Posted on 09/02/2009 1:00:09 PM PDT by Liberty1970
Belarus: Church Evicted
Forum 18 News reports that on Aug. 20, New Life Full Gospel Church in Minsk, Moscow, was issued an eviction notice by government officials, forcing them to abandon their church building purchased in 2002.
The church is adamant they do not fear the government’s threats. “We’re here praying and believe God will protect us,” Sergei Lukanin, the church’s lawyer told Forum 18 News. “As a lawyer I believe the state could do anything, including the use of force. But as a believer I rely on God.”
Government authorities have not disclosed why the church is being evicted, but have repeatedly refused to grant the church’s application for registration. In 2002, Belarus passed a restrictive religion law that made all unregistered religious activity illegal.
New Life Full Gospel Church is one of many churches in Belarus facing increased restrictions by the government. Forum 18 News said since July the government has fined two other churches in the western town of Baranovichi. VOM classifies Belarus as a restricted nation and encourages you to pray for believers living under stringent conditions that do not allow them to worship freely. Ask God to encourage members of New Life Full Gospel Church and for their testimony to draw nonbelievers into fellowship with Christ.
*Ping*
This is a Ping-List for reports of persecution against Christians. Please message me or reply if you would like to be added.
“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.” Matthew 5:10-11
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...” Matthew 5:44
Ping for later
“Back to the U S S R!...”
(sung to the tune of Back in the USSR - The Beatles)
Unregistered ecclesial group ping.
You are not wrong and this perfectly illustrates why American Protestants who know nothing of history or culture in lands they proselytize in are viewed with hostility and suspicion. Belarusian has been Christian for over a thousand years. Granted they are not the same kind of Christian as a Southern Baptist, etc so I guess that means they are not 'real' Christians.
How about the New Life Full Gospel Church instead of spending money to buy a new building pay to rebuild one the Communists destroyed? Or save up money to buy or restore a Christian Church the Turks have turned into a stable or warehouse or pay to restore Christian cemeteries in Turkey that have been turned into communal garbage dumps?
Belarus has had Christian influence for a millenium, as you note, but so do many other lands that nonetheless persecute Christians. That includes countries and times that most people sweepingly characterize as 'Christendom.' (For example, consider the way Christians were hunted down and punished or killed in 16th century England for the crime of owning a Bible in their own language.) There have been steady reports of persecution against Christians in Belarus since independence, I've noted.
Yes, the Orthodox church has been mistreated and suffered grievously at the hands of Islamists and atheists/communists. But why then train your fire on Protestants who have had no hand in that, and are squarely opposed to such evil? Such divisiveness harms the cause of Christ and weakens the Church.
The hostility is on the part of Christians who are still fighting amongst each other by poaching the faithful and not helping each other. Why not take all the money raised to build a Church in a Christian land thousands of miles away and give it to an already existing church there?
“Whoa, why the hostility?”
Because this group is very clearly trying to poach in an ancient Christian land. Nikas is absolutely right. These people and groups like them should spend their money in a pagan land, like right here or perhaps in Saudi Arabia, instead of trying to beguile people away from their ancestral Christian faith by preaching a distinctly Western, modern and innovative form of Christianity.
The real underlying premiss is that these Protestants don’t consider Orthodox, Catholics, Copts, Assyrians, as well as other Protestants etc to be real Christians.
That has been made painfully clear time and again here on FR, though to be fair, there are a number of protestant Freepers who are respectful to a fault when it comes to Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy.
Also, I am sympathetic to a degree in that in the USA protestant churches of different dogmas are viewed interchangeably in many ways to the point you have non-denominational churches and people switch church memberships the way they switch gym memberships.
I got a brochure the other month from a Protestant church that touted its day care center and health facilities complete with swimming pool and monthly picnic events, etc.
So I fully understand church membership is viewed differently here than it would be in another country where the church not only spread the gospel but was responsible for forming the language and literature of a people.
On top of that, they are told all they have to do is "accept Jeeezus" and they are "saved" no matter what they do. Clearly, this appeals to many lukewarm who are, by necessity already in traditional Churches.
For instance, even in Latin America, where the Catholic Church is rather lax for lack of a better term, the Evangelical offers are still luring many formerly Catholics to switch.
It's also much safer in Belarus or Russia or Serbia, etc. than going to Saudi Arabia to save pagans, because they may chop your head off there. Not too many evangelicals are ready to lose their life for that..."man's gotta know his limitations," you know. :)
When I moved form New Yor to North Carolina, years back, a Methodist minister knocked on our door and wellcomed us to the community. We invited him in and offered him coffee and cookies, and had a nice conversation with him.
After some time, he aksed where did we worship and after hearing our reply offered to write to our churches to "relase" us so we may join his!
I thought it was funny, and politely told him that this would probably not be possible, but I don't think he understood what I was talking about.
What I really wanted to tell him was that Orthodox church membership is not a club membership, but realized that he had no clue what Orthodoxy was. I guess they didn't teach them that in their Bible colleges in those days.
“So I fully understand church membership is viewed differently here than it would be in another country where the church not only spread the gospel but was responsible for forming the language and literature of a people.”
I doubt many American protestants today look at their religious beliefs as being definitional of who they are as a people, like we Greeks or Serbs, etc do; in the past perhaps, but not now. In some measure it is that difference in how religion is viewed which explains how so many American Western Christians measure the “orthodoxy” of their ministers, priests and/or hierarchs by their secular political views and how loud they shout them out.
Which of course explains why they're being evicted by the State which, as you claim in post #6, is Christian......
I have a co-worker who was born Lutheran, married an episcopalian and joined her church got divorced and re-married to a Presbyterian and joined her church and he told me he saw not a lick of difference between any of them.
So with this mind set I can understand why Protestants don't get why we get upset. What I don't understand is why they don't get why Orthodox get upset.
In regards to Orthodoxy, the communist oppressed church suffered badly - instead of using this as an excuse to convert people to individual Protestant denominations why not aid the local churches that suffered?
When a people are trying to reclaim their Christian faith that was nearly destroyed by communism - a faith that is linked to their self identity a faith that invented their alphabet and the way they speak their language like the Orthodox Church did with Cyrillic and church-Slavonic how do you expect them to view an interloping church?
How did the South react to Yankee carpetbaggers?
To borrow from your earlier post, I would expect them to "consider Protestants, like their fellow Orthodox, Catholics, Copts, Assyrians etc, to be real Christians."
So why try and convert them is what I am asking?
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