The following link is to a news article on Kevin Rudd responding to questioning by the opposition. The questioning really backfired on the opposition and highlights just how foolish it was.
For more, visit:
http://www.news.com.au/national/rudd-not-impressed-by-four-corners-coup-joke/story-e6frfkvr-1226270973915
Iran’s president claimed his country is a genuine cradle of liberty. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, reports MNN.
Ahmadinejad insisted that political opponents are free to demonstrate, refusing to acknowledge that opposition groups and Christians have been driven underground by a vicious government crackdown.
"When we discuss the subject of freedoms and liberty it has to be done on a comparative basis and to keep in mind that democracy, at the end of the day, means the rule of the majority, so the minority cannot rule," Ahmadinejad said.
President of Open Doors USA Carl Moeller says, "Any person that’s had any exposure to the realities of life in Iran would disagree with President Ahmadinejad."
Moeller says Ahmadinejad is the master of the big lie. "He’s a holocaust denier, for example. And it’s easy to deny something as long as you don’t have to [back it up with] evidence. In this case, it’s easy to say Iran is a free country because everybody who would dissent knows clearly that if they dissent, they would be sent to prison."
Iran is one of the most repressive places to be a Christian. It ranks second on Open Doors’ World Watch list of countries which persecute Christians. "We’ve talked, on this program, about those who have spent months in prison simply for converting to Christianity and suffered huge abuse because of it," says Moeller.
Despite this oppression, Moeller says many Iranians are turning to Christ. They’re responding to Christian radio and satellite television broadcasts. Some are reading about Christ on the Internet. Some young people are starting churches as a result.
Moeller says most Iranians are aware of it. "90 percent of Iranians are aware that Muslims are turning to faith in Jesus Christ and have first-hand knowledge of that. It’s an incredible statistic. And we see that the increase in persecution is a direct relationship with the growth of the church in Iran."
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Open Doors reports that Islamic extremists in Somalia are beginning to enforce the brutal aspects of Sharia law. In March, Somalia’s cabinet voted to implement it throughout their country, reports MNN.
They’re responding to a recent case involving thieves who were punished by amputation. The punishment was carried out by members of al-Shabaab, an Arabic word meaning “The Lads,” who follow a strict version of Sharia law.
Al-Shabaad also took credit for the assasination of two legislators, the country’s security minister, a member of parliament, and 30 others. According to Compass Direct, it is clear Al-Shabaab has no intention of backing down but every intention of extending its rule politically and spiritually across Somalia.
The Open Doors team expressed concerns over the severity of the punishment for petty crime, wondering what it would be for forsaking Islam. The following story could likely be that answer:
Islamic extremists beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader; the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father.
Across the country, evangelism is frowned upon and in many areas, prohibited. Somalia is almost exclusively Sunni Muslim, with 0.05 percent of the population Christian. The persecution of Christians is severe in most regions of Somalia, and many have fled to neighbouring countries.
Only a handful of Somalis are Christians, practicing their faith in secret.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
JAKARTA, July 15 (Compass Direct News) – Members of several Muslim organizations joined a demonstration on June 27 to protest construction of a Huria Kristen Batak Protestant (HKBP) church building in Plaju, outside of Palembang, capital of South Sumatra Province.
The South Sumatra Muslim Forum (FUI Sumsel) organized the demonstration. Carrying a copy of a mayoral decree dated May 2009 ordering a halt to construction, the protestors gathered outside the building site, listened to speeches and then destroyed a bridge leading to it before demanding that the government ban the building project.
A spokesman from FUI Sumsel who goes by the single name of Umar, said the group objected on grounds that the church had not secured permission from the local Interfaith Harmony Forum nor a building permit; both are required by a Joint Ministerial Decree regulating the establishment of places of worship.
Umar claimed there were few Christians in the area and questioned the need for a church building.
The chairman of South Sumatra’s Interfaith Harmony Forum, who goes by the single name of Syairozi, confirmed that his group had not given permission for HKBP to construct a church building in the area and said such permission was necessary before a building permit could be issued.
The deputy mayor of Palembang, Haji Rom Herton, issued the May decree ordering a halt to construction because of incomplete documentation.
Confronting Bureaucracy
Church members had originally planned to hold a worship service and lay the cornerstone of their new building on June 7.
HKBP Plaju, which first met in 1961, currently worships along with two other congregations in a building owned by the government oil company Pertamina. Several years ago HKBP purchased a 1,370-square meter plot in Palembang, but due to local opposition they were unable to obtain a building permit.
In January, church member Hadi Suroyo donated another 1,500-square meter plot of land to the church, and the congregation drew up plans for a building. A building committee chaired by Saut Tumpal Marpaung then applied to the mayor of Palembang for permission to build a house of worship, but the mayor asked them to approach the governor of South Sumatra.
On Feb. 10 a delegation of church leaders led by the Rev. Japati Napitupulu met with Gov. Alex Noerdin, who said he had no objection to the building of the church.
Napitupulu, responding to criticism that the church pressed ahead with building plans before the application process was complete, said he felt the governor had granted permission in principle. He acknowledged, however, that the church had not “finished working through the permit process at the local level.”
As HKBP Plaju and other congregations have learned through bitter experience, applications for church permits are often fraught with difficulty in Indonesia, leaving many congregations no choice but to worship in private homes, hotels or rented conference facilities.
Such gatherings leave churches open to threats and intimidation from activist groups such as the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front), in recent years responsible for the closure of many unregistered churches.
Report from Compass Direct News
Hindu extremists in Nepal have threatened to use 1 million bombs against Christians in the country unless they stop sharing the Gospel and leave, Compass Direct reports.
The Nepal Defense Army’s statement, released shortly after the bombing of Nepal’s largest Roman Catholic church, gave “Nepal’s 1 million Christians a month’s time to stop their activities and leave the country,” reports MNN.
Most recent estimates by Voice of the Martyrs indicate that the number of Christians in the country may be closer to 500,000, or 1.89 percent of the population. These Christians are excited about significant movement toward democracy and more religious freedom in the last few years.
Ty Stakes with HCJB Global visited Nepal a month ago and said the Christians are standing firm.
“They’re very grateful for all that God has done over recent years to bring about a climate where there is a real push forward for freedom, where there is some religious liberty in the country,” he said. “So I don’t think anybody there is going to give up very easily. These are people who have been tried and tested and have learned to keep walking forward. God is doing some really big some stuff in Nepal, and the church is growing. People are really attracted to the Gospel.”
Christians in Nepal are establishing FM radio stations in two different towns — one near Kathmandu, the nation’s capital; and the other in a town in the center of the country. The idea for the stations was born around the year 2006 when the government began allowing private operation of radio stations.
“God had given some of our partners vision to do radio in the country, and they understood in their own hearts how great an impact could be made through it,” Stakes said.
Currently, the stations are test broadcasting for three hours a day. The community is already responding.
“I’m getting reports now from Nepal that folks are responding, that folks are saying ‘Hey, we’re interested in the new station; we want to know more about what you’re doing,'” Stakes related.
Christians will not be able to evangelize overtly on the air, but they will use the stations to plant churches.
“The climate in the area is such that you can’t be extremely bold and direct on the radio. You have to be wise,” Stakes said. “So most of our partners…are really church planters who are using radio as a way to create in the community an identity and to present a mechanism where they can serve the community.”
The stations air Christian music, secular music, and community service programming. The goal is to challenge and impact the community’s perception of Christians, presenting “an identity that shows perhaps that what you’ve heard about Christianity is not true. Maybe these Christians do care about people, and maybe they really do have something relevant to say,” Stakes explained.
Evangelism occurs off the airwaves, when people in churches and in church-planting follow up with those who respond to the radio broadcasts. Stakes asked for prayer as Nepalese Christians fine-tune the new radio stations.
“You can pray…that God would give these folks real wisdom in how to fine-tune their strategy in establishing their identity in the community,” Stakes said. “It’s a real delicate balance that they need to strike, and they need real wisdom from the Lord in order to effectively speak to the community and present their identity so that people will be attracted to the message of the cross.”
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Ireland’s Child Abuse Commission has released its report on the physical and sexual abuse inflicted on thousands of children over the past 70 years by religious and lay staff of institutions caring for disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children, reports Catholic News Agency.
Responding to the release of the report, the new Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said the report was “disturbing,” adding that every single incident of abuse in the Catholic Church should be “a scandal” and should never be “a matter of indifference.”
The inquiry has produced findings against 216 facilities, a number that includes both state and religious institutions. The Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers, which ran the largest number of children’s institutions, were among the religious orders investigated.
Institutions run by religious orders examined in the report included industrial and reform schools, institutions for the disabled, orphanages and day schools.
The report said that sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ schools while in girls’ schools children were subjected to predatory abuse by male employees, visitors, and also during outside placements.
The abuse was rarely reported to government authorities. On the occasions the Department of Education was informed, it colluded with religious orders in silence by dismissing or ignoring sexual abuse complaints and never bringing them to the attention of the Garda, the Irish police.
“The risk (to children), however, was seen by the congregations in terms of the potential scandal and bad publicity should the abuse be disclosed,” the report stated.
It said the safety of children “in general was not a consideration.” Religious authorities who had evidence of sexual abuse transferred the alleged offenders to other locations, where they were often free to abuse again.
“At best, the abusers were moved but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely,” the report found.
Part of the nine year investigation by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse included interviews with 1,090 individuals about the abuse they suffered. The interviews revealed that more than 90 percent of the students who testified suffered physical abuse, while around 50 percent were victims of sexual abuse. The commission found that more than 800 individuals who were involved in carrying out physical or sexual abuse.
Some children were so badly neglected they had to scavenge for food in waste bins and animal feed, while unsupervised bullying also left smaller and weaker children without food.
Archbishop Nichols spoke to ITV News about the report, saying:
“It’s very distressing and very disturbing and my heart goes out today first of all to those people who will find that their stories are now told in public… Secondly, I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at.
“That takes courage, and also we shouldn’t forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did.”
The archbishop said those who committed violence and abuse and “abused the trust that was placed in them” should be held to account, “no matter how long ago it happened.”
He said the Catholic Church in England has a “very steady and reliable system” of cooperation with police and social services and said a legal and police process should “absolutely” take place if the offenses demand it.
When ITV asked Archbishop Nichols why abuse seemed more prevalent in the Catholic Church than in other faiths, he answered:
“Every time there is a single incident of abuse in the Catholic Church it is a scandal.
“And I’m glad it’s a scandal. I would be very worried if it wasn’t a scandal… I hope these things don’t happen again but I hope they’re never a matter of indifference.”
Report from the Christian telegraph
TSPM offers Bibles and “assistance,” but rights groups say efforts fall short.
DUBLIN, December 9 (Compass Direct News) – In recent months Chinese officials have attempted to build bridges with the Protestant house church movement even as police raided more unregistered congregations, arrested Christian leaders and forced at least 400 college students to swear they would stop attending such worship services.
With rights groups saying more effort is needed to address rights abuses and secure full religious freedom for Chinese Christians, two research institutes – one from the government – organized an unprecedented symposium on Nov. 21-22 that concluded with an agreement for house church leaders to begin a dialogue with government officials.
A delegation of six house church leaders from Beijing, Henan and Wenzhou provinces attended the seminar, entitled, “Christianity and Social Harmony: A Seminar on the Issue of Chinese House Churches,” along with scholars and experts from universities and independent research facilities. Members of the Minorities Development Research Institute, a branch of the China State Council’s Research and Development Centre, and the Beijing Pacific Solutions Social Science Research Institute co-hosted it.
In a report summarizing the forum, Beijing house church representative Liu Tong Su said that China’s religious institutions and regulations were clearly outdated and inadequate to meet the needs of the church.
At the conclusion of the meeting, house church delegates agreed to dialogue with the government, Liu said, though he insisted, “Only God can control the spirituality of faith. No worldly authorities have the right to control a man’s spirit.”
The government has been entrusted by God with the authority to maintain external public order, Liu added.
“If the government can limit its governing territory to areas of maintaining public order in external conduct, then according to the teachings of the Bible, the house church will definitely obey those in authority within the boundary that God has set,” he said.
Experts presented reports on the rapid development of house church networks, including the number of Christians, geographical distribution, cultural and ethnic make-up and connection with foreign Christians, according to the Gospel Herald.
A month earlier, the chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) – responsible along with the China Christian Council (CCC) for overseeing China’s Protestant churches – told a gathering of 200 Hong Kong church leaders of his desire to assist Chinese house churches and provide them with Bibles, according to Ecumenical News International (ENI).
At the Oct. 22 conference entitled, “Chinese Church – New Leaders, New Challenges,” TSPM Chairman Fu Xianwei declared, “For those house churches without registration, we will try our best to be with them, to recognize them and to help them, so long as they have an orthodox faith, don’t stray from the truth and don’t follow heretics.”
Fu and 11 other members of the newly-elected leadership team of the CCC/TSPM also said they were willing to provide house churches with Bibles, ENI reported.
Bible distribution is largely the responsibility of Amity Press, China’s only official Bible printing company, which recently announced its intention to place more Bibles in the hands of rural Christians. Daniel Willis, CEO of the Bible Society in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, launched an appeal on Nov. 12 to support Amity in this goal.
Speaking at the launch, Willis asserted, “Smuggling Bibles into China places Chinese Christians at risk, and now with the new Amity Press operational in Nanjing, smuggling is a waste of resources.”
Amity opened a new multimillion dollar printing facility in May with a capacity to print 12 million Bibles per year. Most of those Bibles are printed in foreign languages for export outside China.
“China is experiencing a great freedom of worship,” Willis added. “With this wonderful change the church is spreading rapidly … Each Chinese Christian would like to experience the joy … that owning their own Bible brings – but unfortunately for many, obtaining a Bible is difficult and often out of their reach financially.”
The China Aid Association (CAA) issued a statement on Nov. 20 that Amity did not produce enough Bibles to meet the vast needs of the church in China or to replace lost or worn copies. It also pointed out that distribution was still strictly limited to government-approved channels.
Earlier this year, the Rev. Dr. Chow Lien-Hwa, vice-chairman of the board of Amity Press, stated in an interview with the NSW Bible Society that Amity was printing 3 million Bibles per year for mainland China. Chow also outlined a plan to allow Bible distribution through a chain of government bookshops and claimed that house church Christians could buy Bibles from TSPM churches without having to provide personal identity information.
Pastors from both house churches and official TSPM congregations have reported to Compass a shortage of Bibles and other Christian materials in Beijing, the northwest, the northeast, and the southwest. Church growth in tribal areas also has created an urgent need for Bibles in minority languages.
Raids, Arrests Continue
Rights groups pointed to recent raids and arrests, however, as confirmation that Chinese authorities still restrict freedom of worship for local house church Christians.
Police raided a house church gathering in Tai Kang county, Henan province on Dec. 3 and arrested all 50 Christians, CAA reported on Thursday (Dec. 4). Public Security Bureau officers also raided another gathering of 50 house church believers in Xiji town, Zaozhuang city, Shandong province on Dec. 2, arresting 20 Christian leaders and demanding a fine of 2,500 yuan (US$365) per person to secure their release.
CAA also confirmed that police carried out multiple raids on house church gatherings in Beijing and in areas near college campuses in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, from late September to early November, detaining leaders of the Local Church house church network. Four leaders in Zhejiang were sentenced to labor camp for 12 to 18 months.
Officers also arrested at least 400 Christian college students. After intense questioning, police forced each student to write a statement of repentance agreeing to forsake such gatherings.
Commenting on reports of persecution in China, Chow of Amity Press claimed victims were not true Chinese citizens, but Chinese with foreign citizenship who had entered China to carry out illegal activities.
“When we go to another country we must be law-abiding citizens of that country,” Chow insisted. “The law, whether you like it or not, says you can only preach in the churches, you cannot go on the street.”
Some house churches are actively seeking registration with authorities to avoid arrests and inconveniences, ENI reported in October. Such groups, however, prefer to register outside the CCC/TSPM structure, disagreeing that different Protestant beliefs can be reconciled under the TSPM as a self-described “post-denominational” umbrella organization.
House church members also object to the TSPM’s interference in congregational practices, according toe the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2008. The report notes that many unregistered evangelical Protestant groups refuse to register with TSPM due to theological differences, fear of adverse consequences if they reveal names and addresses of church leaders or members, or fear that it will control sermon content.
Released from Prison
Responding to international pressure, officials on Dec. 2 released house church pastor Zhu Baoguo of Henan province, citing medical reasons. Authorities had raided a house church gathering on Oct. 12, arresting Zhu and four other leaders, before sentencing Zhu on Oct. 30 to one year in labor camp, CAA reported.
Officials also released house church pastor Wang Weiliang from prison on Nov. 25 for medical reasons, according to CAA. Authorities sentenced Wang to three years in prison in December 2006 for protesting the July 2006 destruction of Dangshanwan Christian church in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang province. Seven other believers were arrested at the time; authorities have released all but one, who remains in detention in Hangzhou.
A Breakthrough for China’s House Churches?
At last month’s symposium on Chinese house churches, officials from government research organs, scholars from government think-tanks and universities, independent researchers and an unprecedented delegation of six house church leaders from Beijing, Henan and Wenzhou attended.
At the groundbreaking conference, sponsored by the Minorities Development Research Institute of the China State Council’s Research and Development Center and the Beijing Pacific Solutions Social Science Research Institute and entitled, “Christianity and Social Harmony: A Seminar on the Issue of the Chinese House Churches,” participants discussed every aspect of the house church movement in China.
Statistics were a key issue, with most agreeing that the number of house church members was vast and rapidly increasing. Estimates ranged from 50 million to 100 million members of Protestant house churches, as compared with approximately 20 million members of registered Protestant churches.
Delegates were surprisingly bold in their discussion and criticism of China’s religious policy, and several put forward practical plans for the abolition of institutions such as the State Administration for Religious Affairs (formerly the Religious Affairs Bureau) and the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
They also called for serious and ongoing discussions between the government and house churches, and Christian leaders called for the lifting of a ban on house churches and a review of restrictions on church registration and appointment of pastors.
Many participants agreed that the democratic management of house churches in accordance with the rule of law was a logical step to bring religious policies into line with China’s open-door economic policies.
While certain sectors of leadership may welcome these suggestions, others entrenched in the atheist system of the Communist Party were expected to balk at such reforms.
Report from Compass Direct News
Random Thoughts 