Christian communities in Indonesia’s Moluccas fear the onslaught of “religious cleansing” as some 3,000 extremist Muslim fighters prepare to converge on the archipelago, according to a British-based group that recently returned from a fact-finding mission. Many families already have fled to other islands as predominantly Christian villages have been razed, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said.
Chinese police have detained 47 members of a Protestant group in central Anhui province, according to the state press. The Jianghui Morning Daily said last week that six of the main leaders of the Quanfanwei (Holistic) Church face criminal charges for organizing an illegal sect and illegal gatherings.
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.”
A communist rebel group in India’s Bihar state beat to death two tribal Christians and severely injured four others on April 4, according to the Times of India.
A Mongolian citizen of ethnic Kazakh descent has been sentenced to 13 years in a prison labor camp in western Mongolia on charges of propagating the Christian faith.
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.
To observers of China’s Christian church scene the event was as sudden as it was unexpected. Just the day before the Chinese New Year celebrations of February 5, one of China’s most prominent house church leaders, Zhang Rongliang, was released quietly from prison in Fangcheng City, Henan Province, on grounds of poor health. The news was relayed quickly to journalists and China specialists outside of China by friends who had remained in close contact with Zhang for several weeks.
Saudi Arabia has once again taken the dubious distinction of being the country where Christians are more severely persecuted than any other in the world. This was revealed in the January 2001 release of the Open Doors “World Watch List” (WWL), which ranks countries according to their level of Christian persecution.
Baptist pastor Rahim Tashov and a colleague were hauled into police headquarters in their hometown of Turkmenabad (formerly Chardjou) last Thursday, February 3.
For the past ten years earth-worshipping pagans have migrated from Canada, Brazil, Germany, Russia, and 25 other countries, to an isolated corner of Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where a four-day-long New Age techno-fest known as "The Burning Man" has been conducted.
For the past ten years earth-worshipping pagans have migrated from Canada, Brazil, Germany, Russia, and 25 other countries, to an isolated corner of Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where a four-day-long New Age techno-fest known as “The Burning Man” has been conducted.