INTERNATIONAL NEWS 20th November 2006

AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER

* USA ELECTIONS – A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

* BEHEADED GIRLS RAMADAN TROPHIES

* ABORTION STATISTICS IN NEW ZEALAND HIDE BRUTAL TRUTHS

* PUSH IS ON FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH IN NEW ZEALAND * FORMER GENERAL REPORTS MANY MUSLIMS TURNING TO CHRIST IN IRAQ

* REPORT LISTS 1,958 PERSECUTION EVENTS ACROSS CHINA IN LAST YEAR

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USA ELECTIONS – A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

The Democrats have taken both the House of Representatives and the Senate in America’s recent mid term election. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins summarised the elections this way. “The values voters of 2004 could be called the integrity voters of 2006. The message is that values are not just something you talk about at election time; values should guide public policies and personal conduct. This should be a clear message to both Parties that values voters vote values, not party. Their focus is not on party politics, but rather on government guided by core values.

Exit polling indicated it was the values gap, scandal and corruption, ahead even of opposition to the war in Iraq, that influenced three quarters of the Christians who switched their vote from Republican to Democrat. “That revelation may be an inescapable reality for Republicans, but it should serve as a warning to the many Democrats who leveraged the values gap by running as pro-life, pro-family candidates. Those integrity voters will be back at the polls in two short years.” Perkins said.

Commenting on the election results Jim Wallis, leader of the Call to Renewal movement said, “I would say both the Religious Right and the Secular Left have lost. Political leadership needs to recognize how the winds are changing,” Wallis told Christianity Today. “I really think there is a third force. Not a third party but a broader, deeper agenda that reflects a more biblical political agenda.

Wallis said Christians have been breaking with President Bush, not only on the war in Iraq, but on economic issues as well. Wallis cited six successful state efforts to raise the minimum wage. “A number of the candidates who won are genuinely either people of faith or friendly to faith. A lot of them are pro-life, and pro-poor,” he said. “The religious faith communities were deeply involved in increasing the minimum wage, and people are saying that fair wages are a biblical issue.”

Conservative leaders, meanwhile, said Christians lacked the motivation to turn out for a Republican Party they felt disappointed them. A Family Research Council voting scorecard said the Republican Congress during the last two years took no vote of significance to religious conservatives apart from approving two Bush nominations to the Supreme Court. “The Republicans didn’t light our fire,” said Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family’s vice president of government and public policy.

Voters in South Dakota rejected a state law that would have banned all abortions except to save a mother’s life. Polling indicated that a majority of voters would have supported the ban had it included clear exceptions for rape and incest. Bans on same-sex marriage fared better than measures to restrict abortion. Seven more states voted to adopt constitutional amendments banning gay marriages. But Arizona delivered the first defeat to such a ban, with voters rejecting the measure 51% to 49%. Twenty eight States now have statutory language defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

After years of talking about a better way, Christians within the Democratic Party now have the opportunity to act. Wallis, a Democratic Party advisor, said he is planning a meeting that would educate members of Congress on issues of faith and politics.

There were several disappointing State referendum results for Christians. In addition to the defeat of a referendum that would have banned abortion in South Dakota, Missouri voters passed a bill making human cloning a constitutional right, and a bill to require parental notification before an abortion for girls under 17 in Oregon was voted down.

Leaving election results aside the final word comes from Loren Sanford, a disillusioned Christian who summed up her feeling thus: “I have to admit that I am ashamed of my nation for its politics. The Republican Party has positioned itself as the party of righteousness, but has proven itself corrupt. The Democrats are coming in preaching change, but have no plan and can hardly position themselves as being any more righteous than the Republicans have been. I believe we’re in for a rocky couple of years with a government broken by party hatreds, failed policies and scandals.

“The church could rise to this hour in glory were it not for widespread sin being exposed even among our most prominent leaders. Given our display of shame, why would anyone trust us? In my own metro area in just the last 4 years, three pastors of mega-churches have been exposed in sexual sin and forced to resign, while a fourth should have been after divorcing his wife and marrying his secretary. Does anyone realize the depth of the trouble we’re in? How desperate is the hour? God is purging His church, but it will be some time before we have recovered sufficient respect to have the kind of impact on our culture that God intends us to have. We are in desperate need of a revelation of the depth of our sin and a national movement of repentance to turn from it. We’re in serious trouble.”

Source: Compiled by APN from numerous media reports

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BEHEADED GIRLS RAMADAN TROPHIES

Three Christian school girls were beheaded last year as a Ramadan “trophy” by Islamic militants, an Indonesian court has heard. The girls’ severed heads were dumped in plastic bags in their village in strife-torn Central Sulawesi province, along with a hand written note threatening more such attacks. The note read: “Wanted: 100 more Christian heads, teenaged or adult, male or female.”

Javanese trader Hasanuddin has been charged with planning and directing the murders in October last year. He faces a death sentence if found guilty under anti-terrorism legislation. When planning the attack Hasanuddin spoke with a Muslim preacher and friends in Poso, Central Sulawesi, about whether such a plan was appropriate. After getting their support he decided that beheading Christians could qualify as an act of Muslim charity.

Conscripting several accomplices at a local Islamic school, he directed one of them, Lilik Purnomo, to seek out “the head of a Christian”, prosecutors alleged. “It would be a great Ramadan trophy if we got a Christian. Go search for the best place for us to find one,” Hasanuddin allegedly ordered his companion.

Lilik returned to say he had found an “excellent” target – a group of schoolgirls who travelled to and from class by foot in the Central Sulawesi village of Gebong Rejo. Prosecutors detailed how Hasanuddin, Lilik and co-accused Irwanto Irano planned the schoolgirl beheadings with six other men. They prepared six machetes and black plastic bags for carrying off the severed heads and spent several days surveying the area where the students regularly passed by.

The operation was called off on one occasion, when a woman spotted the attackers hiding by the roadside, waiting for their victims. On the night before the attack, Lilik told Hasanuddin: “I hope you are ready to receive your Ramadan gift.”

The attack was launched the next morning, but only four of the six targeted girls appeared. Lilik, directing the attack from a nearby hill, telling his accomplices to act quickly so that the remaining two girls could also be killed should they appear behind their friends.

The attackers cleanly beheaded three of the students but a fourth, Noviana Malewa, escaped after a struggle and ran away screaming. Her attackers gave chase but were unable to catch her. The bodies, dressed in school uniform, were left by the roadside near the execution site, but the heads were carried in a backpack to Hasanuddin. The trial continues.

Source: Jakarta News Sources

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ABORTION STATISTICS IN NEW ZEALAND HIDE BRUTAL TRUTHS

In spite of recording a fall for the second year in a row, official abortion figures for last year reveal that the number of abortions in New Zealand has, in fact, increased by 57 per cent since 1990.

Bob McCroskrie, director of the Family First Lobby, said last year’s figures paint a terrible picture for New Zealand teenagers. Since 1990 the number of 11 to 14-year-olds having an abortion had increased by 139 per cent and the number of abortions for 15 to 19-year-olds had increased by 63 per cent. Mr. McCroskrie said that each week more than 73 teenagers had an abortion. “This is a tragedy for the unborn child, and for the girls involved, some as young as 11,” he said. “It is also devastating for the extended family, who, hopefully, are aware of what has happened and can offer their support, rather than the young girl having been sneaked off for the abortion by Family Planning or a school counsellor.

“It also provides evidence that the myth of safe sex pushed by Family Planning, the Aids Foundation and similar groups is miserably failing our vulnerable young people, who are being made even more vulnerable by then being encouraged to have an abortion.”The number of women having their third or more abortion had increased by an unbelievable 268 per cent since 1990, suggesting a lifestyle choice of convenience rather than the weak legal justification of “mental harm.”

Bernard Moran, Auckland spokesman for Voice for Life, said estimates based on his organization’s calculations put the total cost of last year’s abortions to the health budget at more than NZ$43.1 million. Data from the NZ Health Information for 2003 showed that some 25,000 bed-days in hospitals were used by women suffering complications from legally induced abortions.

Family Life International spokesman Brendan Malone said any drop in the number of abortions was excellent news, but the overall figure of 17,511 “shows we have a long way to go yet. “That is 17,511 Kiwi lives lost last year, and almost as many women being exposed to the serious physical and psychological risks that abortion presents.

“There is certainly cause for hope but we must make sure that complacency and a false sense of security does not creep in and result in an increase in the number of abortions in coming years. We still have a lot of work to do.”

Source: Challenge Weekly, New Zealand

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PUSH IS ON FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH IN NEW ZEALAND

Pro-life organizations in New Zealand fear that the Government is getting closer to allowing human embryonic stem cell research and are urging more public debate and education on the issue. There are concerns that the public still does not fully understand the implications of the use of embryonic stem cells in research. Research using human embryonic stem cells is not undertaken in New Zealand – yet.

A document, Guidelines on Using Cells from Established Human Embryonic Cell Lines for Research, was released for public consultation last year. The Ministry of Health has received some 100 submissions on its discussion document surrounding the research.

Source: Challenge Weekly, New Zealand

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FORMER GENERAL REPORTS MANY MUSLIMS TURNING TO CHRIST IN IRAQ

Retired Iraqi Gen. Georges Sada reports more Iraqi Muslims becoming Christians than at any other time in the history of the country. Speaking at McLean Bible Church in northern Virginia, Sada shared stories about Saddam Hussein moving weapons of mass destruction to Syria in 2002, his personal refusal to execute U.S. and British prisoners of the first Gulf War, and stories of what God is doing today in Iraq.

Bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg who instigated his speaking engagements said, “Sada told me that some 5,000 Iraqis have publicly identified themselves as new followers of Christ since Iraq was liberated, and that an estimated eight out of 10 Iraqi believers say they converted because Jesus appeared to them in dreams or visions.” Sada reported that the Kurds in northern Iraq are particularly receptive to Christ and are converting “by the hundreds”.

Source: Intercessors Network

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REPORT LISTS 1,958 PERSECUTION EVENTS ACROSS CHINA IN LAST YEAR

A report released by the China Aid Association lists events of persecution in different provinces of China from May 2005 to May 2006. The report shows that 1,958 house church pastors and Christians were affected in 15 provinces across China. Teacher and leadership training events seem to be viewed as particularly threatening by the government officials who seem to aim to control the indoctrination of the next generation of Christians.

The central province of Henan was listed as the worst for persecution against house churches with 823 pastors and believers arrested in 11 raids from July 2005 to May 2006. The report shows that police officers and religious affairs cadres often mistreated and tortured the Christian captives. Two women, ages 72 and 21, were forced to strip during questioning.

There are about 10 million Christians in state-registered Churches in China and an estimated 50 million unregistered “house church” participants.

Source: Intercessors Network

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