LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–Christians in America will face great persecution soon and they must be aggressors in the midst of it, Josef Tson said March 2 at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
The growing awareness of worldwide Christian persecution can hardly be explained by the actions of a few people or the dramatic events in a specific country. So the following list of “top” stories for 2000 should be viewed only as a representative sample of significant news stories that have taken place this year. The list is also limited to areas where Compass Direct correspondents were able to provide in-depth coverage. Some of the stories come from isolated events. Others describe the ongoing oppression Christians often face. All help give us a glimpse of the difficult situations faced by the church around the world.
Protestant ministers in the United States generally believe that religious persecution is a major problem in today’s world, and they believe the U.S. should impose sanctions against countries where this is occurring. These findings have just been released from a research study conducted among Protestant clergy in America.
SANTIAGO, Chile (Compass) — The issue of religious discrimination is in the public spotlight in Chile, due to the case of San Pedro de la Paz, a town some 300 miles south of Santiago. There a Baptist lawyer named Raul Romero has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Education and Gospel Task Force for Chile because of evident acts of religious discrimination against evangelical students in the community schools.
ANHUI
“Here we only have one registered church, which is packed out with people standing in the courtyard. However, since the church was opened, none of the accounts listing all the believers’ donations have ever been made public to them. The pastor has dismissed several Christians who originally were responsible for the finances. He also hands over the donations to the Religious Affairs Bureau to use. Not long ago, several elderly believers formed a church, but the Three Self pastor asked the Religious Affairs Bureau not to grant them a license and called the police to come and arrest them. Can such a church be blessed by God? How can it cause the gospel to spread?”
— Letter from a Christian in Anhui dated March 29, 2000
HONG KONG (Compass) — Zhang Rongliang, also known as David Zhang, is at large in China despite receiving a three-years’ hard labor sentence in December 1999. Reliable reports from central China say he was able to buy himself out of jail. But Born Again movement leader Xu Yongze remains incarcerated, despite having completed his three-year sentence on March 15, and 10 more house church leaders were arrested in southeast China in May.
Paul Crouch got it wrong. In fact, Christian leaders only get it that wrong once or twice a decade. The last time a Christian leader visited China and swallowed and disgorged official propaganda so obligingly for his Chinese hosts was Dr. George Carey, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, in September 1994.
ISTANBUL, February 6 (Compass) — Instead of convicting the Muslim murder suspects accused of killing 21 Christians in last year’s El-Kosheh massacre, a judge in southern Egypt has accused the local Coptic clergy of responsibility for the three-day rampage.
DAMBOA, Nigeria (Compass) — A Christian-Muslim conflict in Damboa in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state resulted in the deaths of 15 Christians, and four churches were burned.
ISTANBUL, July 6 (Compass) — Officials from Egypt’s powerful State Security Intelligence (SSI) agency detained a Coptic Orthodox Christian for the fourth time in early June, interrogating him under torture on accusations of preaching Christianity to Muslims.
LOS ANGELES, August 23 (Compass) — A Christian community center in Malaysia was set ablaze on July 21 by suspected Muslim extremists. The building was unoccupied during the alleged arson attack, reported local fire and rescue officials.
ISTANBUL (Compass) — The supreme leader of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia warned on January 8 that his regime will apply the death penalty to any Muslim who converts to another faith.
BEIJING (Compass) — Christian leaders in both the unofficial house churches and the registered “Three Self” churches in eastern China confirmed in June that their situation has become more difficult.
The Voice of the Martyrs rejoiced to learn yesterday that Chinese Christian “Sister Tong†has been released from prison following a 15 day prison sentence. A VOM worker in the area was able to pass financial support and encouragement to her.
(AgapePress) – A coalition opposed to the special trade privileges for Communist China is urging the new administration to reverse the Clinton-Gore policy mistakes of the past eight years.
LONDON (Compass) — Last July, authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui moved to discourage Christian work with young people through an article that appeared in the local Anhui “Xinan Evening News.”
SANTA ANA, CA (ANS) – Turkmenistan has moved to fifth place on the Open Doors World Watch List of worst persecutors of Christians, behind Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Laos and China, causing “great concern” to persecution watchers around the world.
ISTANBUL, April 11 (Compass) — Two Christians were sent to jail yesterday for seven days on charges of “disobeying the police” in the town of Ismailly, 120 miles west of the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
LONDON (BP)–A sizeable Christian community is among the Karen people group in Myanmar (formerly Burma) facing abuse at the hands of the country’s military regime, according to Newsroom-Online, an Internet news service based in London.
Sixteen young people were arrested recently in Algeria for possessing Bibles and other Christian literature, according to a report by ZENIT (August 3, 2001). Ranging in age from 20 to 31 and members of a Christian denomination from central Algeria, the 16 were arrested on July 26 in Cap Falcon, 450 kilometers (280 miles) west of Algiers.