What Are Christians Facing in Nepal? Nation Debuts on List of Worst Persecutors

AP Messiah Party Nepal in this undated photo. (PHOTO: BHARAT GIRI)

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

Nepal is known for its ancient history and breathtaking mountain peaks. But the South Asian nation not only debuted this year on Open Doors World Watch List of nations where Christians face the most persecution for their faith, it also landed as high as the No. 25 spot. Why?

The key is to understand that although the government presents Nepal as a secular country, it's practically run by Hindu forces, said Pastor Bharat Giri, a full-time Christian minister of 24 years, who is now the chairman of a political party seeking to inspire and encourage Christians to stand up for their rights.

"We are dominated by India," Giri told The Christian Post, explaining that the injustice, negligence of people's needs, corruption, and human rights abuses affecting minority religious groups are on the rise.

"They are promoting only the Hindu people," he explained, noting that the minority Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists in the country are often left behind.

One of the major factors behind Nepal's deteriorating religious freedom rights has been legislation signed into law in October 2017 that criminalizes religious conversion. Giri said that it's heavily used to punish those who decide they want to become Christians.

C.B. Gahatraj, general secretary of the Federation of National Christians in Nepal, and other Christian leaders have demanded that the clause against evangelism be struck down, declaring that believers are not "vote banks" that can be lied to by politicians.Giri spoke of several cases where Christians have suffered the consequences of anti-evangelism sentiment, even before the passage of the law last year.

"One-and-a-half years ago, in one district, Christians were giving out Christian tracts. And because of that, they were put in jail for nine months," he said, noting that the group of six to nine Christians was released, but the case is still going on.

Six months ago in East Nepal, there was another Christian woman who was "taking care of children, the poor children. She did not have money," the pastor said.

She was pressured by the government to come with the children to Kathmandu, the capital, but then she was arrested, charged with converting others to Christianity, and jailed for three months.The woman was released after the initial jail period, but the court has now announced that she will have to spend three years in prison for the crime of religious conversions.

Not only that, but those who helped her and the poor children have also found themselves in serious trouble.

"I met this morning with one of the pastors in Kathmandu who was helping feed the children, and he was also told that he would be going to prison for one year," Giri said.

He noted several other incidents across the country where Christians are ending up in jail simply for their beliefs, arguing that believers can be accused by anyone at any time and end up behind bars. "The whole justice system, the judges are Hindu," he said.

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Church Banned From Worshiping in Coffee Shop They Own, Now Suing Maryland City

Ragamuffins Coffee House, a nonprofit coffee shop owned by 

Redemption Community Church, located in Laurel, Maryland.

By Michael Gryboski
Christian Post

A church is suing a Maryland city over a zoning regulation that bans them from holding worship services at a downtown coffee shop they own unless they apply for a special waiver the church believes is too expensive and uncertain.

Redemption Community Church, which oversees a non-profit coffee shop called Ragamuffins Coffee House, is suing the city of Laurel over a zoning law that requires it to undergo what it calls a "costly" and "uncertain" special exception, even while non-religious assemblies do not have to, according to the lawsuit.

The parameters of the exception include a nonrefundable $2,000 filing fee, the hiring of an engineer to draft an "Existing Conditions Site Plan" and a "Proposed Site Plan," and a detailed application that the City Board of Appeals can reject.

Known as Redemption Community Church v. City of Laurel, the lawsuit was filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Redemption Community is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that often handles religious liberty litigation.

ADF Legal Counsel Christiana Holcomb said in a statement released last Friday that the city of Laurel's zoning regulation was "discriminatory."

"The government can't discriminate against churches simply because they are religious," said Holcomb. "Despite making every effort to work with the city to comply with its burdensome zoning changes, Redemption Community Church is now being told to either stop holding worship services or pay severe fines."

Originally called Covenant Presbyterian Church, Redemption Community decided to move to the downtown Laurel area and set up a non-profit coffee shop to minister to the poor.

"Churches can be fortresses," explained the Reverend Jeremy Tuinstra, head of the church, in a 2017 interview with The Baltimore Sun. "I would stand up and preach about loving our neighbors and I didn't know mine."

In March 2015, Laurel's Planning Commission voted to grant Redemption Community a parking waiver to allow for its creation of a non-profit coffee shop and worship space.

The Ragamuffins Coffee House was located in the "Commercial Village Zone" of Laurel and needed a waiver in response to a code regulation on number of spaces.

Commissioner Mitzi Betman, chair of the Commission, explained at the April 2015 meeting that she was reconsidering the vote from the month before due to new details that emerged.

"When I voted for this in the affirmative, I believed that we were getting a coffee shop on Main Street that for two hours on Sunday was almost going to be a sublet in a sense for a church," explained Betman at the April 2015 meeting. "So there was a lot of additional information brought up."

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Roman Colosseum to Be Lit Blood Red for Persecuted Christians

By Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.

Breitbart 

The Roman Colosseum along with two churches in Mosul and Aleppo will be lit up by red lights later this month to draw attention to the global persecution of Christians.

“Christians are the victims of at least 75 percent of all religiously-motivated violence and oppression,” declared the latest report from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the group organizing the event, and moreover “the extent of this persecution is largely ignored by our media.”

In a gesture meant to combat global indifference to the plight of persecuted Christians, on Saturday, Feb. 24, one of Rome’s most iconic structures—the Colosseum—will be illuminated in red, representing Christians who have shed their blood for the faith.

At the same time, prominent churches in Syria and Iraq will be illuminated with red lights as well. In Aleppo, the St. Elijah Maronite Cathedral will be lit up in red, as will the Church of St. Paul in Mosul. Turning on the lights in Mosul, said the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako I, “means bringing back hope to Iraqi Christians who have suffered so much.”

According to Alfredo Mantovano, president of ACN-Italy, the media event is meant as a denunciation of “the martyrdom suffered by our brothers and sisters.” It is our intention, he said, “to involve them directly through two of the communities who have suffered the most in recent years, those of Syria and Iraq.”

Last year, Aid to the Church in Need organized a similar event, lighting up London’s Parliament building in red, as well as the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Paris and the cathedral in Manila, Philippines as a sign of solidarity with persecuted Christians everywhere.

In 2016, Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain was bathed in red light in a move reminiscent of the first plague of Egypt, commemorating the many new martyrs killed in our time for their faith in Jesus Christ. The ten plagues, brought down by Moses through the power of God, were meant to soften the hard heart of Pharaoh, who held the Israelites enslaved in Egypt.

“In terms of the number of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed and their impact, it is clear that the persecution of Christians is today worse than at any time in history,” said John Pontifex, editor of the latest ACN biennial report on Christian persecution.

In the 13 countries where Christians suffer the most intense persecution, the situation has worsened in all but one—Saudi Arabia—in the last two years, and conditions there have stayed the same. 

“In almost all the countries reviewed,” the report reads, “the oppression and violence against Christians have increased since 2015 – a development especially significant given the rate of decline in the immediate run-up to the reporting period.”

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14 Christian House Church Leaders Abducted in China Amid Communist Crackdown on Faith

Chinese Lawyers Who Have Stood Up For Christians Have Also Been Persecuted 

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

Fourteen Christian house church leaders who are part of the Middle Eastern evangelism network have been abducted by government security agents in China.

ChinaAid reported on Wednesday that the Christians, who weren't named, are being held captive at an undisclosed location by state authorities in the coastal Zhejiang province.

"This massive, enforced disappearance of 14 peaceful church leaders shows the Communist Party has no regard to rule of law and its citizens' religious freedom rights," said ChinaAid President Bob Fu.

The group, which monitors the crackdown on churches and arrest of Christians and human rights activists in China, said the Communist government continues to deny believers religious freedoms and basic human rights.

"ChinaAid urges international leaders to speak out against this blatant abuse against religious freedom and human rights, and calls on China to immediately and unconditionally release these innocent Christians," the group declared.

Back in January, Christians shared their fears that the persecution could get worse following the government's destruction of an evangelical megachurch in the northern Shanxi province.

Chinese military police detonated explosives inside the Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, destroying the house of worship which was owned by the Christians who worshiped there.

A video of the demolition was shared worldwide, showing the moment the church collapsed.

"My heart was sad to see this demolition and now I worry about more churches being demolished, even my own," a local pastor who wasn't named said at the time. "This church was built in 2008, there's no reason for them to destroy it now."

A Catholic church was also destroyed in a similar fashion in December, while at least 1,200 church rooftop crosses have been forcefully removed in Zhejiang province since 2015.

Chinese authorities have been known to raid worship services and detain dozens of Christians at once, such as what happened to 13 believers in Guangdong province in November. Police officers raided Qingcaodi Church, a small house church in Jingmen, with believers seeing their Bibles and other church-owned material confiscated.

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Woman Left Disfigured by Church Bombing Shares Visions of Jesus, Message for Attacker's Family

An Egyptian woman holds a melting candle at a vigil in downtown Cairo,
following a deadly explosion inside a Coptic cathedral in Cairo, Egypt
 December 14, 2016. (Photo: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany) 

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

A Christian woman who was left disfigured by a bombing at St. Peter's Church in Cairo in December 2016 has said that Jesus miraculously kept her alive and continues appearing to her in visions.

Samiha Tawfiq Awad shared in an Open Doors USA piece last week that she and her husband, Qalini, attended the church on the morning of Dec. 11 when radicals detonated a large bomb in the women's section, where she was sitting.

The twin suicide bombings that day at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church in Cairo left 24 Christians dead and 49 injured, with many of the women close to the explosion suffering severe disfigurement to their faces.

Qalini rushed his wife to the hospital, though she was hardly recognizable after the attack, and doctors warned him she might not survive.

Awad not only pulled through, however, but experienced visions of Jesus she says have filled her heart not with anger toward the attackers, but with forgiveness.

"The doctors might've given up on Samiha, but God had another plan!" Qalini exclaimed.

The woman recalled that doctors put her on the list of dead victims right from the beginning.

"The doctors thought it was useless to treat me, so they just came to check on me now and then to see if I was already dead. But I stayed alive," she recalled.

Doctors eventually put her through surgery, and she is alive and well now, even though she is missing half her face.

"I remember that I saw Jesus on the ceiling when I was lying on the ground after the explosion," she said of one of her first visions of Jesus.

Christ kept appearing to her in the hospital as well, she recalled.

"I would have been willing to die for Jesus," Awad said, "but the fact that He kept me alive so miraculously tells me that He wants me to live."

The Christian husband said that forgiving the people who attacked the church and put his wife through so much suffering is not an easy thing, but pointed to Jesus' Words on the Sermon of the Mount, where Christ calls for the forgiveness of enemies.

Awad said that she doesn't have anger for the attackers.

"If I would meet the family of the attacker, the only thing I would ask them is: 'Do you know Jesus?' I pray they will find the right way," she expressed.

Christian Post article continues here 

Persecution Unveiled has been called by God to prick the consciences of this nation and all free people to pray for, speak up and act on behalf of those who are persecuted for their faith.  Follow us on  Pinterest, and Google and like us on Facebook. 

New Bill Would Allow Public High School Coaches to Pray With Students in Georgia

By Samuel Smith
Christian Post

A lawmaker in Georgia has introduced legislation that would effectively allow high school football coaches and other public school officials in the state who want to participate in a student-led and initiated prayer to do so.

After headlines were made last year when East Coweta High School football coach John Small was told by the school district that he could not engage in prayer with his team before games, State Sen. Michael Williams introduced Senate Bill 361 on Tuesday in an attempt to give Small and other coaches such a right.

The bill, titled the "Coach Small Religious Protection Act," would take effect in the 2018-2019 school year and would amend state law relating to elementary and secondary education to provide "freedom of religious expression by faculty and employees of public schools while fulfilling the duties of their jobs."

"While performing their assigned job duties, school employees are required to maintain a position of neutrality toward religion; however, when interacting with other school employees or when the context makes clear that the employee is not speaking on behalf of the school, school employees are entitled to robust protections for their religious expression," the bill states.

The bill states that during "contract" time, school employees, faculty and other types of volunteers affiliated with the school are permitted to "participate in voluntary student-initiated, student-led prayer, such as prayer before a sporting event, when invited to do so by the students, provided that the participation is in the faculty's or employee's personal capacity and not as a representative of the school."

The bill would also protect teachers' rights to wear religious clothing, jewelry or symbols and engage in religious discussions and share religious materials with other faculty.

The bill comes after the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint with Coweta County School System last fall about how Coach Small was seen before a football game participating in a team prayer with his head bowed.

The FFRF complaint led to the school district issuing a district-wide guidance on prayer that explained clearly that coaches can't "join hands, bow their heads, take a knee or commit another act that otherwise manifests approval with the students' religious exercise" when it can be perceived to display government endorsement of religion.

"Public schools are being threatened by out-of-state special interest groups who demand that schools adopt inaccurate interpretations of the First Amendment that unlawfully restrict the freedom of students, teachers, and other public school employees to engage in religious expression or otherwise exercise their freedom of religion, leading to a stifling of constitutional rights," the legislation adds.

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