Church growing in North Korea despite strong persecution

Christian Institute 18 August

Christianity is growing in the despotic state of North Korea despite the horrendous persecution of dissenters.

A North Korean defector who works with the country’s underground church said that people are refusing to worship the Kim family, as they were told to do in the past and that, people “are looking for something else to sustain their faith”.

The man’s testimony coincides with an annual report on global religious freedoms by the US State Department, released yesterday.

In some cases, the persecution of religious dissenters can be as extreme as execution, torture and imprisonment.

Open Doors believes that the number of Christians killed or imprisoned is increasing, estimating that around 70,000 are in labour camps.

Kenyan Christians killed for refusing to recite Shahada

August 22, 2017 By World Watch Monitor 

Three Kenyan Christians were hacked to death by Al-Shabaab militants on 18 August after they refused to recite the Islamic prayer of faith.

The three men were held at machete point and ordered to recite the Shahada. When none of them did, the attackers began to tie them up. When the men resisted, they were hacked to death.

Last month, Al-Shabaab beheaded nine Kenyans. One witness said the attackers were “specifically looking for non-Muslim men”.

Al-Shabaab has targeted Kenyan Christians for years. This has left behind a trail of pain and destruction, and has instilled fear among regions where Christians are the minority.

April 2015, Al-Shabaab attacked Garissa University College, killing 148 people – mainly Christian students.  June 2014, attacks left 52 people dead. The militants struck a shopping mall in 2013 in an attack that left 68 people dead. They separated Muslims and killed Christians in one of the deadliest attacks in the city.

LAOS: HEALINGS LEAD MANY TO FAITH IN CHRIST

Open Doors 18 August 2017

Beun* is a believer in Laos – pictured below, although we can’t show his face for security reasons.

He became a Christian after Christians who cared for his dying brother. “When I heard that Jesus is the King of Kings and that Jesus is love, I decided to follow Him, even though this was the first time I had heard about Jesus,”

He then began to pray for healing for others. One person came to him with kidney stones. “He asked me if Jesus could help him. I said: ‘Jesus can help you, but I can’t.'”

“I prayed for him. At midnight, he had severe pain in his kidney. He had never experienced so much pain before. In a vision or a dream, a man with long hair and white clothes came to him and poured water on him and into his mouth – the more water he got into his mouth the better he felt.

“After the vision, he fell asleep and slept through the rest of the night. When he woke up the next morning and went to the toilet, the kidney stones were no longer there.”

Beun and other Christians travel to distribute Bibles, teach and hold worship meetings in other villages.

*name changed for security reasons

NHS in court attempting to stop staff speaking about their beliefs outside of the workplace

 Barnabas Fund 03/08/2017

This week Richard Page will challenge an NHS ruling that requires employees not to make any comments outside of the workplace contradicting the NHS’s politically correct view of “equality.”

As a magistrate during an adoption hearing, he expressed the view that it was “generally in the best interests” of a child to have both a mother and father.

A panel investigating his continuing as a trustee told him, “It was not in the interests of the health service for you to serve as a non-executive director in the NHS,” his actions “likely to have had a negative impact on the confidence of staff, patients and public in you as a local NHS leader.”

Between 1719 and 1888 the UK abolished “Test Acts” that prohibited anyone from being teachers and university professors unless they publicly subscribed to certain beliefs. This NHS Trust is seeking to turn the clock back on more than 130 years of religious freedom in the UK.

The Daily Telegraph warned that this week’s hearing could have major implications for how public bodies treat staff with religious beliefs. Mr Page will warn that “the loss of his job because of his religious beliefs signifies a worrying shift away from pluralism towards ideological dictatorship in the health service.”

Sweden to deport Christian back to Iran, in violation of UN Convention on Refugees

Barnabas Fund 10/08/2017

Sweden is about to deport back to Iran a well-known Iranian actress who has left Islam to become a Christian, despite this violating the UN Refugee Convention.  Aideen Strandsson came to faith in Christ after watching a video in Iran of a woman being stoned to death. She said, “I decided at that moment I don’t want to be a Muslim anymore.”

She explained how, shortly after this, “I had a dream about Jesus. He was sitting near me and he took my hand.”

Aideen Strandsson

When she came to Sweden in 2014 she asked for a public baptism, saying, “I am not afraid anymore.  I am free, I am Christian, I want everyone to know about that.”

But Swedish officials have told Aideen that becoming a Christian was “her decision” and “her problem”, not theirs. A Swedish official said it wouldn’t be as bad for her as she expects – it would only be 6 months in prison! 

As an apostate from Islam and a nationally known actress, she is likely to be viewed as a major embarrassment to the Iranian government. Her life will be in serious danger and she has already received threats on social media.

TURKEY – New school curriculum to teach jihad and reinforce “Turkish” identity as Islamic

Barnabas Fund 27/07/2017

The Turkish government has launched a new school curriculum which will officially teach jihad as part of religious education. Students will be taught that the “greater jihad” – usually interpreted as a personal struggle against sin – means “to serve society’s needs.” (The term “lesser jihad” is often used to mean military jihad – war against non-Muslims with the aim of spreading Islam.) The lessons will be rolled out to all students from next year.

The alterations to the Turkish school curriculum appear designed to reinforce ideas of Turkish Islamic nationalism, by indoctrinating students that adherence to Islam equates to adherence to the state. “The real meaning of jihad is loving your nation,” stated the government’s Education Minister.

Palestinian Authority creates new social media blasphemy law

Barnabas Fund 27/07/2017

President Abbas of Palestine has enacted a new Cyber Crime Law on his own initiative with penalties harsher than those for thieves and sex offenders.  Why?  The answer is almost certainly that it is part of an attempt to introduce a global Islamic blasphemy law for social media posts.

In 2016, Barnabas Fund reported concerns that Facebook were already censoring posts critical of Islam, particularly by those who had left Islam. Then on 31 May last year an agreement was signed between the EU and major social media sites.  It committed IT websites to remove, within 24 hours, content deemed “offensive” by “civil society organisations.”  The National Secular Society warned that “far from tackling online ‘cyber jihad,’ the agreement risks entrapping any critical discussion of religion under vague ‘hate speech’ rules.”

The Pakistan government called a meeting of 27 Muslim ambassadors, including that of the Palestinian Authority, at the end of March to try to create a global Islamic blasphemy law for social media.   Pakistan’s interior minister has subsequently met with Facebook’s Vice President to discuss the way forward on this.

CHINA – Communist Party officials to be punished if they do not give up faith

Barnabas Fund 27/07/2017

The Central Committee of China’s Communist party has stated that all party members – around 89 million Chinese citizens – should not hold religious beliefs and that any officials who do will be “persuaded” to give them up or face punishment.

Although official estimates, based on the congregations of state-recognised churches, put the number of the Christians in China at around 22 million, there may be as many as 100 million believers in the world’s most populous country. Most high-level jobs require membership of the Communist Party.

Egypt – new frontline in religious cleansing of Christians

Barnabas Fund 13/07/2017

It is now becoming clear that jihadists are beginning attempts to religiously cleanse Egypt of non-Muslims.

Islamic State in Sinai in March told 200 Christian families to leave Al Arish or be killed.  Jihadists are also targeting Christians elsewhere in Egypt.

In fact, Islamic State (IS) now has two separate groups, one in Sinai and one in the rest of Egypt. The group’s leader indicated that attacking Christians and churches was a specific part of their strategy, asserting that it is permissible to shed even the blood of Christian women and children.

This is exactly what we saw earlier in Iraq beginning in 2004, and in Northern Nigeria since 2006.

One small ray of hope is that IS has admitted that attacks on Christians is failing to persuade Egyptian Muslims to adopt jihadi ideology. IS has complained that many Egyptians offer Christians “condolences” rather than kill them if they won’t submit to the humiliating conditions of sharia law.