Nigerian Clergy Demand Compensation for Churches Destroyed by Boko Haram
Religious leaders in Nigeria are renewing and amplifying their call for the government to pay compensation for the destruction of churches by Boko Haram, even as the Islamist militants escalate attacks in the country’s northern states. Nigerian clergy say at least 1,000 churches have been destroyed in the six-year insurgency, which the government declared crushed last year.
Human rights groups say thousands more churches have been abandoned or closed in the conflict — in which schools, mosques, markets and military installations have also been targeted.
Clergy say the attacks on churches have compromised freedom of religion in the nation, as well as Nigerians’ right to live in peace. And while Boko Haram is the agent of the attacks, religious leaders also assign blame to the government.
“The church … is demanding compensation from the government for lives lost and properties destroyed by the (Boko Haram) criminals,” said the Rev. John Bakeni, secretary of the Maiduguri Roman Catholic diocese. “We believe the government should have provided security for lives and property.”
The Rev. Felix Omobude, national president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, described the destruction of the churches as a breach of the freedom of worship guaranteed in the Nigerian Constitution. He also considers compensation a government responsibility. “Churches that have been destroyed should be rebuilt by the state governments … and appropriate compensation paid to the victims,” Omobude said in a recent statement.
Two religions predominate in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation: Christians in the south and Muslims in the north. In 2015, President Mahammadu Buhari promised to reconstruct churches and mosques destroyed in the conflict, and he later urged federal officials to help reconstruct schools and places of worship destroyed by the militants.
Some reconstruction work started in 2016 in the northern majority-Muslim state of Borno, with its governor, Kashim Shettima, ordering the rehabilitation of the biggest church in Lassa, which was destroyed by Boko Haram. Though pleased with the commencement of reconstruction work on churches in Borno state, Bakeni expressed dismay at what he described as the small number of churches in the north undergoing reconstruction compared with the number of mosques there that have been restored. He praised Shettima, though.
“This is a bold decision by a governor in northeastern Nigeria to listen to the Christians and render justice, against all odds and opposition,” said Bakeni. Boko Haram — whose name translates to “Western education is sin” — aims to create an Islamic state in the north. It has carried out a campaign of terror, attacking churches, schools and security installations. Its first attack on Christian minorities there occurred in 2010. The United Nations estimates that 20,000 people have died in the violence, which has also displaced 2 million people in the northern states of Yobe, Adamawa and Borno. The terrorist group has abducted women and girls and forced its victims, especially young women, to act as suicide bombers. In 2014, the group kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Chibok town. The kidnapping sparked the solidarity campaign
Pastors Arrested in Sudan as Government Moves to Take Over Church
Police in Sudan arrested and int errogated seven church leaders last week in Omdurman, Sudan before releasing them on bail, sources said. The Christian leaders were jailed for six hours on Wednesday (Aug. 23) and charged with refusing to comply with an order to turn over leadership of their congregation to a government appointed-committee. Omdurman lies across the Nile River from Khartoum, the capital.
The Rev. Ayoub Mattan, Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) moderator, and Kwa Shamaal (also transliterated Kuwa Shamaal), head of missions at the SCOC, were among the church leaders arrested. Pastor Shamaal was previously arrested on Dec. 18, 2015 and acquitted on Jan. 2 this year of charges ranging from spying to inciting hatred against the government. Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments had written a letter dated Aug. 14 ordering them to hand over church leadership to the committee appointed by the government ministry, sources said. When they refused, police opened a case against them, though it was unclear under what law. “Police asked if we still maintain our stance on our refusal to acknowledge the committee appointed by the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments, and we said yes, because it is not the work of the [government] ministry to appoint committees for the church,” Pastor Shamaal told Morning Star News.
Police said that in arresting them they were implementing orders from the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments to impose its committee as new SCOC leadership, presumably to sell off the church property in Sudan’s bid to rid the country of Christianity. The pastors said the committee was contrary to SCOC's constitution, which calls for general elections every three years to appoint new leadership.
Pastors Mattan, Shamaal and the others are still members of the legitimate executive committee of the SCOC, sources said. The current leadership term expires in March 2018. Police also arrested the Rev. Yagoub Naway and pastor Musa Kodi, both from the SCOC. The four Christians were interrogated along with the three other church leaders, including SCOC Finance Secretary Abdulbagi Ali Abdulrahaman and SCOC Deputy Finance Secretary El-Amin Hassam Abdulrasool, before they were all released on bail. Six other SCOC members are in hiding after learning police were searching for them to arrest and interrogate them, sources said.
Another SCOC pastor, the Rev. Hassan Abdelrahim Tawor, had received a 12-year sentence earlier this year after being charged with spying and trying to tarnish Sudan’s image, but he was freed along with Abdulmonem Abdumawla of Darfur on May 11 after receiving a presidential pardon. He had been arrested along with Pastor Shamaal in December 2015. They were convicted on baseless charges of assisting Czech aid worker Petr Jasek – pardoned and released on Feb. 25– in alleged espionage, causing hatred among communities and spreading false information, according to their attorney.
Foreign diplomats and international rights activists took notice of the case after Morning Star News broke the story of the arrest of pastors Abdelrahim Tawor and Shamaal. Their arrests were seen as part of a recent upsurge in harassment of Christians. Most SCOC members have roots among the ethnic Nuba in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan’s South Kordofan state, where the government is fighting an insurgency. The Nuba along with other Christians in Sudan face discrimination and harassment, as Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir has vowed to introduce a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and Arabic language.
In its campaign to rid the country of Christianity, Sudan has designated 25 church buildings for destruction, and on Aug. 2 it demolished a Baptist church in Omdurman. On May 7 Khartoum state authorities in Sudan demolished a church building in the Khartoum suburb of Soba al Aradi, which began as a refugee camp for south Sudanese. A bulldozer sent by Jebel Aulia locality and the Ministry of Planning and Urban Development destroyed the SCOC building.
Authorities had notified church leaders of the impending demolition just a week prior. The government reportedly claimed the churches were built on land zoned for residential or other uses, or were on government land, but church leaders said it is part of wider crack-down on Christianity. Harassment, arrests and persecution of Christians have intensified since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011. The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced in April 2013 that no new licenses would be granted for building new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population.
Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese. Besides raiding Christian bookstores and arresting Christians, authorities threatened to kill South Sudanese Christians who do not leave or cooperate with them in their effort to find other Christians. Sudan fought a civil war with the south Sudanese from 1983 to 2005, and in June 2011, shortly before the secession of South Sudan the following month, the government began fighting a rebel group in the Nuba Mountains that has its roots in South Sudan.
Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended the country remain on the list in its 2017 report.
Sudan ranked fifth on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2017 World Watch List of countries where Christians face most persecution.
Hindu Leaders Blame Nepal’s Church Growth on Greed
The former Hindu monarchy of Nepal boasts one of the fastest growing Christian populations. Hindu critics claim money and greed are driving the growth, but Christians say the country’s caste system makes Christ’s message of equality especially appealing. Hindu shaman Purna Bahadur Praja told The Guardian that people in the Chepang region turned to Christianity for assistance after the 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people and left thousands of others homeless. “[A]fter the earthquake, they got Bibles, rice, clothes, blankets, money to build churches. Pastors were getting motorbikes. … They spend the whole time emailing foreigners to ask for money,” Praja said.
Another Hindu priest told The Guardian that well-funded foreign organizations are “using money to promote Christianity,” helping sick church members and only providing post-earthquake aid to Christians. While the disaster certainly created a need for humanitarian assistance, it also increased opportunities to share the gospel. Christian groups say many conversions were sincere and most ministries helped everyone, regardless of their faith.
“Christians did some of the church reconstruction after the earthquake but they have done more for the general public, [from] emergency relief to reconstruction,” said pastor Tanka Subedi, co-chairman of the Nepal Christian Society and the leader of Nepal’s Religious Liberty Forum. The end of Nepal’s monarchy in 2008 and the establishment of a secular government allowed more freedom of religion in the country, although freedom is not absolute. By 2015, Christians numbered more than 1 million, about 3.8 percent of Nepal’s 28.5 million people, according to the World Christian Database. Conversions of low-caste Hindus, known as Dalits, are driving the growth, according to The Guardian. Dalits suffer discrimination, deprivation, and abuse in Hindu culture due to their lowly status. “It’s not surprising that Dalits are converting en masse, or that Christian groups would be doing work within this community,” said International Christian Concern’s William Stark, noting the Dalits are the most marginalized, least educated, and neediest people in the country.
The common “false narrative” of inducement or exchange for conversion to other religions pervades Southeast Asia, not just Nepal, Stark said, and Hindu nationalists often promote the idea. While he acknowledged instances of such behavior aren’t impossible, he insisted they are rare, noting that Dalits are drawn to Christianity because it validates their human worth. “The message of the gospel—that everyone is equal, everyone is loved by God, and God’s sacrifice was for everyone—is attractive especially to people of a Dalit background,” Stark said.
Chinese Theology Student and Aspiring Pastor Warns of Country's Increasing Persecution of Christians
Derek Lam, a Christian studying theology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says he will probably not be allowed to fulfill his dream of being a pastor. In a column for The New York Times, Lam says his democratic activism in Hong Kong could possibly lead to his imprisonment next month. Lam is a member of the democratic political party Demosisto.
Two of his friends were recently put in prison for peaceful protests the group organized in 2014, and more and more the government, under the leadership of General Secretary of the Community Party of China Xi Jinping, is taking control over Christian events. “During the last evening of one of this summer’s camps, the leaders of the camp told the campers that ‘God would make China prosperous’ and that Xi Jinping’s pet infrastructure project known as ‘One Belt, One Road’ was ‘the path that God had prepared,’” Lam said. “The organizers of the camp then had the audacity to claim that ‘One Belt, One Road’ would help spread the gospel.”
People in Hong Kong are being pushed to the side with the country’s communist views, Lam said. “Beijing is encroaching not only on Hong Kong’s political freedoms but also on the most personal ones, such as religious beliefs, as part of a larger strategy to shut down any kind of organizing outside of the (Communist) party,” he said. That’s led to the removal of crucifixes from churches and even razing some churches. Then last year, a pastor and wife were buried alive for trying to stop the destruction of their church.
Hong Kong’s bishop, Michael Yeung Ming-cheung said the churches were demolished because of “structural safety concerns.” Lam, however, says the bishop is looking to Xi Jinping and not God for “spiritual guidance.” “Although there is nothing I would love more than to become a pastor and preach the gospel in Hong Kong, I will never do so if it means making Jesus subservient to Xi Jinping. Instead, I will continue to fight for religious freedom in Hong Kong, even if I have to do it from behind bars,” he said.
Christians in India Mark 9th Anniversary of Country's Worst Anti-Christian Violence
International Christian Concern (ICC) and India's Christian community are marking the ninth anniversary of the 2008 anti-Christian Orissa riots, widely considered to be the worst incident of Christian persecution in India's independent history. Despite the passage of nine years, the lives of many Christians affected by the violence remain shattered by fear and injustice.
On August 24, 2008, anti-Christian mob violence swept across the Kandhamal District of India's Odisha State, then known as Orissa, after Christians were wrongly blamed for the assassination of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati. After three months of violence, at least 91 Christians were killed, many hacked to death by axes and machetes, and at least three Christian women were gang raped. Additionally, nearly 56,000 people were displaced, forced to flee into the forests, as mobs burned down more than 5,600 houses, 300 churches, and other Christian institutions. "We are still in terror, not feeling safe," Pastor Pradeep Nayak, a Christian survivor of the 2008 violence, told ICC. "At every corner of the market we feel something is going against Christians."
"It was [the] most terrifying day of my life," Pastor Raj Kishore, a Christian who survived the violence, told ICC. "I saw big flames and thick smoke coming out of a neighboring village. We had to run away knowing that the next target [was] our village. We walked 40 kilometers through the thickest forest in the dark night with my 20-days-old son and my wife to reach a town nearby." "Kandhamal is peaceful, but there is no peace in Kandhamal," Suranjan Nayak, General Secretary of the Christian Jankalyan Samiti Kandhamal, told ICC. "On the date Lakshmanananda was assassinated, all the churches were provided with security. This means there is still a threat to Christians."
Many Christians displaced by the violence have been unable to return to their home villages due to threats and a lack of government assistance. "So many people are not able to return to their own homes as they are not able to build back their houses," Suranjan Nayak explains. "During the government survey, many were still away from their villages and were not recorded, hence they were not able to get government compensation to reconstruct their houses."
William Stark, ICC's Regional Manager, said, "It has been nine years since Christians in India experienced the worst anti-Christian violence the country has seen in its independent history. Many of the victims of this terrible violence have yet to receive justice due to discrimination and poor police work following the riots. In many cases, Christians driven from their homes by mobs in 2008 are still unable to return to their villages unless they agree to convert to Hinduism. The Indian government must do more to provide justice to these victims and must take greater steps to rebuild the lives that were devastated by this violence nine years ago."
er Evidence of Fulfilled Jerusalem Prophecies—Including Isaiah 37:33
Climbing over walls and leaping over walls both are same i.e. trying to cross boundaries.
in the Jeremiah School of Prophecy 
