If you want to know more facts regarding the underground church growth in communist and muslim countries, go to www.persecution.com and sign up for their newsletters. It is absolutely amazing to me that the christian community in the US is completely ignorant of the daily persecution, wrongful imprisonment and murder of christians in other countries. I have a dramatically different view of christianity and the early church after my introduction to the reality of persecuted christians in other countries several years ago. As is evident from the New Testament, explosive spiritual awakening flourishes under persecution.
I wish the website was more up-to-date as most people tend to think there must not be much persecution happening if there aren't current reports posted. If anyone would like more information, I am happy to scan the stories from the current newsletters that I have and send them to you.
This is just a small, out-of-date, handful of the hundreds of stories regarding the growth and persecution of underground churches in communist and muslim countries.
In 2003, a North Korean army general was shot and killed by a fellow officer for evangelizing to his unit. Many other Christians are currently facing similar situations of execution or imprisonment for sharing their faith, owning a Bible, or for no explanation at all. Yet sources say that these are "very strong believers" and they refuse to deny their faith, even in the face of torture and death.
According to reports from former government officials and prisoners, like Soon-Ok Lee, treatment of religious prisoners is much more severe, particularly for Christians. In her book, Eyes of the Tailless Animals, Soon-Ok Lee partnered with VOM to share the stories of horror and the steadfast faith of Christians in a North Korean prison.
Imprisoned Christians are not the only ones under pressure. The sources also tell of prisoners’ families being threatened or, in some cases, held hostage.
North Korean Christians that were saved in the spiritual revivals in the late 1940’s have played a vital role in the survival of Christianity in North Korea. Sources report that these believers have kept the faith alive by passing down their faith from generation to generation.
There has been no communication with Pastor Zhang since his arrest, but it is believed that he is in custody in the Zheng Zhou area of Henan Province. Zhang is the leader of the Fangcheng Mother Church, Henan and the leader of the China for Christ Church, which is one of the largest house church networks in China, estimated to have more than 10 million members. He has been well known by the international community as one of the house church patriarchs. He is a co-author of the House Churches of China’s Confession of Faith and Declaration, which was published in 1999. He has been featured in a number of international articles and books, including “Jesus in Beijing” (2003) by former TIME journalist David Aikman, Newsweek (12th May 2004), TIME magazine, Charisma and Christianity Today.
Pastor Zhang has already spent twelve years in prison for his faith during five separate detentions since his secret baptism in 1969. He experienced harsh torture, including electric shocks, during his prison terms. His arrest comes in the midst of a serious crackdown on China’s house churches.
The 150-member church was forced to cancel their Good Friday and Saturday night services when the family threatened to kill anyone who came to the church. The Dogar family is apparently seeking to take possession of the land that New Apostolic Church and its graveyard has been located on for the last century.
During the early morning hours of May 23, 2004, Haile Nayzgi was arrested and taken to Police Station #1 in Asmara. He was the leader of Eritrea’s Full Gospel Church, which is comprised of 120 to 150 house meeting groups. The church groups were closed by government decree at a meeting with a government official on May 15, 2003. At that time the church groups were given an application form for government registration. The Full Gospel Church filled out the form and returned it to the appropriate offices, but no reply was ever received.
Haile is married and has four children. He was previously an accountant with World Evangelical Alliance. He is a former mathematics professor at the University of Asmara. During his incarceration Haile has been refused any personal contact with his family. When family and friends went to take food and clothing to the prison for Haile on August 24, 2004, they were told that he was no longer there. Mr. Nayzgi has been moved to various locations since his arrest, but the actual charges against him have not been released. Letters are being directed to the Full Gospel Church for delivery to Haile.
Address:
Haile Nayzgi
Full Gospel Church
PO Box 651
Asmara, ERITREA
During my 3,200-kilometer trip crisscrossing Iraq, I went to seven house-church groups. I met with leaders of these “troublemaker evangelists” from more than 12 groups in three cities and four villages. None of them are content to sit in churches and enjoy their religious freedom by staying inside the building.
An official pastor from another evangelical church in Baghdad said to one of these released Christian leaders, “Don’t think you were in jail because of Christ, it is because you were stupid, evangelizing outside the church walls.” I wish we had more stupid evangelists.
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The one good resource on the website is the VOM (Voice of the Martyrs) bookstore. If interested, you can find lots of books, tapes and dvds designed to educate us westerners about the reality of christianity in other countries. For example:
Jesus in Beijing
David Aikman
Will China’s persecuted Christians become a worldwide missionary force? Discover the faith, and see photographs of China’s major Christian leaders who have survived prison and return to share the gospel. “Visit” secret Bible schools. Why do they exist? “Hear” testimonies from their students. Pray for Chinese unregistered churches that are learning Arabic to evangelize the Muslim world! Learn exactly how and who among the communist atheists formed the TSPM state church with the July 1950 brutally enforced “Christian Manifesto.”
$ 19.00
The Coming Influence of China
Carl Lawrence with David Wang
In the late 1960s, as the cacophony of the Red Guards began to diminish in China, another sound rose. It was the cadence of an army quickly marching not in defeat, but in victory. This army's instruction book had been burned, its meeting halls turned into warehouses or prisons. All had been persecuted. But the more they were persecuted, the more they "fought." After a thousand "battles," they moved into homes, fields and caves to be recharged for the next "battle." They started as 900,000; now they measure in the millions. Welcome to the house church of China. Not only did they profess a faith in Jesus, but they were also willing to die for it. This book has a wealth of testimonies from and insight into today's overcoming church in China.
Thank you for bringing this thread back to the original posting.
Last week I received a newsletter from an old friend whose whole life has been spent as a missionary with the Sudan Interior Mission, a long-standing, evangelical, non-denominational Mission Board.
Field reports indicate that thousands are coming to Christ in Bangladesh, India and China.
Third World missionaries now out number North Americans in this part of the world and the church in China wants to send 500,000 missionaries over the next ten years...the Philipines, 200,000.
In Ethiopia, 120 Muslim men, part of a soccer ministry, were baptized in an unreached (by the gospel, I believe), area. And in a ministry to 30 street girls, 11 were saved.