Posted: 8 January, 2010

India (MNN) ― India continues to be a place where Christians face incredible amounts of oppression. We hear stories of pastors being threatened, beaten, attacked and even forced from their villages. However, India Gospel League is seeing many people turn to Christ despite the violence.

Executive Director of India Gospel League Dr. David Rice says church growth has been phenomenal. “As we roll into 2010, all over India we’re actually seeing about 700 new churches being planted every single month.”

IGL has been in existence since 1992. Dr. Rice describes their church-planting strategy. “This really isn’t about strategy. This isn’t about personalities. This is one of those incredible times when God decides to do something that we can’t explain.”

While church planting is the key pillar of their ministry — coupled with evangelism, Rice says as they move into a village, it can’t stop there. “Often we encounter tremendous challenges physically and materially — clean water, adequate housing, adequate restroom facilities, and drainage issues.”

Helping with these needs allows them to reach out to the whole person. “James 2 says, ‘If you come to Me and say, ‘Be warm, be blessed. God bless you,’ and walk away without meeting my needs, James says what good is that?”

India Gospel League also provides orphan care. “We have about 8,500 orphaned children that are under our care and a number of orphanages around India,” says Rice.

IGL also provides medical care at a hospital, nursing school and community college.

While persecution is happening, Rice says God has been gracious. “We’ve not had any of our pastors in India actually killed. But many of them have been beaten. Many of them have been persecuted for their faith. In the face of that persecution, the church seems to be fueled by that.”

While pastors are facing oppression, so are new believers. Rice says, “They’re ostracized from family. They’re ostracized often times from their community.”

India Gospel League needs your support to help support 1,000 church planters in 2010. $100 a month supports a church planter who will head to area totally unreached with the Gospel.

RELIGION: Open Doors’ 2010 list of countries persecuting Christians brings a new focus on the terror threat in Yemen | Mindy Belz

Portaits of Yemeni President Saleh (AP/Photo by Nasser Nasser)

The No. 1 state persecutor of Christians, for the eighth-straight year, is North Korea. That’s the conclusion of Open Doors in releasing its 2010 World Watch List of 50 countries considered at-risk locales for Christians.

According to a Jan. 6 statement by Open Doors, the California-based Christian advocacy group founded by Brother Andrew, the regime of Kim Jong Il targeted Christians all over the country in 2009, resulting in arrests, torture, and killings. Of an estimated 200,000 North Koreans in political prisons, said the group, 40,000 to 60,000 are Christians. One veteran North Korean watcher told Open Doors that Christians “are not regarded as human. Last year we had evidence that some were used as guinea pigs to test chemical and biological weapons.”

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Iran is No. 2 on the World Watch List, moving up from its No. 3 position of recent years behind Saudi Arabia as a result of the political crackdown following the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June. A wave of arrests of Christians that began in 2008 grew in 2009, according to Open Doors, resulting in the detention of at least 85 Christians.

Rounding out the top 10 are Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Maldives, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mauritania, and Uzbekistan. Eight of the top 10 countries have Islam as their dominant religion; 35 of the 50 countries on the list have Islamic governments.

With new focus on Yemen following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest flight bound for Detroit by a passenger who received training in that country, its place on the World Watch List is noteworthy. The Yemeni constitution guarantees religious freedom but also declares that Islam is the state religion and that Sharia, or Islamic law, is the source of all legislation. Government authorities there grant expatriates some religious freedom, but Yemeni citizens are not allowed to convert to Christianity (or other religions). Converts from an Islamic background may face the death penalty. Last June nine expatriate Christian health workers in Yemen were kidnapped by armed men. A few days later, the mutilated bodies of three of them were found, but the outcome for the remaining six aid workers remains unknown.

More background on Yemen, courtesy of Elizabeth Kendal, an international religious liberty analyst with the Australian Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission: Yemen has been a unified state only since 1990. Before that, North Yemen (on the Red Sea) was 60 percent Shiite and ruled by a conservative Shiite imamate, while South Yemen (on the Gulf of Aden) was 99 percent Sunni and Communist.

In 1962, Ali Abdallah Saleh, a Northern socialist and nominal Sunni, seized power in North Yemen in a military coup. He was elected president of North Yemen in 1978 and retains power as president of the unitary Republic of Yemen, which today is on the verge of collapse. The Sunnis marginalize the Shiites, a 30 percent minority in the unitary state, while the ruling North marginalizes the oil- rich South. The Shiites want to restore the imamate, while the South wants to secede. Since at least 2005, President Saleh has been using al-Qaeda jihadists (who are fundamentalist Sunnis) in his fight against the al-Houthi rebels (who are Shiites) in the North and more secular (formerly Soviet-backed communist) secessionists in the South. The conflict also has regional dimensions: Saudi Arabia is fighting advancing Iran-backed al-Houthi Shiite rebels, while Somalis have joined the Sunnis and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters have joined the Shiites.

Underneath this crumbling structure are vulnerable Jewish and Christian minorities amidst a population of 24 million. In 1949-50, Israel rescued 45,000 of Yemen’s Jews from genocide through Operation Magic Carpet. A further 32,000 Jews have left Yemen since then and now less than 400 remain. As sectarian conflict escalated in the North in January 2007, the Shiite rebels forced the 45 remaining Jews in al Haid, a village in Saada province, from their homes under threat of death. Most Christians in Yemen (estimated at 9,000 in Operation World 2000) are expatriate workers or Ethiopian
refugees.

“In terms of religious liberty and Christian security, 2010 promises to be an even more challenging year than 2009,” said Kendal. “Increasingly, states once known for persecution are becoming notorious for sectarian mob violence and ethnic-religious cleansing. States that once courted the world from behind a facade of modernity and prosperity are revealing the darkness of their hearts with impunity. States busily excavating their Christian foundations with a view to cultural renovation are increasingly adopting repressive authoritarian measures to maintain order in the wake of moral erosion and cultural collapse. So may our ‘New Year’s resolution’ for 2010 be that we commit to being intercessors who are participants in and not mere spectators of world events.”

Ginny McCabe

Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer

N. Korea Named Worst Persecutor for 8th Year Ginny McCabe Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer January 7, 2010 For the eighth year in a row, North Korea again ranked number one on the Open Doors annual World Watch List (WWL). The ongoing crackdown on Christians in Iran bumped that country from the third on the list to second. Following North Korea and Iran this year are Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Maldives, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mauritania, Laos and Uzbekistan. In North Korea, every religious activity is recognized as an insurrection to the North Korean socialist principles. In 2009, the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-Il targeted Christians all over the country. That resulted in arrests, torture and killings. According to reports, North Korean leaders are desperately trying to control society in order to eradicate all Christian activities. There are an estimated 200,000 North Koreans in political prisons, including about 50,000 Christians. “Christians are the target of fierce government action, and once caught, are not regarded as human. Last year we had evidence that some were used as guinea pigs to test chemical and biological weapons,” said a veteran North Korean watcher, who can’t be identified due to security reasons. Obtaining firsthand information about North Korea comes at great risk, and often high cost. The country has virtually no contact with the outside world beyond limited, government-supervised interaction with foreign businessman, and retrieved defectors face years in notorious black prisons and concentration camps. “North Korea’s severity and intensity of persecution far outstrips any country that we are able to measure persecution in,” said Carl Moeller, president and CEO of Open Doors USA. “There are about 50,000 Christians in a forced labor camp. If a Christian is caught with a Bible, for example, not only that person, but his wife, their children and their parents would also be thrown into a labor camp as well. Most likely, they would never come out again. Being underfed, under clothed in the middle of the Korean winter and worked literally to death. “Every Christian in the country lives in constant fear of being discovered,” he added. Despite the persecution, however, the church continues to grow in North Korea as it does in many of the other countries on the WWL. “We estimate though that the church is growing in North Korea, that there is a continuing revival in underground and unregistered churches and this reality as not escaped the notice of the authorities. They are continuing to root out the underground churches in North Korea,” Moeller said. Like other countries on the WWL, North Korea shows two important trends for Christians, Moeller said. “The first thing that the watch list tells us is that things are definitely getting worse around the world for Christians,” he said. “Literally, hundreds of millions of Christians face—if not outright and intense persecution—they may face harassment, oppression or restriction. As the study indicates, 70 percent of the world lives in places without religious liberties. We are talking about billions of people who live in a place where freedom of conscience and freedom of belief is not a given.”

Christian Aid

A repressive communist regime has been seeking to stamp out Christianity in Vietnam for decades. As in China, however, persecution has not succeeded in thwarting the growth of zealous, witnessing churches.

Even though the country was closed to foreign missions in 1975, men and women are coming to faith in remarkable numbers today. Indigenous missionaries assisted by Christian Aid are teaching and shepherding hundreds of gatherings of Vietnamese tribal people. They do so with conviction, courage and at great personal cost.

One leader who had oversight of more than 900 churches has paid a steep price for his commitment to the gospel. He has spent more than two years imprisoned in a 4 x 8 foot box with a window for feeding and a hole for a toilet. Brokenhearted, he learned that his wife was subjected to the same indignities in a prison box near his. Her imprisonment, however, actually served to bolster his faith, when he overheard the hope in her voice as she sang, “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.”

Another pastor and his congregation of over 500 cut their own lumber and built a beautiful meeting hall. But communist authorities tore it down. Within three days the church congregation put up a simple bamboo structure in its place, but authorities have threatened to destroy it, as well.

A pastor of a house church has learned that persecution can come from one’s own family. His father is a decorated leader in the communist party. After the young pastor confessed his allegiance to the One True God, his father threw a homemade firebomb into his yard. Although the son desires to honor his father, he remains stalwart in his commitment to preaching the Word.

After spending seven years in prison for preaching Christ, a tribal pastor was finally released. Instead of retreating into the safety of seclusion and anonymity, he chose to reenter a Bible training center to be strengthened. Such training centers supported by Christian Aid, are giving pastors the tools and knowledge they need to fortify Vietnamese Christians to stand firm and share their faith. They are living out what Paul described to the Corinthians: They “. . . are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed,” knowing that their affliction is preparing them for an “eternal weight of glory” (II Corinthians 4: 8-9, 17).

Provided by Christian Aid

Reuters – Police monitor activities outside the torched Metro Tabernacle church in Kuala Lumpur January 9, 2010. …

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Would-be arsonists in mostly Muslim Malaysia struck at a convent school and a sixth church on Sunday while church and government leaders called for calm in a row over Christians’ use of the word “Allah” to refer to God.

The attacks threaten Prime Minister Najib Razak’s plan to win back non-Muslim support before elections due by 2013 and may prevent investors from returning to Malaysia that has trailed Thailand and Indonesia for foreign investment.

The row, over a court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use “Allah” in its Malay-language editions, had prompted Muslims to protest at mosques and sparked arson attacks on a string of churches that saw a Pentecostalist church gutted.

“The situation is under control and the people should not be worried,” Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama.

The attacks appear to have spread to other Malaysian states. Police said a petrol bomb was thrown at a guard house of a Catholic convent school in the sleepy town of Taiping, around 300 km (185 miles) from the capital Kuala Lumpur. It did not explode.

Several broken bottles and paint thinners were found at the Saint Louis church next to the convent and one of the country’s oldest Anglican churches, All Saints, also in Taiping.

Police and church officials said attackers also hurled bricks and stones at glass windows of the Good Shepherd Catholic church in Miri — a major logging and oil town in Sarawak state.

Sarawak and neighboring Sabah state are a key vote bank for Najib’s National Front Party and home to a majority of Malaysia’s Christians that account for 9.1 percent of the country’s 28 million population. Many are non-English speaking adherents who have used the word “Allah” for decades.

On Sunday, Malaysians packed churches to listen to sermons of “reaching out in friendship to all, including Muslims” and “keeping the peace in multi-religious Malaysia” but many felt their religious rights were being trampled.

“There are extremists in this country and the government seems unable to do anything,” said Wilson Matayun, a salesman who attended Mass at St Anthony’s Church in Kuala Lumpur. “I am losing faith in our government. I pray it does not get worse.”

Matayun is from Borneo island where the Catholic Herald says it has to use the word “Allah” to describe the Christian God in order to serve Christians who can only speak Malay.

The government has appealed against the ruling, a marked contrast to countries like Indonesia, Egypt and Syria where Christian minorities freely use the Arabic word to refer to God.

Some Malaysian Muslims say that the paper wants to use to word to confuse and convert Muslims and by midday Sunday 178,392 people has signed up for a Facebook group that opposes Christians using “Allah”.

Malaysia is mainly Muslim and Malay but there are sizable ethnic Chinese and Indian communities who mainly practice Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.

They handed the government its biggest losses in 2008 state and national elections in part due to feelings of religious marginalization and growing disillusionment with corruption.

Najib’s handling of the issue will determine whether he can keep the support of the Malays and win back ethnic Chinese and Indian voters to solidify his grip on power after