eChurch Christian Blog

On Tuesday President Obama addressed the US nation and informed the world that the war in Iraq was over.

So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended.  Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

In the years since the Iraq War was launched, 2,000 Christians have been murdered and 600,000 have fled Iraq, according to Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. 44% of Iraqi refugees are Christians, and many of the 600,000 Christians who remain are internally displaced persons who have had to flee their homes.

And all of this happened whilst US combat troop levels were high.

I came across an article in which Iraq’s new ambassador to the Vatican Habbeb Mohammed Hadi Ali al-Sadr is quoted as saying:

Terrorist elements were coming from outside of Iraq, and they only added Christians to their hit lists because an act of terror against Christians got more media attention than killing Muslims.

How wicked is that?

So what will happen now to our vulnerable brothers and sisters?

Some good news coming out of Israel relating to Messianic persecution:

Rosh Pina Project – Chief Rabbi of Efrat: Messianics in Israel face prejudice and discrimination

I haven’t blogged about the announcement made by the The Dove World Outreach Center in Florida of their plan to burn copies of the Qur’an on the anniversary of the September 11th World Trade Center attacks.

I didn’t blog about this as it is a despicable act by lunatic extremists whom in no way represent the vast majority of decent Christians in this world. This bunch are attention seeking and have already garnered global exposure.

Even though the Dove Center suffered a setback in their plans recently when city officials denied them a “burn permit”, they still plan to go ahead despite a potential fine and have even gone as far as to cite ten reasons why they should burn the Qu’ran.

So why have I blogged about this now?

It simply never occurred to me that this act may well endanger Christians living in Muslim nations. Whilst the Dove Outreach Center enjoy living in a society that will protect them from retribution and which is majority Christian, there are many other Christians who do not enjoy these privileges.

The Qur’an in Islamic thought is not comparable to the Bible as Muslims view the Qu’ran as the eternal word of God, perfect and pre-existing, rather like Christians view Jesus. This is why defacing the Qur’an is such a big deal in the Islamic psyche.

The Dove World Outreach Center are going to perpetrate a wicked, un-Christian and deliberately provocative act for which the only retribution will be meted out against the weak and vulnerable Christians living as minority groups in Islamic lands.

UCANEWS:

Worried Catholics and Muslims in Madhya Pradesh are to appeal to the Pope and other world leaders to try and prevent a US church holding a “Burn a Qur’an Day” next month.

We signed a resolution demanding positive action from world leaders to block the burnings, said Mazood Ahammad Khan

The letter will be sent to the “leaders shortly,” the secretary of the co-ordination committee for Indian Muslims said yesterday.

“We want action against such hate campaigners so that no one will do it again,” Khan said.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Florida plans to host the controversial event on Sept. 11 to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks in New York.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal, and a delegation of Muslim leaders met earlier on Aug. 24 to condemn the plan and discuss the impact the burnings could have in the state.

Some Muslim leaders would feel a “strong sense of anger” and Church people suspect it would be directed at them, said Quazi Muhammad Faisal, the top Muslim leader in Bhopal.

At the meeting the archbishop and Muslim leaders decided to write to Pope Benedict, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama asking them to help prevent the church from carrying out its plan.

The Catholic Church “fully shares the sentiments of Muslims that no one should be allowed to burn the holy Qur’an,” Archbishop Cornelio said.

“Such an act violates the established traditions for peaceful co-existence,” he told ucanews.com.

Christian and Muslim leaders have stressed the need to respect every religion, every religious book and each other’s right to follow a religion, he said.

Just so we don’t forget…..

Christian Today:

North Korea has executed three leaders of the underground church and jailed 20 other Christians, reports a news agency focused on Asia.

Although the execution and imprisonment happened in mid-May, news only got out this month.

According to AsiaNews, North Korean police raided a house in Kuwal-dong in Pyungsung county, Pyongan province, and arrested all 23 believers who were gathered there for religious activity.

The leaders were sentenced to death and soon after executed. The other 20 were reportedly sent to the infamous prison labour camp No 15 in Yodok. The 23 Christians had come to faith after some of them travelled to China on business and met with church members there.

North Korea Intellectual Solidarity, a group of North Korean defectors based in Seoul that seeks to raise awareness about injustice in North Korea, confirmed the events.

For eight straight years, Open Doors has ranked North Korea as the world’s worst persecutor of Christians.

Continue

Some good news.

Previous posts, here and here.

Compass Direct News

A Coptic Christian blogger arrested in Egypt on false charges of insulting Islam, then held for almost two years without charge under the country’s Emergency Law, has been released from prison.

Hani Nazeer, 31, a high school social worker and blogger was arrested Oct. 3, 2008 in response to a link to a Coptic Web site he placed on his Web log, “The Preacher of Love.” The Coptic Web site had a link to an online copy of “Azazil’s Goat in Mecca,” a controversial book written in response to “Azazil,” a novel critical of Christianity.

While the Egyptian author of “Azazil,” Youssef Zeidan, won awards internationally and across the Arab-speaking world for his book, the link to “Azazil’s Goat in Mecca” earned Nazeer one year and nine months in prison. Nazeer said that when he posted the link, he did not know the Coptic Web site had a link to “Azazil’s Goat in Mecca,” and that he has never read the book. Nazeer said there is a double standard in Egypt when it comes to any critique of Islam.

During his imprisonment, Nazeer said he was beaten, exposed to constant deprivation and was pressured to convert to Islam by violent criminals.

“One prisoner told me, ‘If you convert, you will be out in two days,’” Nazeer said.

He was released on July 22 because of recent reforms to the Emergency Law.

Nazeer’s Web log was exclusively dedicated to human rights issues and concerns facing Egypt’s ethnic Coptic community. He had previously brought attention to himself by criticizing the ever-increasing Islamization of Egyptian civil society.

Nazeer also singled out leaders in the Coptic Orthodox Church and lamented their involvement in politics. In one post, Nazeer wrote that a gathering of activists at a Coptic church building was inappropriate because church buildings were meant to be venues for prayer, not for politics.

He said that despite the controversy, his real problems started the last week of August 2008 when someone in his village discovered the Web site link, and groups of angry young Muslim men began to riot. A local priest brought some of the rioters to meet with Nazeer in an attempt at reconciliation, to no avail.

“He tried to explain to them that the situation was not as they saw it, and that I was not the one who wrote it, and that my link wasn’t to the story – it was to another site,” Nazeer said. “They were so angry, but some of them understood, and some of them did not understand.”

For the next three days, the youths ripped through Qena, a village in Upper Egypt, protesting in the streets, throwing stones at houses and verbally assaulting Copts. The demonstrations happened during Ramadan, Islam’s most sacred month. It is unclear if any of the teenagers or men were arrested on any charges.

Nazeer went into hiding during the riots, seeking sanctuary in a monastery near Qena. The State Security Investigations unit (SSI), Egypt’s secret police agency, took two of Nazeer’s relatives into custody and aggressively interrogated them to obtain his location. Eventually Nazeer turned himself in so the SSI would release the two men.

Continue