Posted on 10/30/2003 7:36:32 AM PST by Between the Lines
Severe persecution against church planting ministry in India's Orissa State was interrupted with a sign from heaven when a meteor crashed to earth near the Bay of Bengal.
Missionaries with an indigenous church-planting ministry had won to Christ and discipled 15 families in a certain village. So in early September the ministry sent builders to construct a church building on a piece of land donated by one of the local believers.
Suddenly on the third day of construction about 50 Hindus gathered about 50 yards away, placed a stone there, and said that someone had dreamed they should construct a Hindu temple there.
The next morning about 300 people gathered at the site and attacked the laborers working on the church building. They snatched $220 from the builder's pocket, beat him mercilessly, and ordered him to stop construction.
At that time the pastor and the president of the church arrived to see what the trouble was. The angry crowd dragged them both and ordered them to turn over 50 bags of cement and iron rods to them.
The next day, two missionaries with the church planting ministry arrived at the site and they, too, were beaten, but managed to escape by motorbike. Then the tide began to turn.
That very same night, one of the villagers who had forcibly taken four bags of cement died.
Two days later a meteor streaked across the sky, spreading flaming fragments as it went. Witnesses said the meteor lit up the night sky and others reported hearing a deafening roar. It crashed into a house and news reports said at least 20 people were injured. Local citizens were terrified.
After this, the leaders of the militant Hindus apologized to the Christians and said they wanted to return the materials they had taken away.
"The police authorities were not helpful at all, but the situation is under control," the leader told Christian Aid.
Gotta make ya grin...
It's Bush's fault.
It did! ;o)
This was most likely not in India as Indian law prohibits proselytizing by foreigners unless you have a missionary visa. Less than 100 missionary visas have been granted in the last 10 years and the visa is limited to 3 months and is not accecptable in all Indain states.
But I do agree with your point.
Did a meteor over central Italy in AD 312 change the course of Roman and Christian history? A team of geologists believes it has found the incoming space rock's impact crater, and dating suggests its formation coincided with the celestial vision said to have converted a future Roman emperor to Christianity.It was just before a decisive battle for control of Rome and the empire that Constantine saw a blazing light cross the sky and attributed his subsequent victory to divine help from a Christian God.
Constantine went on to consolidate his grip on power and ordered that persecution of Christians cease and their religion receive official status. < snip >
It is the small, circular Cratere del Sirente in central Italy. It is clearly an impact crater, Ormo says, because its shape fits and it is also surrounded by numerous smaller, secondary craters, gouged out by ejected debris, as expected from impact models.
Radiocarbon dating puts the crater's formation at about the right time to have been witnessed by Constantine and there are magnetic anomalies detected around the secondary craters - possibly due to magnetic fragments from the meteorite.
According to Ormo, it would have struck the Earth with the force of a small nuclear bomb, perhaps a kiloton in yield. It would have looked like a nuclear blast, with a mushroom cloud and shockwaves.
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