Vietnamese Christians Beaten, Arrested for Refusing to Worship Buddha and Renounce Faith in Jesus

Vietnamese women make the sign of the cross during a mass at a church
 in Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam. | (PHOTO: REUTERS)

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

Several Hmong Christians were beaten and arrested by Vietnamese government officials after they refused to renounce their faith and worship a Buddha statue, a pastor has revealed.

Pastor Hoang Van Pa told persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern that government officials threatened 33 Hmong Protestants in Phá Lóm village in November if they refused to renounce their Christian faith.

Police reportedly gathered personal information about the 33 believers and carried out an open trial before the community. The officers presented an image of the Buddha and tried to force the Christians to abandon their faith and worship the Buddha statue instead. Four of the Christians were arrested and beaten, and government officials continued to harass Protestants in several other raids throughout November and December.

As Dzung, the representative of the Interdisciplinary Inspection Team, explained that Vietnam has banned the Protestant Christian faith and seeks to expel those who refuse to renounce their faith in Jesus. In 2018, more than 100 believers were expelled from Yen Bai province and Lao Cai province.

“Due to its ethnic background and high percentage of practicing Christians, Vietnam’s Hmong community is often targeted and harassed by both the government and neighboring communities,” wrote ICC's Regional Manager Gina Goh.

“In a Communist country where Christianity is often seen as unpatriotic or a threat to the regime, Hmong Christians constantly face discrimination, harassment, land grabs, torture, and imprisonment.”

ICC has warned that the persecution of Hmong Christians is expected to continue in 2019.

In 2017, police in Vietnam threw stones and beat a group of Roman Catholic priests who were defending a cross erected on church-claimed land in Thua Thien Hue province.

Thien An priest Khoa Cao Duc Loi said at the time: "They prevented us from putting it back, and priests held on to the cross while police tore at their shirts and dragged them by their hair."

Loi told Radio Free Asia that the local police chief and his deputy were present during the attack.

"I knew them because we had met with them several times before," he said.

Others, such as a believer by the name of Bao, who works with persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA, revealed last year that he has been risking his life to distribute more than 100,000 children's Bibles.

"When I distribute children's Bibles in the big churches, they honor the book not only as a free gift but as material to teach God's Word. They also use this book for evangelism. And I believe that it's going farther, and that its impact will spread wider," Bao said of Open Doors Children's Bible Project.

"God's Word must be easy for people to reach. The children's Bible is one of the easiest ways to let different kinds of people know about Him. I believe this is the job of a sower. We continue to sow, and God continues to make it grow."

Website: Christian Post

North Korean Regime Teaches Children Christianity Is Evil, Cross Is 'the Devil': Defector Share On Facebook Share On Twitter

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

Children living in the North Korean regime are taught daily that Christianity is evil and that the cross is a symbol of the devil, a believer who now lives outside the country has said.

A Christian by the pseudonym of John Choi spoke about life under the Communist ideals of the hermit kingdom in an article for Open Doors USA on Monday.

Choi explained that children are taught to believe that Christianity is an "evil American religion" and that missionaries are never to be trusted.

"When I grew up in North Korea, I also believed that Christianity was evil and that the cross was a symbol of the devil. Even in nursery school, we had to bow to the pictures of the first leaders of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung and his son, Kim Jong-Il," the defector revealed.

"Today, North Korean children learn about and bow to current 'Dear Leader' Kim Jong-Un, too."

Some of the propaganda includes stories that Kim Il-Sung was "able to catch a double rainbow with one hand because of his 'majestic powers.'"

"Everything in North Korea revolves around the Kim family. North Korean children are brainwashed so that they will honor the leader of their day. In preschool, the teachers prayed to the leaders at lunchtime. We had to give thanks to the dictators for our 'daily bread,' Now, I realize they stole this from the Lord's Prayer," Choi said.

He noted that children are taught to hate the "American imperialists" and "South Korean puppets," with the message pushed by propaganda messages in films, musicals, paintings, and cartoons.

Citizens are also told stories about Christian pastors and missionaries raping and attacking people, creating an evil image in their minds that they are supposed to stay away from.

Still, Choi shared his hopes that with advancing technology, children are finding new ways to learn the truth about the world and are wising up to the regime's lies.

"Today's North Korean children are able to discover other beliefs and ways of life through escapees' disseminated information, smuggled USB drives and foreign radio broadcasts in the Korean language. More parents are coming to faith and, when the children are old enough, they will hear about the Bible and the Gospel," the defector said.

"I'm praying that God would open the eyes, ears and hearts of North Koreans of all ages. I truly believe that if believers throughout the world continue to pray with North Korean believers, one day all North Korean children will learn the truth about God and Christianity. One day, they will turn to the cross," he shared of his hopes.

Other defectors, such as Pastor Lee Joo-Chan, who now lives in China, have also talked about how children are brought up under the Kim regime.

Christian Post article continues here

Raising awareness to the growing tide of bigotry and hatred toward Christians around the world a mission to wake up all who cherish religious freedom as a God given right. 

Persecution Unveiled has been called 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.

Muslims Converting to Christianity: Growth-Spurt in a Surprising Country

“I’ve heard statistics as high as 70 percent of Iranians have rejected Islam"

By Lyndsey Koh
Mission Network News

Which country do you think has the fastest growing Church in the world? China? Russia? Maybe a country in South America?

Here’s a hint: the official name of the country starts with ‘The Islamic Republic’.

Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Marytrs, USA reveals, “The Islamic Republic of Iran is actually the place in the world where the Church is growing the fastest, something that would be pretty surprising to most Christians.”

The situation is bursting with irony. The Islamic Republic of Iran is listed on Open Doors USA’s World Watch List in the top ten hardest countries to be a believer.  And yet, last year, Operation World listed Iran as having a 19.6 percent uptick in the Christian population annually — more than any other country.

“Conversion is illegal, the above-ground churches have almost all been closed down,” says Nettleton. “So it is a country that has worked very hard to eliminate Christianity, and particularly to eliminate Muslim conversion to Christianity. But it’s the place in the world where the Church is growing the fastest.”

The Laws That Backfire

Why is the Iranian Church going through such a growth spurt?

Nettleton shares, “I’ve had Iranian Christians tell me, ‘The greatest missionary in Iran, the greatest evangelist we’ve had in Iran was the Ayatollah Khomeini.’ This is the guy who took power in 1979, he converted Iran to the Islamic Republic [saying], ‘We’re going to run our country according to what Mohammed would have us do, we’re going to run our country according to the Koran.’

“Now here we are thirty-plus years later, and most Iranians have rejected Islam precisely because of that. The country is run by the Mullahs. The government says, ‘We’re doing everything according to Islamic principles.’ So if the government doesn’t work, if there’s still corruption, if there’s still poverty, then that must mean Islam doesn’t work…. That failure has really, in the eyes of the people of Iran, become the failure of Islam.”

According to Nettleton, the Iranian people are going through honest introspection about what they’ve witnessed in their country, and what that means for their lives…and their souls.

Mission Network News article continues here

Note to Readers: This article is dated September 26, 2016.

Pastor Surrounded By Islamist Extremists Out to Kill Him, But God Puts Invisible 'Shield' to Protect Him

By Hazel Torres

Christian Today

An invisible "shield" that could deflect any attack known to man has so far been confined in the realm of science fiction.

However, the persecution watchdog Open Doors USA has come out with a report attesting that such a God-given "protective shield" prevented a pastor from being killed by Islamist extremists who surrounded him at an undisclosed location in Southeast Asia.

Recalling the dramatic event, Pastor Amin said he once found himself surrounded by armed Islamist extremists. Their leader approached him and menacingly told him, "I am a faithful Muslim . . . so I have to participate in jihad."

Amin thought that he was about to suffer a gruesome death. But despite the terror that gripped his body, God gave him the courage to defiantly and fearlessly shout back: "Kill me if you must. Here I am!"

Upon hearing his words, the pastor's would-be attackers froze and could not even lift a finger at him. "Never had they seen such courage and calmness in the face of almost certain death," the Open Doors report says. "It was almost as if God had put a shield around the pastor they knew they couldn't penetrate."

News of Pastor Amin's courageous stand and God's apparent intervention to save him quickly spread in the area populated mostly by Muslims. Soon, Muslims began knocking on his door, all seeking salvation in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. As a result, Pastor Amin's church grew rapidly.

Christian Today's story continues

Persecution Unveiled has been called by God to prick the consciences of this nation and all free people to speak up and act on behalf of those who have no voice.  Follow us on  Pinterest, and Google; like us on Facebook, and visit our website using this link.  

Nigeria's Forgotten Christians

By Eric Metaxas
Christian Post

Almost nobody knows what's happening to the Christians of Nigeria — but even fewer care. Here's why we should.

In Nigeria, which is Africa's most populous country, Christians don't have time to worry about culture wars. They're too busy facing a real one instigated by their Muslim neighbors and by a government that has studiously decided to look the other way. The scope of the violence is so vast as to be almost beyond belief, so let me first give you a snapshot of what's happening on the ground.

Deborah, now 31 and living in a camp for the internally displaced, was captured by the Boko Haram terrorist group and held captive for a year and a half. The Islamists came to her village and slaughtered her husband and family before abducting her and "marrying" her off to a 20-year-old Muslim terrorist, who complained of her argumentativeness while raping and impregnating her. After Deborah was recaptured following an escape, she received 80 lashes as punishment. She told journalist Douglas Murray that she no longer fears death.

"What sort of death would I be running from?" Deborah asks. "I have already died once."

You could repeat Deborah's basic story countless times in Nigeria. Operation World estimates that Nigeria, which is an officially secular state with a Muslim president, is 51 percent Christian and 45 percent Muslim. 

Since 1999, the West African nation of about 158 million people has been convulsed by ongoing attempts at imposing Islamic law in eight northern, mostly Muslim states, as well as in four other states where Christians predominate or where the numbers are fairly even.

Things are particularly bad in the north right now. Unarmed Christian villages there are sitting ducks for Muslim Fulani tribesmen, who have been armed with weaponry provided by elements in the national military. According to The Spectator, it's religiously motivated genocide, although outside agencies dismiss the violence as tit-for-tat.

"The locals daren't collect the freshest bodies," the magazine reports. "Some who tried earlier have already been killed, spotted by the waiting militia and hacked down or shot. The Fulani are watching everything closely from the surrounding mountains."

"Every week, their progress across the northern states of Plateau and Kaduna continues. Every week, more massacres — another village burned, its church razed, its inhabitants slaughtered, raped or chased away."

Open Doors USA, as part of its annual World Watch List, says the killings have jumped by a whopping 62 percent in a year. And while Nigeria is No. 12 on the World Watch List of Christian persecution globally, it's in the top 10 in terms of overall violence.

And yet it's not all gloom and doom in Nigeria. As Tertullian reminded us, the blood of the martyrs is often the seed of the church. 

Operation World says the country now boasts a strong prayer movement, dynamic church growth, and a growing missionary movement, with more than 5,000 cross-cultural workers — many of them in Nigeria or in other African nations.

Christian Post report continues

American Christians Should 'Take Seriously' Terror Threats

By World Net Daily
Exclusive

The religious war launched by Muslims against Christianity is nothing new, notes Charl Van Wyk, who heroically returned fire during a terrorist attack on his own church in South Africa.

“Over 400 million Christians live in 67 countries which severely restrict and persecute believers,” Van Wyk said. “Open Doors USA says that in an average month, 332 Christians are killed for their faith, 214 churches and Christian properties are destroyed and 772 forms of violence, such as beatings, abductions, rapes, arrests and forced marriages, are committed against Christians worldwide.”

Van Wyk was present during an attack on the St. James Church in Cape Town, South Africa in 1993 in which terrorists opened fire with grenades and automatic weapons. Van Wyk hit one of the terrorists with his snub .38 revolver. He chronicled his experience in “Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self Defense.”

Van Wyk said Christians have always been under threat of violence.

“Yes, Christian churches are directly under threat of terrorism,” he said. “But this is not foreign or ‘new’ to the church, the body of Christ, worldwide. What is happening is that those who have lived fairly sheltered lives, in what were Christianized nations, are now also seeing and feeling the heat of this curse.”

Carl Gallups, a pastor, former law enforcement official and author of Carl Gallups, a pastor, former law enforcement official and author of “Be Thou Prepared: Equipping the Church for Persecution and Times of Trouble,” agreed the history of Christianity has always been about coping with terrorism and persecution.

“I do not suggest that Christians live in paranoia and constant fear,” said Gallups. “Since the birth of Christianity, God’s people have been persecuted, murdered, hunted down, targeted and terrorized – many times by government decrees and legally opened doors that made it all possible. So, this is not a new thing to the Christian world. What is new, like Van Wyk says, is how this threat is spreading to nations like America.”

Churches throughout Europe are on alert after ISIS warned of new attacks. Only a few days after a French priest was beheaded during a worship service, churches in the United Kingdom were told by the British Home Office to review their security procedures. However, some religious leaders are resisting the move, saying churches must always remain a place of sanctuary.

World Net Daily article continues