Magic Statistics

Rebecca Hagelin devotes her column today to publicising the work of two organisations that monitor persecution of Christians: Compass Direct and Open Doors.

When I met with them, I felt humbled by their courage and inspired by their commitment to Christians they will never know. I marveled at the depth of their own faith. Sitting in a room with these warriors for truth made me reflect on my own commitment (or lack thereof) to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Reading the disturbing Compass reports has moved my spirit and deepened my understanding – and made me question my own willingness to “risk it all.”

In India, for example, numerous Christians have been beaten and threatened by Hindu extremists. One was tied to a tree and tormented for three hours before being banished from his village. What did he do to merit this treatment? He was handing out Christian tracts. Forcible “conversions” to Hinduism or other religions occur in some places. Other stories report on beatings intended to warn believers to stop attending prayer meetings. In another village, Christian families were banned from all shops and wells.

Ms Hagelin also spotlights Eritrea, a country where believers are subjected to unspeakable torture at the hands of government agents just for being Christian.  Tanya Datta of BBC News brings the latest horrific story from there.

An Eritrean refugee lies contorted on the ground. Balanced on his belly, his hands clutch his feet behind his back, bending his legs back almost double.

Paulus is demonstrating a torture technique known colloquially as "the helicopter".

It is one he knows well. It was in this excruciating position, he claims, that soldiers left him tied up for 136 hours, in an attempt to force him to recant his faith.

"They kept asking me to sign a document," he recalls, "and agree to not participate in church activities or express my faith in any form. I was told I would be untied and released the minute I agreed to their requests."

Thankfully, Paulus is now able to worship the Lord Jesus in the relative freedom of a refugee camp in northern Ethiopia.

Both Ms Datta and Ms Hagelin end their reports with requests for prayer.  Please pray for the persecuted, the imprisoned, and their families.

h/t for BBC News: Transfigurations

Previous related posts:

• Burqa forced on Christian students in Pakistan
• Christian prisoner tortured to death in Eritrea
• Most religiously free countries have Christian backgrounds
• 200 million Christians suffering increasing persecution

Taliban active in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province have announced that all females in the area are expected to wear burqas.  A local official has told a Catholic-run all-girls public school that its students and female teachers should comply, even though it is unclear whether non-Muslims are included in the edict.

Christians in the Afghan-border region 120 miles north of Peshawar say that extremists from the Taliban movement, which ruled most of Afghanistan from 1995 to 2001, have targeted them in recent months.

Extremists in Swat have conducted a campaign of Islamization in the district against all things deemed un-Islamic since early July, when a government crackdown on militants at the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad triggered violent reactions nationwide.

"Due to continuous threatening letters from the Taliban directing female staff and students to wear burqas … the Executive District Officer has instructed [them] to comply with the orders," the Daily Mashriq article stated.

The order to cover up under the full-body robe that leaves only the hands and eyes visible may affect Christians at the Catholic-run Public High School in Sangota.

The school was shut for a week earlier this month after Muslim extremists sent a threatening note, accusing teachers of converting Muslim students to Christianity.

Previous related posts:

• Christians in Pakistan under intense pressure
• School closed after Quran verses erased from a wall
• Three days left to convert to Islam, or else
• Jihadists assail all things unIslamic
• Anonymous Islamists threaten schoolgirls

Yesterday the NDP denounced Stephen Harper for “needlessly militarizing the North instead of focusing on its environment and people.” NDP Northern Development critic Dennis Bevington proposed instead a national navel-gaze to raise our Arctic sovereignty consciousness.

"We need to bring out that passion for the North in Parliament. I absolutely think there's a passion for the North among Canadians. We truly identify ourselves as a northern people."

Somehow, I don’t think that will prove sufficient to keep our northern territories when push comes to shove.  Russian polar explorer Artur Chilingarov has announced that his country will be ready by 2009 to prove its ownership of the North Pole, which Canada now claims.

From today’s RFE/RL Newsline Russia, third item down:

POLAR HERO SAYS RUSSIA WILL 'DEMAND' ARCTIC IN 2009

The head of the recent Russian Arctic-2007 expedition to the North Pole, Artur Chilingarov, who is a polar explorer, Hero of the Soviet Union, and deputy speaker of the State Duma, said on September 25 that Russia will file the necessary papers with the UN to have the Lomonosov and Mendeleyev ridges in the Arctic verified as being extensions of the Russian continental shelf and hence Russian territory.

The area claimed by Russia encompasses territory extending as far south as Ellesmere Island and is believed to contain 10 billion tons of hydrocarbon reserves.

But who cares about that when you’ve got “passion”?

Previous related posts:

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• Jack Layton: Wrong again

It's not easy trying to understand
How the world can be so cold, stealing the souls of man
Cloudy skies rain down on all your dreams
You wrestle with the fear and doubt
Sometimes it's hard but you gotta believe

There's a better place, where our Father waits
And every tear He'll wipe away
The darkness will be gone, the weak shall be strong
Hold on to your faith
There will come a day, there will come a day

Wars are raging, lives are scattered
Innocence is lost, and hopes are shattered
The old are forgotten, the children are forsaken
In this world we're living in
Is there anything sacred?

There's a better place, where our Father waits
And every tear He'll wipe away
The darkness will be gone, the weak shall be strong
Hold on to your faith
There will come a day, there will come a day

The song will ring out, down those golden streets
The voices of earth with the angels will sing
Every knee will bow, sin will have no trace
In the glory of His amazing grace
Every knee will bow, sin will have no trace
In the glory of His amazing grace
There will come a day, there will come a day
Oh there will come a day
I know there's coming a day, coming a day

Recorded live at the Country Music Association Awards, Nashville, 2000.

Some Christians will see this event as a sign of discernment, others as a sign of desperation.

The Anglican Diocese of Ottawa is presenting a symposium this weekend featuring emerging church guru Brian McLaren (at right).  The symposium will be held Friday (tomorrow) between 2 pm and 8:30 pm, and Saturday from 9 am until about 3 pm.

The Ottawa Citizen has the story on the controversial writer’s upcoming visit.

Can Brian McLaren heal the fractured Anglican church with a new vision of Christianity for the 21st century?

The balding, bespectacled baby boomer is one of the leading lights in a new Christian movement: church without speeches, rules, robes — sometimes without churches.

Ottawa's Anglicans have invited this leader of the "emerging church" movement to speak tomorrow and Saturday so that he might show them how to stay faithful — and hopeful — during a time when Anglicans are undergoing one of the most wrenching times in their church's history.

The notice at the diocese’s events page does not give a location but, according to the Citizen, the place to be is the St Elias Centre, 750 Ridgewood Avenue.  Registration fee is $65.

I have not read any of Mr McLaren’s books nor have I attended one of his public lectures, so I can’t offer an informed opinion of his thought.  Friends whose opinion I respect say that his theology is wishy-washy, if not problematic.

Of course, not everyone buys the emerging church philosophy. Critics say they are appropriating the word Christian to mean liberal and they wonder whether its lack of doctrine would lead it to come unmoored from the basic understanding of Christ. The emergent church also sees truth as a relative thing, which leans pretty heavily on faith as it is experienced, rather than dogma or orthodoxy, which can keep it on the rails, not only to individuals, but to communities.

Sounds like Mr McLaren could find a sizeable natural constituency in the Anglican Church of Canada.

I recently commented on posters satirising the emerging church movement, suggesting commonalities between the emerging church and The Episcopal Church.  Purely fortuitous, I’m sure.

Cross-posted at Anglican Essentials Canada Blog. 

Previous related posts:

• Ottawa Diocese to consider motion at odds with General Synod decision
• Anglican Church of Canada loses another half-million
• Emerging or Episcopal?