Church in Chains, 29^th August 2023 (excerpts)

China’s Administration of Religious Affairs drafted more restrictive religious regulations on 1 September 2023.

Online magazine Bitter Winter says, “In this case, the final text of the Measures… is even worse than the draft”.

China Aid says they “continue to suffocate religious freedom in China.”

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin says, “They obliterate the space for Bible-believing individuals to operate.”

Leaders of China’s government-controlled Three-Self Patriotic Movement have sworn allegiance to them.

Some of the 76 new measures state how Religious Venues must support the CCP and restrict church activities.

Article 3 states: “Places of religious activity shall uphold the leadership of the CCP and the socialist system.”

Article 27 stipulates that religious leaders must “love the motherland and support the socialist system”.

Article 30 orders religious leaders to “support the leadership of the CCP and practise socialist core values.”

Article 36 requires “Places of religious activity to regularly study the policies of the CCP.”

Article 39 stipulates that “sermons shall reflect core socialist values”.

Article 71 warns that “a place of religious activity shall be punished if established without authorisation.”

Joshua Project, 20 September 2023

The Lezgin people of Ukraine are a Muslim group that live and work in brutal weather conditions. Even though the Lezgin are Muslim, they have not relinquished their pre-Islamic belief in the spirit world.

In recent years, some Lezgins have come to faith in Jesus Christ. However, their numbers are so few that they cannot form a fellowship even in Ukraine, the “Bible Belt” of Eastern Europe. Most of them live in Russia’s Caucasus region, one of the least reached parts of the world.

Islam is an obstacle. Being Muslim in a Christian culture like Ukraine means they must actively try to retain their culture.

Followers of Christ can attend Lezgin cultural events and actively learn to appreciate their music and stories. If someone learns enough about their music, they can spread the gospel in a culturally relevant, non-threatening way.

Pray for a movement to Christ among Lezgins in Ukraine and in Russia. Pray for the Lezgin people to see beyond Lezgin culture and identity and give a fair hearing to the gospel. Pray for the Lord to thrust out loving and patient ambassadors who will disciple new Lezgin believers.

International Christian Concern, 28th August 2023

As a religious minority in Egypt, Christians face various pressures to convert to Islam. Women, and particularly Christian widows, face uniquely harsh pressures. When even one family member decides to convert to Islam from Christianity, that decision brings a communal shame to the whole Christian family, even in their own Christian community, family, and church.

One recent case of a Christian family highlights this shame in Egypt. The daughter, who is in her 20s, met and fell in love with a Muslim man in her workplace and a few months later disappeared, having apparently converted to Islam to be married to this man. As a result of the stigma attached to their daughter’s conversion, the father was forced from his job and a younger daughter had her engagement broken off since other families did not want to associate with a family whose daughter did such a thing as convert and elope with a Muslim man.

Egyptian Christians face daily challenges in their communities from the pressures of the majority society around them. ICC continually helps families facing these pressures to remain strong in their faith and to encourage those experiencing shame and stigma in their communities resulting from these types of incidents.

Church in Chains, 23^rd August 2023

Elder Zhang Chunlei, leader of the banned Ren’ai (Love) Reformed Church in Guiyang, capital of China’s southwestern Guizhou province, was sent to Sanjiang hospital in early August after suffering a bout of cholecystitis (gall bladder inflammation) in prison. Elder Zhang has been in detention since March 2021.

China Aid reported, “For a long time, Zhang has been healthy and optimistic, but this sudden bout of cholecystitis triggered his family’s concern about his life in prison.”

Elder Zhang was detained on 16 March 2021 following a raid on his church and was officially arrested on suspicion of “fraud” on 1 May 2021. In November 2021 his wife Yang Aiqing said in a social media post that the Public Security Bureau in Guiyang has accused her husband of “not having the status of a state-approved religious clergyman while holding religious gatherings and swindling believers of about 100,000 RMB [approximately €12,600]”.

Chinese house-church leaders are increasingly being prosecuted on false charges of “fraud”, which can carry a sentence of more than ten years. On 21 August 2023 China Aid’s Special Correspondent Gao Zhensai commented, “In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party authorities have used church tithes and offerings as a reason to impose fraud charges to bring down Christian churches, arresting and sentencing many church pastors and co-workers… Fraud is now the norm in the persecution of Christian house churches in mainland China.”

Voice of the Martyrs, 24^th August 2023 (excerpts)

Pema Ongmo, 27, was raised in an animist family and had never heard about Christ until a friend shared the gospel and invited her to church. Her father, a village leader, found out and forbade her to read the Bible the pastor had given her. But she started reading the Bible secretly and began to follow Christ. Her mother became ill, and her father spent all the family’s resources looking for a cure. 

Pema told her father that the Jesus she read about in the Bible healed many people. Her father agreed to let his wife go to the church, where she was healed. The whole family eventually placed their trust in Christ. “Thank you for the wonderful Bibles you freely gave us,” Pema said. “I thank you and ask the Lord to bless you richly!”

Until the 1980s, Bhutan was isolated from the rest of the world by its Himalayan geography, poor infrastructure and poor international relations. In 2008, the country adopted a multiparty constitutional democracy and implemented a new constitution that affords a greater level of religious freedom. Most Christians in Bhutan are of Nepali heritage, and believers are focused on reaching the ethnic Bhutanese with the message of Christ.

88 percent of the Bhutanese people are Buddhists. Approximately 1 percent are Christians.  The king identifies himself as the defender of the Buddhist faith, and the government works covertly to discourage the spread of Christianity. Christians are viewed as followers of a foreign, Western religion. There is no opportunity for the legal registration of churches in Bhutan. Christians often lose their jobs and are unable to find work because of their faith. Many Christians must worship in secret.

Joshua Project, 28 August 2023

Very few of the Berta people in Ethiopia have accepted Christ. After several centuries of Arab Sudanese influence, most have embraced Islam. The majority are farmers. During weddings, men play large calabash trumpets called waz’a.

Even though the Berta are officially Muslim, they believe in religious specialists who practice healing and display divination powers. The Berta believe these specialists have the ability to deal with evil spirits. They do not accept Christ’s ways.

There are many evangelical Christians in Ethiopia. These believers can go as missionaries and commit themselves to taking the gospel to all unreached tribes in Ethiopia.

There are a few Christians among the Berta. Pray for them to become firmly established in the faith, not wavering in their commitment to know and follow Christ. Pray for God’s word to be translated into the Berta language. Pray for adequate supplies of clean drinking water and rainfall for their crops and livestock.

Pray for rising literacy rates among the youth. Pray for the Berta people to look to the Lord for all their physical and spiritual needs and find him faithful. Pray for spiritual hunger that will give them hearts that seek after God. Pray for workers who will teach Berta believers to make more disciples.

International Christian Concern, 8th July 2023

The Rohingya are among the world’s most oppressed groups. But within the Rohingya there is a subgroup who are the oppressed of the oppressed. They are the Rohingya Christians. The Burmese military violates them for being Rohingya, and then their fellow Rohingya violate them for being Christian.

Recent Rohingya Christian converts might be kidnapped and brought to a mosque for forced reversion to Islam. Or a Rohingya Christian girl might be kidnapped and then forcibly married to one of her Muslim kidnappers.

Christians might also have to contend with false accusations, ranging all the way up to accusations of murder, meaning people who are already destitute might have to pay legal fees to defend themselves in court.

The main culprit behind these abuses is the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya rebel group that has carried out attacks against the Burmese military, as well as Rohingya Christians. More than half of Rohingya Muslims are in favour of ARSA attacks against Rohingya Christians.

Peter Saiful, who lives in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, estimates about 70% of Rohingya Muslims support the anti-Christian attacks “because of Islamic scholars” who preach “hate speech against Christianity.”

Saiful acknowledges that “there are a lot of good Muslims,” but if they “raise their voice” then groups like ARSA “will kill them.”

Middle East Concern, 26^th July 2023 (excerpts)

Members of the Christian community request prayer in response to growing concerns about opposition from ultra-nationalist elements in Israel. Two weeks ago, Israeli president Herzog acknowledged attacks against Christians are on the rise in Israel. Referring to these actions as “evil” and a “disgrace,” he promised to “put an end to this phenomenon.” 

On 23 July several dozen Jewish extremists were transported by bus in the early hours of the morning to Stella Maris Catholic church in Haifa. The Jews proceeded to pray and maintain claims – incorrectly – that the church houses the tomb of Elisha (although the church is named for Elijah). Local Christians fear that this claim is being used as a pretext to establish Jewish rights over the church property. In the previous two months, there have been eight such visits with numbers of participants growing each time. Christian youth in the area contacted the police who removed the extremists.

In a video that gained international attention, the abbot of the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem, Nikodemus Schnabel, was seen escorting the German federal minister of Education by the Western Wall when he was asked by an Israeli official to hide the cross he was wearing. The official is heard saying that the cross is “really big and inappropriate for this place. It’s a Jewish place, you need to respect that.”

Joshua Project, 16 August 2023

The Aralle people live on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. They became Muslims in the 16th century due to the influence of Indian and Arab traders. The Aralle brand of Islam is strongly influenced by folk religion and ancestor veneration. They believe spirits in the natural world can positively or negatively influence their lives.

Islam is an essential part of the Aralle identity. Becoming a believer in Christ can bring rejection by family members.

Ideally, Christ’s ambassadors would reach the heads of Aralle households for Christ. If they accept the saviour, that can potentially open the door for the entire family to do the same.

Pray that the few Aralle followers of Christ would walk in the Spirit and share his goodness with those in their families and among their friends. Pray for the Lord to send dreams and visions to Aralle family leaders. Pray for spiritual discernment and a desire for truth among the Aralle people. Pray for the Aralle people to have the opportunity to hear and receive the living saviour. Pray for the Lord to thrust out loving workers to the Aralle people of Indonesia.