The relationship is grounded in part in a common nationalistic ideology dedicated to restoring Russia's might after the disarray that followed the end of the Soviet Union. The church's hostility toward Protestant groups, many of which are based in the United States, or have large followings there, is tinged with the same anti-Western sentiment often voiced by Putin and other senior officials.

The government's antipathy also seems to stem in part from the Kremlin's wariness toward independent organizations that are not allied with the government.

Here in Stary Oskol, 480 kilometers, or 300 miles, south of Moscow, the police evicted a Seventh-day Adventist congregation from its meeting hall, forcing it to hold services in a ramshackle home next to a construction site. Evangelical Baptists were barred from renting a theater for a Christian music festival, and were not even allowed to hand out toys at an orphanage. A Lutheran minister said he had moved away for a few years because he feared for his life. He has returned, but keeps a low profile.

On local television last month, the city's chief Russian Orthodox priest, who is a confidant of the region's most powerful politicians, gave a sermon that was repeated every few hours. His theme: Protestant heretics.

"We deplore those who are led astray - those Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ's robes like bandits, who are like the soldiers who crucified Christ, who ripped apart Christ's holy coat," declared the priest, the Reverend Aleksei Zorin.

Such language is familiar to Protestants in Stary Oskol, who number about 2,000 in a city of 225,000.

The Reverend Vladimir Pakhomov, a Methodist minister, recalled a warning from an FSB officer to one of his parishioners: "Protestantism is facing difficult times - or maybe its end."

Most Protestant churches are required under the law to register with the government to do anything more than conduct prayers in an apartment. Officials rejected Pakhomov's registration this year, first saying his paperwork was deficient, then contending that the church was a front for an unspecified business.

Pakhomov appealed in court, but lost. He said he could now face arrest for so much as chatting with children about attending a Methodist camp.

"They have made us into lepers to scare people away," Pakhomov said. "There is this climate that you can feel with your every cell: 'It's not ours, it's American, it's alien; since it's alien we cannot expect anything good from it.' It's ignorance, all around."

Yuri Romashin, a senior city official, said the denial of the Methodist church's registration was appropriate, explaining that the government had to guard against suspicious organizations that used religion as a cover.

"Their goal was not a holy and noble one," he said of Pakhomov's church.

Romashin said the government did not discriminate against Protestants. "We have to create conditions so that we do not infringe upon their right in any way to their religion and their freedom of conscience," he said.

Yet, like many Russian officials, he referred to Protestant churches with the derogatory term "sects."

The limits on Russia's Protestants - about 2 million in a total population of 142 million - have by no means reached those that existed under the officially atheistic Soviet Union, which brutally suppressed religion. And churches in some regions say they have not experienced major difficulties.

The Russian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and Putin has often spoken against discrimination.

"In modern Russia, tolerance and tolerance for other beliefs are the foundation for civil peace, and an important factor for social progress," he said at a meeting of religious leaders in 2006.

Putin has also denounced anti-Semitism. While many Jews have emigrated over the past two decades, the Jewish community - now a few hundred thousand people - is experiencing something of a rebirth here.

Anti-Semitism has not disappeared. But in some regions it seems to have been supplanted by anti-Protestantism and, to a lesser extent, anti-Catholicism.

Mikhail Odintsov, a senior aide in the office of Russia's human rights commissioner, who was nominated by Putin, said most of the complaints his office received about religion involved Protestants.

Odintsov listed the issues: "Registration, re-registration, problems with property illegally taken away, problems with construction of church buildings, problems with renovations, problems with ministers coming from abroad, problems with law enforcement, usually with the police. Problems, problems, problems and more problems."

"In Russia," he said, "there isn't any significant, influential political force, party or any form of organization that upholds and protects the principle of freedom of religion."

This absence looms especially large at the regional level. At the request of a Russian Orthodox bishop, prosecutors in the western region of Smolensk shut down a Methodist church last month, supposedly for running a tiny Sunday school without an educational license. The church's defenders noted that many churches and other religious groups in Russia ran religious schools without licenses and had never been prosecuted.

The FSB has been waging a battle across Russia against Jehovah's Witnesses. In Nizhny Novgorod, in central Russia, the local Jehovah's Witnesses have had to cancel religious events at least a dozen times in the past few months after the FSB threatened owners of meetings halls, the church's members said.

In February, some officials in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, the third largest in Russia, proposed creating a commission to combat what it called "totalitarian sects." The governor of the Tula region, near Moscow, charged that U.S. military intelligence was using Protestant "sects" to infiltrate Russia.

Officials do not say precisely which groups they are referring to, but Protestant ministers say the epithet is so widespread that most Russians assume the speakers mean all Protestants.

The term has clearly seeped into the public's consciousness.

cont'd next post

[Shammu]

"As a Russian Orthodox believer, I am against the sects," said Valeriya Gubareva, a retired teacher, who was asked about Protestants as she was leaving a Russian Orthodox church here. "Our Russian Orthodox religion is inviolable, and it should not be shaken."

Like other parishioners interviewed, Gubareva said she supported freedom of religion.

While church attendance in Russia is very low, polls show that Russians are embracing Russian Orthodoxy as part of their identity. In one recent poll, 71 percent of respondents described themselves as Russian Orthodox, up from 59 percent in 2003.

There are a few hundred thousand Roman Catholics in Russia, and the Russian Orthodox Church has had tense relations with the Vatican, accusing Catholic missionaries of trying to convert Russians. The Vatican says it seeks only to reach out to existing Catholics.

The Russian government has often refused visas for foreign Catholic priests, whom the Vatican has sent because there are few Russian ones.

There have been considerable numbers of Protestants in Russia since the second half of the 18th century. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Protestant faiths in the West saw Russia as fertile territory and spent heavily to send missionaries to help the existing worshipers and to convert others.

But the Russian Orthodox Church, which was widely persecuted under Communism, was rebuilding and worried about losing adherents.

A backlash ensued. In 1997, under President Boris Yeltsin, the first major federal law was enacted restricting Protestant churches and missionaries, requiring many of them to register with the government. But Yeltsin had a far more ambivalent relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church than does Putin, and in the chaos of the times the laws were not always enforced.

Under Putin, who has worn a cross and talked publicly about his faith, the government has added regulations, and laws have often been enforced more stringently or, some Protestants say, capriciously.

For its part, the church, with its links to the czars, has conferred legitimacy on Putin by championing his rule as he has consolidated power and battered the opposition. In December, after Putin selected his close aide, Dmitri Medvedev, as his successor as president, Aleksei II extolled the decision on national television.

Aleksandr Fedichkin, a leader of the Russian Evangelical Alliance, which represents many Protestant churches, said governors, who are appointed by Putin, regularly deferred to Russian Orthodox bishops.

"Many times, officials say to us, 'Please, you must ask the Orthodox bishop about your activity, and if he agrees, then you can work here,' " Fedichkin said.

Asked about such complaints, Dmitri Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said Protestants had made impressive strides in Russia, with the number of officially registered religious organizations in the country having increased nearly fivefold, to more than 23,000, in recent years. Many of those, he said, were Protestant.

"First of all, all religions are treated on an equal basis," Peskov said. "But at the same time, we have to keep in mind that the Russian Orthodox Church is the leading church in Russia, it's the most popular church in Russia."

He added, "Speaking about violations in terms of Protestants or others, about possible complaints, it's very hard to draw any trends." He recommended seeking the views of Bishop Sergei Ryakhovsky, head of the Pentecostal Union, whom Putin appointed to the Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory council.

Ryakhovsky said in an interview that while the Kremlin voiced support for tolerance, the situation at the regional level was troubling. Little if anything was being done, he said, to help Protestant churches that are routinely barred by officials from obtaining space for services. Nor, he said, did the Kremlin seem interested in discouraging Russian Orthodox clergy members from attacking Protestants.

"These questions, like construction and obtaining plots of land, are deeply problematic all over Russia," he said. "The issue is not some particular regions or provinces. I am like a firefighter, and I have to rush to different areas of the country, to find ways to establish a dialogue with the authorities."

Here in southwestern Russia, the Belgorod region, traditionally a stronghold of Russian Orthodoxy, has been at the forefront of the anti-Protestant campaign.

In 2001, during Putin's first term, the region enacted a law to drastically restrict Protestant proselytizing. More recently, it mandated that all public-school children take what is essentially a Russian Orthodox religion course. A guide for teachers of young children recommends that schools have religious rooms with portraits of Jesus Christ, Russian Orthodox icons and other sacred items.

The regional governor, Yevgeny Savchenko, who calls himself a Russian Orthodox governor, would not be interviewed for this article.

Archbishop Ioann, the chief Russian Orthodox priest in the Belgorod region, said Russians had a deep connection to Orthodoxy that the government should nurture.

"In essence, we have begun to live through a period that is like the second Baptism of Russia, just as there was before the Baptism of ancient Russia," he said, referring to Russia's adoption of Christianity in the year 988.

He said the church wanted warm ties with other faiths, though it was hard to overlook the foreign connections of Protestants.

"You know, what else alarms me, the majority of them are born - I must apologize, but I will tell the truth - from the West's money," he said. "Naturally, they need to play the role of the offended ones who need protection."

The archbishop denied that the church disparaged Protestants.

"In our sermons, you will never hear us trying to condemn them or say that they do anything wrong," he said.

In fact, on the day the archbishop was being interviewed, the local television was repeatedly showing the sermon of his deputy, Zorin, likening Protestants to those who killed Jesus Christ.

The Protestant churches say they are left alone by the authorities only if they keep their activities behind closed doors. And so it was that on a recent weekend, clusters of Protestants made their way to whatever gathering spots they could find.

The Reverend Sergei Matyukh, a Lutheran pastor, held a service in a small apartment with his Methodist colleague, Pakhomov, as a show of support. Many of the parishioners said that what most bothered them was that the officials who harassed them once professed loyalty to Communism, and had switched to Russian Orthodoxy.

"The power holders, they are, as a rule, atheists," said Gennadi Safonov, who works in marketing. "They have adopted a fashion or a trend."

One of the few Protestant groups with a permanent base is the Evangelical Baptists, who in the relative freedom of the early 1990s were able to obtain a sturdy building that seats several hundred people. They have been allowed to stay, though they say they would not be permitted to find other space.

Protestants here must receive official permission before doing anything remotely like proselytizing. The Reverend Vladimir Kotenyov, a Baptist minister, said his church had given up asking.

"Naturally, it will be perceived as propaganda directed at our population," Kotenyov said. " 'What kind of propaganda are you preaching?' they would ask. 'An American faith?' "

"This is how they think: If you are a Russian person, it means that you have to be Russian Orthodox."

Protestants in Russia face Moscow's antipathy
~~~~~~~~~~

This from the church with a patron saint of atomic bombers. I'm not sure how much in bed the ROC is with Putin, but when he says he wants only Russian Orthodoxism in Russia, it can't be good. Can you imagine what they're going to be like after the Rapture?

The Orthodox Church is the driving force behind the massive persecution of Protestants in Belarus. It seems that the Orthodox Church in Belarus is "in bed" with the leaders there.

[nChrist]

Muslim Rebels Expel Over 1,000 Christians from Village

Muslim rebels drove off more than 1,000 Christians from a southern Philippine farming village and took over their land, the guerillas and a mayor said Friday.
by Ethan Cole, Christian Today Correspondent
Posted: Sunday, May 4, 2008, 7:44 (BST)

Muslim rebels drove off more than 1,000 Christians from a southern Philippine farming village and took over their land, the guerillas and a mayor said Friday.

Armed members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) entered the coastal village of Sangay in the town of Kalamansig on the troubled island of Mindanao Wednesday to demand food and rice recently harvested by the farmers, Kalamansig Mayor Rolando Garcia said, according to The Associated Press.

In the past, the armed rebels have demanded food and stayed only briefly in the village, but this time they told villagers to leave and occupied the land. Faced with about 300 armed MILF guerillas, the scared residents fled to Kalamansig town about three hours away by boat while the rebels remained in the village.

"I sent a peacekeeping force there to settle the problem amicably but they were forced to withdraw to avoid bloodshed," Garcia said of the 14-man police team sent to the area, according to AP.

There were no immediate reports of violence or casualties.

Garcia said his town has about 1,200 people in their temporary shelter area who are too afraid to return to their farms, according to Reuters.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the group took over the land because it belongs to them.

For more than three decades, MILF has fought to establish a Muslim homeland in the southern area of the largely Catholic country. Decades of war have killed 120,000 people and displaced two million.

In 2003, the group agreed to a ceasefire with the Filipino government as the two sides held peace talks brokered by Malaysia. But some rebels are frustrated with the long peace talks with Manila, which has stalled since December 2007.

Last week, Malaysia said around 20 of 41 of its peacekeepers would leave on May 10 and the rest would be withdrawn by the end of August because the peace process was not moving forward.

Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has repeatedly said she wants peace, but her cabinet members are opposed to granting large pieces of land to Muslims, according to Reuters. Moreover, politically powerful Christian groups in the south would oppose the deal.

MILF’s Kabula said the group’s leaders did not approve of the land takeover, and that the MILF was in talks with officials to resolve the situation in Sangay. He also noted that the situation was local and the government and rebel negotiators were not involved.
________________________________________

[nChrist]

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Pastors Attacked in Andhra Pradesh, India

By James Varghese
Special to ASSIST News Service

ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA (ANS) -- About 60 Hindu radicals attacked two pastors in Andhra Pradesh, India.

According to a story on the All India Christian Council website www.christiancouncil.in, the May 5 attack occurred in Mahanandi village in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.

Pastors Shankaraiah and Dasanna were attacked outside the village. The alleged attackers were led by Gihwananda Swami, described in the website story as “a leader of Hindu fanatics.” The pastors were beaten up, the story reported, and then handed over to the police with an allegation against them of “large scale conversion activities.”

The All India Christian Council has condemned the attack, and called for legal action to be taken against the attackers.
__________________________________

[nChrist]

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Hindu Radicals Ransack Convent and Attack Two Nuns

By James Varghese
Special to ASSIST News Service

MADHYA PRADESH, INDIA (ANS) -- A group of Hindu radicals recently ransacked a convent and attacked two nuns.

The attack occurred on May 15 in the early evening in the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh.

According to a story reported by the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) on the organization’s web site www.persecution.in, it was the Presentation Sisters Convent that was attacked.

The incident occurred at Gondarmug village under the Gandhinagar Police Station area in the outskirts of Bhopal, the state's capital.

GCIC reported that the Presentation Sisters have been working in the city’s underprivileged section for six years.

Convent Superior Sister Sister Silvya Francis told GCIC, “The (approximately 30 criminals) first forced their way into the convent campus. Then 12 of them barged into the convent through the main door, and began to destroy the window panes, television set, lantern and other furniture.”

The GCIC story reported the loss to be about $2500.

“They were armed with hockey sticks, cricket bats and stones,” the web site reported she added Francis also said, “they also climbed up the first floor of the two storied building, and dragged two of the novices down and manhandled them. Besides this, they tried to lock one of them into a room. However, both managed to escape from them. They had also disconnected the telephone line before entering into the campus.”

According to a story carried by www.ucanews.com, Francis said by phone that the attackers identified themselves as Hindus, and said they did not need the nuns there.

“We are not going to move out from here,” Francis told UCA News.

UCA News reported the sisters immediately filed a police complaint against the unidentified attackers. The next day, nine people were arrested.

Commenting on the incident, the spokesperson of the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, Father Muttungal, told UCA News, “it is really sad to see the deteriorating religious harmony along with law and order. The state government have failed to follow the High Court interim direction to provide security to (the) Christian community. We will approach the court again ...”

UCA News reported that Christians in Madhya Pradesh have faced a series of violent attacks since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, the Indian People’s Party) came to power in the state five years ago. Church leaders and others also say intolerance of Christians has increased. The BJP is regarded as the political arm of Hindu groups that want to make India a Hindu nation.

Christian leaders told UCA News that such attacks continue, despite several petitions seeking protection for Christians from radical Hindu groups. They complain that nobody was punished for the attacks. In many instances, police register complaints against the Christian victims, accusing them of trying to forcibly convert Hindus to Christianity.

UCA News reported that of Madhya Pradesh’s 60 million people, 91 percent are Hindus. Catholics and other Christians together comprise less than one percent, but Catholic educational and health institutions are valued nonetheless. Since the BJP came to power, however, radical Hindu groups have been saying these organizations are just fronts for luring poor people to Christianity.
_________________________________________

[HisDaughter]

Muslims equate Christians Missionaries with terrorists

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65447


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Christian missionaries are "as dangerous as terrorist activities or the illegal drug trade," Islamic theologians in Uzbekistan declared.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports a new documentary called "In the Clutches of Ignorance," featuring Uzbek experts, state officials and representatives of Orthodox and Catholic churches in Uzbekistan, claims missionaries pose a serious threat to the Islamic republic.

The Uzbek state film criticized the Christian Gospel Church and Blagodat (an evangelical charity), saying they cause a "global problem, along with religious dogmatism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and drug addiction."

Jasur Najmiddinov, one of many religious experts interviewed, accused Protestants of being a "political tool" and a "part of geopolitical games," RFE/RL reported.

"Their center or place of origin traces back to the United States," Najmiddinov said. "They have even gone so far as meddling in politics. We all know representatives of the Protestant movement played a significant role in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine."

The Uzbek theologian said missionary activities disrupt society because Uzbek families do not tolerate relatives who convert from Islam.

The May 16 documentary featured clips of people praying and claimed Uzbek Christians, who have turned their backs on Islam, could effortlessly betray their country.

Uzbekistan bans missionary activity, religions that are not registered with the government and printing of faith-based literature without state consent.

Norway's Forum 18, an organization defending religious freedom, reports intolerance of religion is steadily growing in Uzbekistan as police invade private homes, seize Christian literature, arrest converts and deport missionaries.

The new state documentary warns, Christian missionaries seek out "those with low political awareness and weak-willed young people, as well as minors," and it said they "get funds abroad" to destabilize Islam.

Although the government says its official stance of "religious toleration" is part of its policy, persecution of a wide variety of religious groups is common in Uzbekistan

[nChrist]

Muslims equate Christians Missionaries with terrorists

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=65447


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christian missionaries are "as dangerous as terrorist activities or the illegal drug trade," Islamic theologians in Uzbekistan declared.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports a new documentary called "In the Clutches of Ignorance," featuring Uzbek experts, state officials and representatives of Orthodox and Catholic churches in Uzbekistan, claims missionaries pose a serious threat to the Islamic republic.

The Uzbek state film criticized the Christian Gospel Church and Blagodat (an evangelical charity), saying they cause a "global problem, along with religious dogmatism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and drug addiction."

Jasur Najmiddinov, one of many religious experts interviewed, accused Protestants of being a "political tool" and a "part of geopolitical games," RFE/RL reported.

"Their center or place of origin traces back to the United States," Najmiddinov said. "They have even gone so far as meddling in politics. We all know representatives of the Protestant movement played a significant role in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine."

The Uzbek theologian said missionary activities disrupt society because Uzbek families do not tolerate relatives who convert from Islam.

The May 16 documentary featured clips of people praying and claimed Uzbek Christians, who have turned their backs on Islam, could effortlessly betray their country.

Uzbekistan bans missionary activity, religions that are not registered with the government and printing of faith-based literature without state consent.

Norway's Forum 18, an organization defending religious freedom, reports intolerance of religion is steadily growing in Uzbekistan as police invade private homes, seize Christian literature, arrest converts and deport missionaries.

The new state documentary warns, Christian missionaries seek out "those with low political awareness and weak-willed young people, as well as minors," and it said they "get funds abroad" to destabilize Islam.

Although the government says its official stance of "religious toleration" is part of its policy, persecution of a wide variety of religious groups is common in Uzbekistan

THANKS GRAMMYLUV!

This is a fascinating article that is a perfect example of how the devil twists things. Missionaries risk their lives in love and dedication to others. There are many stories on the other side of the coin about the negative impact of Christian missionaries being killed and what the people suffered they were ministering to. Much of it related to basic necessities of life and just plain Christian love. Their networks of support had nothing to do with hate and war, rather of food, clothing, safe water, shelter, and a source of human kindness. These are the things that CHRIST told us to do, and they died loving others. However, we should know that love is a dangerous thing in a REGIME OF HATE. So, the Perfect Love of JESUS CHRIST is a MOST dangerous thing.

[HisDaughter]

China crackdown hits house churches hard
by Daniel Blake
Posted: Saturday, May 31, 2008, 10:42 (BST)Font Scale:A A A


House churches across China have been hit by a wave of arrests and detentions, says China Aid Association (CAA), the leading support group for China’s persecuted Christians.

CAA said that the sudden increase in incidents throughout May involving the Religious Affairs Bureau and the Public Security Bureau is “indicative of a crackdown”.

House church meetings have been disbanded and a number of Christians have been arrested, including two Christians in Xinjiang province who were charged with being “separatists”. Throughout the province, officials have posted signs asking citizens to report any “evil cult activity”, a label which encompasses house churches.

In Hebei province, officials closed down a Bible school on May 13, while on May 15 Public Security Bureau officials broke up a prayer meeting held by more than 20 Christians for victims of the earthquake and for the Olympics.

CAA said that Chinese government officials had turned away and also arrested some house church members who had volunteered to help victims of the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province.

It compared the behaviour of the Chinese Government to that of the Burma military junta in initially refusing international aid.

“Such biased behaviour is a reminder of the irrational prejudice the CPC [Communist Party of China] holds against house church members who want nothing more than to have true religious freedom and help their fellow countrymen in this hour of need,” the group said.

CAA asked for prayers and aid from churches around the world in the wake of the earthquake, and said it was actively working with the Chinese house churches to bring relief items to survivors.

[Soldier4Christ]

Christians face arrest for preaching gospel
Pastors told it's 'hate crime' to hand out gospel in Muslim area

Two American-born pastors handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham, England, were threatened with arrest and warned of being beaten for committing what an officer called a "hate crime."

Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, were handing out the leaflets and talking with local youths when they were approached and questioned by a police community support officer, or PCSO.

When the officer discovered the two Birmingham pastors were born in the U.S., he began a heated criticism of President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cunningham explained that the gospel message was not linked to American foreign policy, but the officer reportedly became belligerent.

"He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message," Cunningham told the London Telegraph. "He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

In England a PCSO is a full-time employee of the police charged with community peacekeeping, but the officers do not have the power of arrest without a constable. In this case, the pastors refused to accompany the PCSO into the presence of a constable or to divulge their home addresses as, they said, the officer grew "threatening and intimidating."

The ministers also claim the PCSO bullied them, saying, "You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well, you have been warned."

The local police station has since announced that the matter was fully investigated and that the PCSO would be given corrective training, but the incident fuels concerns that there are areas in Britain where the Christian message is increasingly unwelcome.

In April, Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester and the Church of England's only Pakistan-born bishop, wrote in the Telegraph that certain pockets of England were becoming "no-go" zones, places too dangerous for non-Muslims to enter.

Joseph Abraham, one of the threatened pastors agrees. He told the paper, "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The bishop of Rochester was criticized by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain, but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel."

[Soldier4Christ]

This situation is not just happening in England. It is increasingly taking place the world over including in America. Instead of bowing down to muslim hate in this manner there should have been support given to these people for there freedoms and protection against any possible beatings.

[nChrist]

This situation is not just happening in England. It is increasingly taking place the world over including in America. Instead of bowing down to muslim hate in this manner there should have been support given to these people for there freedoms and protection against any possible beatings.

For England, there is a danger of losing an entire country. For America, there is already almost lost cities and counties. England and America share many legal principles, and that would include laws that apply to streets, public buildings, and other public property owned by the public. There shouldn't be any "no-go zones" controlled by Muslims or any other faction. If Muslims want this kind of control, they should be firmly told "NO!" and that they're more than welcome to go home for that kind of control. Those who can't or refuse to assimilate in a peaceful and legal manner should be deported. Laws that preserve the public peace are already on the books, and they should be enforced. I feel certain there are also laws on the books controlling immigration and recent immigrants - AND those laws should be enforced. It's time for some common sense, law enforcement, and DEPORTATION!