Interfaith Sharing: A Disturbing Practice

The article below concerns the sharing of pulpits between Muslims, Jews and Christians in a display of religious freedom. This is a disturbing practice that should not be followed by evangelical and reformed churches. The pulpit is a place for the proclaimation of the truth and is not to be polluted by every wind of doctrine. A more thorough treatment of this issue is certainly warranted but will not be given here at this time.

I am totally for religious freedom and believe that Muslims and Jews, as well as those of other faiths, have a right to worship according to their conscience. This does not mean that I believe their faiths to be right or acceptable before God, only that they must stand or fall before God and not I. However, as Christians we are obligated to remain steadfast in the truth and to not open any avenue in our churches for that which is not the truth.

For more see:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-jews-and-muslims-to-share-pulpits-50752/

 

Two Indonesian Churches Receive Bomb Threats

Islamic groups demand halt to threatened congregation’s worship.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, October 13 (CDN) — Two churches in the greater Jakarta area have received bomb threats.

In East Jakarta, the pastor of a Batak Protestant Christian Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan, or HKBP) on Bogor Street received a threatening phone call before Sunday services on Oct. 4. The church building is located near the headquarters of an elite police corps.

The unknown caller to the Rev. Abidan Simanungkalit’s cell phone said the bomb would explode during the morning worship service, the pastor told Compass.

“I was startled to receive the short message,” he said. “I immediately phoned some church leaders and then called police.”

Scores of police and bomb squad officers came to the site and combed the area for a bomb, discovering a black package in a garbage container near the front of the church building. It contained four large batteries, a small wall clock and a tin can, and after a two hours police determined that it was not a bomb.

Officers speculated that the caller was unable to construct a real bomb but wanted to publicize a threat.

Pastor Simanungkalit said congregation members were alarmed over the threat and that the morning worship was uneasy.

“They were panicky and fearful,” he said. “People kept getting up to go outside and check on things.”

The church has never had problems with anyone that would lead to such a threat, the pastor added.

“Everything has been peaceful,” he said. “The close proximity of the police headquarters seemed to guarantee peace.”

Closure Sought

In north Bekasi in the Jakarta metropolitan area, a church leader of a Bethel Indonesia congregation received a similar threat the previous day, Oct. 3.

Jeffry Lalamentik said he received the threat on his cell phone, with the unknown caller also saying, “Your church will be bombed during morning worship.”

Upon receiving the threat, Lalamentik said, he contacted the Rev. Daniel Susanto, who quickly called police. A bomb squad arrived shortly after and made a thorough search, but they did not discover any explosive device.

Lalamentik said there was reason to take the threat seriously. In July a number of radical Islamic groups, including the Islamic Defenders’ Front (Front Pembela Islam), Iqra Echo and the Forum for Communication and Hospitality of the Musala Mosque (FKSMM) in Bekasi demanded that the church close.

The church meets in a private home in the midst of a housing complex.

“We are putting up a permanent church building,” Lalamentik said. “Until that is finished, we are worshipping at Pastor Daniel’s home.”

Pastor Susanto said the church had secured permission for the church building from Bekasi officials in April. The Muslim organizations, he said, have opposed the church meetings at his house, where worship has taken place since 2000.

“We normally worship at my home but occasionally move to other houses,” the pastor told Compass.

A crowd of 600 protestors from Islamic organizations have demonstrated in front of Bekasi government offices demanding a halt to the Bethel Indonesia church’s worship services, he added, and they are also fighting the establishment of the congregation’s building.

Budi Santosa of the FKSMM said that the required papers for the building permit were incomplete because the recommendation from the local Interfaith Communications Forum was missing.

The Muslim groups have met with the deputy mayor of Bekasi, Mochtar Mohammad, and the assistant leader of the Bekasi City Council, Ahmad Syiakhu, as well as several other officials. Santosa said the officials are studying the Islamic organizations’ objections to both the house church worship and its building but have taken no action.

Report from Compass Direct News 

COLOMBIA: FAMILY OF KIDNAPPED PASTOR FLEE HOME

Alarmed by threatening strangers, wife and children of William Reyes leave Maicao.

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, June 24 (Compass Direct News) – The wife and children of pastor William Reyes, who was kidnapped last September in Colombia and is still missing, have moved from their home to another city due to threatening strangers presumably linked to his kidnappers.

Compass learned that Idia Miranda Reyes, her son William, 19, and daughters Luz Nelly, 17, and Estefania, 9, suddenly left their home in Maicao in the department (state) of La Guajira two months ago and moved to an undisclosed location in the country.

The Rev. William Reyes disappeared on Sept. 25, 2008, en route to Maicao from the neighboring city of Valledupar. Since March 2008, the pastor of Light and Truth Inter-American Church and active member of the Fraternity of Evangelical Pastors of Maicao, had been receiving extortion threats from illegal armed groups operating in the La Guajira peninsula.

Family members have not heard from Pastor Reyes since, nor have his abductors contacted the family to demand ransom.

Two incidents earlier this year alerted his wife that she and her children were in danger from the kidnappers. On Jan. 15, an unidentified man appeared at the Inter-American Church in Maicao and asked for Idia Miranda Reyes. When he was told she was not there, the man asked for her address and cell phone number, which church workers refused to give him.

Before he left, the man said testily, “It is in [her] best interest to get in touch with me, than for me to have to find her.”

Six days later, Luz Nelly Reyes was approached by a stranger on the street (the family believes it was the same man), who told her that if she wanted to see her father again, she should come with him. The girl declined the invitation. When he attempted to grab her by the arm, Luz Nelly fled.

“I have not reported this to police, because I’m afraid,” her mother told Compass after the incident. “They could do something to me.”

Through sobs she added, “We never conceived of this happening to us. I just wish they would tell us if they have him or not.”

Idia Miranda Reyes waited to leave Maicao until Luz Nelly completed her senior year in high school; the 17-year-old graduated on March 28. According to sources, the Inter-American church is contributing a modest living allowance to the Reyes family.

Reyes is not alone in her fears; Colombia suffers the highest incidence of kidnapping in the Western Hemisphere and a homicide rate 11 times greater than in the United States.

Due to general lawlessness, Colombians often face harassment from the same criminals who kidnap or murder loved ones. Violent crime is so common in the country that half of the felonies are not reported to police, and only one in nine makes the newspapers.

Another Maicao kidnapping in February underscores the problem. Armed men abducted a woman from a church just a few blocks from the Light and Truth church – while worship was in progress. The pastor of that church later refused to disclose the victim’s identity or discuss the circumstances of her disappearance, citing concerns for the safety of his congregation.

Evangelical Christians are not always passive victims of crime, however. Justapaz, a Mennonite Church-affiliated organization based in Bogotá, and The Commission for Restoration, Life and Peace of the Evangelical Council of Churches of Colombia (CEDECOL) have organized an international prayer and action campaign in response to the Reyes family crisis.

The campaign mobilized concerned citizens to petition the office of Attorney General Dr. Mario Iguarán, asking that authorities conduct a thorough investigation into Pastor Reyes’ disappearance and report their findings to Commission Coordinator Ricardo Esquivia and Jenny Neme, director of Justapaz.

“Despite hundreds of letters from church members in the United States, Canada and across Europe, and repeated attempts to get a response from the Colombian Attorney General´s Office, we have yet to receive any information from them regarding progress in the case,” said Michael Joseph, who coordinates the Reyes case on behalf of CEDECOL and Justapaz. “We’re doing our best to make sure Pastor Reyes’ case is not forgotten.”

The Reyes family joins other “internal refugees” who live as exiles in their own country. Unchecked political and social violence have forced innocent victims – many of them widows and children – to abruptly abandon homes and careers. They must take up life in crowded, far-off cities in order to protect themselves and their children from further attack.

According to estimates, Colombia now has 3 million internal refugees, the second largest population of displaced persons in the world after Sudan.

Report from Compass Direct News

PAKISTAN: ‘BLASPHEMY’ CASES SEND CHRISTIANS INTO HIDING

Doctor acquitted while two other believers remain in jail; mobs threaten their homes, families.

Istanbul, November 13 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian doctor in Pakistan jailed since May 5 on charges of “blasphemy” was acquitted last week, while another Christian and his adult daughter remained incarcerated after more than a month on charges of desecrating the Quran.

Dr. Robin Sardar of Pakistan’s Punjab province was released on Nov. 4 after his accuser said the claim that he had blasphemed Islam’s prophet Muhammad was the result of a “misunderstanding.”

“The complainant said in the court that he has, through a misunderstanding, done all these things,” said Ezra Shujaab of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), which represented Sardar.

After a thorough investigation, the court found the accusation to be baseless and freed Sardar, Shujaab said. Angry villagers and local Muslim clerics had threatened to kill Sardar if he was acquitted, and he has gone into hiding, as did his family after his incarceration six months ago. A mob bearing sticks and kerosene and chanting death threats had surrounded the family’s house at that time.

In May Dr. Sardar was taken to Punjab’s Gujranwala Central Jail after a Muslim vendor filed a blasphemy complaint with police, prompting the attacks on his house. Sardar and the vendor had reportedly clashed over whether the merchant could set up shop in front of the doctor’s clinic.

The vendor, Muhammad Rafique, had claimed that Sardar had insulted Islam’s prophet during a visit between the two men. In his written statement, Rafique had called for the death penalty for Sardar and threatened that local Muslims would riot if police did not arrest him.

Under article 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code, blasphemy against Muhammad merits death.

 

Father-Daughter Jailing

As happened to Sardar, violent Muslim mobs also attacked the home of Gulsher Masih after his daughter was accused of desecrating the Quran on Oct. 9 in the village of Tehsil Chak Jhumra.

Both he and his daughter, 25-year-old Sandal Gulsher, have been detained in Faisalabad since Oct. 10, and the rest of the family has gone into hiding.

A mob numbering in the hundreds gathered at the house of Masih last month armed with sticks, stones and bottles of kerosene after accusations that he had encouraged his daughter to tear pages from the Quran were broadcast over loudspeakers from a mosque.

“A mob came and they stoned their house, and they put the kerosene oil on the whole house to put it on fire,” said Yousef Benjamin of the National Commission for Justice and Peace. “However, just before that the police came in.”

Initially the whole family was taken into protective custody by police from the nearby Faisalabad station.

Under pressure from the mob, police on Oct. 10 charged Masih’s daughter – and Masih himself, for defending her – with violating section 295-B of the Pakistani Penal Code, which prescribes life imprisonment for those convicted of desecrating the Quran.

“When on the 10th the police were ready to register the FIR, I was there and more than 100 Muslim people were forcing the police … [saying] ‘We want Gulsher and his daughter to be hanged,’” said Quaiser Felix, a journalist for Asia News.

Masih and his daughter remain in custody and await a court hearing. They will plead innocent and deny all charges, said Shujaab, adding, “They did nothing.”

The rest of the family is in hiding, unable to return home due to fears of reprisal.

“It is very common in Pakistan that when a Christian person is caught or booked under blasphemy laws, then even if the court releases him or her they have to migrate from the area,” said Benjamin. “It is dangerous; they cannot come back to the community openly.”

Both Sardar and Gulsher’s families now face the prospect of never returning to their home towns, said Shujaab of APMA.

“Sardar, though he was acquitted, he cannot live in the home where he was residing,” said Shujaab. “They have to live like refugees.”

Although false blasphemy charges are leveled at Muslims as well as Christians in Pakistan, religious differences are often a motivating factor for the accusations.

“Muslims become challenged by these people, those who are somewhat established Christians,” said Shujaab. “[Out of] jealousy they want to throw these people out of the villages. They have involved them so that they should not live there in that village.”  

Report from Compass Direct News