Today’s Headlines:

TARGETED IRAQI CHRISTIANS ‘EMBOLDENED TO WITNESS’

PAKISTANI CHRISTIAN FLEES TO NETHERLANDS AFTER ‘BLASPHEMY’ CHARGES

BILLY GRAHAM TO PREACH AGAIN AT FESTIVAL IN BALTIMORE

ETHIOPIAN MUSLIM CAMPAIGN STIRS TROUBLE FOR CHRISTIANS

KOREAN-AMERICAN SOUTHERN BAPTISTS FOCUS ON DIVORCE PROBLEM

Today’s Top Stories:

TARGETED IRAQI CHRISTIANS ‘EMBOLDENED TO WITNESS’

Partners of Open Doors in Iraq have noted an increase in harassment and persecution as well as direct threats to Christians. “We do know that the churches are being bombed, and we know that churches are being targeted,” said Carl Moeller of Open Doors. However, Christians are being emboldened to witness.” The internal chaos in Iraq is causing mass exodus of more than 130,000 families. “Much of the displacement is going along sectarian lines with Sunnis and Shiites fleeing and Christians and Kurds also being forced to flee from ethnically mixed neighborhoods,” he said. Moeller added that opportunities are arising for Christians as authorities notice that they are neither Shiites nor Sunnis. (Mission Network News)

PAKISTANI CHRISTIAN FLEES TO NETHERLANDS AFTER ‘BLASPHEMY’ CHARGES

Pakistani “blasphemy” suspect Yasaar Hameed applied for asylum status in the Netherlands after years of mistreatment including being tortured for two weeks and denied food for a month. Hameed, a political activist and comparative religion scholar, continues with judicial wrangling dating back to 1993. He has been accused of blasphemy multiple times and has been shot on six different occasions, one of which left a bullet embedded in his shoulder. Much of the violence directed at Hameed stems from his comparative studies between Christianity and Islam, leading him to author the book, Islam: The Enemy of Humanity, and to form the activist group called the Religious Research Institute. He and his family did not become Christians until 2004. The rogue status of this organization riled Muslims to bomb offices and murder Hameed’s younger brother and other co-workers. Hameed has turned the judicial tables on his accusers, charging them with “insulting religion.” His wife and two children remain in hiding in Pakistan where controversial blasphemy laws are routinely used to persecute religious minorities. (Compass Direct/Religion Today)

* HCJB World Radio sent two medical teams from Ecuador to Pakistan following the Oct. 8, 2005, earthquake that left tens of thousands dead and thousands more injured and homeless. Staff members helped SIM International with relief efforts.

BILLY GRAHAM TO PREACH AGAIN AT FESTIVAL IN BALTIMORE

Evangelist Billy Graham, 87, announced that he is coming out of retirement to preach at the 2006 Metro Maryland Festival led by his son, Franklin Graham, in Baltimore July 7-9. Cliff Barrows, long-time associate of the elder Graham, reported the plans to The Christian Post. Barrows added that a third member of the Billy Graham team, 97-year-old singer George Beverly Shea, also plans to participate in the festival. The Washington Post reported that the elder Graham will give the final sermon at the three-day event following the preaching by his son and musical performances by multiple artists, including country star Randy Travis and gospel legend Andrae Crouch. Franklin Graham said that although his father held his final crusade last year in New York, “he never told the world that he wouldn’t keep preaching.” (Religion Today/Washington Post)

ETHIOPIAN MUSLIM CAMPAIGN STIRS TROUBLE FOR CHRISTIANS

A recent campaign in the Ethiopian city of Alaba (south of Addis Ababa) has brought various pressures on the minority Christian population. The citywide push that “Alaba is Muslim and Muslim is Alaba” has caused several incidents, including an incident on Wednesday, June 7, when a group of Muslim teens took over the microphone and threatened to bombard the building. Four days later Muslims interrupted a meeting of Christian high school students. On June 15 and 17, building materials for a new Christian elementary school were destroyed and stolen. The Christians do not anticipate cooperation from state officials due to strong Muslim control on all levels of state government. (Christians in Crisis/Voice of the Martyrs)

* Staff members at HCJB World Radio-Australia’s studios record Oromo language programs that air to 28 million speakers in Ethiopia and Kenya via FEBA Radio’s shortwave facilities.

KOREAN-AMERICAN SOUTHERN BAPTISTS FOCUS ON DIVORCE PROBLEM

The rapid increase in the divorce rate in South Korea led organizers to choose the theme, “Happy Families,” for the 25th annual Council of Korean Southern Baptist Churches in America held in Wheaton, Ill., June 19-22. There are now more than 750 Korean-speaking Southern Baptist churches across the U.S., most of which recruit new pastors directly from South Korea, creating a constant influx of first-generation leaders in the Korean-American church. The divorce rate in South Korea is third in the world — only behind the U.S. and the U.K. The majority of Korean divorces are initiated by the wife after 20 or more years of marriage. The conference speakers addressed a Christian-based model of marriage rather than the “Korean way.” Featured speaker Andrew Chung said, “It is only the Christian church that can provide an answer to this [divorce] dilemma.” (Baptist Press)