They hate you because of me - I'm running a bit behind today because of life's unexpected wrenches. But I have a host of information for the Christian persecution archive. It's a bit long, but important. So bare with me.
If you read nothing else today, this interview (China Christian Syndrome) by Dick Staub with David Aikman about the growth of Christianity in China is the thing to read. Aikman gives some insight into what the difference is between the government run Protestant church and the underground (unregistered) Protestant Church.
Of the government run churches called the Three Self Patriotic Movemnt, Aikman says:
The Three Self Patriotic Movement is an umbrella organization for Protestant churches in China, which was set up in the 1950s to enable the Communist Party, through Protestant clergy, to control Protestant Christianity. And it has, in many ways, affected the theology for a long time. In a Three Self church, if you were a pastor, even if you were an evangelical, and many of them are, you were not allowed to preach on the book of Daniel, you weren't allowed to preach on Genesis, you weren't allowed to speak about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Three Self churches claim these are the churches that are open and visible and operating on a weekly basis on Sunday.
When he was asked about numbers, he said the Three Self churches have something like 15 to 20 million members. He estimated that in the unregistered churches, aka the Christians in the House Churches, there is something like 45 million members.
What's really cool about those numbers is that one really has to be dedicated to Christ to want to be a member due to the persecution that the unregistered churches often experience.
When asked by Staub about the growth of the Church in China, Aikman said:
Certainly persecution has played a role in the growth of the Church. Christianity has flourished. It's certainly been in many ways as healthy as under persecution because they trimmed a lot of the excesses of life that's come by when things were too easy. But it's also true that for some reason which only the sovereignty of God can explain, many Chinese come into a faith experience of the Christian gospel through some form of miraculous healing, either in their own lives or in the lives of people they know well. And it is very striking. You don't have to spend much time in China to realize that lots and lots of people—far more I would say than you would find normally in the United States—have had first-hand experience of what seemed like miraculous healing.
In other news, I came across this short report that the All-India Christian Council has called for an investigation into the "harassment and persecution" of a pastor. Here's the report I found on The Hindu: New Update Service:
Bhubaneshwar, Feb. 18 (PTI): The All-India Christian Council (AICC) today demanded a judicial inquiry into the “harassment and persecution" of a Christian pastor in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district.
The AICC had also moved the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the tonsuring of nine persons including seven women and the young pastor, Subash Samal, at Killipala village in the district, its General Secretary, John Dayal, told a news conference here.
Dayal alleged that fundamentalist and communal forces in the district and outside were behind this incident.
The Council leader alleged that the police inspectors, junior officers and constables were not just witnesses but involved in forcing men and women to reconvert to Hinduism, leaving the Christian faith they had accepted seven years ago.
Dayal also said that the attempt to reconvert five persons including pastor Samal was in violation of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA) as the provisions were not followed.
As a test of the state's neutrality and good faith, the Government should take immediate action under OFRA against those behind the reconversion of the Christians, he said.
I had to look up "tonsuring" to get an idea of what it meant, but I came across a better account of what happened in Orissa on persecution.org:
(Compass) -- Christian women from Orissa state, India, were attacked and humiliated for refusing to give up their faith. On February 6, Hindu extremists dragged eight women, including two 15-year-old girls, out of their homes while their husbands were at work and tried to persuade them to renounce Christianity. When the women refused, the extremists beat them, stripped them naked and forced them to walk through their villages before shaving their heads. When the attackers made further threats against them, the women and their families fled the two villages of Kilipala and Kanimul in Jagatsinghpur district. An Indian television network later interviewed the victims, who said their faith remained firm and they would not re-convert to Hinduism. Christian workers say members of several Hindu extremist groups have been actively working in the area to promote awareness of the “evils of Christianity” and that this may have led to the attacks. District officials promised to take action against the attackers, but had made no arrests at press time.
Persecution.org is a great place to stay abreast of some of the trouble that fellow brothers and sisters endure because of their faith in Christ.
Also noted in their news section was a report I came across on Christianity Today in Ted Olsen's blog where he records the drive-by attack and murder of a Rhode Island pastor who was in Iraq with other Christians helping an Iraqi man to start a church. Here's persecution.org's report on this incident:
The U.S. military has confirmed that gunmen killed an American pastor when the taxi he was riding in was ambushed outside Baghdad. The Baptist Press reported that John Kelley, 48, was pastor of Curtis Corner Baptist Church in South Kingstown, R.I. He was traveling with a number of other ministers who went to Iraq on a two-week trip to explore the possibility of starting a church there. The Americans had been riding in a taxi when a white sedan pulled up alongside them and opened fire. Three other men, including David Davis of Grace Bible Baptist Church in Vernon, Conn., and Kirk DiVietro of Grace Baptist Church in Franklin, Mass., were injured in the ambush and were being treated at an Iraqi hospital, soldiers were told. The Boston Globe reported that State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the administration discourages travel to Iraq by private citizens and does not encourage missionary work. In an e-mail from Baghdad to a church member, Lewis described the shooting as "an execution-style attack," the Boston Globe reported. "Their van was sprayed with automatic weapon fire. The attack came from a small passenger car that was behind the van. The car passed the van on the right side and repeatedly sprayed the vehicle with bullets," he wrote. "This was a tragic loss. Pastor Kelley has been a close associate of mine for many years. We have worked on a number of projects together in the work of the Lord.”
Ted Olsen in his blog records:
"They were helping an Iraqi man start a church, the first Baptist church in Baghdad," DiVietro's assistant pastor, Doug Pettit, told The Woonsocket Call. "They were going to ordain him."
Kelley, a former Marine who had pastored Curtis Corner Baptist for about 18 years, had been in Iraq for about a week. They were due to return this Friday.
Jane Kelley, the deceased pastor's wife, "played hymns the next day during two Sunday services," the Journal reports. "She kept a box of tissues on the floor while the congregation sang 'Count Your Blessings' and 'Nothing But the Blood.'" The couple had four children: Jenney, 15; Jason, 17; James, 21, and Julia, 23.
Let me try to end this post by bringing it back around to China. There was another news items from several days ago on persecution.org that pointed to Voice of the Martyrs. VOM has a news report and a video showing how the Chinese government dealt with an unregistered Church back on June 26, 2003. VOM reports:
The Tu Du Sha Church at Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province was bulldozed to the ground last June 26. The church was started around 1930 by Hudson Taylor’s group, China Inland Mission, and had grown in size to a weekly attendance of 1,500 members.
Police first arrived before 4:00 a.m. expecting the church to be empty. Instead, they found 300 believers gathered for prayer. The police left, but returned just before 8:00 a.m. with 200 military policemen and more than 40 vehicles. In spite of the protests of church members, the church was completely destroyed. A Chinese Christian covertly videotaped the entire scene, and the video was smuggled out of the country.
Here's a couple of pictures I pulled from the video which you can watch easily enough if you have broadband at this link. VOM also has a .pdf report on the incident. Here's some excerpts from that report with the pictures I pulled from the video:
After hearing the government’s intention to destroy the church building, the brothers and sisters proclaimed a three-day fast. On the evening of June 25th, 200 brothers and sisters went to the church to pray. At midnight, approximately 100 additional brothers and sisters came from neighboring house churches to support their efforts. Around 3:40 am, June 26th, 100 people from PSB, People Procurators, People’s Court, Land Management Bureau, and Religious Affairs Bureau arrived at the church with 27 trucks and cars and two bulldozers.
The government officials thought that, at such an early hour, no one would be at the church and they could destroy it unnoticed. To their surprise they found 300 believers, from very young to very elderly, kneeling on the floor of the sanctuary praying. In efforts to keep the church from being destroyed the believers shut off the electricity. Government officials decided to get reinforcements and told the believers they would return around 8:00 am.
At 7:32 am a large group of government employees arrived with over 200 military policemen accompanying them and more than 40 trucks and cars and one bulldozer and one ambulance in tow. After realizing the government’s intention to destroy the church, the driver of the now missing bulldozer refused to gain money in this manner and did not return with them...
..Next they knocked down the doors to the sanctuary and asked the people inside to come out. No one moved. They continued to sing hymns. The police were then ordered to pull them outside. Some police were reluctant to force them to leave. The Christians were praying as they normally do, kneeling on a small prayer pad. Police knocked them down and were dragging them across the floor on their prayer pads. Some military police were very reluctant to drag away the innocent people. One picked up a prayer pad, which was dirty from being dragged. He dusted it off and gave it back to the believer. But the police had to obey their orders...
...all the Christians were driven out of the sanctuary.
During that process two sisters’ ribs were broken. One sister’s spine was broken. One brother had a stone lodged in his skin that required an operation to remove. All together six Christians were wounded and sent to the hospital. Some of the wounded refused hospital treatment, fearing possible arrest. Five were arrested.
After 1 hour 22 minutes, at around 8:50 a.m., the bulldozer began destroying the church. The church was destroyed in three phases: 1) kitchen (at the front of the building), 2) main sanctuary, 3) storage room. During its destruction, many believers were crying and singing hymns. When the church was reduced to rubble the believers felt like the body of Christ was stricken and broken, in many ways symbolizing the experience of the Chinese church in the last 50 years.
Around 9:30 all the government people withdrew—after completing the destruction.
Soon afterwards, 70 to 80 believers gathered on the rubble to sing Psalm 137 & 123 and offered prayers. They knew it must be God’s good will and that He has seen all of this.
Remember that March 5 is operation Shockwave, a day of global prayer for the persecuted church.
The Great Separation continues.
