C. Aaron Russell's Blog, page 5

Sudan: Pregnant woman given death sentence for refusing to renounce Christ

Sudan introduced Islamic Shariah laws in the early 1980s

Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy

By MOHAMMED SAEED and HAMZA HENDAWI

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — A pregnant Sudanese woman who married a Christian man was sentenced to death Thursday after she refused to recant her Christian faith, her lawyer said.

Meriam Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but mother was an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia, was convicted of “apostasy” on Sunday and given four days to repent and escape death, said lawyer Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed.

The 26 year old, who is eight months pregnant, was sentenced after that grace period expired, Mohammed said.

Amnesty International immediately condemned the sentence, calling it “abhorrent.” The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply disturbed” by the sentencing and called on the government to respect the right to freedom of religion.

Mohammed, the lawyer, called the conviction rushed and legally flawed since the judge refused to hear key defense witnesses and ignored constitutional provisions on freedom of worship and equality among citizens.

Ibrahim and Wani married in a formal church ceremony in 2011 and have a son, 18-month-old Martin, who is with her in jail. The couple runs several businesses, including a farm, south of Khartoum.

Sudan’s penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims into other religions, which is punishable by death…(continue reading at Yahoo News)

How famed ‘men of God’ faced depression through faith

 

Walking Through Depression: God Is With You

By Randy Alcorn (Christian Post)

I have known depression first-hand at different times in my life. Several years ago, for no apparent reason, a cloud of depression descended on me. Day after day, it was my constant companion. God used it in my life, teaching me to trust Him, and giving me some intimate times with Him. I studied the life of Charles Spurgeon who battled depression, and found comfort in the fact that godly men and women had walked the same path I was walking.

I saw this experience as part of living under the Curse, and it made me appreciate more deeply the promise of God, “No longer will there be any more curse” (Revelation 22:3)…(continue reading at the Christian Post)

Jewish extremists vandalize churches, threaten Christians ahead of Papal visit

 

Anti-Christian slogans alarm Church before Pope’s Holy Land visit

By Jeffrey Heller (Reuters)

Pope Francis to tour the Holy Land from May 24-26, 2014

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Roman Catholic Church in Jerusalem, preparing for a visit by Pope Francis later this month, has expressed alarm over threats to Christians scrawled by suspected Jewish extremists on church property in the Holy Land.

In an incident on Monday, “Death to Arabs and Christians and all those who hate Israel” was daubed in Hebrew on an outer column of the Office of the Assembly of Bishops at the Notre Dame Center in East Jerusalem.

“The wave of fanaticism and intimidation against Christians continues,” the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem posted on its website, referring to so-called “price tag” incidents.

“Mere coincidence?” the patriarchate statement asked. “The Notre Dame Center is property of the Holy See and this provocation comes two weeks before Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land and Jerusalem.”

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli security services fear that Jewish radicals might carry out a major hate crime against the Christian population or institutions to drum up media attention during the Pope’s pilgrimage…(continue reading Yahoo News)

 

Spate of hate attacks as Israel ups security for papal visit

AFP

Jerusalem (AFP) – Vandals sprayed anti-Christian graffiti on a Jerusalem church on Friday, despite Israeli police stepping up security around religious sites ahead of a visit by Pope Francis later this month.

“Price tag… King David for the Jews… Jesus is garbage” was spray-painted in Hebrew on the wall of St George’s, a Romanian Orthodox church near an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood.

“Price tag” is a euphemism for hate attacks by Jewish extremists…(continue reading Yahoo News)

Islamic extremists on the warpath in Nigeria

 

By Aminu Abubakar (AFP)

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) – Traders burned alive in their stalls, whole families murdered as their homes were set alight: shocked survivors told Wednesday of Boko Haram’s latest atrocity as they counted their dead in north Nigeria.

Islamist gunmen razed scores of buildings as they stormed the town of Gamboru Ngala, on the Cameroon border, on Monday, firing on fleeing civilians and leaving hundreds dead according to witnesses.

Survivors said the extremists overran the town in armoured trucks and on motorcycles, making it too dangerous for locals to return immediately.

Details of the ruthless attack emerged bit by bit as they dared venture home — to a town “littered” with dead bodies, Musa Abba, a witness, told AFP by telephone.

Area Senator Ahmed Zanna put the death toll at 300..(continue reading at Yahoo News)

Church demolitions sign China’s war on Christianity escalating

 

Church demolition illuminates China’s religious tensions

Wenzhou (China) (AFP) – The destruction of a towering church by Chinese authorities has sown fear in a thriving Christian community and highlighted tensions between a rapidly growing number of worshippers and the Communist state.

Massive slabs of concrete on a hillside were all that remained Wednesday of the Sanjiang Church after an army of excavators smashed into the building this week, following government claims it was an illegal structure.

The church stood above the village of Pudong, part of the city of Wenzhou.

The metropolis has a reputation for greater leniency towards religion and is known as China’s Jerusalem with more than a million Christians, as well as being a freewheeling centre of capitalism…

China’s ruling Communist Party keeps a tight grip on religion for fear it could challenge its grip on power, requiring followers to worship in places approved by the state and under government supervision.

But the Sanjiang church was registered with the authorities, unlike “underground” or “house” churches which seek to exist outside government control.

Activists believe the demolition was part of a wider crackdown on Protestant Christians, cloaked in a campaign against structures violating building codes in Zhejiang province…(read full story at Yahoo News)

Kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls sold as child brides to Islamists for $12 each

Outrage grows two weeks after Nigeria schoolgirls kidnapped

By Aminu Abubakar (AFP)

photo by Gbemiga Olamikan

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) – Protesters will hold a “million-woman march” in the Nigerian capital Wednesday over the government’s failure to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists two weeks ago.

Angry Nigerian parents lashed out at the government Tuesday as a local leader claimed the hostages had been sold as wives abroad.

“May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls,” said Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces were among the more than 100 students abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in the Chibok area of the northeastern state of Borno.

The attack was one of the most shocking in Boko Haram’s five-year uprising, which has claimed thousands of lives across northern and central Nigeria.

The outrage that followed the mass abduction has been compounded by disputes over how many girls were seized and criticism of the military’s search-and-rescue effort.

Borno officials have said 129 girls were kidnapped when gunmen stormed the school after sundown on April 14 and forced the students — who are between 12 and 17 years old — onto a convoy of trucks. Officials said 52 have since escaped.

Locals, including the school’s principal, have rejected those numbers, insisting that 230 students were snatched and that 187 are still being held hostage…

Pogo Bitrus, leader of a Chibok elders group, told AFP that locals had been tracking the movements of the hostages with the help of “various sources” across the northeast.

“From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken… into Chad and Cameroon,” he said.

The girls were then sold as brides to Islamist fighters for 2,000 naira ($12) each, Bitrus added…(read full story at Yahoo News)

Oil boom towns an opportunity for missionaries

MISSIONARIES FIND BIG CHALLENGES IN US OIL FIELDS

By JOSH WOOD (Associated Press)

WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — At the end of another backbreaking shift, North Dakota oil workers shuffle back to their barracks and line up in the cafeteria to refuel with plates of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and cake, trudging past flyers advertising a weekly non-denominational religious service.

The grizzled men ignore the invitation from Bakken Man Camp Ministries, but the missionaries are undeterred. In a room down the hall, they sing hymns, watch a recorded television sermon and pray for the drilling crews who live in these prefabricated quarters far from their homes and families.

When the oil and gas boom took off, tens of thousands of workers flocked here for jobs. Missionaries soon followed. Many of them now say the work is every bit as challenging as seeking converts in Africa or Asia — because of the roughnecks’ transient lifestyles, their exhausting round-the-clock shifts and the fact that many work camps won’t let them in.

“If the apostle Paul were alive today, he would either be in Williston or on his way to Williston,” said Will Page of Cornerstone First Baptist Church, in the town that is the capital of the state’s oil boom. “There is an opportunity here to share the Gospel that you do not see in other places…” (continue reading at AP)

Why is a commitment to Religious Freedom so hard to live out?

Religious Freedom Under Threat in the US and Abroad, Says Q Conference Speaker

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST

NASHVILLE—Religious freedom and the common good was among the topics discussed Wednesday during the annual three-day Q Conference which is built around the belief that “Christians are called to redeem entire cultures, not just individuals.”

During a session about religious freedom and persecution throughout the world, speaker Andy Crouch, executive editor of Christianity Today, suggested that religious freedom should be measured by the degree to which a society extends it to its most vulnerable and marginalized. He also commented that its value, globally, is at risk in a greater way than ever before “in any of our lifetimes.”

“There are all kinds of [situations] in which a privileged, powerful majority can flourish,” Crouch said. “But the far more demanding test of any society is [how it treats its] most vulnerable, youngest, oldest, the most frail, the most marginalized…”

…”Religious freedom should protect you if you’re a Jew in Saudi Arabia, if you’re a Palestinian in Israel, if you’re a Christian in Malaysia or if you’re a Muslim in Nashville. … Being denied from acting out your faith commitments in public is one of the deepest denials of human flourishing,” added Crouch…(read full article at the Christian Post)

Praise and prayer for the persecuted church

 

Anglican leader praises persecuted Christians in Easter sermon



London (AFP) – Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby praised the resilience of persecuted Christian minorities around the world in his Easter sermon on Sunday.

Victim from suicide bombing of All Saints Church, Peshawar, Pakistan, Sept. 22, 2013

The Church of England leader also highlighted the suffering of people in Syria, Ukraine, Rwanda and Pakistan.

Welby’s Easter address at Canterbury Cathedral was his second since becoming the spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans last year.

“In Syria mothers cry for their children and husbands. In the Ukraine neighbours cry because the future is precarious and dangerous. In Rwanda tears are still shed each day as the horror of genocide is remembered,” the former oil executive said.

“In this country, even as the economy improves there is weeping in broken families, in people ashamed to seek help from food banks, or frightened by debt. Asylum seekers weep with loneliness and missing far away families. Mary continues to weep across the world.”

Welby also touched on the persecution of Christian minorities.

“Their certainty that Jesus is alive enables them to face all horrors with joy,” the archbishop said.

“I remember sitting in a room with the bishop who had come over from Pakistan soon after the attack in September on a church in Peshawar.

“I asked how Christians were coping with the fear that such attacks brought, and wondered if there had been anyone in church the week following the attack. ‘Oh yes’ the bishop replied, ‘there were three times as many people the next week’…continue reading at Yahoo News)

Thousands of Christians barred from Easter Celebration in Jerusalem

 

Palestinian Christians Claim Israeli Authorities Intentionally Excluding Them From Easter Celebrations

BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

Christians gather at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to celebrate Easter Sunday

Palestinian Christians are complaining that Israeli authorities have intentionally excluded them from Holy Week celebrations in East Jerusalem by limiting entry permits to the week’s festivities.

According to a report from Radio Bethlehem, the government requires special entry permits for Palestinians hoping to join Palm Sunday celebrations, but arbitrarily distributes them. Consequently “in many cases, when families apply to get permits through their churches, Israel deliberately grants some family members permits and denies permits to others, and therefore, the whole family won’t be able to attend.”

This year, Palestinians are claiming Israeli authorities only granted 600 permits to Palestinian Christians living on the Gaza strip.

One resident, only identified by their initials A.R. told Radio Bethlehem that the Israeli government had a double standard for Palestinians.

“I cannot even imagine what type of international media and public outrage would happen if a Jewish person was denied the right to pray,” he said. “They would have turned the world upside down, calling for freedom of worship. But Israel’s racism knows no religion…” (continue reading at the Christian Post)