IN SUCH AN HOUR AS THIS
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION
Today´s World
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And therefore the Lord (earnestly) waits (expecting, looking, and longing) to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed, happy, fortunate, to be envied are all those who (earnestly) wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him (for His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship)! (Isaiah 30:18)
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Persecution in America
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Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia police arrested 11 Christians as they were taking part in street witnessing on a public sidewalk at a "gay pride" event.
Charges were dropped against six of the believers in January, 2005, but the four adults and one juvenile -- all members of the group 'Repent America' -- faced serious charges under Philadelphia's "hate crimes" laws. Those five were charged with criminal conspiracy, "ethnic intimidation," and riot. In a case that brought national attention, each of the five faced as much as 47 years in prison if convicted.
Alabama
Last August 2004 a federal judge ordered Roy Moore, then chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, to remove the 5,280-pound monument from the lobby of the state judicial building. Moore refused, and the monument was eventually removed and locked in a closet in the building.
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NEW ORLEANS
Congress and legislatures can open their sessions with prayers, but a federal judge ruled Friday that school boards do not have the same leeway.
Ruling in a lawsuit brought by a parent against a southeastern Louisiana school system, The Judge said school-sponsored prayers in classes or at other school functions have long been prohibited as a violation of First Amendment guarantees against government-established religion. (2005)
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Okla. Students Sent Home After Threats Made MUSTANG, Okla.
Mustang school officials sent notes home with students from Mustang Middle School on Monday that threats had been made against certain students. This morning at 10:30 a.m., the administrator of the Middle School discovered a written threat that stated: 'On Thursday, March 31st, all Christians and preps will be shot."' The threat was written on a boys bathroom stall, and as of this afternoon it had been written on three bathroom stall walls. We consider all threats made to our schools are serious. Approximately 890 students attend the school.
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Generation of Disobedience and Lawlessness
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And God spoke and said:
1. You shall have no other gods before or besides Me.
2. You shall not make yourself any graven image to worship it, or any likeness of anything that in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
3. You shall not bow down yourself to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me.
4. You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God in vain (that is, lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely) for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
5. Earnestly remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your domestic animals, or the sojourner within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (set it apart for His purpose).
6. Regard (treat with honor, due obedience, and courtesy) your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God gives you.
7. You shall not commit murder.
8. You shall not commit adultery.
9. You shall not steal.
10. You shall not witness falsely against your neighbor.
11. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
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The Supreme Court
A divided Supreme Court on Monday struck down Ten Commandments displays in two Kentucky courthouses, but ruled a 6-foot granite replica on state government land in Texas is acceptable. In the first ruling, McCreary County v. ACLU, the court said the Kentucky displays violated the Establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits government from endorsing or supporting one religion above others. The justices ruled 5-4 that the Ten Commandments could not be displayed in court buildings or on government property. However, the Biblical laws could be displayed in an historical context, as they are in a frieze in the Supreme Court building. Notably, the first four commandments, which have to do with honoring God and the Sabbath, were obscured by the artist who designed the frieze.
Monday's rulings were perhaps the courts most highly anticipated of the 2004 session. The court has not visited the hotly contested issue since 1980 when religious displays in public schools were ruled unconstitutional. The nation's interest in the cases was boosted by former Alabama Justice Roy Moore 's battle two years ago to keep a giant, 5,300-pound granite replica of the commandments in his courthouse. On Nov. 13, 2003, a judicial panel banished him from the bench because he defied a federal court order to remove the tablets.
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Persecution in Other Nations
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BEIRUT, Lebanon
Investigators searched for clues Saturday amid the rubble of a car bombed building in a largely Christian neighborhood in Beirut, an attack that sparked fears of a renewed bloodshed in Lebanon and complicated already troubled negotiations between rival political groups over the formation of a new government. (2005)
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BANGLADESH
On March 2005 the wife of a church leader in southwest Bangladesh was brutally assaulted. As a church leader and his wife were returning home, he was attacked. When his wife attempted to assist him, she was raped. Both of them were taken to the local hospital where the wife is reportedly in critical condition. VOM sources say this couple has been a key in a church-planting movement in their district.
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Pakistan
As Christian worshippers left the Easter services at Victory Church in a village near Lahore, four armed gunmen attacked them indiscriminately, killing one and injuring seven others.
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LAOS
Christians in southern Laos are being persecuted for their faith. Recently, 17 men were arrested and tortured and some of them were church leaders. Just last month, 10 believers were arrested because they were evangelizing. Two of them were taken directly to prison. The other 8 men were bound with rope and left in a rice field in the hot sun for two days, with no food or water.
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March 7. 2005
In late March 7 Christian men were sent to prison. They were stripped naked and were bound hand and foot for a week, with only water to drink. After the week of torture, they were untied and lowered into a dark hole in the ground where they were kept for a month in darkness and filth. All they had to eat was each day was a handful of rotten rice.
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Easter Eve
On Easter Eve, 25 militants disrupted the viewing of the Passion of the Christ inside a church, in the state of Kerala in India. One Christian was wounded, and scores of others were beaten and injured, including women and children.
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An Iranian Christian had to appear before the Islamic court of Iran recently. He was facing charges of apostasy from Islam and proselytizing Muslims to the Christian faith. Both of those crimes are punishable by death, and if he is not exonerated of both of these charges, he will die for his faith. (2005)
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U.S. Missionaries Killed in Guyana GEORGETOWN, Guyana
Police said that two American missionaries had been found slain at a farm they rented in southwestern Guyana, near the border with Brazil. The bodies of Richard, 42, and his wife, 58, were found Thursday. The couple's house had been set on fire and the husband's body was burned beyond recognition. His wife was found a few yards away with marks of violence. The Hicks had lived in Guyana for almost a decade, working for the Dallas-based Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Florida.
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Egypt
Hany Samir Tawfik, a 29-year-old Egyptian Copt, has been released from jail after being held without charges for 28 months. He was set free June 28th, from Gharbaliat Prison near Alexandria. His release came seven months after his case was first publicized outside Egypt. He had been arrested by Egypt's State Security Investigation (SSI) authorities on March 3, 2003. A Coptic Christian who had gone to Saudi Arabia to work, Tawfik was deported back to Egypt in the summer of 2002, after requesting asylum from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh. He was promptly detained for interrogation at Cairo's notorious SSI headquarters but released after 52 days. Seven months later, Tawfik was again arrested under unknown accusations.
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Voice of the Martyrs
VOM recently reported that on November 8th, two girls were attacked on their way to a Christian school. Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports Siti Nuraini, 17, a Muslim, died in Poso Kota general hospital November 9th. Her Christian friend Ivon, also 17, remains in critical condition. This incident closely followed the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls on October 29th, and represented a further escalation of violence. The Reverend Rinaldy Damanik, Moderator for the Central Sulawesi Christian Reform Church, and Chairman of the Central Sulawesi Churches Crisis Co-ordination Centre, has been in close contact with Christians and government officials in Sulawesi and has appealed for a stop to the violence. He stressed security officials needed to act promptly to ensure those guilty of the attacks are brought to justice and also to try and prevent further attacks. As reported in the Jakarta Post, Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said the President had ordered security forces to bring the perpetrators to justice and urged residents not to launch revenge.
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Indonesia
An international Christian human rights organization is urging the immediate release of three wrongly accused Indonesian Christian Sunday school teachers who have lost their appeal to overturn charges. This means a three-year prison term for the women-Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun. They are currently serving a three-year prison sentence in the Indramayu district of West Java, having been wrongly convicted of "attempting to coerce children to change their religion" under the Indonesian "Child Protection Act." Christian Freedom International (CFI), reports that on November 22, 2005, the three Sunday school teachers lost an important appeal to have their sentences reduced or overturned by a higher court.
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IRAN
An Iranian Christian convert was kidnapped from his home in northeastern Iran last week and stabbed to death. His bleeding body was thrown in front of his home a few hours later. Ghorban Tori, 50, was pastoring an independent house church of converted Christians in Gonbad-e-Kavus. Within hours of the November 22nd murder, local secret police arrived at the pastor's home, searching for Bibles and other banned Christian books written in the Farsi language. According to one source, during the past eight days representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested and severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities, including Tehran.
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Russia
The Russian government reports that within the coming weeks it may begin tightening control of foreign missionaries and religious organizations. According to reports, the Justice Ministry is considering adopting stricter rules on granting visas to foreign missionaries-an action that, if effective, would lead to the limitation of missionaries to Russia. The government also expressed plans to make the suppression of religious centers easier while causing registration of religious organizations more difficult. "It sounds like it's all going back like it was during the Soviet time," commented Sergey Rakhuba, vice president of Russian Ministries. He believes the Russian Orthodox Church is involved in the proposal. Rakhuba states: "Even if restrictions on foreign missionaries are forthcoming, church growth and evangelism in Russia will not be hindered. I don't think that it will affect evangelism because you cannot stop people from talking about Christ. You cannot stop people talking about their experiences with Jesus. And that's what Russian Ministries is doing."
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SEE What (an incredible) quality of love the father has given (shown, bestowed on) us, that we should (be permitted to) be named and called and called and counted the children of God! And so we are! The reason that the world does not know (recognize, acknowledge) us is that it does not know (recognize, acknowledge) Him. Beloved, we are (even here and) now God's children; it is not yet disclosed (made clear) what we shall be (hereafter) but we know that when He comes and is manifested, we shall (as God's children) resemble and be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He really is! And everyone who has this hope (resting) on Him cleanses (purifies) himself just as He is pure (chaste, undefiled, guiltless). (1 John 3: 1-3)
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We have only one life to live, but many choices to make in that lifetime. But the most important choice you will ever make is one that only you can decide on. That choice is, "What will you do with Jesus?" There are only two choices; no one can straddle the fence. Will you give your life to Him and one day live in Heaven with Him? Or will you reject Him and live your life without Him, and one day end up in Hell for eternity? The choice is yours… choose wisely!
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