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Aid for the persecuted
By Steve Arney
sarney@pantagraph.com
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Words from an underground preacher in Vietnam, from a trip there four years ago, stick with Jerry Dykstra. The preacher said, "Don't forget us. Please pray for us. We'll pray for you."

There are other ways to help the persecuted church, and Dykstra's group, Open Doors, uses them. Out of his Michigan home, Dykstra acts as a key spokesman for Open Doors USA.

By design, he remains ignorant of tactics -- how Bibles are smuggled, how secret Christians in Muslim nations are identified and aided. Fewer is better with these secrets, he said.

The tool of prayer is the universally known central part of the work. His group and others working to evangelize the world's least welcoming nations seek an outpouring of prayer today.

The second Sunday in November is designated as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. It aims to touch off a wave of prayer power for the day but also to promote sustained and persistent prayer through the year.

The day has particularly strong meaning for Roxann Moss.

She felt a burden for years to pray for the persecuted church. She thought there should be a local prayer group devoted to the issue.

Initially, she said, she dismissed it as a task that someone else would take up. By 2001, it was clear to Moss that she should form the group.

Her prayer group met at her church, New Life Fellowship in Bloomington, for the first time on the day before Islamic jihadists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The group now meets weekly in homes, with typically six to eight people in attendance, to discuss the latest news and conduct intercessory prayer.

"Prayer," said Moss, "does move the hand of God."

Her group is affiliated with Christians in Crisis and is part of an informal network of activists. They lean on each other for news, and Open Doors serves as one of the central resources.

Open Doors, whose U.S. office is based in Santa Ana, Calif., was founded 52 years ago. It has a watch list of what it considers the most repressive countries. It reads like an almanac of Communist-controlled nations and Muslim countries run with a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law.

Communist nations, including Vietnam, tend to proclaim religious freedom but limit it to churches registered with the government, according to Open Doors and other reporting groups, including the U.S. government.

According to Dykstra, Islamic-law nations get tougher still, restricting non-Islamic worship to private homes, banning public Christian preaching to Muslims and outlawing conversion by Muslims to other religions. Conversion by a Muslim to Christianity in nations such as Saudi Arabia is labeled "apostasy," and punishment can be job loss, imprisonment, harassment or death.

Notable among Open Doors' 50 most worrisome nations is that many, including Saudi Arabia and China, are U.S. trade partners. Others, like Pakistan, are U.S. partners in the war on terrorism.

Friendships with these nations may seem like a contradiction, but for Open Doors and Christians in Crisis it also means leverage.

Open Doors warns that Vietnam is becoming more repressive toward Christians despite its improved relations with the West and despite its removal from the State Department's list of "Countries of Particular Concern" on religious freedom.

For China, a central concern is treatment of North Korean Christian refugees. Christian watch groups say they are regularly returned to North Korea, where they are placed in labor camps. The groups urge the U.S. government to pressure China to change its treatment of fleeing Koreans.

Both nations in which U.S. soldiers are engaged in combat, Afghanistan and Iraq, make the Open Doors watch list. In Iraq, Christians are reported to be fleeing sectarian violence. In Afghanistan, religious Sharia law remains in force on many matters.

Worldwide pressure generally is credited for the release last year of Afghan convert Abdul Rahman, who faced capital charges of apostasy and whose government remains under Sharia law on issues like this despite the overthrow of the Taliban government.

Open Doors calls the converts Muslim Background Believers (MBBs) and their well-being is the theme of this year's prayer day.



North Korea rates as worst



Open Doors, an international advocate against Christian persecution which also aids underground churches, annually rates the worst countries in terms of persecution and repression of Christians. Here's the latest list, along with paraphrased information from the group for the top five offenders.

1. North Korea: The perennial worst, North Korea has 50,000 to 70,000 Christians in prison camps. North Koreans risk being killed while fleeing to China, but some newly converted Christians risk sneaking back into North Korea to build a Christian underground.

2. Saudi Arabia: Strict Islamic law allows foreign visitors to practice other faiths in private but not to preach. Up to 70 Christians were arrested for preaching in 2006. For a Saudi, converting from Islam to any other religion is punishable by death.

3. Iran: Also run with fundamentalist Islamic law. The government has grown less tolerant in the past three years. Converts from Islam are sometimes imprisoned; the death penalty for "apostasy" remains a legal option.

4. Somalia: The anarchic status in much of Somalia means no protection of religious freedom. The strong Muslim tradition in Somalia includes elements of extremist Islam. Children of Christian refugees have been kidnapped for rehabilitation to Islam.

5. Maldives: The nation is composed of a string of islands in the Indian Ocean. Shariah-style Islamic law requires citizens to be Muslim. Foreigners may practice other faiths in privacy. The nation has just a handful of Christian citizens, and they practice in secret.

Others in the Top 20

6. Yemen

7. Bhutan

8. Vietnam

9. Laos

10. Afghanistan

11. Uzbekistan

12. China

13. Eritrea

14. Turkmenistan

15. Comoros

16. Chechnya

17. Pakistan

18. Egypt

19. Myanmar (Burma)

20. Sudan (North)



'Countries of concern'



The U.S. State Department's list of "Countries of Particular Concern" is part of the government's comprehensive look at freedom of worship. Here is the list, in alphabetical order, of nations with acute restrictions on religious freedom.

• Burma

• China

• Eritrea

• Iran

• North Korea

• Saudi Arabia

• Sudan

• Uzbekistan



On the Net



At www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/ the State Department gives a report covering all nations except the United States.

Take a look
In Pakistan, a Christian woman and her children were forced to live in a stable after being driven from their home because of their faith. (Voice of the Martyrs photos)
Noviana, a young Christian girl, bears a long scar from being struck with a machete in Indonesia. She escaped from Muslim attackers, who beheaded her three friends as they were walking to school. (Voice of the Martyrs photos)
Despite the risks, Bibles are smuggled into China. (Voice of the Martyrs photos)
In the Sudan, Muslims burned this woman's field. She hid, but was burned. According to Voice of the Martyrs, the organization that provided these images, she lost some of her children in the attack. (Voice of the Martyrs photos)
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Reader comments on this story - 1 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Blame conversion... wrote on Nov 18, 2007 12:57 PM:

" I think, the anger comes from the fact that some of these churches send money to the churches based in those countries where they utilize them in converting people from their original faith to the christianity. And history shows that converted people's social structure almost collapse even though they do get money from these guys. Doesn't help the cause? This is just the start as people around the world realize money is not that important. "
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