Government pressure mounts on beaten Indian pastor

Police in Karnataka are pressuring a church pastor to drop charges against the militant Hindus who put him in the hospital last month, reports MNN.

Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Mission India says Pastor Anil is now recovering at home. The Children’s Bible Club he established as part of his church planting work is still meeting, though some parents are fearful of ongoing violence.

Pastor Anil is following doctors’ orders to stay on bedrest for one month. Pray that the Holy Spirit will minister to him during this time and that Anil will be encouraged and strengthened to return to his work soon.

The attack took place in late November. Pastor Anil was preaching to his congregation of 45 on a normal Sunday when the doors burst open. A crowd of 50 angry Hindu extremists ran in screaming and wielding sticks.

In this remote Hindu-dominated village of about 2,000, the number of Christians continues to grow. Local believers stood strong even as Hindu extremists entered their homes and tried to convince them to renounce their faith.

According to Mission India, the extremists feel threatened by the huge response to the Gospel across India. The Good News is a threat to the social and spiritual oppression that has enslaved generations of India’s poor.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Christians face attacks as extremists fight church growth

Violence continues plaguing Christians across India. Christians are the targets of violence on a weekly basis. Until now, Christians could only guess that they were being attacked because so many Hindus were turning to Christ. Now, there’s hard evidence, reports MNN.

President of Mission India of Grand Rapids, Michigan Dave Stravers says the evidence comes from hardline Hindu groups. "We [received] a power point presentation from a Hindu extremist group warning people in the state of Karnataka that the Christians are growing so fast that they’re worried that the state might actually become a majority Christian state."

According to Stravers, the Hindu radicals also believe the state of Andhra Pradesh could become Christian if something isn’t done.

Quoting the power point, Stravers tells us the Hindus are shaken by the growth of the church saying, "It used to be when you went through the villages, you saw only temples. But now you’re seeing churches, and the temples are being closed. It’s really confirming our experience that there is a powerful movement of Christ in India."

Hindu radicals are doing something about it. They’re threatening and attacking pastors. Stravers says one of the pastors they support was recently attacked. "He had received a warning about a week earlier to stop preaching the Gospel in that village. Receiving a threat is just part of ordinary life of being an evangelist in India."

Unfortunately, this time the threats were real, and Pastor Anil was attacked. "About 11:30 in the morning, in the middle of the service, a group of approximately 50 men, ran into the church wielding clubs. They ran up to the pulpit area and just began beating the pastor," says Stravers.

His wife and infant daughter were pushed to the ground. As church members tried to protect Pastor Anil, 10 church members were also injured. "To this point," says Stravers, "nothing is being done to track down or to prosecute those people who committed that violence."

Mission India is helping the local church by helping establish children’s Bible clubs, literacy classes and pastoral training. Stravers is asking Christians to pray. "We’re praying that Christians will have the courage to continue meeting together, and they’re praying for their pastor. We’re praying the situation will stabilize for him and his congregation."

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

US MINISTER PLACED IN JAIL FOR QUOTING BIBLE TO JUDGE

The Washington D.C.-based Becket Fund, a nonpartisan interfaith public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions, announced on Tuesday that a coalition of a dozen religious and civil rights groups have joined in asking a Michigan court of appeals to release a Christian minister accused of “threatening” a judge with a Bible verse, reports Catholic News Agency.

Rev. Edward Pinkney originally appeared in court for his involvement in fighting the requisition of public lakeshore by Whirlpool Corporation. Pinkney was placed under house arrest, but because he wrote an article in the Chicago-area People’s Tribune quoting the Book of Deuteronomy to say that God would punish the judge for his “wrongdoing,” the court decided to send him to jail.

After the article appeared, the trial court judge recused himself. The subsequent judge found that Pinkney’s comments were “threatening” and revoked the minister’s probation period sending him to prison for three to 10 years.

The civil rights coalition, which includes the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the American Jewish Congress, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Liberty Legal Institute, among others, filed a friend of the court brief asking the appeals court to overturn the trial court’s order.

“The First Amendment was designed to protect ministers speaking religious truth to political power,” said Eric Rassbach, the Becket Fund’s National Director of Litigation.

“From the colonial preachers who decried British tyranny, to the abolitionist ministers of Massachusetts to Martin Luther King Jr., our country has a proud history of allowing ministers to hold government officials to account. A court can’t punish someone for saying that the judge broke God’s law.”

“Judges don’t get to decide whether prophecies are true, even when those prophecies apply to them. Courts should stick to the law and leave theology to people of faith,” added Rassbach.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

ORDINANCE DESIGNED TO ADVANCE GAY ‘RIGHTS’ OVERTURNED BY VOTERS

Voters in the town of Hamtramck, Michigan have overturned an ordinance which would have given legal protections to homosexual behavior, expression and attire, reports Catholic News Agency. The regulations could also have forced businesses to permit men who perceive themselves as women to use women’s restrooms.

Any attempts to prevent such activity, according to the Thomas More Law Center, would have subjected violators to investigations, criminal prosecution, civil litigation, and fines of up to five hundred dollars a day.

The proposal, labeled as a “human rights” ordinance, was defeated 2,903 votes to 2,333.

Father Andrew Wesley, the administrator of St. Ladislaus Parish in Hamtramck and one of the leaders in the fight against the ordinance, wrote a letter published last week in Hamtramck’s The Citizen newspaper supporting overturning the ordinance and denying that the Catholics and Muslims in the town were being intolerant by opposing the measure.

Ordinance opponents knew that “this type of legislation has been used successfully by gay groups in other parts of the country to bring lawsuits against businesses because physical males were refused entrance into women’s restrooms,” Father Wesley’s letter said.

He added that the wording of the ordinance has also been used to bring lawsuits against Catholic adoption agencies which refused to allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented on the ordinance opponents’ election victory.

“Radical homosexual groups have lost statewide attempts to impose their agenda on the public,” he said. “They are now engaged in a strategy of putting pressure on municipalities –in many cases successfully – to enact draconian provisions like Hamtramck’s. In this case their new strategy failed as the will of the people prevailed.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph