When millions of Chinese evangelicals gather for services in their homeland, the worship is rarely music to the ears. Forget the last minute sound checks, voice warm-ups, or instrument tuning. This worship is music to the heart.
TYLER, Texas (BP)–“I’ve never seen this many churches come together,” said R.J. Holt, one of three Southern Baptist youth pastors in Tyler, Texas, whose initiative has yielded more than 1,000 professions of faith.
French journalist Claude Vorilhon is known for introducing “Raelism” to the world. Mr. Vorilhon claims he was contacted by UFO’s on December 13, 1973 when his extraterrestrial visitors named him “Rael.” During this time of supposed contact, the alien life forms told “Rael” that mankind was ready to learn the truth of the mysteries of man’s origin. Vorilhon claims his alien contacts gave him a mission to prepare mankind for their return and to establish an embassy to initiate contact with mankind.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Cloud Ten Pictures, the production company responsible for “Left Behind,” a new film dealing with the rapture of the church, has come up with a provocative way to promote the picture before it has a theatrical release. The producers released the video to stores on Oct. 31.
In the Book of Genesis, God makes it very clear that man was created special on the sixth day of the Creation Week. Rejecting the Genesis account of history, evolutionists must search desperately to find an alternative explanantion for man’s origin. Discoveries, such as the recent “micro-primate” fossil fragment, demonstrate the great lengths to which evolutionists will go to connect humans and animals.
The Arab world marked the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha on Monday, traditionally a day of food, family and festivities. But this year, the holiday was noted for intensified anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric, continued violence and economic hardship in Palestinian areas, and the tragic death of 35 pilgrims during the hajj to Mecca.
“The most severe persecution happened to us on Sunday, October 17, 1999. They detained 150 Christians and prepared to send some of them to ‘reform through education’ camps for three years. They fined some of us 2,000 RMB. They didn’t even give me a receipt. (Society here is now so corrupt!) But we did not cease to meet.”
In Anhui province in eastern China — a center of Christian house church activity — the provincial government is enforcing a repressive religious policy that has continued for many years and shows no sign of abatement. And reliable house church sources say control is being further tightened.
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.
Christians in Laos continue to suffer persecution from a government crackdown on believers, and they cannot visit friends or travel freely because the secret police follow them every everywhere. Some have been forced to recant their faith.
Two Chinese Protestant pastors accused of organizing an unauthorized Christian meeting are being held in labor camps near Beijing, a London-based religious rights group reported Thursday. Wang Li Gong, 34, and Yang Jing Fu, 36, are in two separate camps in Tianjing serving administrative sentences of one year, and one and one-half years, respectively, Christian Solidarity Worldwide said.
Six Christian missionaries participating in a gospel campaign called “Love Ahmedabad” were beaten so savagely in the state of Gujarat last week that one of the men may lose his arms and legs.
by Alex Buchan LONDON (Compass) — Credible reports of seven Christians executed for their faith inside North Korea have reached reliable sources in China. The seven, all men ranging in age from 15 to 58 years of age, were executed in April. The circumstances surrounding their deaths cannot be revealed. North Korea, a fanatically communist state, continues to hound all religious believers. The U.S. Department of State’s 2000 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom said there were unconfirmed reports of 23 Christians executed between October 1999 and April 2000. Some say that a number of Christians were rounded up and … Read more
Since October 1999 some 23 Christians have been killed in public by firing squads on falsified criminal charges in North Korea reports Open Doors, the ministry begun 45 years ago by Brother Andrew, the Dutch-born author of “God’s Smuggler.”
An urgent plea for prayer for the Christians of Indonesia has come out of that nation from a recent visitor who has just returned from the Spice Islands.
Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday morning and released the same evening without harm. The Protestant evangelist was arrested by Public Security Bureau officers at his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu near Guangzhou for the 11th time since October, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
Two Turkish Christians arrested March 1 while selling and distributing Christian literature near the southern port city of Izmir were refused bail today, pending a court hearing scheduled for March 30.
After a respite of one month, Chinese house church leader Li Dexian was detained by police on Tuesday for the 10th time since October. Public Security Bureau officers arrested the 45-year-old Protestant evangelist as he led his weekly 10 a.m. Bible study in Huadu, west of Guangzhou, a source in Hong Kong told Newsroom.
Saudi Arabia released four Filipino Christians in Riyadh yesterday, 40 days after their arrest by the country’s strict Islamic police for conducting Christian worship services in a private home.
Four of the 16 Filipino Christians arrested three weeks ago by Saudi religious police remain jailed and under interrogation in the capital Riyadh, a Filipino diplomat confirmed Wednesday. The three wives and five children arrested with them for conducting Christian worship in a private home have been released during the past week. Four adults were released the previous week.