Authorities Move to Stop Protestant Christmas Events

Apparent central government crackdown puts halt to Yuletide celebrations in five areas.

HANOI, Vietnam, December 20 (CDN) — In what appeared to be part of a central government crackdown on Protestant Christianity in Vietnam, hundreds of Christians from 10 northern provinces were locked out of a Christmas celebration that was supposed to take place here yesterday.

The throngs who arrived at the National Convention Center (NCC) in the Tu Kiem district of Hanoi for the Christmas event found the doors locked and a phalanx of police trying to send them away, sources said. Deeply disappointed, some of the Christians began singing and praying in the square in front to the center, they said.

Police moved in, striking some Christians with fists and night sticks in the melee that followed. A number of video clips of the action were posted online by Monday morning (Dec. 20), Hanoi time. Christian leaders worked to calm the disappointed crowd, which eventually left, but not before at least six people – including the Rev. Nguyen Huu Bao, the scheduled speaker at the event – were arrested. They had not been released at press time.

Similar incidents occurred on Christmas Sunday (Dec. 19) in at least four other places throughout the country.

Unregistered house churches under the umbrella of the Hanoi Christian Fellowship rented the auditorium in the name of one of their members. A copy of the six-page contract obtained by Compass says the event was to be a reunion of Vietnamese who had worked in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries. Many of northern Vietnam’s house church leaders became Christians during their time there.

While it was understood that this was to be a Christmas event, the managers of the state-owned facility did not want to put this in writing. Organizers had hoped that some 4,000 people would come.

The contract called for at least five days’ written notice before the event if either side wanted to terminate the contract. According to one source, the NCC informed event organizers on Dec. 15, four days before the event, that the contract was voided but gave no reasons as the contract required. The organizers, having completed major preparations and distributed several thousand invitations, considered this a breach of contract and decided to try to go ahead.

When the first Christians arrived Sunday afternoon, they found the doors of the NCC locked. According to a source at the scene, a sign indicated a wedding was taking place. When more than 1,000 people had arrived, some decided to sing and pray in the square in front of the NCC. Police called for reinforcements.

One witness said “possibly hundreds” of uniformed and plainclothes personnel came to try to disperse the growing crowd. Reports from the scene and video clips on the Web show pushing and shoving, with some Christian leaders trying desperately to calm the agitated crowd. Some witnesses said officials punched some Christians, and others were struck hard with night sticks. Late police reinforcements carried electric cattle prods, according to one source. In one clip, people can be seen comforting an 86-year-old woman who was knocked down.

Gradually the Christians dispersed. For many Christians who tried to come – some from great distances and at great personal expense – this would have marked the first time they had ever worshipped in a large gathering.

Sources in Vietnam told Compass that similar stoppages also took place yesterday (Dec. 19) in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, and Quang Nam provinces, and in the city of Danang in central Vietnam.

In Thanh Hoa province, Christians of various house church denominations planned a joint celebration yesterday at the home of a woman identified only as Tuyet in Dong Phu commune. Pastor Ho Van Thom sent an appeal to the church worldwide asking for the prayers. He arrived at the scene to find some Christians had been beaten and wounded by police intent on preventing their Christmas worship.

In Danang city in central Vietnam, the Rev. Ho Tan Khoa, superintendent of the unregistered United Presbyterian Church of Vietnam, was invited to preach at a house church Christmas celebration yesterday. Pastor Khoa reported that a distraught church leader told him authorities had come that morning and, without a warrant, carted off the chairs, the pulpit and the sound system. They also tore down the Christmas decorations including a backdrop painstakingly decorated by church members, he said.

In Ho Chi Minh City, house churches have received permission for a public Christmas celebration both from authorities of the central government in Hanoi and of Ho Chi Minh City for an event on Dec. 26.  But church leaders say that potential venue owners, obviously under threat, will not dare rent to them.

Even those who closely follow Protestant church developments in Vietnam were somewhat surprised at the severity of the crackdown. One well-respected overseas Vietnam leader observed that it is now clear that this was a coordinated, well-planned and executed crackdown involving top Communist Party and government officials.

He noted that sometimes officials in remote areas of the country are excused when they persecute Christians on the grounds they do not yet know the new, more enlightened religion policies of the central government.

“In this case,” he said, “the strong actions against Christians are taking place in Vietnam’s three largest cities. They can’t use that excuse.”

Another observer said that authorities likely became alarmed at the size and attraction of the Christmas events in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi last Christmas. The events in those two cities attracted more than 50,000 people. They were organized by unregistered house churches that somehow obtained permission in spite of prohibitions of such events by Vietnam’s Decree 22, which governs religion.

One key church leader in Vietnam informed Compass that Directive No. 75, a secret Ministry of Interior document dated Oct. 15, ordered the crackdown on unregistered groups.

Unregistered groups are caught in limbo. Denominations with a history before the 1975 communist takeover of Vietnam have now been registered, but many groups that began in the 1980s and later have tried but failed to register their congregations as provided by Vietnam’s regulations. Their requests have mostly been ignored or denied, leaving them vulnerable to capricious repression.

As Christmas Day draws near, it appears the 400,000 or so Protestants that belong to unregistered churches will be denied celebrating together.

Report from Compass Direct News

Pakistani Christians’ Employer Has Them Illegally Arrested

Upset with their objections to discrimination, factory owner uses police to beat them.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 12 (CDN) — Police illegally detained three Christians on false charges of alcohol possession in Sialkot last week at the request of their Muslim employer.

The men – garment factory workers Atif Masih, Kamran Masih and Naveed Gill – said they had objected to their boss demanding they work on Sundays. Factory owner Rana Ejaz promptly accused them of selling alcohol, which is forbidden to Muslims in Pakistan and illegal to sell without a permit.

On May 4 the station house officer of Paka Garah, Sialkot, arrested the three Christians even though Ejaz had filed neither a First Information Report nor registered a written complaint, the Christians said.

“We went to the factory for work at 9 a.m. on May 4, and at around 11 a.m. we were arrested by the SHO [station house officer],” Atif Masih said. “We were severely beaten and asked to give a false statement that we sold alcohol.”

Authorities released them after three days when local human rights groups charged that they had been illegally detained.

Paka Garah police SHO Zulfiqar Ali refused to comment after their release. Previously he had said, “We arrested the three from the factory, and they confessed that they sell alcohol.” Parents of the three Christians denied the charge, asserting that their sons had been falsely accused.

Factory owner Rana Ejaz reportedly said, “I did all this on the advice of the SHO, Zulfiqar, so that I could terminate the Christian workers.”

Kamran Masih said Ejaz seemed to object to the crosses the Christians wore since they began work at the factory last year.

“He didn’t say it, but he used to look at the cross with strange looks,” Kamran Masih said. “Then since February, he said that no one will be allowed to wear a cross at work.”

In March Ejaz began demanding that only the Christian employees come to work on Sundays, Kamran Masih said.

“No other Christians raised any voice,” he said. “We were the only ones to stand up and ask for permission to go to church on Sundays, but he threatened us with dire consequences.”

Their local priest, the Rev. Illyas Mall, said he had known the three families for more than 40 years.

“None of their family members have ever been involved in anything illegal,” he said.

Likewise a friend of the three Christians who spoke on condition of anonymity said they had never touched alcohol and were detained only because Ejaz is a good friend of the SHO, “so he got them illegally detained and tortured.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

God "rejoices" over abortions says Episcopal priestess

The Episcopal Church has to clarify God’s official position on abortion – at least so says a priestess of the church, who claims that a proposed rite for post-abortive women conflicts with church theology and that the Deity “rejoices” when women elect to abort their children, reports Peter J. Smith, LifeSiteNews.com.

Rev. Nina Churchman wrote a letter to Episcopal Life Online expressing her outrage upon learning that her church has developed a healing rite for post-abortion women sorrowful over their abortion that seems to have language alluding to “sin” and “guilt.”

Churchman said she “was sickened to discover that the rite for abortion is couched wholly in terms of sin and transgression.”

The priestess also took particular umbrage with the words, “I seek God’s forgiveness” and the words “God rejoices that you have come seeking God’s merciful forgiveness.”

“The Episcopal Church, by resolution, has long held that women have the freedom to choose an abortion,” asserted Churchman. “It is not considered a sin.”

The Episcopal Church’s “long held” position permitting abortion dates back to 1967, when the church began to lobby for abortion in limited cases (i.e. rape, incest, fetal deformity, health of the mother), which by 1994 had become a full-blown defense of a right to an abortion. The church’s previous position on abortion, had lasted much longer. As late as 1958 the church had expressed an unequivocal defense of over 1900 years of Christian tradition against abortion, stating, “Abortion and infanticide are to be condemned.”

“Women should be able to mourn the loss of an aborted fetus without having to confess anything,” declared Churchman.

“God, unlike what the liturgy states, also rejoices that women facing unplanned pregnancies have the freedom to carefully choose the best option – birth, adoption or abortion – for themselves and their families.”

“The wording of this liturgy focuses solely on guilt and sin instead of the grief and healing that may accompany a very difficult but appropriate decision to terminate a pregnancy,” said Churchman.

Instead Churchman expressed her determination that the church should reject the rite at the next General Convention and do away with the references to “sin” and “guilt.”

The proposed post-abortion healing service had been the idea of Georgette Forney, president of Anglicans for Life, who had obtained an abortion when she was 16. Forney had asked the church to create a healing service for women like herself seeking healing, and the Episcopal General Convention had approved the development of the project.

The result was a rite addressing “the pastoral needs of women and men and who have experienced miscarriage, abortion or other trauma in the childbearing or childbirth process” in a book called, “Rachel’s Tears, Hannah’s Hopes: Liturgies and Prayers for Healing from Loss Related to Childbearing and Childbirth.”

The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church will consider and vote on the rite when it convenes July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

 

NOTE: My Thoughts on the Above Article

The above article surely highlights some serious issues relating to the Episcopal Church in America, from a Biblical perspective.

1. The area of church leadership is of concern, even leaving out the issue of priests, what is a woman doing in the place of leadership within the church. Surely the Scriptures are clear on this.

2. The Episcopal Church in America has landed on the wrong side of the abortion debate. Abortion is a crime against humanity and a sin. I wouldn’t have thought this was a difficult position to reach for Bible believing Christians, but perhaps that is the real essence of the problem – perhaps these are not Bible believing Christians?