AUSTIN, Texas (Compass) — Guerrillas manning a roadblock near Medellin kidnapped an associate church pastor as he returned with a group of church members on Sunday, April 28, from an afternoon baptismal service, reported the head of that city’s pastoral alliance.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The revelation by North Korea that it had engaged in a clandestine operation to develop nuclear weapons, contrary to promises made to the Clinton administration in 1994, thrust the Asian nation again into the news. However, many in the United States have had the communist nation on their minds and in their prayers for years for its shoddy record in human rights.
BANGALORE, India (Compass) — The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Organization, VHP) is secretly conducting large-scale conversion drives in India’s Marxist-ruled state of West Bengal. More than 16 tribal Christians were forced to re-convert to Hinduism on April 22 at a purification ceremony in Chopra village in the Malda district about 300 kilometers from Calcutta, NGO sources said. Ten other animist tribals were also converted to Hinduism in the village.
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia, May 15 (Compass) — In mid April, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) forced 11 evangelical Protestant churches in Arauquita, a town near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, to suspend public worship services.
by George Whitten, Editor of Worthy News On April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. This marked the beginning of the civil war and the division of our country. On Friday, March 22, 2002, over 250 pastors representing approximately ten different denominations gathered together at 1600 Meeting Street in Charleston to begin forty days of prayer and fasting for revival. Who knew that the city where division began would be the city where the spirit of reconciliation would be poured out? This move of God started just over eight months ago, while a … Read more
In mid-April four Protestant churches – the charismatic Cornerstone Church and Free Church, the Baptist Free Bible Church and an unregistered Pentecostal congregation – were all evicted from state premises which they had been renting for worship services in the capital of Tatarstan, Kazan.
SANTA ANA, CA (ANS) — Terry Madison, U.S. president and CEO of Open Doors with Brother Andrew has said that Saudi Arabia’s treatment of two expatriate Christians is further proof of why this desert Kingdom is among the world’s worst persecutor of Christians.
ISTANBUL, March 6 (Compass) — The government of Sudan amputated a Southern Sudanese Christian’s right hand for alleged theft in late January, furthering evidence that the Islamist regime has begun enacting harsh Muslim punishments against both Christian and Muslim citizens within the past three months.
SOUTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA (ANS) — A mob has destroyed a church in the predominantly Muslim city of Makassar in South Sulawesi, according to a report from The Barnabas Fund.
he authorities in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic in the north-west of Uzbekistan, are trying to halt the spread of Christianity among Karakalpakstan’s native peoples (Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Karakalpaks, who are historically Muslims),
Perhaps because of international reporting on the case, a court in Nukus, the capital of the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan in western Uzbekistan, has handed down what many regard as a “lenient” sentence against the leader of a local Protestant church.
A confidential contact told Christian Aid Monday that 14 Vietnamese pastors were arrested in that country’s Central Highlands in the last two weeks. The exact location of these pastors is not certain.
Waxhaw, North Carolina. It all came together for her one night as she sat in the pews of her own church, Sunday after Sunday, and understood not one thing. Not a word of the Scriptures read, the songs sung, or the sermon given. She was right there in Burlington, North Carolina, her hometown, but for the amount she understood, it could have been Belgium or Zimbabwe. And she thought: “What if these people were in my shoes? What if they came to my service and couldn’t understand anything? They would not have a meaningful worship service at all.”
For Sue Crabtree, sitting in the Hispanic services that she was trying to encourage and support with her attendance, that’s when it really hit home how important it is that every person have the Scriptures in the language he or she knows best.
ISTANBUL, September 25 (Compass) — Armed gunmen attacked a Pakistani Christian welfare organization in Karachi this morning, then escaped after killing seven Christians and leaving an eighth critically injured.
ASTANA / BUDAPEST , (ANS) — Leaders and other believers of non registered Baptist and Evangelical churches in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan are experiencing a new period of persecution by central authorities, reports said Monday July 1.
A Baptist from the town of Turkestan in Chimkent region of southern Kazakhstan, Tursunbai Auelbekov, was in the town’s Kuanysh market distributing free copies of Kazakh-language religious literature from the Evangelical-Christian Baptist Church on 23 January when he was arrested by police, Keston News Service has learned. According to the law enforcement agencies, since the Baptist church is not registered at the justice department of the Turkestan administration, its followers do not have the right to carry out any activity in the town, which is 165 kms (100 miles) north-west of Chimkent, or the surrounding district.
The Malawi Council of Churches – a mother body of prostestant churches in the country – has issued a statement asking the ruling party United Democratic Front (UDF) and the government at large, to curb acts of violence committed against the clergy.
by Geoff Stamp ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Compass)– A leading member of Ethiopia’s Protestant church says that freedom to practice religion is only “constitutional.” Yet despite ongoing persecution, Protestant churches are experiencing significant growth. “During the former regime of communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, the persecution came from the Marxist government authorities. Now we may have freedom on paper, but I can say that persecution has doubled and it is coming from the Orthodox Church and the Muslims,” the church leader told Compass. Even in the capital, Addis Ababa, there have been several recent incidents of people throwing stones at churches … Read more
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BP) — Evangelist Franklin Graham is not backing away from his statements aired on a national news program that Islam is “wicked, violent and not of the same god.”
BANGALORE, India (Compass) — Nineteen villagers who recently embraced Christianity have been forced to re-convert to Hinduism in the Korua village of Kendrapada district in India’s Orissa state after undergoing sustained social ostracism from their fellow villagers. They are also facing prosecution by the district administration for violating provisions of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA).