Heb. 13: 3 Remember them that are {in bonds}, as bound with them; [and] them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.

Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must {suffer} many things, and be rejected of the elders, and [of] the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Acts 5:40 And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten [them], they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to {suffer} shame for his name.

Rom. 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we {suffer} with [him], that we may be also glorified together.
 
 

4. PERSECUTION IN VIETNAM

Vietnamese police have raided Christian prayer meetings, detaining and harassing worshipers across the country in recent months, news reports say. Police raided a meeting of the unofficial Vietnam Assemblies of God Church at a house in Quang Nam province Sept. 19, villagers said. Police handcuffed or tied together 17 Christians and forced them to walk to a government office, where they were questioned for several hours, 25 Christians said in a petition sent to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, according to Reuters. A policeman held up a Bible and told frightened bystanders that anyone who followed the Christian faith would be treated the same way, one Christian was beaten, and others were hit or had their hair pulled during questioning, the petition said. The raids were confirmed by other religious sources ...Police also raided a church meeting at a hotel in northern Ha Long Bay this month and detained about 30 Christians, religious sources said. Separate petitions reported other raids on churches, and the destruction of four churches in Binh Phuoc province ....Observers say the raids indicate that Hanoi is increasing persecution against unofficial Christian worship groups. Vietnam, a communist nation, maintains control over all clergy even though religious freedom is guaranteed in the constitution. (Source Religion Today)

5. JAILED SAUDI CHRISTIANS

The sister of one of the thirteen Filipino Christians detained in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is concerned about the "sinister silence" that prevails around the world when it comes to rebuking Saudi Arabia for repeated human rights violations. In a letter written to the Washington, D.C. based human rights organization International Christian Concern, Charito Co-Dela Cruz expressed concern that no action has been taken to secure the release of her brother and the other thirteen Christians held since October 8, 1999. Mrs. Cruz has been leading an effort in the Philippines to free her brother Leopoldo "Paul" Co and the others who were among 40 arrested during a raid by the Mutawah (Muslim religious police) on two homes where 267 Christians had gathered for prayer.

In her letter, Mrs. Cortez expressed a despair shared by other family members whose efforts to gain the release of their loved ones has so far been in vain. At the same time, she expressed hope that the prayers and actions of the American people will lead to the soon release of the thirteen. "I beg you not to cease your assistance to my brother and the other detainees. You are our only glmmer of hope now. I have almost lost faith in our government and the local media. I have sought help from Amnesty International, the Philippine Department of Labour, the Catholic community, and yet there seems to be no progress at all. ..Detaining, torturing and deporting Christians caught while engaging in Christian activities is nothing new in Saudi Arabia. In June 1998, twelve foreign nationals, all Christians, were detained for several weeks before they were released several weeks later. They were forced to leave the country, their jobs and many of their personal possessions.

6. EIGHTEEN YEARS IN CHINESE JAIL

Each day, over a period of years in a Chinese labor camp, George Chen would be lowered into a stinking putrid cesspool... and a huge smile would envelope his face. As he shoveled out the human waste-matter there to be used as fertilizer in the fields, he would begin to sing the old hymn, "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still in on the roses..." As I sang, I would feel our Lord holding me tight in his everlasting arms. At that very moment, that vile cesspool became my own private garden.

"You see, this was a wonderful blessing for me because it was the only time I was alone from the prying eyes of the guards," he said in an interview in Kunming, China. "I could commune with God, praise His Name at the top of my voice, and also recite scripture that I had memorized. I have experienced how important it is for us Christians to memorize scripture. People wonder how I could keep my faith during those 18 years in prison and labor camp, but I can say that God was with me during that whole time. I bear no ill feelings to those who put me there, even though there were many times that I was ill-treated."

George Chen was born in Shanghai, China, some 65 years ago, to a wealthy family. His father was a factory owner, and when the communists seized power in the late 1940s, his family became a target for the local cadres. (Full report from Dan Wooding assistcomm@cs.com)

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PERSECUTION'S HOT SPOTS

Ten of the World's Most Difficult Areas for Christians
 
 

1. THE CAUCASUS - "Awash in Anarchy"

2. CENTRAL ASIA - "Back to KGB Days"

3. CHINA - "Tightening the Screws"

4. COLOMBIA - "Violence and Chaos"

5. INDIA - "Extremism Gaining Momentum"

6. INDONESIA - "A Vulnerable Minority"

7. NORTH KOREA - "The Last Stalinist State"

8. PAKISTAN - "Forgotten on Death Row"

9. SAUDI ARABIA - "The Heartland of Islam"

10. SUDAN - "Doing a Double-Talk Squeeze"

Political ideology, religious extremism and social instability continue to provide a breeding ground for severe Christian persecution worldwide. With the approach of November 14 and the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP), Compass Direct wanted to highlight 10 of the worst persecution areas. Of course, these 10 are not the only places where Christians suffer for their faith, and the problem is often much more complex than can be easily summarized. Yet for Western Christians just beginning to understand the extent of attacks on the church, we hope this report will form a basis for a growing knowledge and involvement.

1. THE CAUCASUS- "Awash in Anarchy"

Infamous as one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, Chechnya has martyred several of the Christians it held for ransom this past year. Radical Muslims in the breakaway republic and neighboring Dagestan can be expected to continue kidnapping any Christian believer left in the region, especially local converts of ethnic Muslim heritage who convert to Christianity. The Muslim extremists assume that all Christians have well-heeled contacts in the West who could pay large sums of money. Also, as trained Islamists under the strident influence of Saudi Wahabbism they want to stop all Christian missionary efforts among the nominally Muslim populace. Increasingly cornered in a punishing resistance to the recent Russian military offensive launched in August, local government leaders are reiterating their commitment to establishing independent Muslim states, built squarely on Islamic "sharia" law. However, they remain unable to stop the rampant anarchy in the region, where various warlords command their own large armed forces.
 
 

2. CENTRAL ASIA - "Back to KGB Days"

At least three of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia continue to backpedal from their initial pledges to establish democratically guaranteed religious freedoms after they
became independent in the early 1990s. This past year Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and more recently Azerbaijan have taken more hard-line approaches through their government-controlled Committees of Religious Affairs to squeeze out the small Protestant Christian communities, many of which include ministries among the ethnic Muslim majority population. By revising their laws which require all religious groups to become officially registered, all three states have in effect made it almost impossible for these small groups to remain legal. However, the Muslim establishment and the Russian Orthodox Church achieved prompt legal status as the "accepted" religious communities in each nation. Repeated police raids against Protestant churches during their regular worship services continue to intimidate church members and their pastors by interrogations, confiscating their Bibles and other Christian materials, pressuring employers to dismiss anyone "caught" in such a raid, and fining their leaders sizeable sums. All three countries have concocted weak pretexts to imprison Christian pastors, either temporarily or for long sentences. In the face of an international outcry, Uzbekistan finally retracted stiff prison terms imposed upon four pastors "convicted" this past year on fabricated drug charges. In an apparent show of apology, officials began to process these pastors' long-stalled church applications for official registration. But having grown up under the old Soviet system, local Christians are wary, knowing that in the coming months, new roadblocks could still be created to prevent their churches from becoming legal entities in their homeland.

3. CHINA - "Tightening the Screws"

"If we (the Communist Party) give you prosperity in the economic realm, you must give up freedom in the social/political realm." Essentially this was the "bargain" the late Deng Xiaoping struck with the Chinese people in the 1980s and is still the arrangement today. Many western analysts believe it is a recipe for implosion. It has always been a bad bargain for China's 60 million-plus Christians- the vast majority of whom remain outside the official state-controlled Three Self church. Remaining outside means China's Protestants are viewed as a "criminal cult" that if organized could mount a political challenge to the Party's hegemony. In 1999, over 50 house church leaders were rounded up, mainly in the central revival province of Henan. Even in the cities, surveillance has greatly increased, especially before the October 1 celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

 The paranoia of the Party is not likely to decrease as social disorder increases. China's old men know only one tactic to keep order-tighten the totalitarian screws. China's house churches can only expect more suffering under this scenario. Even within the official church, a more wintry ideological wind is blowing. Annoyed that within the Three Self over 70 percent of the pastors are evangelicals, a conference recently decreed that all pastors study the very liberal theology of Bishop K.H. Ding, long-time leader of the Three Self. Failure to toe this line and think like Ding is causing a purge at some of the seminaries. For all the worsening climate however, the oppression is always unevenly spaced. Implementation of central policy is always up to local cadres, some of which are quite sympathetic to Christians, and others quite hostile. Not for the first time, the world's longest continuous civilization defies easy categorization.
 
 

4. COLOMBIA - "Violence and Chaos"

  A recent gathering near Bogota of the National Evangelical Commission for Human Rights and Peace included a talk on why pastors are frequent targets of rival armed factions. A flyer cited reasons why they're singled out for threats or murder by the country's warring groups. Here are some of those reasons -- For suspected infiltration. For inflammatory language in their sermons. For working in human rights, for non-violence and the national peace movement. For the economic prosperity of the church or pastor. For relations with "gringos"-pastors perceived as U.S. CIA agents. For disobeying orders from an armed group, such as to not visit certain towns, to not hold services, or to not collaborate with the group by providing it with financing or volunteers. For perceived indifference to taking part in community service. Violence between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, narco-traffickers, Colombian army special forces and even satanic cults has pushed Colombia to the brink of anarchy. No group recognizes neutrality as an option in this 35-year-old war that demands every civilian to take sides. There's no hiding place within Colombia's borders, so refugees flee to neighboring countries and the United States. In the hemisphere's most violent country, Colombia's Bellavista National Jail was its most violent prison until two believers brought the gospel to the prison in 1990 and stopped a riot. Hundreds of inmates-among them the nation's most notorious killers-accepted Christ, and the prison's murder rate plummeted from sometimes 60 in a month to less than one a year. Now a Bellavista Bible Institute thrives in the prison. Some graduates who completed their sentences have become full-time Christian workers in ministries such as halfway houses that enable other released Christian prisoners to transition to life outside Bellavista. Informal Bible studies abound in cellblocks once stained in graffiti written in victims' blood. Even as Colombia continues its downward spiral into violence and anarchy, Bellavista's revival serves as a laboratory case-in-point that the gospel can rescue this seemingly hopeless nation.
 
 

5. INDIA - "Extremism Gaining Momentum"

  The resounding defeat of the Congress Party in the September-October elections allows the Hindu nationalist BJP a possible five-year term, which could be disastrous for India's 23 million Christians. To back this up, one need look no further than the 13-month reign of the BJP that ended in April 1999, where a wave of over 140 acts of violence (including murders and church burnings) took place against Christians. Though BJP leaders are careful to condemn anti-Christian violence, they ensure that the momentum of justice moves so slowly that the Hindu extremists responsible will never be brought to book, thus effectively offering an amnesty to anyone who harasses a Christian in the name of Hinduism. Hindu nationalism is based on hatred of Muslims and Christians, the two groups alleged to have no right to remain on the Gangetic plain. This ideology of hatred has triumphed in a vacuum, as the secularist position of Gandhi and Nehru has declined, and India's Christians remain too small to exert influence on a population that passed the one billion mark in August. The hate campaign against Christians will surely continue, especially as Hindu extremists maintain that all the "tribal" Christians were forcibly converted. Their attempts to coerce Christians back to Hinduism will cause the greatest flashpoint in the future.
 
 

6. INDONESIA - "A Vulnerable Minority"

  Indonesia still remains a society lurching from upheaval to upheaval, and in the midst of this turbulence, the Christian community of some 20 million remains the most influential, yet most vulnerable, religious minority. Whenever there is economic instability, Christians are scapegoated for it and attacked. It is the Chinese Christian community that bears the brunt of this, often with horrifying consequences. Half of Indonesia's 6 million Chinese are Christian, and they are very wealthy, which makes them a target for the outraged poor. Also, the violence on East Timor has caused Christians to be stereotyped as separatists. A new, ugly nationalism is rearing its head and maintaining that Christians want to separate from Indonesia wherever they live-a blatant lie given that most of the Christians are thoroughly integrated throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The island of Ambon in Maluku province was earmarked by extremist Muslims as a key domino, which, if tipped, would trigger "jihad" throughout the land. Since January, over 500 Christians have been killed and large parts of the island reduced to rubble in the strife. The good news is the domino has not toppled, and most of the 90 percent of Muslims in this country remain unattracted to extremist ideas. But with Megawati and Habibie-both revealing an alarming amount of political ineptitude-to contest the presidency at the end of the year, more instability is inevitable.
 
 

7. NORTH KOREA - "The Last Stalinist State"

  No one knows how many Christians are left in the world's last Stalinist state, but one thing is clear-life cannot be tougher for a church anywhere else in the world. Still in the grip of a severe famine that has cost 2-3 million lives, and still stubbornly pursuing outdated centralized policies, the prospect looks bleak for North Korea. Kim Jong Il is hardly in the position to reverse course, for to do so would be to imply his father, Kim Il Sung, had been wrong. His regime plays a dangerous game of international brinkmanship, of forcing aid by threatening to make war on the South, making the Korean peninsula the place most likely to experience a nuclear exchange. Christians may number between 10,000 and 100,000 -- most of them deep underground. They have no freedom to practice their faith in what is still the world's most atheistic state. The only good report is that the famine has made the border with China more porous, resulting in more contact with Korean Christians in China. It is possible that the Korean Christian Federation-a fraudulent church for visiting Westerners-may be given an expanded role, in order to tempt more Christian aid ministries into the country. But it is unlikely that genuine Korean Christians will "surface."
 
 

8. PAKISTAN - "Forgotten on Death Row"

Radical Muslim extremists in Pakistan continue to hold the nation's Christian minority hostage with the dreaded power of a single word, "blasphemy." Under the harsh statutes of the religious blasphemy laws, the mere accusation of blasphemy against a member of a non-Muslim minority subjects him to police arrest and jailing without bail. Rarely does a magistrate review the allegations before the case is filed. But if convicted, the sentence is mandatory execution. In the volatile environment of extremist Islam, where unruly mobs can be quickly whipped into a lynching mentality, such Christian prisoners typically remain under arrest for years on end, allegedly "for their own protection." Courts hearing their cases move sluggishly, and then only in attempts to transfer the proceedings to another court. With more than one lawyer and judge targeted by angry assassins for defending or acquitting Christians accused of blasphemy, the judiciary are understandably nervous. One such Pakistani Christian jailed three years ago has been on death row for the past year and a half, his appeal frozen by judges afraid to touch the controversial case. Even if Ayub Masih is fully acquitted, as evidence would seem to require, he will have to flee the country to escape the fanatics who have vowed to kill him, regardless of what the courts decide. With the overwhelming majority of Pakistan's Christians at the bottom of the social and economic scale, the average Christian faces the daily fear that some day he could end up in Ayub Masih's shoes.
 
 

9. SAUDI ARABIA - "The Heartland of Islam"

Despite bland assurances from the royal family to the contrary, Saudi Arabia's notorious "muttawa" (Islamic police) continue their obsession to harass, arrest, imprison and deport expatriate Christians attempting to worship privately in the Kingdom. Government officials have insisted since 1997 that any "excesses" committed by these religious vigilantes against Christians contradict official state policy, claiming that private worship by non-Muslims is permitted. But the evidence of recent months proves otherwise. In fact, individual foreigners are being arrested and jailed for months over alleged evidence that they participated in Christian worship. Raids of Christian worship services have landed their leaders in jail and led to eventual deportation, and congregational members have been forced to sign a promise to never again attend "illegal" meetings. Local authorities are expected to continue to justify such actions under Saudi's strict morality laws, which forbid mixing of the sexes in public gatherings. Saudi authorities continue to try to quietly force employers to dismiss and send back to their homelands any employees found to be involved in Christian activities. Some are detained in the process, and many denied the financial benefits' package guaranteed in their job contracts. A few may be tried formally in Islamic courts, which typically sentence religious offenders to painful lashes at the conclusion of their jail confinement. On the whole, Filipino Christians bear the brunt of these harsh measures, although the chance arrest of citizens of the more powerful Western nations can lead to exertion of greater diplomatic pressure on Saudi authorities. Fortunately, news of such arrests now circles the globe in the matter of a few hours, or at most, days, making it relatively impossible to hush up such incidents.
 
 

10. SUDAN - "Doing a Double-Talk Squeeze"

For years now, the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in Sudan has relentlessly pursued its quasi-legal efforts to confiscate a growing number of long-established church properties in the capital of Khartoum and its twin-city, Omdurman. In a succession of ploys ranging from verbal and written threats to armed takeovers by militia or police forces, the government tries to bully the Catholic, Episcopal and Presbyterian churches out of lands, buildings and churches held by legal deeds for decades. In addition, dozens of small churches and church schools located in the massive shantytowns surrounding the capital continue to be razed to the ground under the pretext of city planning and zoning regulations. Sudanese authorities still imprison and charge converts to Christianity with apostasy, a capital offense under the laws of Sudan. Although one such highly publicized prisoner was released by the Justice Ministry after he suffered a stroke in prison this year, another convert remains jailed, sentenced to four more years in prison on contrived charges. The government has still to find a face-saving solution to the long-stalemated case concocted 15 months ago against two Catholic priests, one of whom is the influential chancellor of the Khartoum diocese. Although accused of masterminding a series of bombing explosions against the government, the two are believed to be bearing the brunt of Khartoum's displeasure over the Catholic Church's refusal to support its so-called peace plan with rebels in South Sudan. Dominated by Muslim Arabs from the North, the Khartoum regime refuses to admit its complicity in the documented atrocities of genocide, starvation, slavery and forced Islamization in its fight to gain control over South Sudan, predominantly made up of Black Africans of Christian and tribal religions.

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