Posted on 12/04/2005 7:44:18 PM PST by Hunden
An Iranian convert to Christianity was kidnapped last week from his home in northeastern Iran and stabbed to death, his bleeding body thrown in front of his home a few hours later. Ghorban Tori, 50, was pastoring an independent house church of convert Christians in Gonbad-e-Kavus, a town just east of the Caspian Sea along the Turkmenistan border.
Within hours of the November 22 murder, local secret police arrived at the martyred pastor’s home, searching for Bibles and other banned Christian books in the Farsi language. By the end of the following day, the secret police had also raided the houses of all other known Christian believers in the city.
According to one informed Iranian source, during the past eight days representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested and severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities, including Tehran. All the detainees have since been released.
One of the arrested Christians was reportedly interrogated about his involvement in relief work after Iran’s deadly Bam earthquake in December 2003. Another working with a legal organization defending human rights was accused of using it as a “cover” for church activities.
In addition, MOIS officials have visited known Christian leaders since Tori’s murder and have instructed them to warn acquaintances in the unofficial, Protestant house fellowships that
“the government knows what you are doing, and we will come for you soon.”
A former Muslim of Turkmen descent, Tori had converted to Christianity more than 10 years ago, while in Turkmenistan.
After he returned to his native Iran in 1998, Tori began to share his new Christian faith with friends and relatives. Within two years, a small fellowship of 12 believers was meeting in his home.
But not all welcomed his message; at least one relative attacked Tori, scarring his face. In the past year he received several threats from Islamic extremists vowing to kill him if he did not stop sharing his Christian faith.
Tori is survived by his wife and four children, ages 3 to 23.
He is the fifth Protestant pastor assassinated in Iran by unidentified killers in the past 11 years. Three of the five were former Muslims, under Iranian law subject to the death penalty for having committed apostasy.
Tori’s murder came just days after Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an open meeting with the nation’s 30 provincial governors. During the session, an Iranian source told Compass, Ahmadinejad declared that the government needed to put a stop to the burgeoning movement of house churches across Iran.
“I will stop Christianity in this country,” Ahmadinejad reportedly vowed.
“This was apparently a green light from the president of Iran to go out and start killing Christians,”
the source said.
Slurring Non-Muslims
Last week a Zoroastrian representative in the Iranian Parliament protested a slur against non-Muslims on November 20 by a top aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to the government-run Entekhaab website, in a public speech Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told youthful Basidjis (members of a volunteer militia formed to enforce strict Islamic codes) preparing to join suicide missions that “non-Muslims are sinful animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption.” Jannati, who is secretary general of the powerful Guardian Council, is known to be a mentor and close advisor to Ahmadinejad.
Iranian Member of Parliament Kurosh Niknam declared the comment, “an unprecedented insult to religious minorities.”
Over the past month, Ahmadinejad has conducted a broad shake-up within the government establishment, replacing hundreds of governors, ambassadors and senior ministry officials with young and mostly inexperienced Islamists. Yesterday students at Tehran University protested noisily when a religious cleric without even a high school diploma was appointed rector of the nation’s oldest university.
In November, the new director of prisons also transferred a number of political prisoners of conscience into criminal wards with convicted murderers and drug dealers. At least one of these political prisoners has been killed by fellow inmates, sparking the fears of Iranian Christians for the security of Hamid Pourmand, serving a three-year sentence at Tehran’s Evin Prison for refusing to renounce his conversion to Christianity.
Had Iran not been in the headline, I would have thought this was an article about the ACLU or PFAW.
BUMP!
Kool story.
Amen - and thanks for reminding us.
“the government knows what you are doing, and we will come for you soon.”
This, and the euroscum continue to carp that Bush is a danger to world peace.
Welcome!
Thanks for a gracious reply! I appreciate your irenic spirit. BTW -- each of the items in that tagline has been affected by my moving over to the post-mil camp. I backed reluctantly into the Reformed camp upon discovering that they'd cornered the market on Christian world-view thinking and writing. I learned that only the post-mil brand of Calvinist had enough confidence in his God and his future to think seriously about the Biblical solutions to real-world problems. Confidence in God and the future also undergirds home schooling. (Family + God) > (School - God). I entered into my vocation as a technical writer upon learning the eternal significance of every vocation, as a means for glorifying God. Not just the "evangelistic" callings of "preacher, singer, or jock." Finally, my wife became far happier as the frustration level receded in my life. Then, I took to heart the admonitions of movement writers that a Christian husband has the obligation to adorn his wife to the best of his ability. After all, that's how Jesus treats His bride, the church! Forget stinginess masquerading as "voluntary simplicity." Vicky was stunned the night I said, "Honey, we need to buy you some new clothes!"
I started embracing post-mil eschatology in 1980. This link provides a glimpse of what this transformation has meant for my family.
I pray you may have the joy of seeing your children walking in truth. I can't think of anything on earth that compares to that, in terms of ultimate importance.
You're kidding, right? They ALREADY DO side with Islamists! Why do you think they so desperately want the US out of Iraq? Can you name ONE secularist that's supportive of the war?
Thank you for this post. My prayers are with the Iranian people as they confront forces of darkness in witnessing for a God of Love. May hearts be transformed and a way through be found.
Glory, glory hallelujah, His Truth is marching on.
Iran is a 'balkanized' country. Persians are only about 51% therabouts. it has the largest Jewish populaiton in the middle east out side fo Israel. Cristians are more prominate in some areas, although they cannot hold office are be in goverment by law. This guy will destroy the revolution. Nothing like a heavy hand to break things up!
Most of the time, I hear, when a muslim converts to Christianity, it's because of a supernatural encounter with the Jesus of the Bible. So, my approach is, befriend 'em and pray for 'em.
ping
I agree. Good post!
In the West, not overtly, militarily or formally. They do it in a Back-Handed, Can't-We-All-Get-Along, It's-Just-Their-Beliefs, Stop-Telling-Them-What-To-Do, sort of way ... We see directly through this and are able to separate words from deeds and determine intent from actions. Yes, they all side with the Islamists but few admit it or for that matter pro-actively engage in combat. The butchery has not engulfed the world by matter of state, However, Satan is on the move ...
The Albanian Catholics are safe in Kosovo — to the extent that they aren't entangled in some feud. And there are now 50 % more Albanian Catholics in Kosovo than there are Serb "Orthodox Christians" — 9 percent of the population against 6 percent..
Only the so-called "Orthodox" in the Balkans, who confuse nationality with religion as a legacy of the Ottoman millet system, view the Albanians' national struggle in Kosovo as a "religious" issue.
For the Albanians, it is a national one. As Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic noted in 1849, the Albanian nation is united regardless of religion. And they have a pretty cool attitude towards religion:
there is a ''Christian-democratic party'' in Kosovo, led by Dr Mark Krasniqi, with a majority of Muslims as members — they simply don't care — some jihadists!
On the other hand, there is not a majority of Muslims in Dr Vladan Batic's Christian-democratic party of Serbia.
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