Christians Burned to Death in Islamist Attacks in Pakistan

14 believers reportedly killed; more than 100 homes burned in Gojra town, Korian village.
By Brian Sharma
 

GOJRA, Pakistan, August 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists today set ablaze more than 50 houses and a church in this town in northeastern Pakistan following an accusation of “blasphemy” of the Quran, leaving at least 14 Christians dead, sources said.
 
The dead include women and children, with several other burn victims unable to reach hospitals for medical care, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS). The attack came amid a protest by thousands of Muslim Islamists – including members of banned militant groups – that resulted in another six people dying when participants shot at police and officers responded with tear gas and gunfire.
 
The same rumor of desecration of the Quran that led to today’s massive protest and attack in Gojra, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Faisalabad, also prompted an arson assault on Thursday (July 30) by Islamic extremists on the village of Korian, seven miles from Gojra, that gutted 60 houses.
 
Punjab Minister for Law Rana Sanaullah reportedly said an initial investigation of allegations of the Quran being blasphemed indicated “there has not been any incident of desecration.”
 
Because of the earlier assault in Korian, Pakistani officials were already in the area and had sought reinforcements to help control the 11 a.m. demonstration today in Gojra, but security forces were slow to respond, according to CLAAS.
 
“There were unaccountable people in the mob and they were out of control because only four police constables were trying to stop the mob of thousands of people,” a CLAAS report said.
 
Crowd size and attacks grew, and Islamists managed to block main roads and railways to keep fire brigades from fighting the house fires, according to CLAAS.
 
With authorities also blocking roads to keep more Muslim extremists from entering from neighboring villages, clerics at local mosques broadcast messages that those “who love Muhammad and Islam should gather with them to defend the Islam because it is in danger,” according to CLAAS.
 
In response to the police road closures, Islamists became more aggressive and began burning property using firearms and explosives in nearby hamlets where primarily Christians live, according to CLAAS. 
 
“About 20 houses have been burnt in Chauck No. 424, and valuable things have been stolen from about 100 Christian houses,” according to the CLAAS statement.  
 
Asam Masih, a Christian in Gojra, said that that women and children were severely burned and had no way to get to a hospital, according to CLAAS, which was helping to transport victims for medical care.
 
Islamists set on fire a Catholic church on Sumandri road and destroyed it using firearms and explosives, according to CLAAS.
 
“50 houses are burned and totally destroyed,” the CLAAS statement read. “14 people including children, women and men are expired.”
 
Wedding and Funeral
As Christians have begun defending themselves against the onslaughts, mainstream media have already begun referring to the overwhelmingly Islamist aggression as “Christian and Muslim rioting.”
 
Compass investigated the facts of the trigger incident in the village of Korian, where more than 500 Muslims, responding to calls from a mosque, attacked Christians in Toba Tek Singh district. Local sources said nearly all village Christian families fled. The fires destroyed their homes – collapsing their wooden roofs or melting T-iron roofs – and all belongings within that the attacking Muslims had not first looted.
 
“Our house is burnt and everything is gone, but Muslim neighbors around are not willing to give us a loaf of bread or a sip of water to us,” 80-year-old Baba Sharif Masih told Compass.
 
He and his wife Hanifa Bibi, 73, were the only Christians left in the village in the northeastern province of Punjab. Masih, who is paralyzed, said the attackers let them live when they pleaded that they were unable to run away.
 
Two church buildings were ransacked but not burned, Compass sources said.
 
One Christian resident of Korian identified only as Shabir said the blasphemy accusation grew out of an incident at a wedding on Sunday (July 25). During the ceremony, Christian wedding guests tossed currency notes and coins into the air according to custom, with children catching most of them as they fall. Shabir told Compass a Muslim funeral was taking place at the same time, however, and that mourners told wedding celebrants to stop their music; they apparently declined.
 
The next day, Muslims met with the parents of the bride, Talib and Mukhtar Masih, and told them that their sons had cut pages of the Quran the size of currency notes and had been throwing them in the air the previous night, Shabir said.
 
“Talib said that nothing like this has happened, but that if there was anything, ‘I’ll call my son and he will definitely apologize for it,’” Shabir said. “But then they immediately began beating them and left Talib when he fell unconscious.”
 
Shabir said that afterward when Christian women went to the Muslims and told them that they were wrong to beat Talib Masih, the assailants yelled at them and tried to attack them, but they were able to flee to their homes.
 
On Thursday (July 30), Shabir said, Muslim clerics announced from the village mosque that “if any infidel Christian wanted to save his or her life, then get out of here or they would be killed.”
 
As the Muslim mobs gathered, he said, Christians immediately fled – leaving their meals prepared and fires burning in stoves.
 
“These assailants first looted these houses and then set them on fire and closed the door,” he said. “Since then, not a single Christian is left there except a very old couple.” 
 
Islamist’s Version
Village Muslims declined to open their doors when Compass reporters called on them.
 
But one of three Muslim leaders standing with a crowd of turban-clad Islamists at the entrance to the village, Qari Noor Ahmed, told Compass the story of the alleged cut pages of the Quran at the marriage ceremony.
 
“Because it was night, no one noticed, but in the morning we saw that the pages of the Quran had been cut to currency note size, and they were trampled under people’s feet,” he said.
 
Ahmed said that village authorities later met and called in Talib and Mukhtar Masih. He said that council authorities decided that their son should apologize.
 
“But when his son came in the meeting, he by no means seemed apologetic, rather he was aggressive,” Ahmed said. “This was the root cause, and we told Talib and Mukhtar to tell their children to apologize.”
 
Ahmed said that afterwards they searched for Talib and Mukhtar Masih and their sons but could not find them.
 
“Then Muslims became furious that first they had profaned the Quran, and now they had fled and were not apologizing,” Ahmed said. “Then the villagers attacked their houses. All the Christians who are visiting here are armed, and we are sitting here to avoid any untoward incident. It is better for you to leave now or you may be attacked.”
 
Munawar Masih, a 20-year-old Christian in Korian, said that he was preparing supper around 7 p.m. when he heard the announcement from the mosque that “infidel Christians had profaned the Holy Quran, and let’s teach them exemplary lesson.”
 
He looked outside as his family was about to sit down to dinner and saw a large mob approaching.
 
“We just fled from there to save our lives, and since then we are hiding in Gojra,” he said.
 
Private TV channel reporter Ghulam Muhauddin told Compass that after the Korian houses were set on fire, the Islamic extremists blocked the Faisalabad-Gojra Highway to keep firefighters from arriving.
 
“When the attack was unleashed, several people were injured and even some domestic animals were killed,” he said.
 
Muhauddin said that after negotiations between the District Police Officer and the protestors, Station House Officer (SHO) Jamshed Iqbal Nasir was suspended for not properly handling the incident.
 
Christians Accused
Officials at the Sadar Police Station, in whose precincts the attack took place, were not available for comment, but a deputy called Imam Din said that a First Information Report (FIR) had been filed under Section 295-B, or blasphemy of the Quran, against Talib and Mukhtar Masih.
 
He said that the complainant in the case was Muhammad Ashraf, and that police had possession of the alleged burnt or cut papers of the Quran. Din said that after SHO Nasir was suspended and Ashiq Hussein replaced him, Hussein was willing to file an FIR against those who had ransacked and burned houses of Christians. He said the accused were still at large and that police would arrest them after Christians returned to their homes. 
 
Asked if police were under pressure from Islamists or the government, Din declined to comment.
 
Advocacy group Community Development Initiative (CDI) field officer Napoleon Qayyum said that the group had informed high officials about the Korian attack, including the presidency, and that soon afterward the president issued a notice. Qayyum noted that the Korian and Gojra attacks follow a July 1 attack in Kasur, where swarms of Islamists ransacked and damaged 110 homes.
 
“It is a clear sign that violent attacks against Christians have dramatically increased in recent days,” he said, adding that CDI would provide legal help to victims. CDI works with assistance from the American Centre of Law and Justice.
 
Muhauddin of the private TV channel added that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had taken the notice of the attacks and was forming a an investigative team comprising the Faisalabad Regional Police Officer and Faisalabad Commissioner, which will send a report to him.
 
A spokesman from the Pakistani president’s office, former Sen. Farhatullah Babar, told Compass that President Asif Ali Zardari had taken a notice of the attack and had asked the provincial government to investigate. He said the president has condemned the attack and that there was no justification for anyone taking the law into their own hands.
 
Asked why the committee constituted by the provincial government did not have any Christians on it, he responded that it was the discretion of the provincial government to determine the make-up of the panel and that the federal government was concerned only about the report. Asked why an FIR had been filed against Christians and not Muslims for ransacking and vandalizing, he said only that appropriate action would be taken after the inquiry.
 
Member of National Assembly Farahnaz Ispahani, wife of Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, told Compass that President Zardari had directed Federal Minorities Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti to visit the area and “express sympathy with the victims.”

Episcopal Church takes steps toward recognizing same-sex marriage

The Episcopal Church has moved decisively closer to full acceptance of gay men and lesbians, taking steps toward recognizing same-sex marriage and gay bishops.

Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Church's first -- and so far only -- openly gay bishop.

A key committee voted overwhelmingly Monday to start putting together blessings to be used in same-sex marriages, the church's official newspaper reported.

Separately, the House of Bishops voted by a wide margin to allow gays and lesbians to become bishops, Episcopal Life reported.

Both measures must be approved by the church's General Convention before taking effect, but expert Mark Silk said there is "little reason" to think the changes will not "sail through."

"They basically decided to move forward on all fronts with regularizing the status of gays and lesbians within the church," said Silk, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Connecticut

State Attorney General Martha Coakley filed the lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Boston. It says the federal Defense of Marriage Act interferes with the right of Massachusetts to define marriage as it sees fit.

The 1996 federal law denies federal recognition of gay marriage. Massachusetts was the first state to allow the practice.

The Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has already sued over the federal law. It says it discriminates against gay couples and is unconstitutional because it denies them access to federal benefits that other married couples receive.

In Maine, gay marriage foes said Wednesday they've collected enough signatures to stop a new law from going into effect and to force a statewide vote.

Church, Bible Students Fight Discrimination in Indonesia

Village church goes to court over loss of permit; SETIA students demonstrate for new campus.

 
JAKARTA, July 7 (Compass Direct News) – Christians have stood up for their rights in two key cases the last few weeks in heavily Muslim Indonesia.
 
Members of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP) in Cinere village, Depok, West Java appeared in court on June 29 to contest the mayor’s revocation of their building permit in March, while students of the shuttered Arastamar School of Theology (SETIA) demonstrated in Jakarta on June 15, asking officials to honor promises to provide them with a new campus.
 
HKBP church leaders filed suit against the decision in the state court in Bandung, West Java. Two court sessions have been held so far, on June 2 and June 29, with Depok Mayor Nur Mahmudi Ismail represented by Syafrizal, the head of the Depok legal department and who goes by the single name, and political associate Jhon Sinton Nainggolan.
 
Mahmudi issued a decree on March 27 cancelling a building permit that was initially granted to the HKBP church in Cinere on June 13, 1998, allowing it to establish a place of worship.
 
The mayor said he had acted in response to complaints from residents. Contrary to Indonesian law, however, Mahmudi did not consult the church before revoking the permit.
 
Nainggolan, arguing for Mahmudi, claimed the revocation was legal because it was based on a request from local citizens and would encourage religious harmony in Cinere. But Betty Sitompul, manager of the building project, strongly disputed this claim.
 
“Our immediate neighbors have no objection,” she told Compass. “A small minority who don’t think this way have influenced people from outside the immediate neighborhood to make this complaint.”
 
Sitompul added that the church had been meeting in a naval facility located about five kilometers (nearly three miles) from the church building since the permit was revoked, causing great inconvenience for church members, many of whom did not have their own transportation.
 
According to Kasno, who heads the People’s Coalition for National Unity in Depok and is known only by a single name, the mayor had clearly violated procedures set forth in a Joint Ministerial Decree, issued in 1969 and revised in 2006, regulating places of worship.
 
Legal advocate Junimart Girsang, representing the church, confirmed that under the revised decree, conflicts must not be solved unilaterally but through consultation and consensus with the parties involved. He also said it was against normal practice to revoke a building permit.
 
Construction of the church building began in 1998, shortly after the permit was issued, but halted soon afterward due to a lack of funds. When the project recommenced in 2007, members of a Muslim group from Cinere and neighboring villages damaged the boundary hedge and posted protest banners on the walls of the building. Most of the protestors were not local residents, Sitompul said.
 
By that stage the building was almost completed and church members were using it for worship services.  
SETIA Protest
In Jakarta, hundreds of SETIA students demonstrated in front of the presidential palace on June 15, calling on officials to honor promises made in March to provide them with a new campus.  
At least 1,400 staff and students remain in three separate locations in sub-standard facilities, causing great disruption to their studies, according to the students. The original campus in Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta, closed after neighbors attacked students with machetes in July 2008 and remains cordoned off by police.
 
In negotiations with SETIA director Matheus Mangentang in May, Jakarta officials again promised to assist the school in finding a new site, and promised to work with neighbors to secure approval for a building permit.
 
Joko Prabowo, the school’s general secretary, said he believes officials have now reneged on these promises. When school officials recently requested relocation to Cipayung, East Jakarta, the governor’s office rejected their proposal, citing community resistance.
 
Deputy Gov. Prijanto, who has only a single name, had initially suggested Cikarang in West Java as a new location, but SETIA staff rejected this offer, saying the site was outside Jakarta provincial limits and a move would be prohibitively expensive.
 

The British government bought most of the pages of the ancient manuscript in 1933.

 

Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.

The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections -- some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.

And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said.

Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.

Chinese Office Becomes New Force for Religious Repression

Government seminar on house churches, once considered encouraging, results in crackdown.
By Sarah Page
 
DUBLIN, July 2 (Compass Direct News) – Amid vigorous debate among scholars in China on the status of house churches, one prominent scholar has suggested the government offer more openness and legal standing to house church Christians, but authorities have reacted with raids, arrests, forced church closures and a ban on the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches.
 
Scholar Yu Jianrong and others have concluded that house churches are a positive influence on society, but the government is wary of such influence, particularly since Yu’s research estimated the total number of Protestant house church Christians at between 45 and 60 million, with another 18 to 30 million attending government-approved churches – potentially putting the number of Christians higher than that of Communist Party members, which number around 74 million.
 
The one-year, government-commissioned study by Yu and associates suggested that officials should seek to integrate house churches and no longer regard them as enemies of the state.
 
Yu, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Rural Development Institute, used a combination of interviews, field surveys and policy reviews to gather information on house churches in several provinces from October 2007 to November 2008.
 
After comparing various research statistics, Yu determined that Protestant house church members numbered between 45 and 60 million, with another 18 to 30 million attending government-approved churches. He acknowledged in one interview, however, that the total number of Protestant Christians might be as high as 100 million.
 
Highlighting discrepancies between government figures and those from other sources, Yu claimed that some official churches under-reported attendance to deflect government scrutiny, while some Christian organizations working in China inflated house church figures to attract support from foreign donors.
 
Yu then examined the rapid growth of house churches and concluded that love and concern for fellow believers and the evangelistic nature of Christianity were key factors driving the growth of the church.
 
Yu’s team found that most house or “family” churches fit into one of three broad categories: traditional house churches, open house churches or urban emerging churches. Traditional house churches were generally smaller, family-based churches, meeting in relative secrecy. Though not a Christian himself, Yu attended some of these meetings and was impressed by the religious devotion of church members; he also noted that the focus was not on democracy or human rights but rather on spiritual life and community.
 
The “open” house churches were less secretive and had more members, sometimes advertising their services and holding public gatherings, he found. Urban emerging churches functioned quite openly but independently of government-approved Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) churches. In some provinces such as Wenzhou, these churches had constructed their own buildings and operated without interference from local officials.
 
While some house churches actively seek registration with authorities to avoid arrests and harassment, they would like the option of registering outside the government-approved TSPM structure, as they disagree with TSPM beliefs and controls. Many unregistered evangelical Protestant groups refuse to register with TSPM due to theological differences, fear of adverse consequences if they reveal names and addresses of church leaders or members or fear that it will control sermon content.
 
In a speech at Beijing’s Peking University last December, Yu noted clear differences in the training of TSPM and house church clergy and suggested that legal acceptance of house churches would lead to more balanced, transparent training of house church leaders. Secrecy and suspicion on both sides had made the issue unnecessarily sensitive, Yu added, calling on the government to initiate dialogue so that tensions could be resolved.
 
“I think we have reason to use Christianity to advance the democratization of China,” Yu said in closing.
 
Government Seminar on House Churches
A summary of Yu’s findings was presented at a government seminar on “Christianity and Social Harmony – Special Session on the Chinese House Church,” organized by the China State Council Development Research Center on Nov. 21-22, 2008.
 
The seminar was the first of its kind organized by the government, and some house church leaders were encouraged by the move. But shortly afterwards, the Ministry of Civil Affairs banned the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches on grounds that it lacked proper registration.
 
Studies had shown that there were 10 times as many unregistered Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as registered ones, and that NGOs run by house churches had played a significant role in relief work after the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province.
 
In a commentary on “Religious Demography and House Churches” that appeared online in February, scholar Yantao Bi said the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in banning the Federation, had become “the third major force along with public security bureaus and the department of religion in repressing house churches,” and that a large sector of civil society had now been defined as illegal.
 
The November seminar resulted in a new crackdown on house churches in December, Yantao said, but it at least stimulated discussion on the issue.
 
A second meeting on Dec. 1, 2008, organized by Beijing academic Dr. Fan Yafeng, brought together only a group of NGO representatives to discuss issues relating to house church identity in China, according to a Voice of America report in January. The meeting was later mistakenly portrayed in international media as being authorized by the Chinese government.
 
Participants had intended to “indirectly pass our opinions to the government and appeal for a legal identity for the house church,” Wang Shuangyan, a Beijing house church leader, told Voice of America in January. “It’s true, the government has not responded. But this is our attitude – we will not give up on negotiation and legal identity.”
 
Said another participant who requested anonymity, “We hope that, through discussions on the relationship between the house churches and the government, we will impact future policy on religion.”
 
Confused Approach
More raids over the past month illustrate what scholar Yu described as a confused approach to religion, with authorities leaving some house churches to operate openly while other churches were specifically targeted for arrests and closure.
 
On June 24, police released house church leaders Liu Caili and Huang Shumin of the Taochuan Village church in Shaanxi province after 10 days of detention for engaging in “illegal religious activities,” while a third leader, Xu Fenying, was released on June 19 after five days of detention, the China Aid Association (CAA) reported.
 
Police had arrested the leaders at their homes or places of business on June 14; all three were shown in handcuffs on a local television broadcast. Earlier, on June 5, authorities declared the church closed after Christians advocated for justice on behalf of peasants in the village.
 
Authorities in Langzhong city, Sichuan province on June 20 released 18 house church leaders arrested on June 9. Police had initially arrested a total of 30 house church leaders who had gathered at the church of Pastor Li Ming, but 12 were released later that same day.
 
On June 14, officials from the Zhengzhou Municipal Bureau of Religion and Bureau of State Security forcibly interrupted services of the Rock house church in Zhengzhou City, Henan, CAA reported. Officials occupied all the rooms and took video footage and photos of those present, before detaining six Christians, including pastor Dou Shaowen and his wife Feng Lu.
 
Officials also read out a public notice from the local Ethnic Religious Affairs office stating that, “it has been found through investigation that Dou Shaowen, Feng Lu and other individuals who call themselves missionaries have established a site for religious activities without approval … where they engage in illegal religious activities … Dou Shawen, Feng Lu and others are hereby ordered to immediately stop all the illegal religious activities at this site.”
 
Church members insisted on finishing their worship service even after officials cut off the electricity supply. Officials then sealed off the building and declared the Rock church abolished.
 
Finally, on June 4, authorities began disrupting services of the Autumn Rain church in Chengdu, Sichuan province, preventing members from entering their rented facilities for Sunday worship, according to CAA. On June 21, as church members gathered for a conference in a nearby hotel, at least 10 police officers entered the building and called the meeting to a halt. Officer Huang Wei then read out a statement declaring Autumn Rain Church to be an “unregistered social organization,” making it subject to administrative penalties such as the confiscation of church property and the cessation of all church activities.
 
Church members had initially planned to continue the conference on the banks of a nearby river, but this proved impossible as approximately 100 riot police and plainclothes officers were deployed both inside and outside the hotel.
 
Autumn Rain church has decided to continue holding services, appeal the imposed penalties and publicly apply to register the church at the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Civil Affairs, in the hope that this may resolve ongoing difficulties with local authorities.

Egyptian Court Grants Custody of Sons to Coptic Mother

But twins will keep father’s Muslim identity in their records, creating future problems.
By Michael Larson

 
LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin sons from her estranged husband, who had converted to Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal precepts.
 
The now 15-year-old boys, however, will still be considered Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian.
 
On June 15 the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled that Kamilia Gaballah could retain custody of her sons Andrew and Mario, even though the father converted to Islam and the boys’ religion also changed as a result.
 
If the court does not allow them to return to Christianity, the family will open up another court case, said their older brother George Medhat Ramses.
 
“Up until now the court said they would have the right to choose their faith,” said Ramses, 21. “But if they don’t, we will start another trial. This is the only way.”
 
The decision overturns a September 2008 ruling by the Alexandria Appeals court that had granted custody of the twins to their father, Medhat Ramses Labib, due solely to his conversion. During this time Gaballah lived in constant fear police would take away her sons.
 
The ruling also affirmed Article 20 of Egypt’s Personal Status Law, which states children should remain with their mother regardless of religion until age 15, over that of the Hanefi School of Islamic jurisprudence, which says that a child must be granted custody to the Muslim father in an inter-religious marriage once he or she becomes 7.
 
But the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) advocacy group noted that while the court ruled a woman cannot be denied custody of her children solely on her Christian faith if her husband converts, children can still be removed from her home if there are “fears for the child’s faith.” An ex-husband or his family could easily exploit this clause, the human rights group said.
 
According to Gaballah, the trial was not a matter of custody rights but was religious in nature from beginning to end.
 
“My opponent is not only my divorcee; my opponent is everyone who hears this story and wants Andrew and Mario to become Muslims,” said Gaballah, according to Copts United advocacy group.
 
Mario and Andrew turned 15 in June. On their 16th birthday, they must apply for Egyptian identity cards, which factor heavily into Egyptian daily life. Barring another court battle, their religion will still be registered as Muslim.
 
Because of this predicament, the court verdict that granted the twins’ mother full custody only solved half of their problems, said Naguib Gobraiel, a lawyer familiar with the case.
 
As registered Muslims, they could face harassment while attempting to practice their Christian faith. And while they could marry Christian women, their future children would be registered as Muslims, following the Islamic dictum that children take the religion of their father.
 
“The court didn’t give them the right of freedom to choose their religion,” Gobraiel told Compass. “We must ask ourselves how the children are permitted to stay with their mother but must follow the religion of another man.”
 
Until then the family is worried that the court will not allow Andrew and Mario to return to their Christian faith and are taking every precaution. Last Wednesday (June 24) they appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to have their birth certificates state their Christian faith. They had been recently changed to retroactively show the boys’ birth status as Islam.
 
A Longstanding Battle
The controversy began in 2007 when a court ordered the twins to take Islamic education within the Egyptian school system due to the conversion of their estranged father from Christianity to Islam.
 
The twins refused to take their Islamic religion exam required to pass the next grade. “I am Christian,” each boy wrote on a make-up test in July. They turned in the exam with all of the answers left blank.
 
Their father converted to Islam and remarried in 2002. He changed the religion of his sons to Islam in 2006 and applied for custody even though he had not lived with the family. According to sharia (Islamic law) custody of minor children and influence over their religious status belongs to the Muslim parent.
 
The case reflects the tension in Egypt between civil and religious law. While Article 47 of Egypt’s civil law gives citizens the right to choose their religion, Article II of the Egyptian constitution enshrines sharia as the source of Egyptian law. The same tension has inhibited recent attempts by other converts to change their official religious status from Islam to Christianity.
 
Rights groups said the court order is good news for Gaballah and the twins, but it does nothing to address discriminatory policies of Egyptian law that attach a child’s faith to a parent who chooses to convert to Islam.
 
“It is regrettable, however, that the highest court of the country chose to treat the symptoms and ignore the root causes of the problem – changing the religious affiliation of Christian children whose parents convert to Islam without the slightest regard for their will or that of their Christian mothers,” said Hossam Baghat, director of the EIPR, in a statement.
 
Gaballah has fought with her ex-husband over alimony support and custody of sons Andrew and Mario in 40 different cases since he left her and converted to Islam so that he could remarry in 1999.

Christians in Mauritania Tense after Murder of Aid Worker

As loss of Chris Leggett is mourned,  Christian workers leave country after another Al-Qaeda threat.
By Edward Ross
 
LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – As funeral services were held in Tennessee for Christian aid worker Christopher Leggett yesterday, tensions remained high for Christians in the capital of Mauritania, where he was slain last week.
 
A Christian worker who works in the capital city of Nouakchott told Compass that following the street assassination of Leggett by an al-Qaeda linked group the morning of June 23, the danger level in the city has forced him and his team to temporarily relocate to a European country.
 
“After the crime various believers were arrested, and the community of workers is going through very tense moments because of another threat by al-Qaeda and the lack of security in the country,” said the Christian worker, who requested anonymity. “Our leaders have asked us to leave the country for a while, as the government had sent a security force of 10 policemen to guard our home 24 hours a day. Our mobility was limited, and we left the country under police escort to the airport.”
 
Leggett was shot in a crowded market area in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
 
At least two gunmen approached Leggett in broad daylight, stunning local people unaccustomed to such brazen attacks.
 
“It’s a very crowded area, and it was in the morning in the midst of many people,” the  Christian worker told Compass. “Apparently they wanted to kidnap him, and as they were not able, they then shot him three times in the head and he died. Chris was sharing the gospel with a lot of fervor, and also the fact that the country is going through a political and social crisis could have contributed to this crime.”
 
More than 1,000 mourners, including many from outside the United States, reportedly attended Leggett’s funeral in Cleveland, Tenn., where he grew up. Husband and father of four children ages 15, 13, 12 and 8, Leggett taught at a center specializing in computer science and languages in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott.  Leggett, his wife Jackie and their children had lived in Mauritania for more than six years.
 
Leggett directed an aid agency that provided training in computer skills, sewing and literacy, and he also ran a micro-finance program.
 
At his funeral yesterday at First Baptist Church, his father Jay Leggett said, “Our family’s great hope has been that Chris will not have died in vain, but that through his physical death, thousands will continue to be challenged passionately to join him in demonstrating God’s love.”
 
The family issued a statement of thanks for the care, concern and outpouring of sympathy from people in the United States and other countries, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
 
“Our family was energized during every minute of the five hours of visitation by the prayers of thousands of people from around the world,” the statement said. “It is wonderful to experience the fact that by the grace and power of God, one man touched the lives of thousands of people.”
 
Reading from a written statement, Leggett’s father ended with a tearful recitation of a hymn.
 
“To God be the glory, to God be the glory, great things He has done and great things He will do,” he said. 

Islamists in Somalia Behead Two Sons of Christian Leader

Father refuses to give al Shabaab extremists information about house church pastor.
By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists have beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, and the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father.
Before taking his Somali family to a Kenyan refugee camp in April, 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf himself was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Kismayo in Somalia. He had received instruction in the Christian faith from Salat Mberwa.
Militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab entered Yonday village on Feb. 20, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him on his relationship with Mberwa, leader of a fellowship of 66 Somali Christians who meet at his home at an undisclosed city. Yusuf told them he knew nothing of Mberwa and had no connection with him. The Islamic extremists left but said they would return the next day.
“Immediately when they left, I decided to flee my house for Kismayo, for I knew for sure they were determined to come back,” Yusuf said.
At noon the next day, as his wife was making lunch for their children in Yonday, the al Shabaab militants showed up. Batula Ali Arbow, Yusuf’s wife, recalled that their youngest son, Innocent, told the group that their father had left the house the previous day.
The Islamic extremists ordered her to stop what she was doing and took hold of three of her sons – 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7. Some neighbors came and pleaded with the militants not to harm the three boys. Their pleas landed on deaf ears.
“I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” Arbow said. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered. Just after some few minutes I heard a wailing cry from Abdulahi running towards the house. I could not hold my breath. I only woke up with all my clothes wet. I knew I had fainted due to the shock.”
With the help of neighbors, Arbow said, she buried the bodies of her two children the following day.
In Kismayo, Yusuf received the news that two of his sons had been killed and that the Islamic militants were looking for him, and he left on foot for Mberwa’s home. It took him a month and three days to reach him, and the Christian fellowship there raised travel funds for him to reach a refugee camp in Kenya.
Later that month his family met up with him at the refugee camp.When the family fled Somalia, they were compelled to leave their 80-year-old grandmother behind and her whereabouts are unknown. Since arriving at the Kenyan refugee camp, the family still has no shelter, though fellow Christians are erecting one for them. Yusuf’s family lives each day without shoes, a mattress or shelter.
But Arbow said she has no wish to return.
“I do not want to go back to Somalia – I don’t want to see the graves of my children,” she said amid sobs.
Mberwa said that Arbow is often deep in thought, at times in a disturbingly otherworldly way.
Border Tensions
Western security services see the al Shabaab ranks, reportedly filled with foreign jihadists, as a proxy for the Islamic extremist al-Qaeda group in Somalia. If the plight of Christians in Somalia is horrific – some are slaughtered, others scarred from beatings – the situation of Somali Christians in refugee camps is fast becoming worse than a matter of open discrimination.
“We have nowhere to run to,” Mberwa told Compass. “The al Shabaab are on our heads, while our Muslim brothers are also discriminating against us. Indeed even here in the refugee camp we are not safe. We need a safe haven elsewhere.”
He said that in April three al Shabaab militants were arrested by Kenyan security agents at Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab and taken to Garissa, Kenya’s North Eastern Province headquarters. But local provincial administrators denied any knowledge of such arrests.
“I don’t know” is all Dadaab District Officer Evans Kyule could say when asked about the arrests.
In Naivasha, Kenya, 19 Somali extremists were arrested last month and are scheduled to appear in a Nairobi court tomorrow, according to Kenyan television network.
Al-Shabaab militants have waged a vicious war against the fragile government of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. In a show of power in the capital city stronghold of Mogadishu, last week hard-line Islamic insurgents sentenced four young men each to amputation of a hand and a foot as punishment for robbery.
After mosques announced when the amputations would take place, the extremists carried them out by machete in front of about 300 people on Thursday (June 25) at a military camp. It was the first such double amputation in Mogadishu by the rebels, who follow strict sharia (Islamic law) in the parts of south Somalia that they control.
The rebel militants’ strict practices have shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Muslims, though residents give the insurgents credit for restoring order to regions they control.
Al Shabaab militants are battling Ahmed’s government for control of Mogadishu while fighting government-allied, moderate Islamist militia in the provinces. In the last 18 years of violence in Somalia, a two-and-a-half year Islamist insurgency has killed more than 18,000 civilians, uprooted 1 million people, allowed piracy to flourish offshore, and spread security fears round the region.
Somalia’s government, which controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu, has declared a state of emergency and appealed for foreign intervention, including help from Somalia’s neighbors. Kenya recently has stepped up patrols along her common border with Somalia, vowing to respond militarily should militants make any incursions. At the same time, al Shabaab militants have warned that they would invade Kenya should the military patrols persist.
Nearly Losing Another Son
On Oct. 7, 2008, al shabaab militia attacked the 28-year-old son of Mberwa in Sinai village, on the outskirts of Mogadishu. They interrogated Mberwa Abdi about the whereabouts of his father, maintaining that they had information that incriminated him as the leader of a Christian group.
Abdi denied having any knowledge of his father’s faith, and the Islamist extremists took Abdi out of the village and threatened to kill him. Covering his eyes and tying his hands behind him as he knelt down, they began beating his back with a gun. Abdi remained silent. The militants fired at his left side near the shoulder, and when Abdi fell they left him for dead.
On hearing the sound of the gunshot, neighbors ran to the scene and found Abdi still alive. They rushed him to Keysany Hospital in Mogadishu, where he underwent surgery.
Salat Mberwa received information from neighbors that his son had been killed on Nov. 1, 2008 by al Shabaab extremists, and that his body was in Keysany Hospital. Later he heard that his son was in a coma and sent 2,500 Kenyan shillings (US$35) for medical care. He also arranged for his wife and two youngest children to flee, knowing that they were the next target. They reached a refugee camp in Kenya in mid-December of last year.
After a month, Abdi was discharged from the hospital and arrived in the same refugee camp on Jan. 8. Medicins San Frontiers provided medicine for the ailing Abdi. Abdi bears the scars of bullet wounds on his body, and he still looks ill.
Asked why he denied his father’s Christian faith, Abdi said Christians are hunted like wild beasts.
“Everybody is afraid of this militia group and always tries to play things safe,” he said. “There is urgent need to help Christians in Somalia to get out as soon as possible, before they are wiped out.”
Salat Mberwa said he is concerned about the way Christians are being mistreated in the refugee camp.
“The Muslims cannot come to our aid in case one of us gets into a problem,” he said. “They always tell us, ‘You are Christians and we cannot help you. Let your religion help you.’”
While thankful for aid from Christian groups in Nairobi, Mberwa lamented that aid agencies and denominational associations have not employed Christian refugees in the camp, though many are qualified as drivers, electricians, carpenters and educators.

Two Church Buildings Burned Down in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Young radical Muslims suspected in attacks on island off coast of East Africa. 

By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 30 (Compass Direct News) – Two church buildings were razed Sunday night (June 28) on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar after worship services.
Suspected radical Muslims set the church buildings on fire on the outskirts of Unguja Township, on the island off the coast of East Africa, in what church leaders called the latest incidents of a rising tide of religious intolerance.
“We don’t want churches on our street,” read a flier dropped at the door of Charles Odilo, who had donated the plot on which the Evangelical Assemblies of God in Tanzania (EAGT) building stood. “Today we are going to burn the church, and if you continue we are going to burn your house  also.”
With Christian movements making inroads in the Muslim-dominated area, the EAGT church and a Pentecostal Evangelical Fellowship in Africa (PEFA) church building a few miles away were burned down as a fierce warning, church leaders said.
The PEFA church building was located in the Kibondeni area eight miles from Unguja, and the EAGT structure was in the Fuoni area six miles from Unguja. Samuel Salehe Malanda, pastor of the 30-member PEFA church, said their building doubled as a nursery school on weekdays.
“In this church building there were six benches and a blackboard,” Malanda said. “The children have no place to do their learning. What are we going to do?”
Construction of the PEFA church building was in the final stage of completion last week, area church leaders said, when Masoud Jecha, assistant sheikh of Kibondeni, visited it and threatened Malanda.
“If you do not stop your construction, we will bring down the building,” Jecha told the pastor.
Malanda said the church reported the arson attack to police, who have purportedly begun an investigation, and the congregation has also sought the help of the chief leader of the rural government. The church’s police report included mention of Muslim extremist suspects bent on stopping the spread of Christianity in Zanzibar.
Church leaders said Odilo, who had donated his plot for the EAGT church building, was living in fear of the Islamic militants burning down his house, as they are known for carrying out their threats.
Pastor Paul Makungu said his EAGT church has 29 adult members and 13 children. He has also filed an arson report with local police, who are investigating suspects including radical Muslims and the chief neighborhood leader.
Bishop Obeid Fabian, chairman of an association of congregations known as the Fraternal Churches, said Christians in Zanzibar have received several threats.
“In this latest incident, the threats were spread through pamphlets,” he said. “At other times, Muslim youths have hurled stones on church rooftops and insulted Christians.”
On May 9 Muslim extremists expelled Zanzibar Pentecostal Church worshippers from their rented property at Ungunja Ukuu, on the outskirts of Zanzibar City.

With no help forthcoming, church members have begun gathering for fellowship in their homes, Fabian said.  
In Zanzibar City on April 17, government officials ordered Christians of the Church of God Zanzibar from their rented government building effective April 19, ostensibly to pave the way for renovations. But two months later, said pastor Lucian Mgayway, no renovation work had begun, and the government has since turned it into a business site.
The church had been worshipping in the building since October 2000.
“The churches affected since attacks began in April are at a critical stage,” said Fabian. “We as church leaders find it very difficult to bring our church members together who are now dispersed with no place of worship. The church needs financial support to get worship places for members as well security. But this seems not forthcoming.”

In predominately Sunni Muslim Zanzibar, churches face other hurdles. There are restrictions on getting land to build churches, open preaching is outlawed and there is limited time on national television to air Christian programs. In government schools, only Islamic Religious knowledge is taught, not Christian Religious Education.
Zanzibar is the informal designation for the island of Unguja in the Indian Ocean. The Zanzibar archipelago united with Tanganyika to form the present day Tanzania in 1964.
Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf had settled in the region early in the 10th century after monsoon winds propelled them through the Gulf of Aden and Somalia. The 1964 merger left island Muslims uneasy about Christianity, seeing it as a means by which mainland Tanzania might dominate them, and tensions have persisted.

Islamic Extremists Kill U.S. Aid Worker in Mauritania

At least two gunmen repeatedly shoot teacher for Christian activities.
By Edward Ross

LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – Funeral services will be held tomorrow for a U.S. teacher in Mauritania who was shot dead last week by Islamic extremists for spreading Christianity.
Christopher Leggett, 39, was killed Tuesday morning (June 23) in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott, the capital city.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Advocacy organization Middle East Concern reported that Leggett “resisted what appeared to be an attempt to kidnap him and was then shot in the head several times by his two assailants.”
His family issued a statement today saying they forgave the murderers but asked that they be caught and prosecuted.
“In a spirit of love, we express our forgiveness for those who took away the life of our remarkable son,” the family said in the statement, distributed in English, French and Arabic. “Chris had a deep love for Mauritania and its people, a love that we share. Despite this terrible event, we harbor no ill will for the Mauritanian people. On a spiritual level, we forgive those responsible, asking only that justice be applied against those who killed our son.”
Mauritania’s minister of justice reportedly said that Leggett’s death “was a great loss to Mauritania.” Leggett, his wife and four children lived for seven years in Mauritania, where he directed an aid agency that provided training in computer skills, sewing and literacy, and he also ran a micro-finance program, according to the Cleveland Daily Banner.
Mauritania’s National Foundation for the Defence of Democracy (FNDD) called for the killers to be brought to justice.
“This hateful crime, which was committed in broad daylight close to the market in El Ksar, one of the busiest in Nouakchott, once again raises the issue of instability and terrorism, which is often used by the military authorities to justify all sorts of unnatural situations,” the FNDD the statement read.
The Associated Press reported that Mauritania’s Interior Ministry said it was investigating the murder and that security forces were searching for the killers.
The AP reported that Leggett, who grew up in Cleveland, Tenn., taught at a center specializing in computer science and languages in El Kasr, a lower-class neighborhood in Nouakchott. The Rev. Jim Gibson, co-pastor of First Baptist Church of Cleveland, told the news service that Leggett visited the congregation when he traveled back to the United States but worked independently in Mauritania.
The Cleveland Daily Banner reported that Leggett was a 1987 graduate of Cleveland High School, attended Cleveland State Community College and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1990 with a degree in Business Administration. He was a member of First Baptist Church of Cleveland for many years and most recently was a member of Michigan Avenue Baptist Church of Cleveland.
His funeral is scheduled for Tuesday 2009 at the First Baptist Church of Cleveland at 2 p.m.
Memorials to the family can be made at www.clevelandfbc.com, or sent to Jackie B. Leggett at 1112 Glenmore Drive, Cleveland, TN 37312 or through First Baptist Church of Cleveland, 340 Church Street, Cleveland, TN 37311 and designated to the J. Mack Hall Fund. Messages of condolence may be given at www.ralphbuckner.com.
The last known activity of al-Qaeda in Mauritania occurred in December 2007, when gunmen believed to be linked to al-Qaeda’s North Africa branch killed four French tourists picnicking near Aleg, east of Nouakchott.

India’s Refusal of Visas to U.S. Panel Stuns Christians

Commission on religious freedom would have found violence-torn Orissa far from normal.
By Vishal Arora

NEW DELHI, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – The Indian government is silent on why it refused visas to allow members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit troubled Orissa state, but there are indications that it was ducking protests from Hindu nationalist groups.
The USCIRF team was to leave for India on June 12, but the Indian embassy in Washington did not give them visas in time, the religious panel said in a June 17 statement.
“Our Commission has visited China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and over 20 other countries,” Commission Chair Felice D. Gaer said in the statement. “India, a close ally of the United States, has been unique among democracies in delaying and denying USCIRF’s ability to visit. USCIRF has been requesting visits since 2001.”
The team was to discuss religious freedom with officials of the new government, which began its second five-year term on May 22, as well as with religious leaders, civil society activists and others in the wake of anti-Christian attacks in Kandhamal district of the eastern state of Orissa in December 2007 and August-September 2008.
The U.S. panel also intended to discuss conditions in the western state of Gujarat, where more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in a communal riot in 2002. The victims have reportedly not been properly rehabilitated, and many of their attackers remain at large. In 2005 the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was denied a visa to the United States to attend the World Gujarati Meet because of his alleged involvement in the violence.
In 2002 the USCIRF, a bipartisan federal commission, recommended India be designated a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) following the 2002 violence in Gujarat. India was removed from the CPC list in 2005.
The Commission released its 2009 annual report on religious freedom across the globe on May 1 but put the India report on hold, planning to prepare it after the intended visit this month.
 “I am profoundly surprised and distressed that it is the government of Dr. Manmohan Singh, in its second and so much secure term, which has denied visas to the USCIRF at the last moment,” said John Dayal, member of India’s National Integration Council.
Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council (AICC), told Compass that such a decision would have been more expected under the previous administration of the BJP-led alliance.
“There would have been an acceptable, albeit very perverse, logic if a National Democratic Alliance, led by the BJP federal government – as existed in New Delhi until 2004 – had refused visas to the USCIRF,” he said, “because they had so much to hide and because that government’s professed ideological moorings were in fascism and theocratic arrogance.”
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the left-of-center Congress Party, won the general elections in April and May of this year with a comfortable majority in. While the UPA got 262 of the 543 parliamentary seats, the National Democratic Alliance, led by the Hindu nationalist BJP, could bag only 160.
The Rev. Dr. Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, said the Indian government’s decision was “very unfortunate.”
“Its visit and objective report would have helped in clearing the air of suspicion about the whole tragic episode in Kandhamal,” he said. “For, since the tragic events, there have been claims and counter-claims about what triggered and sustained the communal flare-up that caused unprecedented damage to life and property of people who were already in disadvantaged conditions.”
What USCIRF Would Have Found
The atmosphere in Orissa’s Kandhamal district has remained tense since a spate of attacks began in December 2007 that killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches. The attacks were carried out to avenge an alleged attack on a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.
Violence re-erupted in Kandhamal in August 2008 after the assassination of Saraswati by a Maoist group, though non-Marxist Christians were blamed for it. This time, the violence killed more than 100 people and resulted in the incineration of 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions.
Had the USCIRF team been able to visit Kandhamal, Christian leaders said, it would have found the situation far from normal even eight months after violence reportedly ended.
According to The Indian Express of May 31, the deployment of five companies of the Central Reserve Police Force, a federal agency, was extended for another month. One company comprises 100 personnel. The federal internal minister had earlier decided to withdraw the force from Kandhamal, but state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik requested he retain some of the contingent.
The Rev. Ajaya Singh of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Catholic Archdiocese said that around 3,000 victims were still living in government-run relief camps, and some 900 families were in village relief camps. Initially about 24,000 victims were housed in government relief camps. These internally displaced people cannot go back to their villages because of continuing threats from “fundamentalists and criminals,” he added.
Most of the people who carried out attacks remain at large, continue to pressure victims to withdraw complaints they filed against the rioters, and are still threatening harm to Christians who refuse to convert to Hinduism, he complained.
Singh told Compass that a legal aid center run by the Christian Legal Association (CLA) from a rented house in Phulbani, district headquarters of Kandhamal, had been ordered to move out after Hindu nationalist groups pressured the owner of the house.
“For the last one month, lawyers have been staying here to help the witnesses to speak the truth,” he said. “The momentum of the cases was picking up, but now the legal center itself is facing problems.”
Singh also said some witnesses were issued death threats on June 17. The witnesses were told not to go to court or else they would be killed.
“However, a complaint has been lodged at the police station and an affidavit submitted before a judge,” he added.
In addition to the 753 cases filed by police in connection with the August-September 2008 violence, the CLA has filed 63 private complaints, and 70 more will be filed in the coming days.
The Orissa United Forum of Churches (OUFC), a new interdenominational grouping, wrote to Chief Minister Patnaik recently, informing him that an administrative officer of the Raikia area had taken victims from the relief camp to their respective villages on June 6, but the local residents did not allow them even to enter their villages.
The OUFC added that there were around 2,000 Christians who were asked to go back to their villages, but that villagers chased them out. They are now living in marketplaces or on the outskirts of those villages in abject conditions.
According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), extremists on June 2 burned down three homes that were partially destroyed during the August 2008 violence in Sirsapanda area in Kandhamal to prevent victims from returning to their villages.
The Christians were able to identify the attackers, but police advised them against naming them, said the EFI report.
“Christian properties were seized by local villagers, and having the Christians back in the village means giving back the land to their owners,” said the EFI’s Ashish Parida.
A CLA team, which recently visited two camps in Kandhamal, also said that the Christians were consistently ostracized by their neighbors.
Orissa is ruled by a regional party, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which was in partnership with the BJP when the violence took place. The BJD broke up with the Hindu right-wing party before the state assembly elections that were held simultaneously with the general elections.
Federal Internal Minister P. Chidambaram was in Kandhamal on Friday (June 26) to assess the law-and-order situation there and admitted police failure.
“What happened on Aug. 23 and thereafter was regrettable and condemnable. Moreover, it was the failure of the police for 30 to 40 days,” he said, according to The Hindu. “Now the situation is returning to normal but we cannot lower our guards.”
Chidambaram also said he wanted displaced Christians to return to their homes, seemingly because it will be difficult for the government to claim that normalcy has returned as long as they remain in relief camps.
“The government will ensure that no one harms you anymore. It is absolutely safe for you to return to your villages,” Chidambaram said at a relief camp in Raikia block, according to The Indian Express. “You have every right to practice your religion, build and pray in churches. You please return to your villages. I want to come back within one month and would like to see you in your homes in your villages.”

Christian leaders said that if the displaced people return home, many more reports of threats, attacks and ostracism are expected.
Why Visas Were Denied
Sources told Compass that both the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) were behind the government’s move to block the USCIRF from entering the country.
Compass persistently tried to contact the spokesperson of the MEA, Vishnu Prakash, without success. The spokesperson of the MHA, Onkar Kedia, was travelling.
According to the June 17 The Times of India, the Indian Embassy in Washington pleaded innocent, saying the visa applications of the USCIRF team had been forwarded to New Delhi, as is the standard practice for all such visits.
Sources in the government in New Delhi denied that the visas were deliberately withheld, saying the time was not “proper” for such a visit, according to the daily.
“We really don’t care about what they [USCIRF] report,” it quoted an official as saying. “But a high-profile visit seen as having government sanctions would have raised hackles in India.”
The visas were denied amid diatribes by Hindu right-wing groups against the proposed visit of the U.S. religious freedom panel. An influential Hindu leader, Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, had called for refusal of entry to the USCIRF team. “We will not allow interference in our internal religious affairs by external bodies,” he said in a press conference in Mumbai on June 12, according to the Press Trust of India. “We see USCIRF as an intrusive mechanism of a foreign government which is interfering with the internal affairs of India.”
Jayendra Saraswati is known to be close to Hindu nationalist groups.
The U.S. branch of the Hindu extremist VHP had also criticized the intended visit of the U.S. Commission, calling it “incomprehensible,” reported The Times of India. “The largest functioning democracy in the world with an independent judiciary, a statutorily constituted Human Rights Commission, an independent press and other supporting organizations would appear to be quite capable of taking care of the religious freedoms and human rights of its citizens,” it said.
Later, on June 22, Ashok Singhal, international president of the VHP, said in a statement that the USCIRF was “a self-appointed committee as an expression of the big brother attitude of the USA to enquire into the status of religious freedom in other countries … This commission is concerned only about the Christians in other countries whenever there is a hue and cry by the church that the Christians are persecuted in such countries. They never bother about the status of religious and racial discriminations meted out to other religionists in the Western countries, including the U.S.”
Rev. Joseph of the Catholic Bishops Conference, however, said it was “preposterous” to construe the USCIRF’s visit as interference in India’s internal matters, “as the organization is recognized the world over as a credible watch-dog of human rights and religious freedom.”
“Everyone knows that the government of the day did/could not effectively check the communal frenzy,” he added. “And the failure of the state has to be investigated not by the officials of the same state themselves, but by someone who can objectively view and make independent judgment on it.”
The USCIRF is expected to release the pending India report in the next few weeks.
“The denial of visas seeks to make opaque an otherwise healthy transparency in India’s human rights discourse,” said the AICC’s Dayal. Added Joseph, “Probably India missed a chance to come clean on its track records on human rights and religious freedom"

Iran Scraps Mandatory Death Penalty for ‘Apostates’

Proposed amendment reportedly shot down after international outcry.
Special to Compass Direct News

LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – A member of Iran’s Parliament reportedly revealed last week that the country’s Parliamentary Committee has stricken the mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam from proposals for an amended penal code.
Citing a BBC Persian news service report on Tuesday (June 23), United Kingdom-based Christian Solidarity International (CSW) announced on Friday (June 26) that a member of Iran’s Legal and Judicial Committee of Parliament, Ali Shahrokhi, had told the Iranian state news agency (IRNA) of the decision to eliminate the mandatory death penalty amendment, which had drawn international protests.
The Parliamentary Committee had come under intense international pressure to drop clauses from the Islamic Penal Code Bill that allowed stoning and made death the mandatory punishment for apostates.
The new penal code was originally approved in September 2008 by a preliminary parliamentary vote of 196-7.
In Friday’s statement, CSW said that the bill must now pass through a final parliamentary vote before being sent to Iran’s most influential body, the Guardian Council, which will rule on it.
The council is made up of six conservative theologians appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader and six jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by Parliament. This body has the power to veto any bill it deems inconsistent with the constitution and Islamic law.
The Christian and Baha’i communities of Iran are most likely to be affected by this decision. Iran has been criticized for its treatment of Baha’is, Zoroastrians and Christians, who have all suffered under the current regime.
Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, said the timing of the announcement of the decision during protests over contested elections might not be coincidental.
“Were the regime to maintain [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s presidency then pass and enforce a restrictive penal code, the international pressure on Iran would be unbearable for the regime,” said Grieboski. “I do not consider it a sign of opening up.  Instead, I see it as a sign of self-preservation.” 
Security Backlash
Huge protests over the election results demonstrated considerable opposition to the Iranian government’s heavy-handed tactics, and although the official churches have taken no official stance, many Christians have supported the opposition, according to sources connected to social networking sites.
In the face of the massive protests, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, Hassan Qashqavi, released a statement condemning Western involvement in Iranian affairs and accusing the BBC and Voice of America networks of spreading “anarchy and vandalism.”
This passing of blame bodes ill for minorities in the country, including Christians, whom the Iranian government sees as pawns of the West; they could expect even harsher treatment in a feared post-election clamp-down.
“Since minorities, especially Baha’is and Christians, are often seen as fronts for the West, we can expect that they will feel the greatest backlash by the regime during the protests, and I would argue an even worse crackdown on them if Ahmadinejad and [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei come out of this,” said Grieboski. 
An Iranian Christian who requested anonymity told Compass that both Christians and Iranians as a whole were tired of the dictatorial regime and asked for prayers for relief.
“The people are really tired, they have no hope, mentally, financially, spiritually, it is really difficult to live in Iran,” the source said. “You can’t have a private life, you can’t make a decision about what you believe, women can’t even decide what to wear. We just pray for the whole nation.”
The Iranian source was reticent to predict how the government might react to Christians following the elections but said that if there were a reaction, they could be among the first victims.
“So what the reaction of the government will be we can’t be 100 percent sure,” the source said, “but they could have a very radical reaction.”
Iranian Christians Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, who were arrested on March 5 for their Christian activities, are still held in the notorious Evin Prison. The facility has drawn criticism for its human rights violations and executions in recent years.
Compass has learned that the women have been placed in solitary confinement.

Christian Pacesetting

THE OVERSIGHT OF OURSELVES

SECTION 1

Let us consider, what it is to take heed to ourselves.

1. See that the work of saving grace be thoroughly wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Savior, your own hearts should neglect him, and you should miss of an interest in him and his saving benefits. Take heed to yourselves, lest you perish, while you call upon others to take heed of perishing; and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare food for them. Though there is a promise of shining as the stars, to those ‘who turn many to righteousness,’ that is but on supposition that they are first turned to it themselves. Their own sincerity in the faith is the condition of their glory, simply considered, though their great ministerial labors may be a condition of the promise of their greater glory. Many have warned others that they come not to that place of torment, while yet they hastened to it themselves: many a preacher is now in hell, who hath a hundred times called upon his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it. Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save men for offering salvation to others, while they refuse it themselves; and for telling others those truths which they themselves neglect and abuse? Many a tailor goes in rags, that maketh costly clothes for others; and many a cook scarcely licks his fingers, when he hath dressed for others the most costly dishes. Believe it, brethren, God never saved any man for being a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher; but because he was a justified, sanctified man, and consequently faithful in his Master’s work. Take heed, therefore, to ourselves first, that you he that which you persuade your hearers to be, and believe that which you persuade them to believe, and heartily entertain that Savior whom you offer to them. He that bade you love your neighbors as yourselves, did imply that you should love yourselves, and not hate and destroy yourselves and them.

It is a fearful thing to be an unsanctified professor, hut much more to be an unsanctified preacher. Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you should there re d the sentence of your own condemnation? When you pen your sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against your own souls! When you are arguing against sin, that you are aggravating your own! When you proclaim to your hearers the unsearchable riches of Christ and his grace, that you are publishing your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being destitute of them! What can you do in persuading men to Christ, in drawing them from the world, in urging them to a life of faith and holiness, but conscience, if it were awake, would tell you, that you speak all this to your own confusion? If you speak of hell, you speak of your own inheritance: if you describe the joys of heaven, you describe your own misery, seeing you have no right to ‘the inheritance of the saints in light.’ What can you say, for the most part, but it will be against your own souls O miserable life! that a man should study and preach against himself, and spend his days in a course of self-condemnation! A graceless, inexperienced preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth and yet he is ordinarily very insensible of his unhappiness; for he hath so many counters that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid stones that resemble Christian jewels, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughts of his poverty; but thinks he is ‘rich, and increased in goods, and stands in need of nothing, when he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked.’ He is acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, he is exercised in holy duties, he liveth not in open disgraceful sin, he serveth at God’s altar, he reproveth other men’s faults, and preacheth up holiness both of heart and life; and how can this man choose but be holy? Oh what aggravated misery is this, to perish in the midst of plenty! – to famish with the bread of life in our hands, while we offer it to others, and urge it on them! That those ordinances of God should be the occasion of our delusion, which are instituted to be the means of our conviction and salvation! and that while we hold the looking-glass of the gospel to others, to show them the face and aspect of their souls, we should either look on the back part of it ourselves, where we can see nothing, or turn it aside, that it may misrepresent us to ourselves! If such a wretched man would take my counsel, he would make a stand, and call his heart and life to an account, and fall a preaching a while to himself, before he preach any more to others. He would consider, whether food in the mouth, that goeth not into the stomach, will nourish; whether he that ‘nameth the name of Christ should not depart from iniquity," whether God will hear his prayers, if ‘he regard iniquity in his heart," whether it will serve the turn at the day of reckoning to say, ‘Lord, Lord, we have prophesied in thy name,’ when he shall hear these awful words, ‘Depart from me, I know you not," and what comfort it will be to Judas, when he has gone to his own place, to remember that he preached with the other apostles, or that he sat with Christ, and was called by him, ‘Friend.’ When such thoughts as these have entered into their souls, and kindly worked a while upon their consciences, I would advise them to go to their congregation, and preach over Origen’s sermon on Psalm 50. 16,17. ‘But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.’ And when they have read this text, to sit down, and expound and apply it by their tears; and then to make a full and free confession of their sin, and lament their case before the whole assembly, and desire their earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace; that hereafter they may preach a Savior whom they know, and may feel what they speak, and may commend the riches of the gospel from their own experience. Alas! it is the common danger and calamity of the Church, to have unregenerate and inexperienced pastors, and to have so many men become preachers before they are Christians; who are sanctified by dedication to the altar as the priests of God, before they are sanctified by hearty dedication as the disciples of Christ; and so to worship an unknown God, and to preach an unknown Christ, to pray through an unknown Spirit, to recommend a state of holiness and communion with God, and a glory and a happiness which are all unknown, and like to be unknown to them for ever. He is like to be but a heartless preacher, that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth, in his heart. O that all our students in our universities would well consider this! What a poor business is it to themselves, to spend their time in acquiring some little knowledge of the works of God, and of some of those names which the divided tongues of the nations have imposed on them, and not to know God himself, nor exalt him in their hearts, nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work that should make them happy! They do but ‘walk in a vain show,’ and spend their lives like dreaming men, while they busy their wits and tongue about abundance of names and notions, and are strangers to God and the life of saints. If ever God awaken them by his saving grace, they will have cogitations and employments so much more serious than their unsanctified studies and disputations, that they will confess they did but dream before. A world of business they make themselves about nothing, while they are wilful strangers to the primitive, independent, necessary Being, who is all in all. Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooketh him who is the ‘Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,’ and seeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be an annihilation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us.

When man was made perfect, and placed in a perfect world, where all things were in perfect order, the whole creation was then man’s book, in which he was to read the nature and will of his great Creator. Every creature had the name of God so legibly engraven on it, that man might run and read it. He could not open his eyes, but he might see some image of God; but no where so fully and lively as in himself. It was, therefore, his work to study the whole volume of nature, but first and most to study himself. And if man had held on in this course, he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself; but when he would needs know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God, he lost the knowledge both of the creature and of the Creator, so far as it could beatify and was worth the name of knowledge; and instead of it, he hath got the unhappy knowledge which he affected, even the empty notions and fantastic knowledge of the creature and himself, as thus separated. And thus, he that lived to the Creator, and upon him, doth now live to and upon the other creatures, and on himself; and thus, ‘Every man at his best estate’ (the learned as well as the illiterate) ‘is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show; surely they are disquieted in vain.’ And it must be well observed, that as God laid not aside the relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer, relation, but the work of redemption standeth, in some respect, in subordination to that of creation, and the law of the Redeemer to the law of the Creator; so also the duties which we owed to God as Creator have not ceased, but the duties that we owe to the Redeemer, as such, are subordinate thereto. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God, and to restore us to the perfection of holiness and obedience; and as he is the way to the Father, so faith in him is the way to our former employment and enjoyment of God. I hope you perceive what I aim at in all this, namely, that to see God in his creatures, and to love him, and converse with him, was the employment of man in his upright state; that this is so far from ceasing to be our duty, that it is the work of Christ to bring us, by faith, back to it; and therefore the most holy men are the most excellent students of God’s works, and none but the holy can rightly study them or know them. ‘His works are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein," but not for themselves, but for him that made them. Your study of physics and other sciences is not worth a rush, if it be not God that you seek after in them. To see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works – this is the true and only philosophy; the contrary is mere foolery, and is so called again and again by God himself. This is the sanctification of your studies, when they are devoted to God, and when he is the end, the object, and the life of them all.

And, therefore, I shall presume to tell you, by the way, that it is a grand error, and of dangerous consequence in Christian academies, (pardon the censure from one so unfit to pass it, seeing the necessity of the case commandeth it,) that they study the creature before the Redeemer, and set themselves to physics, and metaphysics, and mathematics, before they set themselves to theology; whereas, no man that hath not the vitals of theology, is capable of going beyond a fool in philosophy. Theology must lay the foundation, and lead the way of all our studies. If God must be searched after, in our search of the creature, (and we must affect no separated knowledge of them) then tutors must read God to their pupils in all; and divinity must be the beginning, the middle, the end, the life, the all, of their studies. Our physics and metaphysics must be reduced to theology; and nature must be read as one of God’s books, which is purposely written for the revelation of himself. The Holy Scripture is the easier book: when you have first learned from it God, and his will, as to the most necessary things, address yourselves to the study of his works, and read every creature as a Christian and a divine. If you see not yourselves, and all things, as living, and moving, and having being in God, you see nothing, whatever you think you see. If you perceive not, in your study of the creatures, that God is all, and in all, and that ‘of him, and through him, and to him, are all things,’ you may think, perhaps, that you ‘know something; but you know nothing as you ought to know.’ Think not so basely of your physics, and of the works of God, as that they are only preparatory studies for boys. It is a most high and noble part of holiness, to search after, behold admire, and love the great Creator in all his works. How much have the saints of God been employed in this high and holy exercise! The book of Job, and the Psalms, may show us that our physics are not so little kin to theology as some suppose.

I do, therefore, in zeal for the good of the Church, and their own success in their most necessary labors, propound it for the consideration of all pious tutors, whether they should not as timely, and as diligently, read to their pupils, or cause them to read, the chief parts of practical divinity (and there is no other), as any of the sciences; and whether they should not go together from the very first? It is well that they hear sermons; but that is not enough. If tutors would make it their principal business to acquaint their pupils with the doctrine of salvation, and labor to set it home upon their hearts, that all might be received according to its weight, and read to their hearts as well as to their heads, and so carry on the rest of their instructions, that it may appear they make them but subservient unto this, and that their pupils may feel what they aim at in them all; and so that they would teach all their philosophy in habitu theologico, – this might be a happy means to make a happy Church and a happy country. But, when languages and philosophy have almost all their time and diligence, and, instead of reading philosophy like divines, they read divinity like philosophers, as if it were a thing of no more moment than a lesson of music, or arithmetic, and not the doctrine of everlasting life; – this it is that blasteth so many in the bud, and pestereth the Church with unsanctified teachers! Hence it is, that we have so many worldlings to preach of the invisible felicity, and so many carnal men to declare the mysteries of the Spirit; and I would I might not say, so many infidels to preach Christ, or so many atheists to preach the living God: and when they are taught philosophy before or without religion, what wonder if their philosophy be all or most of their religion!

Again, therefore, I address myself to all who have the charge of the education of youth, especially in order to preparation for the ministry. You, that are schoolmasters and tutors, begin and end with the things of God. Speak daily to the hearts of your scholars those things that must be wrought into their hearts, or else they are undone. Let some piercing words fall frequently from your mouths, of God, and the state of’ their souls, and the life to come. Do not say, they are too young to understand and entertain them. You little know what impressions they may make. Not only the soul of the boy, but many souls may have cause to bless God, for your zeal and diligence, yea, for one such seasonable word. You have a great advantage above others to do them good; you have them before they are grown to maturity, and they will hear you when they will not hear another. If they are destined to the ministry, you are preparing them for the special service of God, and must they not first have the knowledge of him whom they have to serve Oh think with yourselves, what a sad thing it will be to their own souls, and what a wrong to the Church of God, if they come out from you with common and carnal hearts, to so great and holy and spiritual a work! Of a hundred students in one of our colleges, how many may there be that are serious, experienced, godly young men! If you should send one half of them on a work which they are unfit for, what cruel work will they make in the Church or country! Whereas, if you be the means of their conversion and sanctification, how many souls may bless you, and what greater good can you do the Church? When once their hearts are savingly affected with the doctrine which they study and preach, they will study it more heartily, and preach it more heartily: their own experience will direct them to the fittest subjects, and will furnish them with matter, and quicken them to set it home .to the conscience of their hearers. See, therefore, that you make not work for the groans and lamentation of the Church, nor for the great tormentor of the murderers of souls.

2. Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labor; but I am speaking to you upon the public account, that you would do it for the sake of the Church, When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely feel when you have been much with God: that which is most on your hearts, is like to be most in their ears. I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience, that I publish to my flock the distempers of my own soul. When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and so I can oft observe also in the best of my hearers, that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too like my preaching. We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we forbear taking food ourselves, we shall famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not like to raise up theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter show it not, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are like to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we abound in faith, and love, and zeal, how would it overflow to the refreshing of our congregations, and how would it appear in the increase of the same graces in them! O brethren, watch therefore over your own hearts: keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith, and love, and zeal: be much at home, and be much with God. If it be not your daily business to study your own hearts, and to subdue corruption, and to walk with God – if you make not this a work to which you constantly attend, all will go wrong, and you will starve your hearers; or, if you have an affected fervency, you cannot expect a blessing to attend it from on high. Above all, be much in secret prayer and meditation. Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices: remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty, to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you. For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts. If a pang of spiritual pride should overtake you, and you should fall into any dangerous error, and vent your own inventions to draw away disciples after you, what a wound may this prove to the Church, of which you have the oversight; and you may become a plague to them instead of a blessing, and they may wish they had never seen your faces. Oh, therefore, take heed to your own judgments and affections. Vanity and error will slyly insinuate, and seldom come without fair pretences: great distempers and apostasies have usually small beginnings. The prince of darkness doth frequently personate an angel of light, to draw the children of light again into darkness. How easily also will distempers creep in upon our affections and our first love, and fear and care abate! Watch, therefore, for the sake of yourselves and others.

But, besides this general course of watchfulness, methinks a minister should take some special pains with his heart, before he is to go to the congregation: if it be then cold, how is he likely to warm the hearts of his hearers? Therefore, go then specially to God for life: read some rousing, awakening book, or meditate on the weight of the subject of which you are to speak, and on the great necessity of your people’s souls, that you may go in the zeal of the Lord into his house. Maintain, in this manner, the life of grace in yourselves, that it may appear in all your sermons from the pulpit, – that every one who comes cold to the assembly, may have some warmth imparted to him before he depart.

3. Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labors. It much hindereth our work, when other men are all the week long contradicting to poor people in private, that which we have been speaking to them from the Word of God in public, because we cannot be at hand to expose their folly; but it will much more hinder your work, if you contradict yourselves, and if your actions give your tongue the lie, and if you build up an hour or two with your mouths, and all the week after pull down with your hands! This is the way to make men think that the Word of God is but an idle tale, and to make preaching seem no better than prating. He that means as he speaks, will surely do as he speaks. One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing. Tell me, brethren, in the fear of God, do you regard the success of your labors, or do you not? Do you long to see it upon the souls of your hearers? If you do not, what do you preach for; what do you study for; and what do you call yourselves the ministers of Christ for But if you do, then surely you cannot find in your heart to mar your work for a thing of nought. What! do you regard the success of your labors, and yet will not part with a little to the poor, nor put up with an injury, or a foul word, nor stoop to the meanest, nor forbear your passionate or lordly carriage, – no, not for the winning of souls, and attaining the end of all your labors! You little value success, indeed, that will sell it at so cheap a rate, or will not do so small a matter to attain it. It is a palpable error of some ministers, who make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living; who study hard to preach exactly, and study little or not at all to live exactly. All the week long is little enough, to study how to speak two hours; and yet one hour seems too much to study how to live all the week. They are loath to misplace a word in their sermons, or to be guilty of any notable infirmity, (and I blame them not, for the matter is holy and weighty,) but they make nothing of misplacing affections, words, and actions, in the course of their lives. Oh how curiously have I heard some men preach; and how carelessly have I seen them live! They have been so accurate as to the preparation of their sermons, that seldom preaching seemed to them a virtue, that their language might be the more polite, and all the rhetorical writers they could meet with were pressed to serve them for the adorning of their style, (and gauds were oft their chiefest ornaments.) They were so nice in hearing others, that no man pleased them that spoke as he thought, or that drowned not affections, or dulled not, or distempered not the heart by the predominant strains of a fantastic wit. And yet, when it came to matter of practice, and they were once out of church, how incurious were the men, and how little did they regard what they said or did, so it were not so palpably gross as to dishonor them! They that preach precisely, would not live precisely! What a difference was there between their pulpit speeches and their familiar discourse? They that were most impatient of barbarisms, solecisms, and paralogisms in a sermon, could easily tolerate them in their life and conversation.

Certainly, brethren, we have very great cause to take heed what we do, as well as what we say: if we will be the servants of Christ indeed, we must not be tongue servants only, but must serve him with our deeds, and be ‘doers of the work, that we may be blessed in our deed.’ As our people must be ‘doers of the word, and not hearers only," so we must be doers and not speakers only, lest we ‘deceive our own selves.’ A practical doctrine must be practically preached. We must study as hard how to live well, as how to preach well. We must think and think again, how to compose our lives, as may most tend to men’s salvation, as well as our sermons.

When you are studying what to say to your people, if you have any concern for their souls, you will oft be thinking with yourself, ‘How shall I get within them? and what shall I say, that is most likely to convince them, and convert them, and promote their salvation! ’ And should you not as diligently think with yourself, ‘How shall I live, and what shall I do, and how shall I dispose of all that I have, as may most tend to the saving o men’s souls? ’ Brethen, if the saving of souls be your end, you will certainly intend it out of the pulpit as well as in it! If it be your end, you will live for it, and contribute all your endeavors to attain it. You will ask concerning the money in your purse, as well as concerning the word of your mouth, ‘In what way shall I lay it out for the greatest good, especially to men’s souls ‘ Oh that this were your daily study, how to use your wealth, your friends, and all you have for God, as well as your tongues! Then should we see that fruit of your labors, which is never else like to be seen. If you intend the end of the ministry in the pulpit only, it would seem you take yourselves for ministers no longer than you are there. And, if so, I think you are unworthy to be esteemed ministers at all.

Let me then entreat you, brethren, to do well, as well as say well. Be ‘zealous of good works.’ Spare not for any cost, if it may promote your Master’s work.

(1) Maintain your innocency, and walk without offense. Let your lives condemn sin, and persuade men to duty. Would you have your people more careful of their souls, than you are of yours If you would have them redeem their time, do not you mis-spend yours. If you would not have them vain in their conference, see that you speak yourselves the things which may edify, and tend to ‘minister grace to the hearers.’ Order your own families well, if you would have them do so by theirs. Be not proud and lordly, if you would have them to be lowly. There are no virtues wherein your example will do more, at least to abate men’s prejudice, than humility and meekness and self-denial. Forgive injuries; and ‘be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.’ Do as our Lord, ‘who, when he was reviled, reviled not again.’ If sinners be stubborn and stout and contemptuous, flesh and blood will persuade you to take up their weapons, and to master them by their carnal means: but that is not the way, (further than necessary self-preservation or public good may require,) but overcome them with kindness and patience and gentleness. The former may show that you have more worldly power than they (wherein yet they are ordinarily too hard for the faithful); but it is the latter only that will tell them that you excel them in spiritual excellency. If you believe that Christ is more worthy of imitation than Caesar or Alexander, and that it is more glory to be a Christian than to be a conqueror, yea to be a man than a beast – which often exceed us in strength – contend with charity, and not with violence; set meekness and love and patience against force, and not force against force. Remember, you are obliged to be the servants of all. ‘Condescend to men of low estate.’ Be not strange to the poor of your flock; they are apt to take your strangeness for contempt. Familiarity, improved to holy ends, may do abundance of good. Speak not stoutly or disrespectfully to any one; but be courteous to the meanest, as to your equal in Christ. A kind and winning carriage is a cheap way of doing men good.

(2) Let me entreat you to abound in works of charity and benevolence. Go to the poor, and see what they want, and show your compassion at once to their soul and body. Buy them a catechism, and other small books that are likely to do them good, and make them promise to read them with care and attention. Stretch your purse to the utmost, and do all the good you can. Think not of being rich; seek not great things for yourselves or your posterity. What if you do impoverish yourselves to do a greater good; will this be loss or gain? If you believe that God is the safest purse-bearer, and that to expend in his service is the greatest usury, show them that you do believe it. I know that flesh and blood will cavil before it will lose its prey, and will never want somewhat to say against this duty that is against its interest; but mark what I say (and the Lord set it home upon your hearts), that man who hath any thing in the world so dear to him, that he cannot spare it for Christ, if he call for it, is no true Christian. And because a carnal heart will not believe that Christ calls for it when he cannot spare it, and, therefore, makes that his self-deceiving shift, I say further, that the man who will not be persuaded that duty is duty, because he cannot spare that for Christ which is therein to be expended, is no true Christian; for a false heart corrupteth the understanding, and that again increaseth the delusions of the heart. Do not take it, therefore, as an undoing, to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness and to lay up treasure in heaven, though you leave yourselves but little on earth. You lose no great advantage for heaven, by becoming poor: ‘In pursuing one’s way, the lighter one travels the better.’

I know, where the heart is carnal and covetous, words will not wring men’s money out of their hands; they can say all this, and more to others; but saying is one thing, and believing is another. But with those that are true believers, methinks such considerations should prevail. O what abundance of good might ministers do, if they would but live in contempt of the world, and the riches and glory thereof, and expend all they have in their Master’s service, and pinch their flesh, that they may have wherewith to do good! This would unlock more hearts to the reception of their doctrine, than all their oratory; and, without this, singularity in religion will seem but hypocrisy; and it is likely that it is so. ‘He who practises disinterestedness prays to the Lord; he who snatches a man from peril offers a rich sacrifice; these are our sacrifices; these are holy to God. Thus he who is more devout among us is he who is more self-effacing,’ saith Minucius Felix.’ Though we need not do as the papists, who betake themselves to monasteries, and cast away property, yet we must have nothing but what we have for God.

4. Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonor him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet contemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and wilfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? if it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men, with them, and put them into such frights without a cause Do you ‘know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death," and yet will you do them? ‘Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery,’ or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself ‘Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God ‘ What! shall the same tongue speak evil that speakest against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbor, that cry down these and the like things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves: ‘For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.’ ‘To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.’ O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.

Lastly, take heed to yourselves, that you want not the qualifications necessary for your work. He must not be himself a babe in knowledge, that will teach men all those mysterious things which must be known in order to salvation. O what qualifications are necessary for a man who hath such a charge upon him as we have! How many difficulties in divinity to be solved! and these, too, about the fundamental principles of religion! How many obscure texts of Scripture to be expounded! How many duties to be performed, wherein ourselves and others may miscarry, if in the matter, and manner, and end, we be not well informed! How many sins to be avoided, which, without understanding and foresight cannot be done! What a number of sly and subtle temptations must we open to our people’s eyes, that they may escape them! How many weighty and yet intricate cases of conscience have we almost daily to resolve! And can so much work, and such work as this, be done by raw, unqualified men? O what strong holds have we to batter, and how many of them! What subtle and obstinate resistance must we expect from every heart we deal with! Prejudice hath so blocked up our way, that we can scarcely procure a patient hearing. We cannot make a breach in their groundless hopes and carnal peace, but they have twenty shifts and seeming reasons to make it up again; and twenty enemies, that are seeming friends, are ready to help them. We dispute not with them upon equal terms. We have children to reason with, that cannot understand us. We have distracted men (in spirituals) to argue with, that will bawl us down with raging nonsense. We have wilful, unreasonable people to deal with, who, when they are silenced, are never the more convinced, and who, when they can give you no reason, will give you their resolution; like the man that Salvian’ had to deal with, who, being resolved to devour a poor man’s substance, and being entreated by him to forbear, replied, ‘He could not grant his request, for he had made a vow to take it," so that the preacher, by reason of this most religious evil deed, was fain to depart. We dispute the case against men’s wills and passions, as much as against their understandings; and these have neither reason nor ears. Their best arguments are, ‘I will not believe you, nor all the preachers in the world, in such things. I will not change my mind, or life; I will not leave my sins; I will never be so precise, come of it what will.’ We have not one, but multitudes of raging passions, and contradicting enemies, to dispute against at once, whenever we go about the conversion of a sinner; as if a man were to dispute in a fair or a tumult, or in the midst of a crowd of violent scolds. What equal dealing, and what success, could here be expected? Yet such is our work; and it is a work that must be done.

O brethren! what men should we be in skill, resolution, and unwearied diligence, who have all this to do? Did Paul cry out, ‘Who is sufficient for these things? ’ And shall we be proud, or careless, or lazy, as if we were sufficient As Peter saith to every Christian, in consideration of our great approaching change, ‘What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness! ’ so may I say to every minister, ‘Seeing all these things lie upon our hands, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy endeavors and resolutions for our work! ’ This is not a burden for the shoulders of a child. What skill doth every part of our work require! – and of how much moment is every part! To preach a sermon, I think, is not the hardest part; and yet what skill is necessary to make the truth plain; to convince the hearers, to let irresistible light in to their consciences, and to keep it there, and drive all home; to screw the truth into their minds, and work Christ into their affections; to meet every objection, and clearly to resolve it; to drive sinners to a stand, and make them see that there is no hope, but that they must unavoidably either be converted or condemned – and to do all this, as regards language and manner, as beseems our work, and yet as is most suitable to the capacities of our hearers. This, and a great deal more that should be done in every sermon, must surely require a great deal of holy skill. So great a God, whose message we deliver, should be honored by our delivery of it. It is a lamentable case, that in a message from the God of heaven, of everlasting moment to the souls of men, we should behave ourselves so weakly, so unhandsomely, so imprudently, or so slightly, that the whole business should miscarry in our hands, and God should be dishonored, and his work disgraced, and sinners rather hardened than converted; and all this through our weakness or neglect! How often have carnal hearers gone home jeering at the palpable and dishonorable failings of the preacher! How many sleep under us, because our hearts and tongues are sleepy, and we bring not with us so much skill and zeal as to awake them! Moreover, what skill is necessary to defend the truth against gainsayers, and to deal with disputing cavillers, according to their several modes and case! And if we fail through weakness, how will they exult over us! Yet that is the smallest matter: but who knows how many weak ones may thereby be perverted, to their own undoing, and to the trouble of the Church? What skill is necessary to deal in private with one poor ignorant soul for his conversion! O brethren! do you not shrink and tremble under the sense of all this work? Will a common measure of holy skill and ability, of prudence and other qualifications, serve for such a task as this? I know necessity may cause the Church to tolerate the weak; but woe to us, if we tolerate and indulge our own weakness! Do not reason and conscience tell you, that if you dare venture on so high a work as this, you should spare no pains to be qualified for the performance of it? It is not now and then an idle snatch or taste of studies that will serve to make an able and sound divine. I know that laziness hath learned to allege the vanity of all our studies, and how entirely the Spirit must qualify us for, and assist us in our work; as if God commanded us the use of means, and then warranted us to neglect them; as if it were his way to cause us to thrive in a course of idleness, and to bring us to knowledge by dreams when we are asleep, or to take us up into heaven, and show us his counsels, while we think of no such matter, but are idling away our time on earth! O that men should dare, by their laziness, to ‘quench the Spirit,’ and then pretend the Spirit for the doing of it! ‘O outrageous, shameful and unnatural deed! ’ God hath required us, that we be ‘not slothful in business,’ but ‘fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.’ Such we must provoke our hearers to be, and such we must be ourselves. O, therefore, brethren, lose no time! Study, and pray, and confer, and practice; for in these four ways your abilities must be increased. Take heed to yourselves, lest you are weak through your own negligence, and lest you mar the work of God by your weakness.

	EVENT	CITY, STATE
	06/05 - 06/28/09	Mark's Gospel Max McLean	Chicago, IL
	06/21 - 06/28/09	Envision Week Dr. Rob Thompson	Tinley Park, IL
	06/22 - 06/26/09	Roman Marketplace VBS	Barrington, IL
	06/22 - 06/26/09	Son Rock Kids Camp VBS	Crystal Lake, IL
	06/22 - 06/26/09	VBS	Demotte, IN
	06/26/09	Kidz Blitz Live!	Zion , IL
	06/27/09	Summer Celebration & Car Show	Demotte, IN
	06/27/09	How We Love Seminar	Barrington Hills, IL
	06/27/09	Saturday Evening Worship James E. Ward Jr	Carol Stream, IL
	06/28/09	Annual International Festival	Alsip, IL
	06/28/09	Summer Sunshine Concert	Carol Stream, IL
	06/29/09	Becoming the Archetype	Downers Grove, IL
	07/02 - 07/05/09	Caravan of Love Couples Retreat	Chicago, IL
	07/04/09	Saturday Evening Service James E. Ward Jr	Carol Stream, IL
	07/04 - 07/05/09	Celebration Weekend Karen Peck & New River w/ Ken Medema	Pontiac, IL
	07/05/09	Celebration Weekend Ken Medema	Pontiac, IL
	07/11/09	I Hear the Music In the Air Community Gospel Festival	Chicago, IL
	07/11/09	Saturday Evening Worship James E. Ward Jr	Carol Stream, IL
	07/12 - 07/16/09	Wildwood Forest VBS	Elk Grove Village, IL
	07/13 - 07/17/09	Kingdom of God VBS	Valparaiso, IN

DATE	EVENT	CITY, STATE
	06/22/09 06/26/09	SonRock Kids Camp VBS	Maugansville, MD
	06/26 - 06/27/09	Youth Evangelism Conference Gregg Matte w/ Salvador	Garland, TX
	06/26/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	07/03/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	07/09 - 07/11/09	Joyce Meyer Ministries Conference Tour Joyce Meyer w/ Delirious?	San Antonio, TX
	07/10/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	07/14/09	Conquering Stress & Emotional Eating Zonya Foco	Adrian, MI
	07/17 - 07/18/09	Love & Laughter Marriage Getaway Gary Smalley w/ Ted Cunningham	Fayetteville, GA
	07/17 - 07/18/09	Men at the Cross Conference Joe White	St Louis, MO
	07/17/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	07/18/09	WorshipFest 2009	Arlington Heights, IL
	07/18/09	Rock the River Franklin Graham w/ Flyleaf	Baton Rouge, LA
	07/24 - 07/25/09	Men at the Cross Conference Joe White	Atlanta, GA
	07/24/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	07/25/09	You Can Write A Song Clint Brown w/ Jeff Ferguson	Orlando, FL
	07/26 - 08/02/09	Cedar Falls Bible Conference Josh McDowell w/ Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie	Cedar Falls, IA
	07/26 - 07/29/09	Solution Two52 Youth Conference Kirk Franklin w/ John Gray	Munster, IN
	07/27 - 07/31/09	Boomerang Express VBS	Bel Air, MD
	07/27 - 07/31/09	Boomerang Express VBS	Columbus, OH
	07/30 - 07/31/09	You Can Make It 2009 Youth Conference Kirk Franklin w/ Canton Jones	Whites Creek, TN
	07/31/09	Cache Connections Live	Atlanta, GA
	07/31/09	School of the Holy Spirit	Alexandria, VA
	08/02/09	Rock the River Franklin Graham w/ Flyleaf	St Louis, MO
	08/06 - 08/08/09	Joyce Meyer Ministries Conference Tour Joyce Meyer w/ Delirious?	Hershey, PA
	08/07/09	Men at the Cross Conference Joe White	Lincoln, NE
	08/07 - 08/08/09	Student Evangelism Conference Ed Newton w/ Dutton	Dallas, TX
	08/07/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	08/08/09	Rock the River Franklin Graham w/ Flyleaf	Davenport, IA
	08/10 - 08/11/09	Seminars4Worship... Deeper Paul Baloche w/ Brian Doerksen	Hillsboro, OR
	08/14/09	Minstrel Music Arts Seminar Bryant Scott	Munster, IN
	08/14/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA
	08/16/09	Rock the River Tour Franklin Graham w/ Flyleaf	St. Paul, MN
	08/20 - 08/22/09	Joyce Meyer Ministries Conference Tour Joyce Meyer w/ Matt Redman	Nashville, TN
	08/21/09	Men at the Cross Conference Joe White	Cypress, TX
	08/21/09	School of the Holy Spirit Jeffrey H. & Linda Herbert	Alexandria, VA

Straight to the Heart

Introduction

An earnest invitation to sinners to turn to God
 

Dearly Beloved,

I gladly acknowledge myself a debtor to you, and am concerned, as I would be found a good steward of the household of God, to give to everyone his portion. But the physician is most concerned for those patients whose case is most doubtful and hazardous; and the father's pity is especially turned towards his dying child. So unconverted souls call for earnest compassion and prompt diligence to pluck them as brands from the burning (Jude 23). Therefore it is to them I shall first apply myself in these pages.

But from where shall I fetch my argument? With what shall I win them? O that I could tell! I would write to them in tears, I would weep out every argument, I would empty my veins for ink, I would petition them on my knees. O how thankful should I be if they would be prevailed with to repent and turn.

How long have I labored for you! How often would I have gathered you! This is what I have prayed for and studied for these many years, that I might bring you to God. O that I might now do it! Will you yet be entreated?

'But, O Lord, how insufficient I am for this work. Alas, with what shall I pierce the scales of Leviathan, or make the heart feel that is hard as the nether millstone? Shall I go and speak to the grave, and expect the dead will obey me and come forth? Shall I make an oration to the rocks, or declaim to the mountains, and think to move them with arguments? Shall I make the blind to see? From the beginning of the world was it not heard that a man opened the eyes of the blind (John 9:32). But, O Lord, You can pierce the heart of the sinner. I can only draw the bow at a venture—but may You direct the arrow between the joints of the harness. Slay the sin, and save the soul of the sinner who casts his eyes on these pages.

There is no entering into heaven but by the strait passage of the second birth; without holiness you shall never see God (Heb 12:14). Therefore give yourselves unto the Lord now. Set yourselves to seek Him now. Set up the Lord Jesus in your hearts, and set Him up in your houses. Kiss the Son (Psalm 2:12) and embrace the offers of mercy; touch His scepter and live; for why will you die? I do not beg for myself—but would have you happy: this is the prize I run for. My soul's desire and prayer for you is, that you may be saved (Rom 10:1).

I beseech you to permit a friendly plainness and freedom with you in your deepest concern. I am not playing the orator to make a learned speech to you, nor dressing the dish with eloquence in order to please you. These lines are upon a weighty errand indeed—to convince, and convert, and save you. I am not baiting my hook with rhetoric, nor fishing for your applause—but for your souls. My work is not to please you—but to save you; nor is my business with your fancies—but with your hearts. If I have not your hearts, I have nothing. If I were to please your ears, I would sing another song. I could then tell you a smoother tale; I would make pillows for you and speak peace, for how can Ahab love this Micaiah, who always prophesies evil concerning him? (1 Kings 22:8). But how much better are the wounds of a friend, than the fair speeches of the harlot, who flatters with her lips, until the darts strike through the liver? (Prov 7:21-23 and Prov 6:26). If I were to quiet a crying infant, I might sing him into a happier mood, or rock him asleep; but when the child is fallen into the fire, the parent takes another course; he will not try to still him with a song or trifle. I know, if we succeed not with you, you are lost; if we cannot get your consent to arise and come away, you will perish forever. No conversion—no salvation! I must get your goodwill, or leave you miserable.

But here the difficulty of my work again occurs to me. 'O Lord, choose my stones out of the brook (1 Sam 17:40,45). I come in the name of the Lord Almighty. I come forth, like the stripling David against Goliath, to wrestle, not with flesh and blood—but with principalities and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph 6:12). This day let the Lord smite the Philistines, spoil the strong man of his armor, and give me the captives out of his hand. Lord, choose my words, choose my weapons for me; and when I put my hand into the bag, and take out a stone and sling it, may You carry it to the mark, and make it sink, not into the forehead—but into the heart of the unconverted sinner, and smite him to the ground like Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:4).'

Some of you do not know what I mean by conversion, and in vain shall I attempt to persuade you to that which you do not understand. Therefore for your sakes I will show what conversion is.

Others cherish secret hopes of mercy, though they continue as they are. For them I must show the necessity of conversion.

Others are likely to harden themselves with a vain conceit that they are converted already. To them I must show the marks of the unconverted.

Others, because they feel no harm, fear none, and so sleep as upon the top of a mast. To them I shall show the misery of the unconverted.

Others sit still, because they do not see the way of escape. To them I shall show the means of conversion.

And finally, for the quickening of all, I shall close with the motives to conversion.

Threats, Expulsions for Christian Couple in Uganda

Hostilities evident in Muslim area where missionaries were slain.
By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 26 (Compass Direct News) – When a young Muslim woman in northern Uganda heard about Jesus in February 2005 and began having dreams about the cross of Christ, it marked the beginning of a nightmare.
Between the dreams and otherwise sleepless nights, Aleti Samusa of Yumbe district soon converted to Christianity; her family immediately kicked her out of their home.
Economically devastated and deprived of that which is most valued in the communal culture, Samusa sought refuge in a local church in Lotongo village. There she found the man she would marry later that year, David Edema, who was raised a Christian but who began sharing in the sufferings of a convert from Islam by virtue of becoming one flesh with one.
His bride’s family did not attend the couple’s wedding, Edema told Compass, and it wasn’t long before her relatives threatened to break up their marriage. With Samusa’s family threatening to forcibly take her from Edema, the couple fled Lotongo village to Yumbe town. Their troubles had just begun.
“The Muslims started sending people, saying that I am not wanted in Yumbe town and that I should leave the town,” Edema said.
Most houses in Yumbe are owned by Muslims, he said, and since 2006 the couple has been forced to move from one rented house to another without notice.
“The owner just wakes up one morning and gives us marching orders to vacate the house,” the 29-year-old Edema said. “Nowadays, the situation is getting worse. Muslims are openly saying even in their mosques that they plan to take unknown action against my family.”
One potential danger amounts to a death threat against his wife, now 24.
“The Muslims are saying that they are going to send some Jinns [evil spirits] to my wife because she forsook Islam, and that this spirit will kill her,” he said. 
Asked what steps he has taken in the face of these threats, Edema was resigned.
“It will be pointless to take this matter to court, because the people who are to hear the case are Muslims,” he said. “I feel no justice will be done.”
Area Violence
Edema said he and his wife are hoping that God will open a door for them to move to another town.
“The sooner the better for us,” he said, “for we do not know what the Muslims are planning to do with us.”
Violence in Yumbe district is not without precedent. On March 18, 2004, seven suspected radical Islamists dressed in military fatigues murdered two African Inland Mission missionaries and a Ugandan student in an attack on a college run by local aid group Here is Life. Warren and Donna Pett, both 49 and agriculture experts from the U.S. state of Wisconsin, were teachers at the Evangelical School of Technology. The slain student was Isaac Juruga.
The murder case was dismissed in February by the state attorney, who claimed lack of evidence. A Here is Life official who requested anonymity, however, said not enough weight was given to evidence that included a mobile phone recovered from one of the suspected assailants.
“We feel that justice was not done in the ruling of the killing of the two missionaries,” he said.
In Yumbe, the administrative arm of the government as well as the judiciary is run by Muslims, said Edema, who added that the district is still not a safe place for Christians.
“Sometimes they even confront me that I should stop converting Muslims to Christianity – this is not true,” Edema said. “It is just a way of wanting to pick a quarrel with me.”
Edema, his wife and two children belong to Pilgrim Church. Christians and converts to Christianity are a tiny minority in the area, but about three kilometers from Yumbe town is the Church of Uganda in Eleke, with a congregation of about 100. This church has recently sounded alarms about Muslims making land-grabs of its property.
A church leader who requested anonymity said area Muslims have seized a substantial portion of the church’s land, but when the matter went to court, the case was dismissed due to lack of a title deed.
In addition, in May Muslim youths beat a female church worker who had taken a photo of a mosque that was under construction 100 meters from the church, he said.
“Rowdy Muslim youths removed the film after destroying the lid of the camera,” he said. “The militant youths started beating up the church worker as they dragged her to the police station in Yumbe, where she was interrogated for three hours before being released.”
Peter Manasseh, vicar of the Eleke Church of Uganda, said the church has filed a complaint with  the local governing council, “but we do not expect any fairness to be done because the person handling this case is a Muslim and will be partisan.”
A journalist who works for a Christian radio station, however, decided to look into the case – and was himself beaten. Ronald Oguzu of Voice of Life radio in Arua town went to Yumbe yesterday to investigate, said a senior station official who requested anonymity.
“At the mosque site, the Muslims caught hold of Oguzu, beat him and he had his tooth broken,” the official said. “He was then hospitalized in Yumbe hospital and is still receiving some medication.”
He said a criminal case has been filed, but that chances for justice were not good.
“We know that this case will be thrown out of the window, just like that of the killing of the two missionaries,” he said. “To date no arrests have been made.”

Village Christians in Hiding after Clash in Egypt

Violence erupts on mere suspicion of a prayer meeting.
By Damaris Kremida

ISTANBUL, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – Nearly 1,000 Coptic Christians are hiding in their homes after clashes erupted Sunday (June 21) between them and their village’s majority-Muslim population over the use of a three-story building belonging to the Coptic Church.
When on Sunday at 11 a.m. a group of 25 Christians from Cairo stopped in Ezbet Boshra-East, a village of about 3,000 people three hours south of Cairo by car, few villagers failed to take notice. Planning to visit local Christians and the Rev. Isaac Castor, the group had gathered outside the building owned by the Coptic Church, where the priest lives with his family.
Castor said only six of them had entered the building when Muslim neighbors approached the rest of the group waiting outside and began taunting them. A Muslim woman walked up to one of the visiting women, he said, and slapped her.
Soon village youths gathered and started throwing stones at the visitors and the building, and according to Castor within minutes hundreds of villagers, Muslims against Christians, were fighting each other in the streets of Ezbet Boshra-East. Castor’s car was also vandalized.
“They were all over the streets hitting each other with sticks and their fists,” Castor told Compass from his home by phone. “Some people were on top of buildings throwing stones; it was like a civil war.”
Sectarian tensions have previously flared in the village. Last July, when Castor first moved to Ezbet Boshra-East with his family, Muslims vandalized Christians’ farmlands and poisoned their domestic animals after services took place at the building owned by the church, according to International Christian Concern.
Since last July’s incidents, authorities have stipulated that only two Christians at a time can visit the building, and according to Castor this was the source of the fighting that erupted in front of the building on Sunday. The neighbors thought he was conducting a prayer meeting and not adhering to the rule set by local authorities.
In the violent clash in front of the church-owned building, 17 Christians and eight Muslims were estimated to have been injured. According to various reports, nearly 19 Coptic Christians were arrested and released the following day, along with the injured Muslims.
So far there is no concrete information on how the Christians were treated while in prison. During the arrests of the Christians, police vandalized many of their homes. Egyptian sources told Compass that police often turn the homes of those whom they arrest “upside down.”
Soon after the clashes, electricity and phone services were cut. Electricity was restored after 24 hours, but at press time telephones were still not operating. All communications happen via mobile phones.
Authorities also imposed a 6 p.m. curfew on the entire village, but Castor said Christians were too afraid to come out of their homes and were living off personal food stockpiles. He also said that a number of families had left the village to stay with friends and relatives in nearby towns and villages. Eyewitnesses visiting Ezbet Boshra-East yesterday confirmed that although there were Muslim villagers outside, there were no Christians walking on the streets.
Procedures vs. Tolerance
There is no church building in Ezbet Boshra-East, and so far the Coptic Church has not sought to obtain permission to build one. Nor has it officially applied for permission to use the three-story building as a place of prayer as an official association.
When a reporter from a major Egyptian TV channel asked Castor by telephone whether he had obtained permission for prayer and worship for the building purchased by the church, he responded, “Do I need to have permission if I was called to pray for a sick person?” He admitted in the interview, however, that obtaining permission would help to avoid clashes and that authorities should grant it quickly.
There are other villages around Ezbet Boshra-East, such as Talt three kilometers away, where there are Coptic associations. Also, official churches are established in Ezbet Boshra-West and El Fashn, both 15 kilometers (nine miles) away.
Castor said poor Muslim-Christian relations are reflected in the lack of an area church.
“There is no love or tolerance for each other, and I think this is wrong,” Castor said. “I’m worried about the future. I’m worried about the freedom of religion and the inability to build churches. There is bias. It is unfair and unacceptable that people don’t have the freedom of worship. If the current policies continue, the hate will continue.”
The village-wide violence on Sunday harkened to sectarian violence in Upper Egypt in 2000 in the area of El Kosheh, said Ibrahim Habib, chairman of U.K.-based United Copts.
“This degree of radicalization is a bad sign for the future of Egypt, when there is so much hate for people who are basically peaceful and just want to pray,” said Habib.
Egypt’s constitution provides for freedom of religion and worship under Article 46.
“What’s the value of a statement like this if it is not put into action?” he said of Article 46, adding that when government agencies do not promote freedom of worship but instead “become agents of persecution, they make a mockery of the constitution.”
Habib also expressed dismay that a whole village took umbrage only because they suspected a prayer meeting.
“How can private worship annoy people?” he said. “They are not broadcasting it. This is not fair. I’m really annoyed. They say Islam is tolerant, but is this tolerant? This is not tolerant at all.”
Other Non-Governmental Organizations in Egypt said that they expect reconciliation meetings to take place in Ezbet Boshra-East in the coming weeks.

Is America facing revival or judgment?

By Bill Ellis
Special to ASSIST News Service

Scott Depot, WV

Can America be saved and become strong and prosperous again? One thing is for sure, the problems of our nation and the rest of the world will not be solved by Republicans, Democrats, Independents or any other political philosophy. They are not intelligent or wise enough to know what to do. They all seem to make a mess at everything they try.

We are facing a dearth of qualified leaders and statesmen of high moral character and superior leadership qualities coupled with genuine wisdom. Where are the men and women who can lead us out of our malaise? Maladroit leaders will not get the job done.

Are we about to drown in the cesspool of our national debt? Has our nation recently taken on more debt than we have accumulated since its founding? Is the United States government itself our largest and most poorly managed business? If we have become a debtor nation, is bankruptcy approaching?.

Add to the mix the automobile companies, banks, insurance, industry, oil, building and construction problems, housing, highways, health, law, manufacturing, Wall Street, education, any other business, and then add it all together and it, I have heard and read, will not equal the tremendous cost and waste of our national government headquartered in Washington, D. C. And what about all 50 states and the debt many of them carry?

What we borrow must be paid back. That means we must produce more than we borrowed. In another day of terrible times a man, whose name was Paul, wrote a letter to the good people of Rome. That is all spelled out in chapter one of Romans. If you want to know how we should live in difficult times and how we should react to government, read chapters 12, 13, and 14. You may find encouragement in verse 8 of chapter 13. It simply states: “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves has fulfilled the law.”

It is courting disaster to borrow more than we can produce and pay for – bad for individuals, businesses and governments. Paul also said, “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).

Is God using our present financial and moral dilemma and national leaders as the instruments of judgment or revival? I certainly do not know. God has given us many clues as to what He might do. Centuries ago He warned, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17).

That warning came from the same God who promised healing and forgiveness. It will mean more to you if you locate and read for yourself this promise made to people who were as sinful and wicked as America is today. Read it and believe it. It is 2 Chronicles 7:14. You will understand it better if you read the entire chapter.

Our nation has a choice to make. The Bible deals explicitly with all the major problems we face and offers answers that will work. Disregard the teaching of that book and the heavy hand of judgment will fall on this nation – a judgment from which it may never recover.

We have made our choices and we will pay the price for our decisions. The only solution is in turning from evil which is now running rampant in our nation and among its leaders. If I dodge this fact of life and history, I would not be a columnist worthy of your attention. I do not know, after all my years of study, of any other way to survive as the nation we have been and were meant to be.

It seems to me that we have a clear choice – revival or judgment.

Copyright 2009

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Harvest Crusades With Greg Laurie Mark 20 Years In Southern California With Annual Outreach At Angel Stadium, Anaheim, August 14 - 16

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

The Harvest Crusades with Greg Laurie, which have drawn nearly 3 million people to ballparks and arenas across the Southland since 1990, will mark 20 years in Southern California with its annual evangelistic outreach at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, August 14–16.

Dan Wooding interviews Greg Laurie

Featuring nightly messages from Riverside, Calif., pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie, who will speak during all three evenings of the “Southern California Harvest 2009,” the Southern California Harvest Crusade is the longest-running annual outreach in the U.S.

In addition to nightly messages from Laurie, the Southern California Harvest 2009 will also feature music from top name bands including Third Day, Chris Tomlin, Relient K, Skillet, and the Katinas.

With a trademark ability to present a straightforward gospel message in a culturally relevant format, drawing on the latest in current events, contemporary Christian music, and technology, Greg Laurie’s Harvest events have drawn more than 3.8 million people to stadiums and arenas around the world since 1990.

The massive crowd at a previous Harvest Crusade in Anaheim

Laurie also serves as senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., one of the largest churches in the U.S., and serves on the board of directors for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse.

All three evenings of the Southern California Harvest 2009 are free of charge and video podcasts and blog accounts of each message will be made available at http://blog.greglaurie.com/. “Behind the scenes” updates from Greg Laurie leading up to each Harvest event will also be available on Twitter at http://twitter.com/greglaurie. Angel Stadium charges $10 for parking fees for cars and $20 for buses.

MEDIA NOTE: For more information about the Southern California Harvest Crusade, contact Laura Swickard McGowan at (847) 328-8009 or cellular (847) 347-5206, or access the Harvest Newsroom at www.newsroom.harvest.org.

Copyright 2009

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Feature Film Set To Expose Horrific Practice of Stoning

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

Washington, D.C

In a world of corruption and injustice, a single courageous voice can tell a story that changes everything. This is what lies at the heart of the emotionally-charged movie THE STONING OF SORAYA M.

A fist raised ready for stoning. (Courtesy of MPower Pictures)

Movie release notes say the film, based on an incredible true story, is "(a) powerful tale of a village’s persecution of an innocent woman becomes both a daring act of witness and a compelling parable about how people react when someone in their community is turned into a scapegoat: who will join forces with the plot, who will surrender to the mob, and who will dare to stand up for what’s right."

The release notes say that, "At once a classic fable of good vs. evil, THE STONING OF SORAYA M. is an inspiring tribute to courageous women fighting against violence all around the world."

The film was chosen as the runner-up for the Audience Choice Award at the Toronto 2008 Film Festival, behind SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

The village crowd gathers for the stoning (Courtesy MPower Pictures)

THE STONING OF SORAYA M. stars Academy Award® nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG) as Zahra, a heroic Iranian woman who boldly seeks out Freidoune (Jim Caviezel, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, DÉJÀ VU), a journalist who is temporarily stranded in her remote village when his car breaks down. She tells him the harrowing tale of her niece, Soraya (Mozhan Marnò, TRAITOR, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR) and the terrible incidents that transpired in the village, in the hope that he will share it with the outside world.

A plot synopsis says that Soraya endured an abusive marriage to Ali (Navid Negahban), who repaid her loyalty by asking for a divorce so he could marry a fourteen-year-old girl.

Soraya being led away (Courtesy MPower Pictures)

"Soraya refused, fearing that she and her children would be forgotten and starve. Too poor to return Soraya's dowry, as is the custom in Islamic divorce, Ali plotted with the village's mullah (Ali Pourtash) to accuse Soraya of adultery, which carries an unimaginable penalty under Shariah law," says a media release from the movie producers.

The release says that, "Moving through a minefield of deceit, Soraya and Zahra will attempt to prove Soraya’s innocence in a legal system stacked against her. But when all else fails, Zahra will risk everything to use the sole weapon she has left -- the fearless, passionate voice that must share Soraya’s story with the world."

According to the news release, THE STONING OF SORAYA M. is inspired by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s acclaimed international best-seller of the same name which first brought global attention to the real Soraya, who in 1986 was stoned to death by her fellow villagers, in the presence of her children.

The film is directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh from a screenplay by Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh. Release Date is June 26th, 2009.

STONING producer Stephen McEveety has produced some of the world’s most celebrated films, including Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, and others, the release states.

ICON's Passion Of The Christ was the most profitable film of 2004 and one of the most profitable films of all time, it says.

The release explains that McEveety has over 30 years experience as a filmmaker. He launched Mpower Pictures, a film production company in January 2007 with John Shepherd and Todd Burns. With the mission of 'Empowering both the artist and the audience by telling stories that are compelling, bold and uncompromising.'

Director Cyrus Nowrasteh was born in Boulder, Colorado of Iranian parents, and lived in Iran as a young boy, the release says.

A graduate of the USC cinema program, he has worked in the motion picture and television business for over 20 years, including working as an award-winning writer on a number of TV series, documentaries and feature films, most notably on the acclaimed and controversial ABC docudrama, "The Path to 9/11," which aired on September 10th and 11th, 2006, to an audience of 28 million viewers.

The release says Nowrasteh "became the focal point of a partisan political attack," which cast him in the public arena appearing on CNN, FOX news, talk radio, and in print in the Wall Street Journal and other publications. It adds that the DVD release of that film has been suppressed to this day.

The movie is 116 minutes in length, in Farsi and English, Rated R for a disturbing sequence of cruel and brutal violence, and brief strong language. Based on the book "The Stoning of Soraya M." by Freidoune Sahebjam.

TRAILER LINK: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810039981/trailer
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: http://www.thestoning.com/

To book Cyrus Nowrasteh or Steve McKeevty for interviews contact: Shalini Trehan at Shalini@Mpowerpictures.com  or (310) 487-9740.

Copyright 2009

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Family of Kidnapped Colombian Pastor Flee Home

Alarmed by threatening strangers, wife and children of William Reyes leave Maicao.
By David Miller

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, June 24 (Compass Direct News) – The wife and children of pastor William Reyes, who was kidnapped last September in Colombia and is still missing, have moved from their home to another city due to threatening strangers presumably linked to his kidnappers.
Compass learned that Idia Miranda Reyes, her son William, 19, and daughters Luz Nelly, 17, and Estefania, 9, suddenly left their home in Maicao in the department (state) of La Guajira two months ago and moved to an undisclosed location in the country.
The Rev. William Reyes disappeared on Sept. 25, 2008, en route to Maicao from the neighboring city of Valledupar. Since March 2008, the pastor of Light and Truth Inter-American Church and active member of the Fraternity of Evangelical Pastors of Maicao, had been receiving extortion threats from illegal armed groups operating in the La Guajira peninsula.
Family members have not heard from Pastor Reyes since, nor have his abductors contacted the family to demand ransom.
Two incidents earlier this year alerted his wife that she and her children were in danger from the kidnappers. On Jan. 15, an unidentified man appeared at the Inter-American Church in Maicao and asked for Idia Miranda Reyes. When he was told she was not there, the man asked for her address and cell phone number, which church workers refused to give him.
Before he left, the man said testily, “It is in [her] best interest to get in touch with me, than for me to have to find her.”
Six days later, Luz Nelly Reyes was approached by a stranger on the street (the family believes it was the same man), who told her that if she wanted to see her father again, she should come with him. The girl declined the invitation. When he attempted to grab her by the arm, Luz Nelly fled.
“I have not reported this to police, because I’m afraid,” her mother told Compass after the incident. “They could do something to me.”
Through sobs she added, “We never conceived of this happening to us. I just wish they would tell us if they have him or not.”
Idia Miranda Reyes waited to leave Maicao until Luz Nelly completed her senior year in high school; the 17-year-old graduated on March 28. According to sources, the Inter-American church is contributing a modest living allowance to the Reyes family.
Reyes is not alone in her fears; Colombia suffers the highest incidence of kidnapping in the Western Hemisphere and a homicide rate 11 times greater than in the United States.
Due to general lawlessness, Colombians often face harassment from the same criminals who kidnap or murder loved ones. Violent crime is so common in the country that half of the felonies are not reported to police, and only one in nine makes the newspapers.
Another Maicao kidnapping in February underscores the problem. Armed men abducted a woman from a church just a few blocks from the Light and Truth church – while worship was in progress. The pastor of that church later refused to disclose the victim’s identity or discuss the circumstances of her disappearance, citing concerns for the safety of his congregation.
Evangelical Christians are not always passive victims of crime, however. Justapaz, a Mennonite Church-affiliated organization based in Bogotá, and The Commission for Restoration, Life and Peace of the Evangelical Council of Churches of Colombia (CEDECOL) have organized an international prayer and action campaign in response to the Reyes family crisis.
The campaign mobilized concerned citizens to petition the office of Attorney General Dr. Mario Iguarán, asking that authorities conduct a thorough investigation into Pastor Reyes’ disappearance and report their findings to Commission Coordinator Ricardo Esquivia and Jenny Neme, director of Justapaz.
“Despite hundreds of letters from church members in the United States, Canada and across Europe, and repeated attempts to get a response from the Colombian Attorney General´s Office, we have yet to receive any information from them regarding progress in the case,” said Michael Joseph, who coordinates the Reyes case on behalf of CEDECOL and Justapaz. “We’re doing our best to make sure Pastor Reyes’ case is not forgotten.”
The Reyes family joins other “internal refugees” who live as exiles in their own country. Unchecked political and social violence have forced innocent victims – many of them widows and children – to abruptly abandon homes and careers. They must take up life in crowded, far-off cities in order to protect themselves and their children from further attack.
According to estimates, Colombia now has 3 million internal refugees, the second largest population of displaced persons in the world after Sudan.

Copyright 2009

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Tortured Pakistani Christian Languishing on False Charges

Police maneuver to keep incapacitated son of preacher in jail – and out of hospital.
By Brian Sharma

LAHORE, Pakistan, June 23 (Compass Direct News) – A 37-year-old Christian is languishing in a Sialkot jail after police broke his backbone because his father was preaching Christ, according to a local advocacy group.
Arshad Masih had been in a hospital – chained to his bed on false robbery charges – after police torture that began Dec. 28, 2008 left him incapacitated. He was discharged from Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital in Sialkot on Saturday (June 20) and returned to jail despite efforts by the Community Development Initiative (CDI), a support group that is providing Masih legal assistance.
CDI Research Officer Napoleon Qayyum said that hospital personnel treated Masih callously, but that conditions there were better than in the jail in Sialkot. At least in the hospital, Qayyum said, Masih’s gray-haired father was able to carry him on his shoulders when he needed to go to the bathroom.
Hospital staff members released Masih even though they knew he would not receive the medical care he needs in jail and could face further abuse, the CDI researcher said.
“We told the hospital administration and doctors that Masih would be released from jail within a few days, so he should not be discharged from the hospital as he would not be taken care of in jail, but they paid no heed to our request,” Qayyum said.
He said Sialkot police gave assurances that Masih would be released from jail if he arrived there from the hospital by 10 p.m. A police van left early Saturday morning from Sialkot to bring Masih from the hospital in Lahore to Sialkot jail, but it did not reach the hospital until 6 p.m. even though it is only 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Sialkot to Lahore.
Qayyum said officers also invented delays on the return trip.
“Despite our requests to the police van staff, they reached the jail at 10:30 p.m.,” Qayyum said. “The Sialkot police used the delays to demoralize us by creating problems so that we do not file a petition for torturing.”
The CDI official said the group’s first priority is to “take him out of Sialkot so that police may not further create problems for him.”
Murder Threat
Hajipura police detained Masih on Dec. 28 on orders from the Sadar police station in Gujranwala, where Masih’s father, Iqbal Masih, had been preaching Christ.
The elder Masih, an itinerant preacher who has traveled to remote areas to proclaim Christ for three decades, told Compass that objections to his ministry led to false accusations of robbery against his son. Area Muslims resented his preaching and his visits to a Christian family in Gujranwala, he said, and told him to stop visiting the family.
“They told me that I was preaching a false religion and should stop doing it, and that I should succumb to their pressure,” the elder Masih told Compass.
Area Muslims had complained to Gujranwala police of the elder Masih’s efforts, and officers there first sought to arrest him in a case filed against “unidentified people,” he said. Later, he said, Gujranwala police told Hajipura police to charge his son in some robbery cases, as Arshad Masih lived in the Hajipura precincts.
When police arrested Arshad Masih on Dec. 28, they tortured him for several days, the younger Masih said.
“They hung me upside down all night, beat me and used all inhumane torture methods, leaving me permanently paralyzed,” he said.
Police falsely named him in a robbery case, according to CDI. All others named in the case were released after paying bribes, advocacy group officials said. Police officers also asked Masih’s father for a bribe of 50,000 rupees [US$620], the elder Masih said.
“They asked me as well for 50,000 rupees, but I refused to pay on the grounds that it was illegal and additionally I hadn’t that much money,” Iqbal Masih said.
The complainant in the robbery case eventually testified that Arshad Masih hadn’t been among the robbers, and he was granted bail. Before court orders reached the jail, however, Sialkot police informed Sadar police officers in Gujranwala, who arrived at the jail and had Masih remanded to them for a robbery case filed against “unidentified people.”
“Because of that, Masih could not be freed for one moment,” CDI’s Qayyum said.
Gujranwala police also threatened to kill Masih in a staged police encounter if he told the court that he had been tortured, according to CDI. They also warned him that he should not act as if he were in any pain in court.
The court, however, found him unable to stand and sent him to Allama Iqbal Memorial Hospital in Sialkot for medical examination. Gujaranwala police therefore had to leave him. But police did not tell Masih or CDI staff which police station was keeping Masih in its custody at the hospital.
With the help of the American Center for Law and Justice, CDI filed a case in the Gujranwala Sessions court for Masih’s bail and also provided some assistance for his medical treatment.
On June 16, the Sadar police station investigating officer told the court that police under his command were not detaining Masih, but that the Sialkot police were. Because the Gujranwala police were not detaining him, he argued, bail orders issued on March 23 for Masih’s release pertained to Sialkot and therefore Masih’s police custody in the hospital was illegal.
“The police have been keeping us in the dark so that we could never pursue the case in the right direction,” said CDI’s Qayyum. “How can a brutally tortured patient even heal their wounds in such mental agony when his hand is always tied in chains, and two policemen are maintaining a 24-hour watch over him?”
The researcher said he maintained hope that the judicial system would provide Masih relief from his agony, which has taken its toll on his family as well. Masih has three children that he has pulled from school due to lack of money.
His wife is illiterate and cannot make a living, CDI officials said, adding that Masih’s four married sisters are the main sources of his financial support.

Copyright 2009 THE EVANGEL GLOBE CHRISTIAN NEWS

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UK-Based Christian Human Rights Group Concerned For Religious Minorities In Iran

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

New Malden, UK

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a UK-based Christian human rights group says that it is concerned for the safety and well-being of non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran as violent protests over recent Presidential elections continue.

Alexa Papadouris, CSW’s Advocacy Director, said: “Recent comments by the Iranian Government and Ayatollah Khamenei apportioning blame on foreign elements for the mass demonstrations is a worrying development. The linking of national unrest with international interference has, in the past, been associated with increased targeting of non-Muslim religious minorities, deemed by the regime to be sympathizers with a Western agenda.”

CSW is concerned that the situation for non-Muslim religious minorities, particularly for Baha’is and certain Christian denominations, which worsened under Ahmadinejad’s previous term of presidency, will continue to deteriorate amidst the current political chaos. As the world’s attention is drawn to the unfolding events in Iran, CSW appeals that the situation for religious minorities is not forgotten.”

CSW is a human rights organization which specializes in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all. Its website can be found at http://www.csw.org.uk/

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Church Showered with Stones in Northern Israel

With attacks mounting, parishioners fear hostilities could escalate.
By Ksenia Svetlova

MIGDAL HA-EMEQ, Israel, June 22 (Compass Direct News) – When the congregation at St. Nicolay church in this northern Israeli town gathered on that quiet Friday morning of May 29, they never expected to be showered with stones.
The Russian Orthodox worshipers, including many women, children and the elderly, had filled the small building to overflow with several outside when they were stunned by the rain of stones. Some were injured and received medical care.
“The church was crawling with people – the worshipers stood not only inside the church, but also outside, as the building is very small, when suddenly a few young men started throwing stones at the direction of our courtyard,” Oleg Usenkov, press secretary of the church told Compass. “Young children were crying, everyone was very frightened.”
The church had also been attacked earlier that week, during a wedding ceremony. Stones and  rotten eggs were thrown from the street, hitting guests as they arrived.
The same night, the Rev. Roman Radwan, priest of St. Nicolay church, filed a complaint at the police station. An officer issued a document to confirm that he had filed an official complaint and sent him home, promising that measures would be taken. But within 24 hours, the attackers again appeared at the church’s doorway and no police were present to deter them – although the police station is located a few dozen meters from the church.
The identity of the assailants is unknown – a police officer said the complaint “lacked the exact description of the attackers” – but eye-witnesses claimed they were ultra-orthodox yeshiva students who frequently cursed the church on their way to the school or synagogue.
“They often assault us verbally, curse and yell at us, although we tried to explain that this is a place of worship, a holy place,” said a frustrated Usenkov, adding that the police inaction amounts to nonfeasance.
Another member of the congregation identified only as Nina, born in Moscow and now living in Nazeret Ilit, said that she didn’t understand where all the hatred is coming from.
“They are heading to the yeshiva or going back home after praying at the synagogue – are they inspired to attack us during their prayers?” she said. “I hope not. We are all Israeli citizens, we pay taxes, serve in the army and are entitled to freedom of choice when it comes to religion.”
She and other members of the congregation fear hostilities could escalate quickly if measures are not taken soon. Already the small building, which barely accommodates the worshipers, is surrounded by a stone fence by order of Migdal ha-Emeq officials following a series of arson attempts and other attacks.
Members of the congregation, a few hundred Christians from Migdal ha-Emeq, Afula, Haifa, Nazareth and other Israeli cities still remember how their building was vandalized in June 2006. Under cover of darkness, unidentified men broke in and broke icons and modest decorations, smashed windows and stole crosses.
The identity of those responsible remains unknown.
Established in 2005, the church building was constructed to meet the needs of Christians who do not belong to the Arab Christian minority, mostly Russians who came to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Besides the Christians, these immigrants included other non-Jews, as well as atheistic Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity.
No official data on religious make-up of the immigrants are available, especially since many fear deportation or persecution for talking openly about their faith, but Usenkov – a Russian Jew who converted to Christianity after immigrating to Israel in the 1990s – said he believes there are at least 300,000 Christians of Russian or Russian-Jewish origin who live in Israel today.
According to Israeli law, non-Jewish relatives of a Jew are also entitled to citizenship, but Jews who have converted to other faiths are denied it.
 
Most of the Russian and Russian-Jewish Christians in Israel belong to the Russian Orthodox Church and find it difficult to adjust to Greek or Arabic services common in the Greek Orthodox churches of Israel. Since St. Nicolay’s church opened its doors, hundreds of worshipers from across Israel have visited it.
“Many people fear they might pass away without seeing a priest, or they dream of a Christian wedding service,” said Radwan, an Israeli-Arab whose family once owned the land on which the St. Nicolay church is located. “Here we can answer their needs. We do not want to harm anyone and wish that no one would harm us.”
END

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Compass Direct News

Largest underground quarry in Holy Land uncovered, team says

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls. The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said. The cave's main hall, about three meters tall, is supported by some 20 stone pillars and has a variety of symbols etched into the walls, including crosses dating back to about AD 350 and Roman legionary emblems. Zertal said his team from Haifa University first discovered the site three months ago while they were putting together a detailed archaeological map of the area....

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article news.yahoo.com

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Rick Warren to address Islamic Society

The Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North America is holding out hope President Barack Obama might make an appearance at its convention this year in Washington, D.C., over the Fourth of July weekend. But even if Obama doesn't show, the nation's largest Muslim organization already landed a high-profile guest: Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren. He will join a panel discussion that is the main session of a four-day convention expected to attract 40,000 Muslims from across the country. Warren will be joined on the panel by Islamic Society President Ingrid Mattson and noted Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf, among others....

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.indystar.com

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New U.S. Anglicans launch, to ban women, gays as bishops

Hundreds of formerly Episcopal parishes are meeting this week to unify as a new national church: the Anglican Church in North America. Organizers, led by former Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan, expect 300 delegates, including 50 bishops, in Bedford, Texas, for a three-day gathering that begins Monday. The group is scheduled to adopt church laws that will exclude women and homosexuals as bishops. It also is expected to elect and install Duncan as archbishop.

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.usatoday.com

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Calvinism tensions at Baptist seminary

Randall Easter, a student and five-point Calvinist at SWBTS and pastor of First Baptist Church of Briar, near Fort Worth, told CT that tensions remained on campus over the possible firings. He said that some professors who hold to Calvinism told him they had recently been called into meetings with Patterson. "They started with four-point and five-point Calvinists," Easter said. "They said they were asked about their soteriology, their view of salvation. They were left with the impression that they may or may not be laid off because of their soteriology." Although Patterson has publicly expressed concerns about Calvinist tenets that he thinks might hurt evangelism, he has said the issue should not divide Southern Baptists. He and close friend Albert Mohler, the Calvinist president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, debated the issue at the 2006 Southern Baptist Convention....

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.christianitytoday.com

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Time: The New Calvinism

If you really want to follow the development of conservative Christianity, track its musical hits. In the early 1900s you might have heard "The Old Rugged Cross," a celebration of the atonement. By the 1980s you could have shared the Jesus-is-my-buddy intimacy of "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And today, more and more top songs feature a God who is very big, while we are...well, hark the David Crowder Band: "I am full of earth/ You are heaven's worth/ I am stained with dirt/ Prone to depravity." Calvinism is back, and not just musically. John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by...

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.time.com

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500th birthday of 'Great Reformer' John Calvin nears

GENEVA — John Calvin, the Great Reformer, used dictatorial means in making Geneva a "Protestant Rome," but he also planted the seeds of modern democracy. He enforced rigid morality and stressed the importance of helping others, while he also had a share in developing capitalism. He supported the destruction of religious statues and other images, but described the arts as gifts from God. This is how Calvin's role in history is being assessed by theologians and historians in countless lectures, studies and biographies 500 years after he was born on July 10, 1509. The quincentenary is being observed around the globe with the Geneva-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches acting as a central organizer of "Calvin 09."...

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.usatoday.com

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Sex and the Priestly: Father Cutie Renews Celibacy Debate

It's hard out there for a pope these days. On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI launched what he is calling "The Year of Priests," exhorting Roman Catholics to spend the coming year honoring the sacrifice of their local pastors and directing priests to encourage each other so that they might, among other things, "be able to live fully the gift of celibacy and build thriving Christian communities."

Overshadowing the Pope's declaration, however, was the news that earlier in the week Father Alberto Cutie — the Miami-based priest and television personality who left the Catholic church last month amid soap opera-worthy scandal — had married his girlfriend of two years

Father’s Day is more than neckties and greeting cards

By Bill Ellis
Special to ASSIST News Service

Earlier this week an ad in our local paper caught my attention. It was advertising various kinds of power tools. It may have been a Stihl weedeater like I bought from Crede Power Equipment Company here in Scott Depot, WV. The message was “a tool instead of a tie.”

Most fathers still enjoy the tie of another’s choice and a card. But Father’s Day is much more than that. It is the day, long held in the United States, on the third Sunday of June, as a time to honor fathers.

Thinking about this day focuses on my own father and my life as a father and grandfather. My dad did it exceptionally well. I have often wished I could be as intelligent and wise as he was in being a father. I look at my children and grandchildren with justifiable pride and conclude, “I must have done something right.”

My son, Mark, when he was a little boy, asked one day, “Is it fun being a daddy?” My quick reply was something like, “It sure is because I have a boy like you and a girl like Liz.”

I was often their horse. Lavonne Mathison wrote in her poem, “Giddap, Dad”.

“The men who ride in rodeos, Need to be taught, of course –
But they should have a two-year old, And spend time as a horse.”

All fathers, I would hope, want to succeed as a father more than anything else. An American hero, General Douglas A. MacArthur, about whom I read when a young boy, wrote the following words which he called “An Old Soldier’s Prayer”.

“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

“Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee . . . and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

“Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

“And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom and the meekness of true strength.

“Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain’.”

Here are a few of many things I learned from my Dad.

1. Your word should be your bond.

2. Always tell the truth and you won’t have to worry about what you said.

3. Keep your feet on the ground. Never become exalted with your own self-
importance.

4. Remember where you came from.

5. Never get above your raisin’.

6. You may learn a lot from others if you will be quiet and listen.

7. Respect your elders. Be nice and polite to those who are older.

8. Never sass your Mother or teachers. That cannot be tolerated.

9. Study well. Learn all you can. That is your ticket to what you want to be and do.

10. Put God first in your life. Give Him and His church your best.

When we think about our fathers, we should remember these words, “Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise:” (Ephesians 6:1-3). This is one commandment we will be glad we obeyed

Used by Permission ASSIST News Service

Beijing Church Website Forcibly Shut Down by Government

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

ChinaAid says that it has recently learned that the Websites Surveillance Section of Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau forcibly shut down the website of Shouwang Christian Church of Beijing at 10:45 a.m. on April 13, 2009.

The only explanation the church has received from the related agent is that government authorities concluded that the website was the “website of an illegal Christian organization,” and demanded that the agent shut it down.

Shouwang Christian Church members say that government authorities have never concluded that their house church is an illegal organization.

“Though Shouwang Christian Church pre-paid for a year of service, the website was shut down without prior notice or an official written explanation,” said a spokesperson for ChinaAid. “The website was registered by an individual, and was used mainly by the house church members to communicate with each other regarding daily activities and information about the church.

“Shouwang Christian Church plans to continue to press government officials for an official explanation regarding the reason that their website was shut down. The church requests that Christians around the world pray for their rights to be upheld and that their website will be restored.”

To read a letter from Shouwang Christian Church of Beijing to Christians around the world go to: http://www.chinaaid.org/downloads/sb_chinaaid/LetterfromShouwangChristianChurchofBeijingtoC.pdf

For more information, go to www.chinaaid.org

Used by Permission ASSIST Ministries

Thousands attend the joyful farewell of Jesus Army founder  

By Dee Pfeiffer
Special to ASSIST News Service

Northhampton, England

As Britain basked in glorious sunshine for what was one of the hottest weekends of the year, more than 2000 people were celebrating recently something other than the weather as they gathered at the Jesus Centre in Northampton to see the thanksgiving funeral for Jesus Army leader and founder Noel Stanton.

Noel Stanton

Noel Stanton died on May 21, 2009 at the age of 82 and had been suffering from an undisclosed illness for some months.

He had handed the leadership of the organisation over to successor Mick Haines earlier this year because of his declining health.

Screens were set up around the centre displaying the celebrations, tributes and readings as the number of people attending was too large for the 2000-strong auditorium to hold.

As those gathered sang the nine songs chosen by their leader before his passing, they clapped their hands, worshipped, prayed and sang loudly in a thanksgiving celebration quite like no other. Mick Haines, full of passion for the movement and an obvious choice to lead the Army forward, led the ceremony and spoke with conviction, inspiring and encouraging us to look forward. He said, “Noel would want this to be a joyful occasion of celebration, so it's a praising atmosphere.

“This is a very significant day for the history of Northampton and the history of the Jesus Army.”

He said Mr. Stanton was very keen to hold the thanksgiving service at the Jesus Centre so that anyone who wanted to come to the funeral could do so.

John Campbell, director of communications for the Jesus Army, said: “Noel's energy and devotion have been an inspiration to many over the years. He will be sadly missed, but he has left a legacy of faith and commitment that will carry on.

“What he would most want to be remembered for are the many who have been helped to find hope and stability through faith in Jesus and the activities of the Jesus Army – not least through the Jesus centres around the UK that were one of his final initiatives.”

He also spoke about the book of remembrance, reading out some touching testimonies from members who had met Noel, to those who had never met him and yet whose lives had been touched by his work and dedication.

He said: “One of the things about it is the whole range of people, old people, young people, educated people, people who are not so well educated. Noel would want his legacy to be people, and all the things they have said.”

Friends attend Noel's thanksgiving funeral serrvice

Evangelical Alliance Council Chair Roger Forster, who had rushed from a meeting in London to be there for the occasion, spoke very highly of Noel and explained how he had stayed faithful to Noel and the Jesus Army during the media frenzy in the eighties.

In 1986, there had been some negative reports from disillusioned members, the Army was branded a cult by those who feared what they did not know, and the Baptist Union expressed its concern regarding some already baptised members being re-baptised, even though this wasn’t a requirement but a choice that some individuals freely made.

As a result of the negative publicity, the Fellowship left the Evangelical Alliance and the Baptist Union. But in 1999, after a decade of what many close to Noel felt was misinformation, and after strenuous and concerted efforts by Noel to dismiss the negative publicity, the Fellowship rejoined the Evangelical Alliance under their new name – the Modern Jesus Army (mJa).

Noel built bridges with fellow Christian leaders and the Fellowship went on to gain widespread acceptance and commendation for its work through its Jesus Centres of which there are now three, including a new centre in the heart of London and another due to open shortly in Sheffield. The Jesus Centres, provided through funding from the Jesus Army’s charitable trust, Heartcry, support former prisoners by giving them work and stability, re-house the homeless, help new arrivals to speak and read English, support those involved in drug or alcohol abuse, as well as holding events and providing food and support to the needy.

There were many moving testimonies from people who had known Noel or lived with him on the farm. One such testimony was from a young man who grew up without a father figure in his life. He spoke eloquently and with passion about how Noel’s love and support in difficult times had transformed his life. Another man spoke of the way in which Noel had always been faithful to him by picking him up and taking him to meetings (so many times that he had begun to recognise the headlights of his car), and accepting his many reverse charge calls. He hadn’t known at the time, but Noel had made a promise to God that he would see him through.

A video showing footage of Noel baptising people and giving speeches throughout his career, including his final speech at the Jesus Centre before he stepped down earlier this year, was projected onto the screens, after which there was a lengthy standing ovation.

The ceremony was followed by a cavalcade of multicoloured Jesus Army buses, led with the hearse carrying the coffin, which travelled around Northampton town centre before heading to Bugbrooke, where they laid their leader’s body to rest at the Jesus Army graveyard.

As crowds gathered around the final resting place, the final two songs were sung – the well known ‘When I Survey The Wonderous Cross’ and a New Creation Christian Community song entitled ‘Closer Now’ which resulted in much hand holding and many tears. It was an incredibly moving moment, to see so many grown men reduced to tears, not to mention the children and women kneeling at the graveside, throwing in their symbolic red crosses and supporting each other throughout.

As the funeral had been taking place, a young lad with brightly dyed hair had climbed up onto a nearby wall and had been balancing and beckoning people to watch him throughout the service, as he teetered along the wall. It would have been easy to dismiss him as a disrespectful lout, but one couldn’t help thinking how Noel would have reacted. He would no doubt have seen this young lad as someone with potential and a great future. For one of the most endearing things to come out of the day was hearing the testimonies from people that prove Noel didn’t give up on anyone.

Most poignantly, he was buried in exactly the same way as other members, taking his place beside those now departed. There was no special plot and no overly impressive monument. He departed this life in the same way as he lived it – humbly and with no more privileges than anyone else.  

Used by Permission ASSIST Ministries

A Pastor and his family brutally attacked and beaten in Madhya Pradesh, India

By James Varghese
Special Correspondent in India for ASSIST News Service

Madhya Pradaesh,Inda

A pastor, his wife and young children, were brutally attacked by a group of Hindu radicals in Rampuria, a village in Madhya Pradesh state, India, on Sunday, June 14.

According to news released by the Global Council of Indian Christians on their website (http://www.persecution.in/), the incident took place at around 11.00 am last Sunday when about 40-50 activists from Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS) and Bajrang Dal (a right-wing Hindu fundamentalist organization in India), barged into the Beersheba Church where a prayer meeting was taking place and asked for the Pastor, Kuldeep Daniel (26).

When the Pastor told them that he was that person, the radicals immediately started beating him. The website also reported that the radicals also caught the pastor’s brother Vikas (23), who works for World Vision International, and beat him too.

According to the news source, the radicals then proceeded to the parsonage kitchen and opened the refrigerator and devoured the food and soft drinks. They then slapped and kicked the pastor’s wife, Manisha (24). They then abused her with vulgar language and accused of indulging in “conversion” activities.

The website reported that the radicals also slapped the pastor’s small children, Adan (2½) and Anugraha (1).

The attackers went on to destroy the church’s musical instruments, and also a CD player and snatched the mobile phones from the pastor and his brother Vikas.

They then got into the pastor’s study and took away many of his books, but when they saw the police arriving they ran away.

The website reported that during the brutal attack, the radicals were chanting the slogan, “Jai Sri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram) and were holding their saffron flags high.

According to the news source, Pastor Kuldeep Daniel and wife Manisha have suffered internal injuries during the attack.

Pastor Kuldeep has filed a First Information Report (FIR) against the attackers at the local police station.

Used by permission ASSIST News Service

Hamas thwarts Carter assassination

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

Gaza  (ANS) -- According to the Jerusalem Post, Hamas reportedly foiled an attempt by Palestinian terrorists to kill former US president Jimmy Carter during his visit to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, June 16, 2009.

Jimmy Carter in Gaza (Photo: AFP)

Israeli security sources said they had learned of plans to target Carter and had passed on the information to his security detail in “real time.”

According to Palestinian sources, terrorists linked to al-Qaida hid a number of bombs along a road Carter's convoy was scheduled to travel on while in the Strip.

“Following Carter's entry to Gaza, five men, some wearing Hamas police uniforms, removed three large black disks and some wire from a sand dune next to a road Carter had used. They then reportedly destroyed the improvised bombs,” said the Jerusalem Post story.

A uniformed officer at the scene told The Associated Press the items were explosives.

Security officials said soldiers in a lookout post spotted Hamas forces dismantling explosives. They said they passed on a warning to Carter's security detail.

The Israeli officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information.

But Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry in Gaza, denied the report of the assassination plans, which appeared first in Ma'ariv, a Tel Aviv newspaper.

“According to Shahwan, explosives were not discovered near the Erez border crossing and Carter's visit had gone according to plan,” said the Jerusalem Post story.

“Carter later said that he did not believe an assassination attempt had occurred.

“In speaking with reporters in Tel Aviv in the evening, Carter said he was not aware that anything was going on and that his staff and drivers were not aware that they had been rerouted.”

The Jerusalem Post went on to say that last July, Quartet envoy and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, canceled a planned trip to Gaza after receiving warnings from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) that terrorists planned to target his convoy.

“Carter's one-day Gaza visit came at the end of a swing though Lebanon, Syria and Israel, during which he encouraged officials in all countries to move toward a negotiated end to the Middle East conflict.”

Carter - who helped broker the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt - serves a unique, though unofficial, role in peacemaking efforts in the region.

Although traveling as a “private citizen” and not as a representative of the US government, Carter said he would report to Obama administration officials after returning to the United States.

Gilad Schalit

The Jerusalem Post added, “Before heading into Gaza, he met for the second time during his visit with the Noam Schalit, the father of kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit, who has been held by Hamas in Gaza for close to three years.

“While in Gaza, Carter passed to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh a letter he received Friday from Schalit's parents and asked that it be given to Gilad. Last time Carter was in the region, in April 2008, he was able to persuade Hamas to allow Gilad to send a letter to his family, which arrived in June 2008.”

On Tuesday, Carter told reporters in Tel Aviv that Hamas accepted the letter, and with regard to Gilad, said, “My conviction at this moment is that he is alive and well.”

Haniyeh, according to his aides, said Hamas wanted to resolve the Schalit case, and welcomed Carter's mediation efforts in this regard. Haniyeh was quoted as saying that Hamas supported achieving a dignified solution to the Schalit case on a “human and political basis.”

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's military wing, Izzadin Kassam, said in a statement Hamas would “study the possibility of delivering the letter.”

“Everything is subject to evaluation on both a security and decision-making level.”

Carter said he urged Hamas to support efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding, “They have made statements and taken actions that suggest they are ready to join the peace process.”

The Jerusalem Post story said that Haniyeh told Carter he would support any plan that aimed to fulfill the aspirations of the Palestinians, preserve their rights and lead to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on all the territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967.

“We are pushing toward the dream of having our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital,” Haniyeh said, standing beside Carter at a press conference.
During his meeting with Carter, Haniyeh urged the former president to pressure Israel to lift the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and reopen the border crossings into the area.”

Carter spoke against Israel's two-year closure of the passages into Gaza for all but humanitarian aid, a policy that has been in place since Hamas overthrew Fatah and took sole control of the area in June 2007.

But he also urged Hamas to accept the demands of the international community to cease violence, recognize Israel, and accept past agreements made by the PLO with it.

He also urged the international community to do more to help the Palestinians in Gaza.

“Tragically, the international community too often ignores the cries for help and the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings,” Carter said in a speech to graduates of a UN school in Gaza.

He said earlier in the day that he almost cried when he saw the wreckage of the American International School in Beit Lahiya, which was destroyed by Israel during its January military incursion in Gaza, and felt guilty because Israel used US-made war planes to bomb the campus.

“I have to hold back tears when I see the deliberate destruction that has been wracked against your people,” he told Palestinians as he visited the school's ruins in the northern Gaza town.

The Jerusalem Post said that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted the campus because Palestinians were using the site to fire rockets at Israel's southern towns and cities.

“I feel partially responsible for this, as must all Americans and Israelis,” Carter said, saying that the school was “deliberately destroyed by bombs from F-16s made in my country.”

He said in the Tel Aviv press conference that one of his trip's main goals was to persuade Hamas to accept the West's three conditions for engaging the group.

Carter added that he was waiting for Hamas to determine what it could agree to.

Copyright 2009

Used by permission ASSIST News Service

Reformed Christians Strive to Diversify Congregations, Leadership

The Christian Reformed Church in North America is one of several predominantly white Protestant denominations confronting "the sin of racism" and emphasizing racial diversity in their congregations.

Although CRC has grown more ethnically diverse, leaders of the 300,000-member denomination see that they still have a long way to go for reconciliation.

"Where the tension arises is how do we get to this goal of creating a multi-cultural church," said CRC executive director the Rev. Jerry Dykstra, according to CRC Communications. "Our sin (of racism) is with us today in this church. It has been so easy to judge people by the color of their skin, how they speak, what culture they are from."

Dykstra addressed those attending the biennial Multi-Ethnic Conference over the weekend. The conference was held as hundreds of Christian Reformed members were gathering in Palos Heights, Ill., for their annual Synod.

The Rev. Pedro Aviles, a former pastor and current professor of church and ministry leadership at Trinity Christian College, says CRC's next major growth will come by intentional steps in obedience to the kingdom mandate for embracing diverse peoples and ordaining such leaders.

"God's kingdom is advanced by people of color who are led by people of color," Aviles said, according to CRC Communications.

Read the rest of the story here:

Reformed Christians Strive to Diversify Congregations, Leadership

D.C. Pastors Argue to Let Voters Decide on Gay Marriage

Pastors and other traditional marriage advocates made arguments on Wednesday in support of allowing voters in Washington, D.C., to decide on whether to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere

"The people of the District of Columbia should have the right to determine how marriage will be recognized in their district," said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund.

Raum contended before the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics that a referendum would not violate the District's Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against minority groups, including gays and lesbians.

Under D.C. law, referendums cannot violate the act, which was approved in 1977.

Arguing that the act does was never intended to extend to same-sex marriage, Raum said, "The issue before us is not whether same-sex marriage is good or bad policy, but whether who gets to decide this critical moral and social issue."

"The proponents believe the people should decide," he said, as reported by The Washington Post.

Click here for the rest of the story:

D.C. Pastors Argue to Let Voters Decide on Gay Marriage

Pro-Life Blogger Apologizes for Pregnancy Hoax

A blogger whose pro-life story tugged on the heartstrings of thousands online has formally apologized for deceiving all who had prayed for and supported her throughout the last few months of what was recently revealed to be a fictitious pregnancy.

“I know this post will not change what has been done,” Beccah Beushausen, 26, wrote on her blog Sunday. “I don't expect it to, but I do hope it helps with some of the hurt that I have caused.”

For months, Beushausen – who identified herself only as “B” or “April’s mom” – wrote about her unborn baby, April Rose, who she said was diagnosed as terminally ill in the womb.

Her posts were long. They were detailed. They were also fabricated.

But the last part didn't stop Beushausen from continuing even as she drew more and more readers and supporters.

“Almost overnight I was receiving e-mails from people who at one point had been pregnant and unmarried, or had suffered loss, or were Christian but believed in the sanctity of life in all circumstances,” recalled Beushausen, who describes herself as a pro-life Christian.

And as her readership grew, she continued to “feed the story.”

Read the rest of the story here

Blogger Apologizes for Pregnancy Hoax

U.S. Religious Freedom Commission Denied Visas to India

(Photo: The Christian Post)

Commissioner Leonard Leo of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom speaks at the press conference for the release of the 2009 Annual Report in Washington, D.C. on Friday, May 1, 2009.

The delegation was scheduled to visit the South Asian country on June 12 to study the status of religious freedom there but was not provided with any visas, on fears that it would lead to severe criticism of the Indian government over growing violence against minorities, particularly Christians.

"They knew we had tickets for June 12 and the visas are yet to be given, so the inference is obvious...they don’t want us to visit," one commission associate told The Times of India.

In its annual report last month, USCIRF had labeled India's report as "pending," noting that the commission would travel to India for the first time in June to gain information for its report. The team had also mentioned its keen interest in investigating last year's anti-Christian violence in the state of Orissa.

The group planned to release the chapter on India this summer after its visit.

The denial of visas comes just days after a noted Hindu pontiff expressed opposition to an investigation by a foreign delegation.

Read the rest of the story here:

U.S. Religious Freedom Commission Denied Visas to India

WWJD? Movie Premiers

Nasser Entertainment Premiers the film, "WWJD?" in Denver during the ICRS convention. "WWJD?" Stars John Schneider. The film is based on one of the best-selling novel of all time "In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do", by Charles Sheldon. Over 40 Million copies of the book have been sold, making it the second best-selling Christian book of all time, behind only the Bible itself.

The movie will screen (free of charge) for the first time ever on Tuesday, July 14th 2009 @ 7:30 pm : Denver Film Society at the Starz Film Center, 900 Auraria Parkway, Denver.

Christian film Industry professionals must RSVP ASAP by e-mailing: wwjdmovie@gmail.com.

click links to view:

WWJD? Movie Premiers

Nasser Entertainment Premiers the film, "WWJD?" in Denver during the ICRS convention. "WWJD?" Stars John Schneider. The film is based on one of the best-selling novel of all time "In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do", by Charles Sheldon. Over 40 Million copies of the book have been sold, making it the second best-selling Christian book of all time, behind only the Bible itself.

The movie will screen (free of charge) for the first time ever on Tuesday, July 14th 2009 @ 7:30 pm : Denver Film Society at the Starz Film Center, 900 Auraria Parkway, Denver.

Christian film Industry professionals must RSVP ASAP by e-mailing: wwjdmovie@gmail.com.

click links to view:

Obama to OK benefits for same-sex

partners of Federal Workers

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama will sign a memorandum Wednesday granting health care and other benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, two senior administration officials said.

President Obama has been criticized by gay rights activists for not doing more since taking office.

The signing will take place in the Oval Office and follows sharp criticism of the president over a Justice Department motion filed last week in support of the Defense of Marriage Act -- which opposes same-sex marriage -- that used the government's interest in opposing incestuous marriages to support its position against same-sex marriage.

Click to see the rest of the story:

Obama to OK benefits for same-sex partners

Expanded Human Trafficking Watchlist Puts Dozens of Countries on Notice

The State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report," the first released since President Obama took office, includes 52 countries and territories -- mainly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Tuesday expanded the U.S. watchlist of countries suspected of not doing enough to combat human trafficking, putting more than four dozen nations on notice that they may face sanctions unless their records improve. 

The State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report," the first released since President Barack Obama took office, placed 52 countries and territories -- mainly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East -- on the watchlist. That number is a 30 percent jump from the 40 countries on the list in 2008. 

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Expanded Human Trafficking Watchlist Puts Dozens of Countries on Notice

400 Students Defy ACLU and Stand to Recite Lord's Prayer at Graduation

Nearly 400 graduating seniors at Pace High School stood up in protest against the ACLU and recited the Lord’s Prayer during their graduation ceremony last Saturday. Many of the students also painted crosses on their graduation caps to make a statement of faith. Leading up to the graduation ceremony, the ACLU demanded that Pace High School censor students from offering prayers or saying anything religious. In the end, members of the student body were not permitted to speak at the graduation.

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.lifesitenews.com

What is "orthodox" Christianity?

The crowd attending the B.C. Supreme Court trial in which four dissident Anglican parishes are claiming ownership of the multi-million-dollar places in which they worship has received some entertaining lessons in the meaning of “orthodox.” The conservative parishes are claiming they’re the “orthodox” Anglicans in B.C.’s diocese of New Westminster. Their priests say they’re the true followers of hundreds of years of Anglican tradition -- and that’s a key reason they deserve to hold onto the properties even though they’ve quit the Anglican Church of Canada. The conservative priests have maintained for years that Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham is decidedly “unorthodox” in his approval of same-sex blessings, his interpretation of the Bible and in his openness to other religions and philosophies. There was a surprise in store, however, when Regent College professor John Stackhouse, an...

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article communities.canada.com

Pastor who prayed for Tiller's death now prays for death of the president

Wiley Drake Pastor Wiley Drake prayed that abortionist George Tiller's wife would become a widow. Tiller is now dead. Drake claims that his death is an answer to imprecatory prayer. Now he is praying an imprecatory prayer for the death of our president. Imprecatory Psalms are psalms that contain curses or prayers for the judgment of a nation's enemies, invoking evil upon them. Psalms 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 109, 137 and 139 are ones that Drake finds his prayer material in. Drake repeats words from the book of Psalms in his imprecatory prayers such as Psalm 109:9 where it is written "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." This is what he prayed for the late-term abortionist before he was murdered. He says that it is our Christian duty to pray along these vengeful and vindictive lines for religious, political, and personal reasons when other means for change have been exhausted.... .

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.examiner.com

Door to Door as Missionaries, Then as Salesmen

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Six days a week, in fair weather and foul, two-dozen door-to-door salesmen, all of whom live clustered together in an apartment complex in this suburb west of Chicago, pile into S.U.V.’s and cars and head into the big city, bent on sales of home security systems. And on Sunday, their one day off, they drive together to the nearest house of worship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The salesmen are mostly former Mormon missionaries from Utah who cut their teeth — and learned their people-skill chops — cold-calling for their faith. In Chicago and in its suburbs where their employer, Pinnacle Security of Orem, Utah, has shipped them for the summer sales season, they are doing much the same thing, but as a job....

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.nytimes.com

The Church and Gay 'Marriage': Are Mormons Misunderstood?

Last November, Jay Pimentel began hearing that people in his neighborhood were receiving letters about him. Pimentel lives in Alameda, Calif., a small, liberal-leaning community hanging off Oakland into the San Francisco Bay. Pimentel, who is a Mormon, had supported Proposition 8, the ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage. And that made him a target. "Dear Neighbor," the letter began, "Our neighbors, Colleen and Jay Pimentel" — and it gave their address — "contributed $1,500.00 to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign. NEIGHBORS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THEIR NEIGHBORS' CHOICES." The note accused the Pimentels of "obsessing about same-sex marriage." It listed a variety of local causes that recipients should support — "unlike the Pimentels." Pimentel, a lawyer and a lay leader in the small Mormon congregation in Alameda, is markedly even-keeled. Yet the poison-pen note still steams him, even though in...

CLICK HERE to Read Entire Article www.time.com

Netanyahu calls for creation of limited Palestinian state

Iranian Security Officers Arrest Five Christian Converts from Islam; Two Women Converts Still In Prison

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

Iranian security forces on May 21 raided an underground house church and arrested five Christian converts from Islam in the city of Karaji, Iran.

According to International Christian Concern (ICC), citing the Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN), plainclothes security officers handcuffed and took the five Christians to an unknown location. The officers also confiscated several Bibles. Mr. Javad Abtahi, the leader of the church, is among the detained Christians.

ICC (www.persecution.org ) says this arrest comes soon after news that two Christian women were imprisoned in March.

Iranian officials imprisoned Marzieh and Maryam, who are also converts from Islam, sending them to the notorious Evin prison, where American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, who returned home to Fargo, North Dakota on Saturday after an appeals court reduced her sentence and allowed her to leave the country, had been held for four months on spying charges.

To read the detailed report on Marzieh and Maryam, see:www.persecution.org/suffering/pressdetail.php?presscode=280.

In an e-mail news release, ICC said: "Our sources indicate that Marzieh and Maryam are still in prison and Iranian officials have not brought charges against them. Please help Marzieh and Maryam by signing our petition calling for their release: at www.persecution.org/suffering/petitions.php "

ICC's Regional Manager for Africa and the Middle East, Jonathan Racho, stated: "Iran should refrain from invading Christian houses, arresting converts and confiscating their properties. Iran must allow its citizens to choose what religion to follow. We call upon Iranian officials to release the five Christians arrested in Karaji as well as Marzieh and Maryam."

Please pray for the five detained Christians as well as for Marzieh and Maryam. Pray for their immediate release from prison. Also pray for God to give them perseverance and comfort.

ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441.

Chinese Christian Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Printing and Giving Away Free Bibles

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

A Chinese Christian bookstore owner and house church leader has been found guilty by a Beijing Court of "illegal business operation" and sentenced to three years in prison and 150,000 Yuan fine (about $22,000 USD) for printing and distributing Bibles at no cost.

According to the law, jail time served by Shi Weihan prior to the trial counts as part of his three-year sentence time, says a media release from ChinaAid (www.ChinaAid.org ) .

The group says that six others stood trial together with Shi Weihan, and also received criminal sentences. It is believed that these individuals were shareholders and executives of the printing company which printed the Bibles.

ChinaAid says the appeals process could take up to a year, while Shi Weihan would remain in prison. It is still uncertain whether the family will file an appeal due to the enormous pressure from the Public Security Bureau (PSB).

According to the ChinaAid media release, despite his serious medical diabetic condition, the lawyers' prior applications for medical parole were never granted by the authorities.

Shi Weihan's wife, Zhang Jing, and their two daughters, Shi Jia (12) and Shi En Mei (8) [ChinaAid photo]

ChinaAid says that according to friends, Shi Weihan's wife Zhang Jing is bearing much of the burden for the family. Her main concern is caring for their two daughters, 12-year-old Shi Jia and 8-year-old Shi En Mei, and continuing the House Church work. Authorities continue to pressure their family.

ChinaAid adds: "Friends of Shi Weihan and his family ask Christians around the world to pray for the following: that Shi Weihan's health would be protected, wisdom for the family regarding whether to appeal the conviction or not, favor for a possible medical parole and God's peace and favor in these difficult circumstances."

To request the immediate release of Shi Weihan, please contact the following government authorities:

Tang Long, City of Beijing Deputy Secretary General of the Municipal People's Government
Phone: +86-10-62362008

Liu Jianchao, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Director of
Information Department
Phone: +86-10-65963342

Write an encouraging note to Shi Weihan in prison:
Qinghe Detention Center of the Haidian Sub-Bureau 2585, Longgang Road, Qinghe Town, Haidian District, Beijing CHINA

Write an encouraging note to Shi Weihan's wife, Zhang Jing, and their two daughters, Shi Jia (12) and Shi En Mei (8). Their address is: 3207, Jisheng Villa, West Sanqi, Haidian district, Beijing municipality, CHINA

Please contact: Katherine@ChinaAid.org  with questions or requests for further information.

Chinese Bookstore Owner Sentenced to Three Years in Prison
Also fined nearly $22,000; “illegal business” printed Bibles for free distribution

By Jeremy Reynalds
Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

A Beijing court recently found Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan guilty of “illegal business operation” and sentenced him to three years in prison and a 150,000 yuan (US$21,975) fine.

According to a story by Compass Direct News, sources said Shi’s store operated legally and sold only books for which he had obtained government permission, and that his Holy Spirit Trading Co. printed Bibles and Christian literature without authorization but only for free distribution to local house churches.

Compass said Shi, 38, had been released on Jan. 4, 2008 due to insufficient evidence for the same vague charge of “illegal business operation,” but he was arrested again two month later, on March 19. Contrary to Chinese law, authorities have denied all but a few visits from his lawyer and family, held him without charges for most of his time in jail, and initially withheld medication for his diabetes.

Compass reported that the court ruling seems to have allowed time that Shi has spent in jail to count toward his sentence, a source said, as his prison term was described as running from Nov. 28, 2007, when he was initially arrested, to Nov. 27, 2010.

Others in a printing company who stood trial with Shi appeared to have received similar sentences. A written judgment is expected within 15 days to allow time for an appeal to be filed, said Ray Sharpe, a friend of Shi.

“Absent an appeal, it is also possible that Shi could be allowed a sort of medical parole, due to his diabetic condition,” Compass reported Sharpe said. “Hopefully, he could then be allowed to stay in a hospital under a sort of house arrest.”

He said that Shi did not yet know whether he would appeal, adding that the process could take up to a year.

Compass said friends and business acquaintances of Shi have described him as a model citizen of China, saying that he has inspired them to love China by his patriotism and love for his homeland. They said he is known for selfless sacrifice on behalf of poor and disenfranchised rural Christians and minority children.

For much of his incarceration, Compass said Shi’s wife Zhang Jing and their two daughters, 12-year-old Shi Jia and 8-year-old Shi En Mei, have not known where he was being held. The family has been under nearly continual surveillance, limiting their ability to make contact with people who could assist them.

Compass reported sources said Zhang has worried about her husband’s condition and that she has taken on leadership duties at their church, where Public Security Bureau officials have intimidated the congregation with regular visits. Some members have left the church because of the intimidation, sources said, and Zhang is said to have suffered anxiety and stress that have led to depression.

Their two daughters have been ostracized at school for being the children of a prisoner, sources said.

Sources told Compass that Shi has lost more than 44 pounds since his second incarceration, dropping to less than 130 pounds. They added that he has suffered from blisters because of unsanitary conditions in prison, as well as tinnitus that at times causes his ears to ring so loudly that he cannot sleep.

Compass reported Chinese officials claim that the Nanjing Amity Printing Co. (Amity Press), the only government-approved Bible publisher, produces enough Bibles to meet the needs of the Chinese church, which various religious freedom organizations dispute. The groups complain that Amity prints a large share of its Bibles for export, and those sold domestically are not available to many Christians.

Policemen in Egypt Sentenced to Only Five Years for Killing

June 10, 2009

ISTANBUL (Compass Direct News) – Two policemen convicted of killing a Christian in Giza, Egypt have received only a five-year prison sentence for what lawyers are calling the cold-blooded murder of a Copt who stood up for his rights.

The Giza Criminal Court sentenced the two policemen for manslaughter on May 25 for the 2007 death of Nasser Gadallah, 39. Police say he jumped out of a window in an effort to escape, but family members who were eyewitnesses said the officers beat Gadallah and pushed him out the window in intentional murder because he was a Christian who had filed a complaint against police.

The court, however, determined Gadallah died from the officers beating him, and that they did not intend to kill him.

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Policemen in Egypt Sentenced to Only Five Years for Killing -

Study: Megachurch attenders tend to be younger

Despite their reputation as symbols of baby-boomer America, Protestant megachurches attract a younger crowd and more singles than the average Protestant church, according to large-scale study released Tuesday.

The survey also found distressing news for a movement that took off in the 1980s and remains influential in evangelical Christianity: megachurch-goers volunteer less and give less money than other churchgoers.

Conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary and Leadership Network, the survey of nearly 25,000 people who attend 12 U.S. megachurches was conducted from January through August 2008. It is billed as the largest representative national study of that religious demographic to date.

An estimated 5 million Americans a week attend roughly 1,300 U.S. megachurches, defined in the study as Protestant churches with attendance of 2,000 or more.

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Study: Megachurch attenders tend to be younger

Evangelical Group Banned From Tulsa Housing Projects, Chapter Leader Says

A Christian evangelical group that works to improve the lives of underprivileged children says it has been prohibited from conducting Bible study classes in public housing projects in Tulsa, Okla., potentially violating a Supreme Court ruling that upheld religious groups' right to the use of public institutions.

For more than 70 years, the Missouri-based Child Evangelism Fellowship has worked with underprivileged kids, not only to convert them to Christianity, but to improve their lives through education and after-school activities. In one program, fellowship missionaries visit prisons and sign up inmates' children for Bible study programs in an effort to keep them from winding up in jail themselves.

And for more than two decades, the fellowship has hosted a religious-themed summer program in Tulsa's tough housing projects, designed to keep children from falling victim to the temptations of drugs and crime.

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Evangelical Group Banned From Tulsa Housing Projects, Chapter Leader Says

Interpret the Bible by first learning the word of God

San Angelo, Texas — Some see the Bible as a book of mythical stories, others a book of inspiration to live a meaningful, purpose-driven life, and yet others as the authoritative Word of God and the power unto salvation. Depending where you fall in the range of these ideologies will dictate how you see God and yourself in relation to him.

All of Christianity comes down to believing God is who he said he is, he has done what he said he has, and believing in the fullness of his deity in Jesus Christ and the atonement for our sins he paid on the cross. The way in which we get this faith is through his spoken Word, the Bible.

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Interpret the Bible by first learning the word of God

More Than 30 House Church Leaders Arrested in Sichuan

SICHUAN – On June 9 more than 30 house church leaders were arrested while gathering in a house church in Langzhong city, Sichuan province. Thirteen leaders were given 15 days of administrative detention, and five of the leaders were placed under criminal detention. The other leaders were released

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Sorry, no Christian talent allowed
7-year-old blocked from using religious song in sign language performance

The sign for "Jesus Christ"

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China: Bookstore Owner Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

LOS ANGELES (Compass Direct News) – A Beijing court today found Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan guilty of “illegal business operation” and sentenced him to three years in prison and a 150,000 yuan (US$21,975) fine.

Sources said Shi’s store operated legally and sold only books for which he had obtained government permission, and that his Holy Spirit Trading Co. printed Bibles and Christian literature without authorization but only for free distribution to local house churches

Read the rest of the story here:

China: Bookstore Owner Sentenced to Three Years in Prison