Barnabas Aid July August 2013

www.barnabasfund.org

THE AID AGENCY FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

JULY/AUGUST 2013

N A I T N A S I I R CH VER S T R S T E N CO RISIIS S S I C N IIN IN THIS ISSUE

Converts

Africa

Syria

Anguish and hope for warweary Christians

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G O D IS

FAITHF U L

Radical Islam on the march

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How they suffer for Christ

£7.99

Fighting the Ideological War: Winning Strategies from Communism to Islamism Katharine C. Gorka and Patrick Sookhdeo In recent years the United States has responded to global terrorism largely as a physical threat. This book seeks to redress this imbalance by focusing on the battle of ideas. It looks at the beliefs that motivate Islamist terrorists and how the U.S. might counter them, drawing on the lessons to be learned from previous ideological conflicts.

ISBN: 9780985310905 | Format: Paperback | No. of pages: 240 | RRP: £9.99 | P&P: £2.00

To order these books, visit: barnabasfund.org/shop Alternatively, please contact your nearest Barnabas Fund office (addresses on back cover). Cheques for the UK should be made payable to “Barnabas Books”.

The paper used in this publication comes from sustainable forests and can be 100% recycled

£5.00 Why Christian Women Convert to Islam Rosemary Sookhdeo Women are being attracted to Islam in increasing numbers. The author explores the reasons why they convert and highlights the problems that they face. She examines the issues confronting women who marry Muslims and addresses the long-term implications of conversion. This is an essential guide to a vital topic for parents and church leaders.

ISBN: 9780978714116 | Format: Paperback | No. of pages: 125 | RRP: £7.99 | P&P: £1.50

Front cover: A Christian convert is baptised To guard the safety of Christians in hostile environments, names may have been changed or omitted. Thank you for your understanding.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are taken from the New International Version®.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission for stories and images used in this publication. Barnabas Fund apologises for any errors or omissions and will be grateful for any further information regarding copyright. © Barnabas Fund 2013

WELCOME FROM THE DIRECTOR

“And the people stood by, watching” (Luke 23:35, RSV)

As

I write, rebel mortar bombs have been raining down on a Christian district of Aleppo, Syria.

Snipers are targeting the inhabitants of the Christian areas, whenever they dare to leave their homes.

Their city’s infrastructure has virtually collapsed, with water, electricity and communications spasmodic at best.

Rubbish is piling up in the streets, creating fertile ground for disease as summer temperatures soar. Most of the doctors have fled, and the hospitals now have capacity to treat only the war-wounded, not routine cases. You can read more about this in the testimony of a dear Christian doctor friend of mine on pages 12-13 of this magazine.

In Homs 75 Christians, many of them elderly, are still being held by the rebels as a human shield; hardship and deprivation are killing them one by one. Rebel forces have seized the Christians’ homes and stolen their possessions. Now they are selling back the looted furniture to the Christians they displaced, who need to furnish their places of refuge.

Christians from Hassake and Qamishli are fleeing across the border to Turkey. Those who can afford it are paying up to US $ 30,000 for a visa to the West.

In the rebel-held areas, Christian women are afraid to go out in case they are raped. Christian men are favourite targets for kidnapping. Church buildings are attacked and desecrated.

As all this is happening, the world watches: perhaps indifferent, perhaps moved, but mostly with a sense of powerlessness. Political leaders – who do have power – are divided. Tragically, Britain, France and the US back Turkey,

Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who are funding and arming the rebels, many of whom are terrorists and prey on Christians.

In Luke’s account of the crucifixion we read that the people watched and the rulers scoffed (Luke 23:35). What were the emotions of the people while they watched the Son of God dying on the cross? Ghoulish curiosity? Sympathy and concern? Apathy and indifference? We do not know.

But we do know the feelings of their leaders, the individuals who could have acted but chose not to intervene.

They felt nothing but contempt. The horror of our Lord’s suffering, ignominy and shame did not touch them.

Today our world, both people and leadership, looks on as Syria disintegrates. And may we venture to wonder how the Lord sees it? In Psalm 11 we read of a situation in which “the foundations are being destroyed” (v. 3) – and how better could one describe what is happening now in Syria? The Lord surveys the people, distinguishing the righteous from the wicked (v. 5). The Hebrew indicates that He has screwed up His eyes so as to focus His gaze more effectively. As the Lord looks on, He is not indifferent, let alone scoffing. He is deeply concerned for His people in their plight, focusing all His attention on them, but hating those who love violence.

May the God who sees us shape our minds and our hearts. May He remove from us all indifference, callousness or carelessness. May He teach us to look upon the suffering people of Syria, and particularly our own Christian brothers and sisters, with humanity, with Christlike love, with infinite compassion, with an overriding sense of empathy.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo International Director

Contents

Compassion in Action Dignity and hope for Christian widows in Sri Lanka Spotlight How Christian converts suffer for Christ Windows on Islam The growth and spread of radical Islam in Africa

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Testimony Persecuted Indian Christians rejoice in God’s grace

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Syria Update Support for weeping and mourning Christians

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Newsdesk Anti-Christian violence rages across Africa

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In Touch Barnabas 20th anniversary: celebrating God’s faithfulness

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PULLOUT BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013 3

COMPASSION IN ACTION

how barnabas £1,925 for evangelist support and rent in Georgia (US$2,958; €2,279) £372,634 (Jan-Mar 2013) for Christians affected by Syria crisis (US$572,663; €441,108)

Enabling Gospel ministry

£48,006 towards transporting 2,740 Christians to South Sudan (US$73,767; €56,827)

Thanksgiving for essential needs in time of crisis

The exodus continues

The church in Batumi sends out evangelists Displaced Syrian Christians

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Since the uprising began in March 2011, Barnabas has sent over £2 million to provide essential supplies to brothers and sisters in Syria and others who have fled abroad to escape the violence, some of which is directed specifically at Christians. Our courageous partners on the ground have distributed food, blankets, heaters and many other practical items to thousands of displaced families.

Project reference 00-1032

The latest Barnabas grant has contributed to the travel and living costs of the evangelists and their families for six months, allowing the church to send them out more regularly. It has also helped to pay the rents.

Project reference 15-936

Most of the roughly 100 members of the congregation in Batumi are converts from Islam. They have been sending evangelists to work among Muslims in the Adjara Highlands in the south-west of the country, preaching the Gospel, planting churches and leading meetings. But their resources are limited, and they also have to pay rent for their church building and pastor’s house.

Loading the buses for departure

“I am delighted to convey to Barnabas Fund and all those who support it our innermost gratitude and heartfelt prayers for your Christian generosity, care and support.” With these words a senior Christian leader in Syria gave thanks for support received from Barnabas by local Christians caught up in the country’s destructive civil war.

A new grant from Barnabas has now helped a further 2,740 South Sudanese Christians to escape oppression at the hands of the Islamist government in Sudan and come safely home to freedom. Two convoys of 47 buses and 41 trailer trucks took to the road on 19 and 21 March, transporting Christians from two refugee camps by road to Malakal in South Sudan. Our funds paid for vehicle hire, packing and loading, and co-ordination of the project.

This repatriation funded by Barnabas had already enabled more than 2,000 Christians to leave Sudan in 2012. The latest phase brings the total number of people we have helped to nearly 5,000.

Project reference 48-1078

Support from Barnabas has helped a growing church in Georgia to proclaim God’s Word to others.

is helping

COMPASSION IN ACTION

Thank you so much for your support for our work, which gives such great encouragement and renewed hope to our brothers and sisters living in the shadow of discrimination and persecution. Below and on the following pages you can read about just a few of many people you have enabled us to help recently. Please pray as you read their stories.

£43,397 for typhoon relief in the Philippines (US$66,671; €51,377)

A place to serve the Lord

Rapid growth at Christian school

Christian families receiving emergency aid

“All the Christians were happy that day and thanking God for the wonderful relief.” A partner in the Philippines told of the joy felt by needy Christians when Barnabas sent them aid after a devastating typhoon. One woman said that her family had had food for only one more day, and the tears flowed as she praised God for answering their prayers.

The church now has its own building Pupil numbers have increased almost tenfold in a year

Most of the Christian families in the area are poor. Usually they cannot afford to send their children to school, and the children go out to work instead to earn some extra income. But because the new school provides an affordable and quality education in a Christian context, the parents are happy to see their children go there. All 58 children passed their examination in the first year.

Project reference 41-1092

A ministry in Lahore, Pakistan, started a school for Christian children in April 2012 with only six pupils. A year later, with support from Barnabas, its numbers had increased to 58. Our two grants helped to pay the teachers’ salaries.

The church has 200 members and runs a thriving Bible School each year, as well as children’s work, evangelism and social care projects.

But the city authorities would not rent public venues to them, and private rental properties were scarce and expensive. They had to move location six times in the previous ten years. Having their own building will strengthen their wide-ranging ministry and protect them better against harassment.

Project reference 50-959

“Now we have our own church building and can develop the ministry. We don’t need to fear that we will be turned out on the street.”

With help from Barnabas a lively church in Tajikistan has been able to buy and register a large four-storey property.

Typhoon Bopha wreaked havoc across the southern Philippines in December 2012, triggering floods and landslides that wrecked homes and crops. In the Campostela Valley on the island of Mindanao, around 90% of the people’s livelihoods were destroyed. Mindanao is strongly Muslim, and Christians there have often been targeted by militant Islamists fighting for an independent Islamic state. Barnabas assisted 705 Christian families with essential supplies, including rice, groceries, drinking water, medicines and blankets.

Project reference 00-634 (Disaster Relief Fund)

£1,200 for Christian school in Pakistan (US$1,844; €1,421)

Joy in the midst of devastation

£50,000 for church building in Tajikistan (US$76,829; €59,186)

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COMPASSION IN ACTION

bringing hope,

Training for leadership India: education for Christian living Barnabas supports an exciting and fruitful programme of leadership and theological training by extension for Nepali Christians in India. Its aim is to produce Biblically trained and properly equipped church leaders and members, through courses that help them understand the Gospel and its power.

In 2012 five sessions were organised for 54 leaders, training them to run Bible study groups.

As a result, 26 new groups have started, with 225 members. That makes the total number of people following the programme more than 500, most of them aged between 14 and 35. Group members

can study at home using teaching materials in their own Nepali language.

The courses are building faith, developing discipleship and encouraging witness. One student said, “As a new Christian [the course] showed me that coming to faith was just the beginning and I needed to keep going forward in my faith and relationship with Jesus.” And her tutor added, “I would recommend all Christians to do these courses as they are so effective in giving teaching on practical Christian living and giving a strong foundation for one’s faith.”

Course members meet in groups for Bible study

£4,444 for leadership and theological training in India (US$6,830; €5,261) Project reference 21-1012

Kyrgyzstan: understanding our sufferings for Christ Barnabas helped to fund a conference for 65 pastors in Kyrgyzstan earlier this year. Most of them lead small churches in villages and towns and face persecution from local Muslims. They have no formal Biblical training and cannot normally afford to get it.

The purpose of the conference was to help the pastors to understand the place of suffering in the Christian life, to give them practical skills in Bible study, and to provide opportunities for networking and mutual encouragement. The teaching was based on the first letter of Peter. Testimonies

from participants showed how successful the conference was. One pastor said: “After this seminar I have changed my point of view on sufferings and I start to think more about mercy of God. Now I understand that I need to face suffering with joy and gratitude.”

Many of the pastors have changed their attitude to suffering for Christ and now see it as a gift of God’s grace. They say they will preach about it in their churches and encourage the believers to stand strong in the face of persecution.

The pastors welcomed the opportunity to study God’s Word together

£3,412 for a pastors’ conference in Kyrgyzstan (US$5,244; €4,038) Project reference 00-430 (Leadership Training Fund)

Tanzania: combating the spread of Islam “Every participant was very happy because of the seminars and the open-air preaching because of the great need of facing the Muslim challenge in Tanzania.” A Barnabas partner in Tanzania summed up the positive response to two evangelism training sessions, each for 50 people, that Barnabas has funded.

Militant Islam is growing stronger in some parts of Tanzania. At least two Christian leaders and

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five church members have been murdered in the past year, and at least ten church buildings destroyed. The seminars were designed to equip the evangelists to respond to these threatening developments through effective proclamation of the Gospel. In the mornings they received teaching, and in the afternoons they went out to put it into practice. Our partner reported that many people became Christians as a result.

Tanzanian evangelists in prayer at one of the seminars

£3,000 for evangelism training in Tanzania (US$4,611; €3,551) Project reference 51-413

COMPASSION IN ACTION

transforming lives Self-sufficiency for widows in Sri Lanka

Project reference 85-1063 £19,500 for income-generation projects for Sri Lankan Christian widows (US$29,970; €23,080)

An

income-generation project supported by Barnabas is bringing renewed dignity and hope to Christian widows in Sri Lanka whose lives were turned upside down by the country’s cruel civil war.

Sudha is one of them. She used to live with her husband and two children in Vanni and helped to support her family through a sewing business that she ran with her sister. But then the war brought tragedy upon them.

“I am happy that I can stay at home and earn money for taking care of my kids”

“I lost my husband in 2007 during the conflict in Vanni,” says Sudha. “Afterwards I was displaced and stayed in different IDP camps. I lost all my belongings and came to the camp with empty hands.”

Many Christian women were affected by the war in the same way. Deprived of their husbands and their own livelihoods, they were left without the confidence or resources to get back on their feet. “Without capital I couldn’t get a new sewing machine and restart my industry,” Sudha recalls. Affected Christian widows are not getting adequate assistance from the government.

Instead, “I used to go for daily work [i.e. hired to work for only one day at a time] and earn money to look after my children,” says Sudha. Some families struggled to meet even their basic needs, and the children had to stop their education and go out to work too.

But then a Barnabas partner came to the rescue.

Eighty Christian widows were given training in small-business skills, including investment, advertising and accounting. They were also provided with resources to start their businesses, which included various kinds of farming, carpentry, mat-making, grocery shops, food

Sudha received a sewing machine through the income generation project

manufacture – and sewing. “I thank my pastor and the team for providing me with a sewing machine and helping me to restart my income,” says Sudha.

The project has greatly benefited the widows and their families. They have a larger and more stable

income, and their needs for food, education and health care are now being met. “I am happy that I don’t need to depend on others for daily income and can stay at home and earn money for taking care of my kids,” says Sudha. The churches are also being strengthened as the women grow in their faith and commitment.

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SPOTLIGHT

A

bdoulaye and Abakachi were travelling around Lake Chad in Cameroon when their lives were mercilessly cut short. Their vehicle was stopped by four gunmen, who forced them out of the car and opened fire. Abakachi was killed instantly; Abdoulaye later died of his injuries in hospital. Both men were former Muslims who had given their lives to Jesus Christ.

Abdoulaye Daoud, a Christian convert killed in Cameroon.

Barnabas is helping his widow and children

Tragically, persecution such as this is a harrowing reality for converts to Christianity in many countries. Abdoulaye and Abakachi were targeted by Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group based in Nigeria. Abdoulaye, who was the leader of the converts from the mainly Islamic Kotoko people group, had been threatened by the group before his murder in February 2013. Barnabas Fund has helped the Kotoko converts to Christianity with their basic needs and with leadership training.

Christian converts in crisis

Many of us cherish memories not only of coming to faith but also of the time we spent as new Christians, maturing in our understanding with the support of our brothers and sisters in Christ. In contrast, those who turn to Christ in places where Christians – and especially converts – are persecuted may find themselves isolated and in great danger.

It is not only in Islamic contexts that Christian converts face persecution. They may also suffer at the hands of (for example) Hindu extremists in India or the adherents of traditional religions in south-east Asia. Much of the worst persecution of Christian converts, however, occurs where Muslims are in the majority.

The primary cause of persecution for Christian converts in Muslim-majority contexts is the Islamic apostasy law. This article explains how the law leads to the persecution of our brothers and sisters by the authorities, militant groups and their local communities. It also shows how Western governments are failing vulnerable Christian converts who seek asylum within their borders.

The apostasy law

Western governments turn away Christians in danger of their lives

Christian converts are more vulnerable in Muslim-majority contexts than anywhere else. Islam is a one-way street; although anyone can become a Muslim, Muslims are not free to leave Islam. In fact, all schools of sharia law prescribe the death penalty for adult males who do so, and most also mandate it for adult female apostates.

Although 13 verses of the Quran mention apostasy, their emphasis is on Allah’s punishment in the next life rather than on earthly penalty. Because the Quran is so ambiguous on the

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SPOTLIGHT subject, Muslims justify the apostasy law on the basis of the hadith, which are stories from the life of Muhammad.

These record that Muhammad said that apostates should be killed and gave orders for some specific killings of apostates. Some hadith also promise a special reward in paradise for a Muslim who kills an apostate.

Some Islamic scholars have called for reform of the law, but their voices are few.

Persecuted by the authorities

A total of 20 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia penalise apostasy to varying degrees. Although the death penalty is rarely enforced, sharia also prescribes other punishments for apostasy, including the deprivation of all civil rights. Converts may be separated from their spouses and children and deprived of their property.

The authorities may also frame new Christians for other crimes or arrest them for “public disorder” because of the outcry caused by their conversions.

For example, in the last few years the Iranian authorities have responded to the growth of Iran’s churches by persecuting Christians in a manner not seen since the early days of the Islamic revolution over 30 years ago. Christian converts face harassment, threats, arrest and imprisonment. Some detainees are subjected to abuse and torture, while others have to pay exorbitant sums for bail.

In Egypt, the authorities hinder converts from Islam to Christianity from changing the religious status on their identity cards. Maher el-Gohary, a Christian convert from Islam, tried to leave the country in May 2009 after his unsuccessful attempt to have his new faith recorded on his card put him in danger, but he and his daughter were detained at the airport and their passports were confiscated.

Official persecution of Christian converts is not limited to Islamic contexts. Seven states in India have introduced “anti-conversion” laws that prohibit conversion by “force”, “fraud” or “allurement”, and in some places these are misused to prohibit legitimate Christian evangelism.

One such law, in Himachal Pradesh, was successfully challenged in the state’s high court in August 2012

by Christians, who claimed it was being used by Hindu extremists to prevent people from converting to Christianity. Those wanting to convert were listed in a public registry, which Hindu extremists used to track down new believers, whom they persecuted and even murdered.

“Anti-conversion” laws are also now in place in Buddhistmajority Bhutan, and in Sri Lanka a powerful ethnic Sinhalese and Buddhist nationalist lobby has long campaigned for the introduction of similar legislation.

Targeted by militants

Sadly, the cruel and fatal assault on Abdoulaye and Abakachi in Cameroon is an all too typical story. Militant Islamist groups often target Christian converts from Islam.

For example, in November 2012 Farhan Haji Mose, a Somali Christian convert, was brutally and publicly beheaded by al-Shabaab militants. It is thought that his movements were monitored by the group, which controls parts of Somalia, for six months before his murder.

In countries such as Somalia and Afghanistan, it is likely that there are many more incidents of antiChristian violence than we know about. All indigenous Christians are converts from Islam, and the danger to the tiny and unprotected minorities in these countries is so great that believers must meet in secrecy or follow Jesus alone.

Apostasy is forbidden or restricted in*: Afghanistan, Algeria, Brunei, the Comoros, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, the Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania (Zanzibar), Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

In countries highlighted in red, apostasy is judicially punishable by death, although the penalty is rarely enforced. In any Muslim society apostates are liable to violence and even murder by the community. *Some of the countries with a law, rule or policy at some level of government forbidding or restricting apostasy from Islam

Return to Islam or stay in prison When Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini returned to his home country to try to establish an orphanage, he found himself arrested on charges of “undermining national security”. The Iranian authorities sentenced Saeed in January 2013 to eight years in prison. Saeed, a former Muslim who was once trained as a suicide bomber by militant group Hezbollah, is now a fearless Christian evangelist. His conviction relates to his work in planting house churches after he became a Christian in 2000.

In prison, Saeed has been subjected to threats, torture and beatings that have left him with internal bleeding.

He has been repeatedly refused medical treatment and has been told that, unless he returns to Islam, he will not be freed even after he has completed his jail sentence.

The US has pressed for Saeed’s release, but more than a hundred Iranian converts are similarly suffering in prison with nobody to speak out for them.

Saeed Abedini is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Iran

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SPOTLIGHT It is feared that the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 could endanger Christian converts further. Parallels have been drawn with the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989; Islamic extremism flourished significantly after their departure.

Asian Christian from a Muslim background who has been denied asylum in the UK and refused the right to appeal. The claim was denied despite the convert’s real fears that their influential Muslim family would find them out wherever they took refuge in their home country.

Rejected by their family and local community

Adebowale Kazeem Abebola, a Muslimbackground Christian from Nigeria, is awaiting deportation from the UK after his asylum claim was also refused. Adebowale fled Nigeria after

Many ordinary Muslims consider apostasy to be a shocking crime akin to treason, and converts’ families and communities may try to force them to return to Islam by means of social pressure and severe harassment. Many converts are fired from their jobs by their Muslim employers.

Having a family member convert from Islam is a source of great shame, and some Muslims may even murder a relative who has turned to Christ in order to restore the family’s lost honour. David Abdulwahab Mohamed Ali, a Somali Christian convert and evangelist, was killed by his cousin and two members of the Islamist group alShabaab in 2008.

Christian converts in other contexts also often face seeing the communities where they have long lived at peace turn against them. For example, local leaders in Laos and Vietnam may harass new Christians and put pressure on them to take part in local traditional religious practices. If our brothers and sisters refuse to do so, they risk losing everything. In February 2013, five families in Vietnam who had recently become Christians were the target of a campaign of attacks on their property that culminated in a number of them being physically assaulted and threatened with death. In January, a couple in Laos were thrown out of their village for accepting Christ.

Western governments turn their backs Many Christian converts have no choice but to flee their home country or face intense persecution, even the danger of death.

Nevertheless, some Western governments are refusing to grant them asylum. Barnabas Fund was informed recently of the case of a South

“If the Taliban don’t execute me for being a Christian, my family will” receiving multiple death threats from Boko Haram, who killed his mother. And two Afghan Christians were deported in 2011 despite being in danger of their lives. One of them, Ahmed Faizi, said, “If the Taliban don’t execute me for being a Christian, my family will.”

Some converts have been refused asylum when the authorities doubted the genuineness of their new Christian faith. A 2007 report by the Evangelical Alliance found that “faith-testing” questions used by the government were “inappropriate” and “insensitive”. The questions included “How do you prepare a turkey for Christmas?” and “What were the names of the thieves either side of Jesus as He was crucified” (they are not named in the Gospels). Asylumseekers have been asked similar “faith-testing” questions in the US and by the Swedish authorities, who recently denied asylum to a number of Iranian converts.

If the translator used in an interview is from the majority religion of the convert’s home country, this could also jeopardise the applicant’s claim or

even their safety, as translators may themselves have strong feelings against apostates and could take some action harmful to the applicant.

The authorities in Western countries need to recognise that converts are at greater risk of persecution than are believers from Christian backgrounds, and so even if Christians in general live in relative freedom and safety in a particular country, converts may not.

A shake-up of the UK’s immigration services was announced in March 2013. Now is a timely moment for Christians in the UK to raise their voices in protest against the way vulnerable converts to Christianity who seek refuge in the UK are treated, and to remind the government of their plight in their home countries.

Will you join Barnabas Fund in urging Western governments to respond in an appropriate, informed and compassionate manner to converts to Christianity who are seeking asylum on the basis of religious persecution, and also to put pressure on the governments of countries where those who have left other religions to follow Christ face persecution?

Please visit www.barnabasfund.org/asylum-letter to download a sample letter to your MP. Alternatively, this can be ordered by contacting your nearest Barnabas office.

Please pray

Give thanks for all those who give their hearts to the Lord, and that more Muslims are currently becoming Christians than at any time in history.

Ask the Lord to protect converts from harassment and violence by family members, neighbours, the authorities and militant groups. Pray for the abolition of the oppressive Islamic apostasy law and for anti-conversion laws in South Asia to be repealed. Ask also that Western governments will respond appropriately to Christian converts who seek asylum within their borders.

How Barnabas is helping Barnabas Fund’s Convert Fund provides a variety of support for vulnerable converts. The fund provides safe accommodation for those who are in immediate danger, discipleship training to enable new Christians to grow in their faith, and education, skills training and small business start-up costs to ensure brighter futures for converts in the long term. (Project reference 00-113)

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A Barnabas-funded training session for new Christians in Burundi

WINDOWS WINDOWSON ON ISLAM ISLAM

Islam in Africa

Islam in Africa A

frica is commonly considered to be a mainly Christian continent. Although the countries along the Mediterranean and north Atlantic seaboard are staunchly Muslim, much of the rest of Africa has been a fruitful field for Christian mission. From 1900 to 2010, Christian numbers across the continent rose from around 9% to about 49%, and from roughly 7 million to (according to some estimates) over 500 million. Many nations have majority-Christian populations, and some – such as Nigeria, Angola and even Muslim-majority Algeria – have witnessed remarkable church growth.

So Christianity is now the largest religion in Africa – but only just. Over against this vast Christian community must be set the powerful and pervasive presence of Islam. In 2010 there were nearly 430 million Muslims in Africa, who made up 41% of the total population. (Most of the remaining 10% are followers of traditional African religions.) The line separating the largely Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south runs not only across the whole continent but also through the middle of several countries, generating major social and political tensions that sometimes explode into brutal conflict. Many of the Muslim-majority countries are becoming more explicitly and stridently Islamic (notably in the aftermath of the Arab Spring), whether by political or military means. Islamist terrorism is also wreaking havoc in several parts of the continent. Muslim minorities are growing in confidence and influence, and Islamic mission (dawa) is being vigorously promoted.

The Islamic presence and resurgence in Africa poses a grave threat to individual Christians and congregations, and in some places to the very existence of the Church.

In this article we shall briefly examine the historical development of Christianity and Islam in Africa, and then

look in more detail at Islam in the continent today, with special reference to the major and menacing challenge of Islamism and its significance for Africa’s increasingly beleaguered Christian community.

Historical background

There is some evidence of a Christian presence in Africa in New Testament times. Some of the people who hear Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost are from Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene (Acts 2:10). A eunuch from Ethiopia is baptised by Philip while on his way home (Acts 8:26-40), while Paul’s co-worker Apollos originates from Alexandria in Egypt (Acts 18:24), though it is not known if he was converted there or ever ministered there.

By the end of the second century there were certainly churches in Egypt, Nubia (in the area of modern Sudan) and western North Africa. In the next 200 years Africa gave the Church some of its most famous leaders and theologians, such as Athanasius and Augustine, and the church in Alexandria became one of the most important in early Christianity. Ethiopia became an officially Christian country in 330AD. The Christian community survived periods of Roman persecution and barbarian invasion and remained strong in the north and Horn of Africa for several centuries.

But the rise of Islam in the 7th century was to prove disastrous for the Church in Africa. By 700 the Muslims had conquered a large part of eastern North Africa, including much of Egypt, and the eastern coastal areas around the Horn began to be Islamised and Arabised through trade links and population movement. By 750 the tide of Islamic conquest had engulfed the whole of the north, and the Muslims had begun to move southwards into the in-

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013

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WINDOWS ON ISLAM

Islam in Africa terior by means of trade, mission and further military victories. Although sizeable Christian communities survived in Egypt and Ethiopia, and much smaller ones may have persisted in the north-west, many congregations simply ceased to exist.

Further south the Muslim expansion was blocked by three Nubian Christian kingdoms that flourished along the Nile for some 600 years. But the Muslim drive southwards finally led to their fall between the 14th and 16th centuries, and the Church in Nubia was wiped out. Elsewhere the Muslims consolidated their immense gains and wore away the Church over the centuries until it vanished altogether in some areas. Trading and migration also carried Islam far into sub-Saharan Africa, while Arabs from Oman took over more of the eastern coastal areas and Islamised them.

But Christianity also gained a further foothold with the establishing of Portuguese states in south-east Africa in the 15th century.

Christian missionaries were arriving in sub-Saharan Africa from the 16th century, and the 19th and 20th centuries saw a massive growth in Christian mission work. Flourishing churches were established in West, East, central and southern Africa, and in some places Muslims and Christians began actively to compete. Colonialism introduced influential communities of expatriate Christians, even into the overwhelmingly Muslim north. And although the postindependence states of sub-Saharan Africa are mainly secular, Christianity remains the dominant faith through most of the vast region.

In the meantime, movements of reform have progressively changed the nature of Islam in various parts of the continent. These have sought to purge and purify it from the influence of traditional African religion and Western influences. In recent decades they have also promoted the growth of Islamism, stamping much of African Islam with a more openly political and often violent character.

The rise of Islamism

Islamism is a view of Islam as a comprehensive political ideology that aims at establishing Islamic states under the authority of sharia. It is marked by zeal, activism and the desire to follow sharia in minute detail and impose it on others. It works for its goals by a variety of means, sometimes through political processes, but sometimes also (or instead) by violence.

Where Islamism becomes dominant in its political or more aggressive forms, the prospects for Christian minorities are bleak. Islamist governments are likely to restrict their political freedom, reduce their social status and subject them to harassment or outright persecution. Islamist revolutionaries and terrorists see them as easy targets and are committed to driving Christianity out of the areas that they control.

Islamism has been present in Africa for many decades, but hitherto it has largely been counterbalanced by other factors. In North African countries Islamist ambitions have long been held in check by authoritarian governments, notably in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Even in Algeria, where Islamists instigated a bloody civil war in

II

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013

the 1990s and exert effective pressure on the government, they have been unable to impose their will fully. In Sudan a mainly Muslim and Arab North tried in the 1980s to impose sharia on a predominantly non-Muslim and African South, provoking another civil war (1983-2005), in which over two million Southern Sudanese were killed. But its ambitions were thwarted, and South Sudan became an independent and predominantly Christian nation in 2011.

In many other parts of Africa the dominant form of Islam has been based on Sufism (Islamic mysticism).

Although Sufism can sometimes be violent (as in Nigeria in the early 19th century), elsewhere it has been relatively tolerant. In some Muslim-majority countries such as Senegal, Mali and Chad, Muslim majorities have co-existed with other religious groups, including Christians, with a fair measure of peace and equality. Muslim minorities in Christian-majority contexts have also not usually sought to impose Islam on others by political and violent means.

Only Northern Nigeria and Somalia, where sharia has been partially enforced by governments or insurgents, are major exceptions to this generally positive picture.

But the influence of Islamism has been steadily growing in Africa, as Middle Eastern and Arab culture have been progressively imported by zealous Muslims, and as traditional and Western influences have been increasingly rejected. Islamism has now forced its attention on the wider world by its recent spectacular advances, through the ballot, the bullet and the bomb. And at the same time the work of Islamic dawa proceeds, gradually transforming African societies by more subtle means.

The ballot: Electoral success

The so-called Arab Spring of 2011 began in Tunisia, and within a year it had toppled three regimes in North Africa; the dictatorships of Zine el-Abedine in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. The governments of Morocco and Algeria survived, though both introduced some modest political changes. Islamists were actively involved in the opposition movements, but they were able to achieve their goals only in alliance with others, including liberals and secularists in Egypt and Tunisia.

However, early hopes that this movement would advance a liberal agenda were rapidly dashed. Islamist parties have emerged victorious from the electoral processes in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, while secularists have been rapidly marginalised. Both Tunisia, with its long secular tradition, and Morocco, with its powerful and revered monarchy, have some defence left against Islamist power, and the position of their small and vulnerable Christian minorities has not noticeably worsened. But the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has huge and chilling implications for the country and its large Christian minority.

Already there are signs that Egypt is set to become an Islamic state. Islamists have been able to use their political dominance to push through a new constitution that gives Muslim clerics a role in ensuring that legislation complies with sharia. A professor at al-Azhar University,

WINDOWS ON ISLAM

Islam in Africa Egypt’s most authoritative Islamic centre, has threatened Christians with the jizya, a humiliating tax imposed on them according to sharia in return for limited protection to practise their faith. And a religious police force, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has been appointed to uphold Muslim morals.

Life for Christians in Egypt was very hard even before the Arab Spring, as they suffered routine discrimination, extreme poverty and frequent violence. But the Islamist regime is likely to increase hostility and intolerance towards Christians and impose further restrictions on their activities. It appears also to be driving the country into an ever-deeper economic crisis that will further increase the pressure on impoverished Christians. Here and elsewhere, rule by Islamists can be expected also to intensify the harassment already meted out to converts from Islam.

Islamist government in Africa is not confined to countries touched by the Arab Spring.

The secession of South Sudan in 2011 left Sudan with a massive Muslim majority, and its president has declared its intention of making the country 100% Islamic. Church buildings are being demolished, Christians arrested and literature seized in what appears to be a systematic attempt to eradicate Christians from Sudan. And sharia remains in force in twelve states of Northern Nigeria, sometimes enforced by groups of vigilantes (hisba).

blighted by radical Islamist groups supporting strict and aggressive interpretations of Islam. Although they are both relatively stable at present, militia activity in these two countries could destroy the delicate social and political balance as thoroughly as it did in Mali and put the Christians there in similar jeopardy.

Even more disquieting for Christians is an Islamist revolt further south, in the majority-Christian Central African Republic (CAR). In March this year the Seleka rebels, who are said to follow the strict form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, deposed the former president and installed their own leader in his place. They apparently aspire to Islamise the country and impose sharia upon it, but at the time of writing chaos is reigning. There have been reports of attacks on individual Christians, looting of Christian homes and attacks on church buildings.

CAR is notoriously unstable, and the Islamists may be as unable to consolidate their power as previous governments have been. But the mere fact of their taking over a country where Muslims number just 15% of the population attests to the growing military might of Islamism in Africa.

Islamist terrorism has become a more powerful and widespread scourge in Africa

The bullet: Military conquest

The success of Islamist movements in North Africa has encouraged the growth of numerous militias, armed and mobile, who are seeking to advance their agenda by seizing control of whole areas and even countries by military means. A growing insurgency is threatening the fragile security of Libya following the uprising of 2011, and the government appears powerless to dislodge the militants from their strongholds in the east of the country. Earlier this year dozens of expatriate Egyptian Christians were detained and abused by the militias; one later died in custody, and their church building was shot at and torched.

Many of the jihadists are flooding into Libya from the south, having just been displaced from Mali, where groups with links to al-Qaeda seized control of two-thirds of the country in 2012. They rapidly imposed a harsh version of sharia, restricting civil and political rights and handing out cruel punishments. Christians in northern Mali were all but overwhelmed as their homes were looted and buildings destroyed, and many were forced to flee the territory altogether.

A French military intervention succeeded in dislodging the Islamists and dispersing them. But in the present disordered condition of North Africa, Islamism is uprooted in one place only to re-plant itself elsewhere, posing a grave threat to Christians wherever it goes. To the east of Mali lie Niger and Chad, which are already

The bomb: Terrorist campaigns

The rise of violent movements is nothing new in African Islam; they have been a recurring feature of its development over several centuries. But in recent decades Islamist terrorism has become a more powerful and widespread scourge in Africa. In 1989 the regime of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan became the first beachhead of radical Islamism in Africa and a sponsor of international terrorism. AlQaeda had a base in Khartoum from 1992, and in 1998 it launched its first attacks on African soil, bombing the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. North African militants who had fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s returned and established terrorist organisations in their homelands.

During this time new generations of young African Muslims have also become radicalised, particularly through Islamist student networks. Huge parts of the population are also economically disadvantaged and excluded, and their frustration leaves them more exposed to radical influences. The continent has thus become a source of recruits for Islamist terrorist movements, as well as a lucrative wellspring of funding through black-market trafficking and financial transfers.

The weakness of state authority in many African countries allows terrorists to find safe havens, move between borders and operate largely unchecked. Ethnic and tribal conflicts create instability that can also be exploited.

Islamists perceive the continent to be of major strategic importance in their worldwide struggle against the perceived enemies of Islam; the growing reliance of the international economy on Africa as a source of oil and gas

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013 III

Islam in Africa

WINDOWS ON ISLAM

allows terrorists to hurt the West by destabilising key areas such as North Africa and Nigeria.

Conflicts between Muslims and Christians are especially likely to lead to the emergence of radicalised and aggressive forms of Islam. These include the longstanding hostility of the mainly Muslim North of Nigeria towards the predominantly Christian South, and that of strongly Muslim Somalia to majority-Christian Ethiopia, which have caused so much suffering for Christians; tens of thousands have been killed in Nigeria alone as a result of anti-Christian violence in the North and Middle Belt. It is no coincidence that two of the most active Islamist terrorist groups in Africa have originated in these areas: Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have carried out a succession of targeted and brutal attacks against Christians in their own countries. Boko Haram has openly declared its intention of driving Christians out of Northern Nigeria; in the last few years it has killed several thousand Christians and destroyed hundreds of church buildings. Al-Shabaab has also sworn to rid Somalia of Christians and has murdered a number of converts from Islam. Neither organisation is being effectively restrained by the authorities.

The groups have also carried their anti-Christian campaigns into neighbouring countries. Converts from Islam have been threatened, harassed and even murdered in Cameroon by militant Islamists probably linked to Boko Haram. The Church in Kenya is under a mounting threat from al-Shabaab, which has attacked churches and targeted Christian leaders in retaliation for Kenya’s sending troops into Somalia to fight the militant group. Meanwhile in neighbouring Tanzania the Islamic separatist organisation UAMSHO, which wants independence for Muslim-majority Zanzibar, has been orchestrating a similar campaign. Both countries had previously enjoyed good relations between people of different religions, but now they are at risk of major Islamic insurgencies that threaten the future of the Church in East Africa.

Dawa: Islamic mission

Islamic mission in Africa has a threefold focus.

First, it aims to strengthen Muslim communities, in particular those that are not strongly Islamic or are more likely to convert to Christianity, and to support Muslim groups who are engaged in political or armed struggles. Secondly, it works for the conversion of Christians and followers of African traditional religions. These efforts are now directed not only towards individuals but towards whole tribes, and they are more sophisticated and better coordinated. Thirdly, it seeks to Islamise the structures of African

society. The brand of Islam that is being most frequently exported to Africa is overtly Islamist.

Dawa is carried out by Muslim nations and Muslim NGOs. The Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, have huge leverage in Africa because of their vast oil wealth, and they have explicitly linked financial aid to Islamisation and dawa. Islam has traditionally spread through the continent through trade and business, and this is still one of the primary drivers of Islamic mission there. Islamic organisations may also offer humanitarian aid only to Muslims as an incentive to others to convert to Islam.

Much work has also been done to translate Islamic texts into numerous African languages, including those traditionally spoken by Christians. Millions of educational booklets and leaflets have been distributed. A huge mosque-building programme is in progress, with large buildings springing up even in areas where there are very few Muslims. Islamic schools, colleges and health clinics have been established in various places; many of them will teach or treat non-Muslims only if they convert. The study of Arabic is being encouraged, and cultural, educational and economic links have been forged to the Middle East.

Muslim men are urged to marry Christian women, who are then considered to be Muslims along with their children.

But because dawa is also concerned with the transformation of whole societies, Muslims are often active in African politics. Increasingly assertive calls are being heard for sharia to be adopted. Sharia courts are operating in many areas, and Muslim minorities in Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia are pressing for sharia to be recognised.

Pressure is growing for the Islamising of national law in Muslim-majority countries. Sharia finance has also been adopted in economies as diverse as Sudan, Uganda and South Africa, while halal food is becoming widespread even in areas where there are few Muslims.

Dawa in Africa wins fewer headlines in the West than the progress of Islamism in its political, military and terrorist forms. But its impact on the growth of Islam across the continent may be just as significant in the long run.

Conclusion

The rising tide of Islam poses a major threat to Africa’s Christians. Whether they are repressed by Islamist governments, hounded by Islamist militias, attacked by Islamist terrorists or undermined by Islamic mission, their freedom and security are in real danger across a large swathe of the vast continent. Christianity may be the largest religion in Africa, but mere numbers are providing scant protection against oppression and persecution by a resurgent and increasingly militant Islam.

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LEARNING FROM THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

From persecution to prison ministry The testimony of a pastor in India shows how the light of Christ shines even in the darkest places Pastor Raj (left) baptises a new believer

U

njust arrest and ill-treatment in prison did not prevent a pastor in India from showing Christ-like love to his fellow prisoners. Barnabas Fund heard from a partner on the ground how Pastor Raj and three other Christians are rejoicing in God’s grace despite enduring a traumatic ordeal.

The Christians’ nightmare began when Hindu extremists barged into a Sunday service at their church in Chichgaon, in the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, on 25 March 2012. The assailants accused Chand, the assistant pastor who was leading the service, and two other believers, Ram and Mayan, of insulting Hindu gods and converting Hindus. The intrusion then turned violent.

A gang of around 20-25 extremists physically assaulted Chand, Ram and Mayan and took them into the forest, where they continued mercilessly to beat and threaten the three. The Christians were then taken to the local police station, where they were threatened and abused by police officers and locked up.

When Pastor Raj, who leads the church, heard about the attack and arrests, he rushed to the aid of the three captives and asked police to file a case against their assailants. Shockingly, instead of charging the extremist persecutors, the police arrested Pastor Raj too. The four were kept in prison for six days.

But the injury and injustice they had suffered, and the harsh conditions in the prison, did not stop them from worshipping the Lord and sharing the Gospel. Pastor Raj endured particularly severe treatment; his fellow prisoners forced him to sleep near the toilet, where he was plagued by mosquitos, and also humiliated him by making him clean the toilets and bathrooms. Undeterred, the pastor reached out to his persecutors in love and humility, sharing with them the personal items he had, such as soap.

Pastor Raj’s cellmates, moved by his witness, listened to the Gospel and apologised for illtreating him. One of them, who was in prison for smuggling, gave his life to Jesus Christ as a result of the pastor’s ministry.

One of his cellmates, who was in prison for smuggling, gave his life to Jesus Christ as a result of the pastor’s ministry Despite having been released on bail, the four believers still live under the shadow of prosecution more than a year on, and must currently report to the court every 15 days. Barnabas Fund is helping to pay the legal costs involved in their attempt to have the case dismissed by the High Court.

Despite all that our four brothers have suffered, they are rejoicing in God’s faithfulness to them and trusting in His provision. Pastor Raj said:

“God has been wonderfully gracious during persecution, imprisonment and after being bailed out, especially by giving us an opportunity to share the Gospel with the co-prisoners who had persecuted us originally in the cell, but later came to the Lord.”

And a Barnabas Fund partner on the ground, who is standing alongside the four, said, “Because of the prayers, strong backing of Barnabas Fund and protection they are now very confident that there are God’s people even in distant lands who love them, care for them and stand with them in the time such as this, all because of the love of Jesus!”

Our brothers still need your prayers Please lift up Pastor Raj, Chand, Ram and Mayan in prayer as they wait to hear the outcome of their case. Give thanks for their steadfast faith and inspiring witness, and pray that all charges against them will be dropped. Praise God that one prisoner has turned to Him, and ask that he will be strengthened in his new faith. Pray that others will also come to know Christ through the faithfulness of these four Christians.

Ask the Lord also to heal the mental trauma and physical wounds caused by the attack; Pastor Raj and Chand are both still suffering from pain resulting from their injuries.

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013 11

SYRIA CRISIS

A voice of lament

“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

(Matthew 2:18)

“A VOICE IS HEARD

IN RAMAH

”

As the days pass this year, along with the main Christian feasts and celebrations, it does not resemble any of the previous years in any way.

Pain, blood and loud cries are becoming the norm in every house, and people refuse to be comforted because they cannot feel safe or secure. The machinery of death is reaping continually, even daily, the innocents of my nation, not sparing any age or race or group of people; children, youth, elderly, males and females, all the social groups, all are affected without distinction.

Yes. A voice is heard in Syria, in Aleppo and in all the other cities, towns and villages of my nation, without exception. There is weeping and great mourning; mothers are weeping for their children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. Hundreds, even thousands of families have lost their loved ones, lost their houses and homes, lost their jobs and workplaces, lost their

There is weeping and great mourning; mothers are weeping for their children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more freedom to live with integrity and dignity. Schools have been bombed and closed, and hundreds of them have had their classrooms transformed into small houses for internally displaced people (IDPs). Hospitals and medical centres have been damaged or burned out. The smell of death is everywhere. My people have been shattered, displaced throughout my country and even to nearby countries. They are living in a state of loss and confusion.

A doctor and Barnabas Fund partner in Syria who oversees one part of our relief work there shares his thoughts on the pain and hope of suffering Christians in his war-torn country and beyond.

In January 2013, my own city of Aleppo witnessed and suffered a massacre on the first day of the university’s mid-year exams. Thousands of university students had come from all over the provinces and from surrounding areas, supported by their parents’ prayers and good wishes for them to come home safely and successfully.

Parents were waiting for their children to finish their studies and exams to share and add to their joy and happiness, as every father and mother wants to do.

But on that day, Satan decided to utilise some of his armed human resources – the modern-day

12 BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013

SYRIA CRISIS equivalent of Herod’s soldiers – and send them to blow up the place, take innocent lives and cause more weeping and mourning among families, just like that of 2,000 years before (Matthew 2:16-18).

Once more the smell of death was everywhere.

Even some IDPs, who had already lost their homes, jobs and everything else and who were using the university campus as a safe haven and shelter, were caught up in the blast. More than 250 innocent people were wounded, and 85 killed.

A voice of repentance

background believers and refugees), on a monthly basis, ministering to their daily needs for: • Milk, nappies for children and babies, and some clothes for the winter • Basic food packages for each family depending on the number of family members • Medical support, including the costs of check-ups, tests, examinations, prescribed medicines, operations etc.

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near… A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

(Matthew 3:1-3)

• (On an ad hoc basis:) Blankets, heaters, and some other items that were requested or needed

More recently, and confronted with our patients’ great needs and the difficulty they face in getting to our clinics, we have started a new out-patient clinic at Aleppo Baptist Church. We have dedicated one of its rooms to this mission. Every Friday since late February , from 2-4.30 pm, we have been seeing patients, many of them from non-Christian backgrounds. It is a great opportunity to witness to them, pray for them and offer them support, and we praise the Lord for this.

This voice is being raised more and more, in spite the sounds of the guns, tanks, rockets, mortars and shells, in spite of Herod’s soldiers who are seeking out and killing still more innocents, and taking revenge in spite of what is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19), and in spite of the encouragement that Western nations are giving them.

See what hate, anger and revenge have occupied and taken root in the hearts of such people, transforming them into monsters who wound themselves and kill others created in the image of our God! How on earth can anyone believe that suicide bombing is acceptable?

Yes. Still the message of repentance and turning back to the Lord is valid. It is the main hope of the human race. He is the One who can and will change our hearts, which is the only true and fundamental change that we need.

Throughout these days, past, present and (we trust) near future, the Church in Syria, well supported by Barnabas Fund, is standing in the gap and meeting the needs of impoverished families. This is the call of the Bible: to seek out the lost sheep, the prisoners, and those who are crushed under heavy and unbearable burdens; to reach out to them with the love of Jesus Christ and His authority to heal and set them free.

From late 2011 until now, through a committee of 14 local churches from different Christian congregations in Aleppo (7), Damascus (3), Tartos (3) and Lattakia (1), we have been able to reach more than 1,350 families (IDPs, Muslim-

Aftermath of the bombing at the University of Aleppo in January 2013

Please pray for: • The Lord’s intervention to stop this madness in my nation: the killing machine of the war • The kidnapped people, most of whom are either Armenians or Christians • The thousands of patients who are wounded, injured or sick • The children whose parents have been killed, or separated from them owing to a sudden move • Those who have lost their homes, jobs and livelihoods and have no place to stay • Children who need counselling because of the war • The medical clinic in the church • The Lord’s protection and guidance for our committees and their members

If you would like to support Barnabas’ work among needy Christians in Syria, please send a donation to the Middle East Fund to help Christians in Syria (project 00-1032), using the form at the back of the magazine or online at www.barnabasfund.org.

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013 13

NEWSDESK

Literature destruction order overturned, but repression intensifies Kazakhstan – An appeal court has overturned a previous ruling that 121 pieces of Christian literature, including Bibles, be destroyed. The welcome decision on 26 March relates to materials seized from Vyacheslav Cherkasov, a street evangelist from Schuchinsk who was found guilty on 5 March of violating Kazakhstan’s harsh rules regarding the distribution of religious literature.

Vyacheslav, who appealed against the original decision, said, “Thank God they didn’t destroy my books.”

The evangelist also received a fine of

Talking about one’s religious beliefs with others in public is not allowed in Kazakhstan 86,550 Tenge, which is the equivalent of around one month’s average wage in Kazakhstan, and this penalty was upheld by the appeal court. Although the confiscated literature in question has now been returned to him, Vyacheslav maintains that Christian literature taken from him on an earlier occasion has not been given back.

This is the second time in Kazakhstan that a decision to destroy Christian literature has subsequently been overturned. In general, however, Christians in Kazakhstan face evertightening restrictions on their religious freedom. Although President Nursultan Nazarbayev recently claimed that “religious freedom is fully

14 BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013

secured” in the country, a new draft penal code is set to introduce harsher penalties for those exercising religious freedom, and anti-Christian action by the authorities continues.

Talking about one’s religious beliefs with others in public is not allowed in Kazakhstan, and the country’s Agency of Religious Affairs (ARA) recently ordered people to report any person doing so to the police. Sharing one’s faith, which is considered to be “missionary activity”, requires personal registration; those convicted will be punishable by up to four months’ imprisonment under the proposed new penal code.

Raids on private Christian meetings are also a frequent occurrence. Seven mostly elderly Christians were fined on 18-19 April after their church in Zhaskent was raided; the raid was so traumatic that one church member subsequently suffered a heart attack. Another group of Christians, including two elderly women, were fined in early April for taking part in an unregistered religious meeting in Ayagoz.

A pastor from Oskemen was also fined after his church was raided on 20 March; his church refuses to seek official registration on principle.

But even state-registered churches are subject to controls on who may lead or address their meetings. An Easter Sunday service at a church in Stepnogorsk was also raided, and the visiting pastor was told that he should have sought local state permission before preaching there.

All religious literature is subject to compulsory state censorship before it can be printed or imported, and Christians are amongst those most likely to have their books confiscated at the country’s border.

Seven Christians killed in attacks

by Muslims Egypt – Seven Christians were killed by Muslim aggressors in two outbreaks of violence in April. The first attack took place on 4-5 April in al-Khosous, north of Cairo, where Muslims were incited to violence after Christians were unjustly accused of defacing an Islamic building with graffiti of a swastika. Five Christians were killed: four were shot dead and one, who suffered severe burns, succumbed to his injuries a week later.

A church and a Christian kindergarten were among Christian-owned property torched during the violence.

Then, on 7 April, violence broke out at a funeral service for the four at St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo. A Christian man was killed, and at least 84 people were injured, when the funeral procession was attacked by a mob throwing stones and petrol bombs. Explosives were thrown at the cathedral’s headquarters, which caught fire, and adjacent houses were also set alight. At the same time, another Christian man was killed in renewed clashes in al-Khosous, in which eight other people were injured.

The Egyptian authorities have been criticised by Human Rights Watch for failing to bring to justice those responsible for the violence;

evidence has also come to light that riot police fired tear gas at the mourners during the Cairo attack.

Although four Christians who attended

The Egyptian authorities have been criticised … for failing to bring to justice those responsible for the violence the funeral have been arrested, the instigators of the unrest have not been held accountable.

Mourners at the funeral had decried Islamist President Mohammad Morsi during the service before they were attacked. Christians were also amongst those rounded up and abused on 22 March when a Cairo mosque was turned into a torture chamber for those protesting in the capital against the regime.

The second outbreak of violence took place at St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo (Source: Ashashyou, Wikimedia Commons)

NEWSDESK

Christians vulnerable as Islamists call for blasphemy laws

Christians targeted in Muslim takeover

Protests in Bangladesh began in February (Source: Rajiv Ashrafi, Flickr)

Bangladesh – Islamist pressure on the Christian minority in Bangladesh has intensified, as protestors at huge anti-secularist rallies called for the introduction of blasphemy laws in the country.

The rallies accompanied violent riots that began in February in protest against war crimes trials relating to the 1971 War of Independence.

When an Islamist leader was sentenced to death, radical Muslims began rioting; around 100 people were killed in the ensuing violence. A single day and night of protests saw at least 27 people killed, and dozens injured, when Islamist protestors

clashed with police on 5 May. As well as demanding the death penalty for anyone deemed to have insulted Islam, Islamists have issued a direct and sinister threat to non-Muslims. A website run by Bangladesh’s largest Islamist political party published a notice saying, “We will kill all the Malouns [infidels] and Bangladesh will be ‘Banglastan’ like Pakistan.” Christians, along with other non-Muslims, are considered

by Muslims to be “infidels”.

The comparison with Pakistan, an Islamic republic that was founded as a homeland for Muslims in South Asia, is an ominous one for

Christians. Bangladesh once formed part of Pakistan, and both countries are over 90% Muslim. Islamists in Bangladesh have strong links with their counterparts in Pakistan.

Christians in Pakistan suffer greatly because of “blasphemy laws” there; the laws are often misused to settle personal scores.

Although the government has ruled out introducing blasphemy laws, it has been accused of appeasing Islamists in its response to the unrest. It was announced on 2 April that the law prohibiting “hurting the people’s religious sentiments” will be toughened up.

Central African Republic – Church buildings and Christian homes were targeted after the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) fell to a group of extremist Muslim rebels in a bloody coup.

Michel Djotodia, the rebels’ leader and CAR’s new president, has insisted that CAR is a secular state and that he “must serve my country, all Central Africans”.

However in the chaos that followed the coup, his rampaging followers, who apparently want to Islamise the country and impose sharia law, targeted Christians and Christian property, sparing that owned by Muslims. One woman reported that the rebels had said, “It’s our turn now.

We will make you pay.”

A pastor reported that the Seleka rebels have targeted individual Christians, who have been tied up, beaten and forced to pay a ransom in exchange for their lives. The militants destroyed a number of church buildings in Bangassou, where the house of a seminary rector was also pillaged and destroyed and a mechanic was severely beaten for refusing to reveal where churchowned vehicles were kept. Other Christian homes have been looted and their inhabitants driven away, and the rebels have also destroyed a church building in Bambari.

The rebels are thought to follow Wahhabism, a strict and extreme form of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia. Djotodia, who is the notoriously unstable country’s first Muslim president, has admitted that “some people with bad intentions want to lead the country into interreligious conflict”. Muslims in CAR make up just 15% of a population that is 75% Christian.

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013 15

NEWSDESK

SURGE OF ATTACKS ON CHrISTIANS

A church service in Arusha was devastated by a deadly attack

Tanzania – Two Christians were killed in Tanzania when violence broke out for a second time in a dispute over the slaughter of animals. Muslims are denying Christians the right to sell their meat because it is not halal, and the authorities are siding with the Muslim aggressors.

Christians in Tunduma came under attack from Muslims on 2 April; two believers were killed in the violence and more than 60 were arrested. Amongst those detained was a local Christian leader; when fellow pastors went to see

him in prison, they were beaten, many so severely that they required hospital treatment. Dozens of Christians were arrested elsewhere in the country.

It is not illegal for Christians to slaughter meat for public consumption, so police have charged some of the detained Christians with other crimes, such as breaking the peace or causing unrest, and are holding others illegally.

The latest surge of attacks follows the beheading of Pastor Mathayo Kachila, who was killed during an outbreak of violence at a butcher’s shop in

Buseresere in February. Although three Christians were arrested in connection with this incident, no arrests have been made for the pastor’s murder.

As well as enduring attacks on their butcheries, Christians are banned from rearing pigs in areas that have a significant Muslim presence. AntiChristian action in general is on the rise in Tanzania, with the threat to church leaders and evangelists in particular becoming so severe that some have had to leave their homes for their own safety. Two church leaders were shot

in late 2012 and early 2013, one fatally.

Church buildings are also targets for attack; since late 2011, at least 13 have been attacked or destroyed. At least five people were killed and around 60 wounded in the most recent attack, which targeted the inaugural service of a church in Arusha on 5 May. Barnabas has sent help for the victims.

One senior church leader told Barnabas Fund that Christian-majority Tanzania could be completely Islamised in five to ten years if Christians do not make a decisive response.

Suicide bombers target Christian neighbourhood Nigeria – A suicide bomb attack devastated a Christian area of Kano, Northern Nigeria, on 18 March.

Although official counts estimated the death toll to be at least 41, local church leaders told Barnabas Fund that they estimate the total number of casualties to be around 400.

16 BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013

Two bombers drove a car packed with explosives into the bus station in Sabon Gari, causing a series of explosions. Five buses were engulfed by the blasts. Sabon Gari, a Christian enclave in a Muslim-majority city, is home to many believers from the Christian-majority South.

Buses departing from the targeted station primarily head for Southern destinations.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Islamist militant group Boko Haram has carried out similar attacks in Nigeria. The group is aiming to wipe out Christians

from the North of the country in order to create an Islamic state there.

Following the attack in Kano, the Christian Association of Nigeria said that recent attacks “were a signpost of the intended extermination of Christians and Christianity from Northern Nigeria”.

NEWSDESK

Jailed pastor in Iran told to deny Christ Iran – Saeed Abedini, an IranianAmerican pastor who was sentenced in January to eight years in prison, has been warned by his captors that unless he returns to Islam, he will not be allowed to leave prison even after he has served his sentence.

The pastor was arrested while on a visit to his country of birth to try to establish an orphanage. Saeed, a former Muslim who was once trained as a suicide bomber by Hezbollah and who is now a fearless evangelist, was convicted of planting house churches “intended to undermine national security”. His conviction relates to church planting work he undertook after becoming a Christian in 2000.

Whilst in prison, Saeed has been

subjected to threats, torture, and beatings so severe that they have left him with internal bleeding. He has been repeatedly refused medical

Saeed has said that the ill-treatment he is suffering is making him “a godly man”

Saeed Abedini has been in prison since his arrest in September 2012 (Source: American Center for Law and Justice)

Two church leaders kidnapped as Christians threatened Syria – Two senior church leaders, Yohanna Ibrahim and Boutros Yazigi, were kidnapped while travelling to Aleppo on 22 April. The archbishops’ car was stopped by their attackers, whose identity is unconfirmed, and their driver was shot dead in cold blood. The church leaders were returning from a humanitarian mission to try to rescue two pastors who were similarly seized several months ago.

Christians in Syria have been horrified by the kidnapping of such senior church leaders, and the news has enormously increased their existing sense of vulnerability.

The archbishops’ kidnapping came as Christians are increasingly under threat from Islamists. Militant Islamic groups are emerging as the strongest force in the Syrian conflict, raising further fears for the country’s Christians if Islamists were to gain control of the country. Islamists control

ordeal has sparked a major campaign in the United States, and the US government has pressed the Iranian authorities to release him. Promises

the flow of vital supplies such as flour and fuel in territory they have taken, and in at least one area they are implementing sharia law.

Disturbingly, an Islamic cleric has issued a fatwa saying it is “legitimate” for Muslim fighters who are trying to establish an Islamic state in Syria to “capture and have sex with” nonSunni, non-Muslim women. A new practice known as takbir has also emerged; the rebels believe they can gain ownership of anything by touching it and saying “Allahu Akbar [Allah is great]” three times. Islamist fighters believe that by asserting this claim over Christian women they then have the right to rape them.

Attacks on Christian areas have also continued. More than 350 Christian families were forced to flee their homes in Sheikh-Maqsoud, Aleppo, when their area was invaded by rebel fighters on 29 March.

treatment for his wounds; one nurse refused to touch him because as a Christian he is “unclean”. Saeed has said that the ill-treatment he is suffering is making him “a godly man”.

Saeed’s wife Naghmeh and the couple’s two children live in Idaho. His

to release the pastor have been repeatedly made and then broken in the past.

Many other Iranian converts to Christianity are also languishing in prison for their faith. It is estimated that over a hundred are currently in prison.

Christian convert imprisoned and tortured Somalia – A Christian convert from Islam has been imprisoned and tortured by rebels from the Islamist group al-Shabaab. Hassan Gulled, who had been living in Kenya since 2007 and became a Christian there in 2010, had returned to Somalia to visit his family. He was seized by Islamists, who had monitored his movements for three weeks, in Bulo Marer on 23 March.

Although al-Shabaab is much weakened in Somalia, it still controls parts of the central south of the country, and this incident shows that the deadly reach of militant Islamism is able to cross borders. Hassan’s Christian activities in Kenya were noticed by al-Shabaab extremists there, who contacted their counterparts in Somalia ahead of his visit.

Many Somali Christian refugees fled to Kenya to escape unrest and anti-Christian violence in their home country. Since a new central government in Mogadishu took over from the Transitional Federal

Government in August 2012, dozens have been returning. But although alShabaab has been ousted from much of its former territory with the help of Kenyan military forces, the group still represents a lethal threat to Christian converts.

Several Christians have been killed in Somalia in recent months.

Fartun Omar was detained at a roadblock in Buulobarde and shot dead by al-Shabaab militants on 13 April, four months after her husband, Mursal Isse Siad, was fatally shot by unidentified masked men. The couple leave five children.

Al-Shabaab is also suspected of the killing of Ahmed Ali Jimale, a Christian teacher and pharmacist who was shot dead outside his house in Kismayo on 18 February. Ahmed’s death followed that of Farhan Haji Mose, a Christian convert who was publicly beheaded by al-Shabaab in Barawa in November 2012.

BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013 17

IN TOUCH

Sa ve the da Suffering Church Action Week tes Sunday 27 October – Sunday 3 November taking action on behalf of tomorrow’s Please join us in remembering persecuted Christian children and how you and your church can get for ideas and es resourc g providin be Church. Barnabas Fund will sermon outline, a Bible study and other involved. Resources will include materials for children’s ministry, a suggestions for the week.

Friday 1 November Barnabas Fund International Day of Prayer

Sunday 27 October or Sunday 3 November Suggested dates for a Suffering Church Sunday service at your church

Look out for further information in the next issue of Barnabas Aid, or visit www.barnabasfund.org/scaw

Anniversary events announced

over the last rating God’s faithfulness leb ce in nd Fu s ba rna Come and join Ba h. Dates and places of for the persecuted Churc two decades of our work ary events are as follows: forthcoming 20th-annivers Bristol Saturday 13 July Tamworth

Saturday 31 August Eastbourne ber Saturday 28 Septem or Fund International Office e contact the Barnabas as ple s, tail de r the fur r Fo d.org. email info@barnabasfun

Coffee morning creates a stir A coffee morning

held by Colvend South wick and Kirkbean Pa in south-west Scotlan rish Church, d, raised a fantastic tot al for Barnabas Fund support the persecuted ’s work to Church. The event wa s organised by memb one of the church’s ho ers of use groups, who made a sterling effort to adve morning in the local are rtise the a. Anticipating a large response and undeter small size of their churc red by the h hall, the group hired out the local village ha ll instead.

The group’s efforts we re rewarded when the event raised a brilliant for our persecuted bro £903 thers and sisters. Barna bas Fund is so gratef everyone involved in ul to this event and to all tho se who undertake fun behalf of those we su draising on pport. Your contributio ns make a real differen ce to them.

The house group is als o faithful in praying for Barnaba s Fund’s work. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who uphold the sufferin g Church in prayer. Your interces sion is greatly appreciated by our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Smiles fr

om the c

18 BARNABAS AID JULY/AUGUST 2013

offee mo

rning te

am

urage Children of CoCh urch

Raising tomorrow’s This year’s theme for ion Week Suffering Church Act

From the piggy bank to the persecuted

As we began to focus on the theme for this year’s Suffering Church Action Week, “Children of Courage: Raising tomorrow’s Church”, Barnabas Fund received a lovely letter from twelve-yearold Grace Gregory from Bury St Edmunds, UK. “I gave up pocket money for Lent and chose Barnabas to receive this money because I think that the persecution of Christians is something extremely important to fight against.”

Grace’s letter was accompanied by a donation of £21. Her generosity is an inspiring example of a young person in the West recognising the needs of her persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ around the world and selflessly reaching out to them. Our thanks go out to Grace for remembering the suffering Church in this way.

Look out for the resources that will be available for Suffering Church Action Week (see notice above), which aim to inspire people of all ages in your church by informing them about the courage young people around the world show in the face of persecution.

Hassle-free giving has land ed!

Feel called to give regularly to the pers ecuted Church from your UK bank acco unt but perplexed by the paperwork?

Don’t worry. Now yo u can sign up to be part of what God is doing through Barn abas Fund by simply visiting www.barnabasf und.org/direct-d ebit or calling 024 7623 1923. Your re gular donation will be so valuable to your persecuted Ch ristian brothers and sisters, whose need is so great.

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Mag 07/13

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Mag 07/13

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Registered Charity number 1092935 Company registered in England number 4029536

UR

G O D IS

FAITHF U

L

this gift only

A 20th ANNIVERSARY GIFT

O

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Please consider whether you could make a special 20th anniversary thanksgiving gift to help Christians in Syria. Or you could leave a legacy to our legacy-holding charity “The Barnabas Fund” (charity number 271602) to continue the work of bringing hope and aid to persecuted Christians.

Yes, I would like to give a special 20th anniversary thanksgiving gift to help Christians in Syria. Here is my single gift of £…………… (please make cheques/vouchers/postal orders payable to “Barnabas Fund”) (00-1032).

Please send me a free booklet, A Christian Guide to Making and Changing Your Will.

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Thanking the Lord for 20 years of Barnabas Fund

20 years giving aid to Christians in need

How to Find Us UK 9 Priory Row, Coventry CV1 5EX Telephone 024 7623 1923 Fax 024 7683 4718 From outside the UK Telephone +44 24 7623 1923 Fax +44 24 7683 4718 Email info@barnabasfund.org Registered charity number 1092935 Company registered in England number 4029536 For a list of all trustees, please contact Barnabas Fund UK at the Coventry address above.

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Managing Editor: Steve Carter Published by Barnabas Fund

© Barnabas Fund 2013. For permission to reproduce articles from this magazine, please contact the International Headquarters address above.

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