AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER

* INDIAN VILLAGERS FORCED TO BOW TO HINDU DEITIES

* THE FORGOTTEN CHRISTIANS OF LEBANON

* MEXICO CITY LAWMAKERS PASS ABORTION BILL

* NIGERIA: NORTHERN CHRISTIANS WARY OF NEW MUSLIM PRESIDENT

* BRITISH ANGLICAN AND CATHOLIC LEADERS REFUTE ATTEMPTS TO MUZZLE CHRISTIANITY

* ATHEIST AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS CLASH OVER WHETHER FAITH AND SCIENCE CAN MIX

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INDIAN VILLAGERS FORCED TO BOW TO HINDU DEITIES

Hindu extremists forced Christians in a remote village in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, to bow down and worship Hindu deities. The incident occurred when two Hindu priests accompanied by a group of 20 to 25 Hindu extremists from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal, entered the village and knocked on every home’s door. Leaving Hindu residents untouched, the extremists shouted threats at those in Christian homes, ordering them from their houses to a site near the village temple. Christians who questioned why were slapped and ordered to start walking. When the Christians were gathered together, one of the Hindu priests, or Swami, began speaking against Christianity and told them to “reconvert” to Hinduism. The extremists then marched the Christians off to the village temple, forcing them to bow down before the Hindu gods and goddesses. As a mark of acceptance of the Hindu faith, the Hindu priests applied the kumkum or vermilion mark on the foreheads of the men and women and compelled them to eat the Hindu offering called prasad. The poor and illiterate Christian villagers were terrified by the aggression and threats of the Hindu extremists. Three of 11 Christian families in the village refused to bow before the idols, eat the Hindu offering, or even allow the Hindu markings to be placed on their forehead. The local council chief ordered the community to ostracize them. Police watched as the Hindu extremists violated the Christians’ constitutional right to freedom of religion with this “initiation rite.” “We ensured the safety of the Christians and personally made certain no violence took place,” a Police spokesman said. It was the second such incident in the same district in a little over a week. Last month, at a huge meeting held in the village, fundamentalists berated Christianity as western and alien to the Indian people and its rich culture. They also told the villagers that Christianity was corrupting the Hindu faith. Later they had played a CD denouncing Christianity.”

Source: Intercessors Network

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THE FORGOTTEN CHRISTIANS OF LEBANON

Lebanon’s Christians struggle against tremendous odds in a country dominated> by Syrian / Iranian politics and an increasingly Islamized culture. Lebanon embraced the Christian religion as early as the first century. Christ Himself came to Tyre and Sidon preaching and healing. The Christians of Lebanon trace their roots in an uninterrupted line all the way back to the time when Saint Paul set sail from Byblos on his first missionary voyage to the West. The Canaanite woman whose daughter was cured believed in Him. The apostle Peter spent one week in Sidon on his way to Antioch; the apostle Jude preached in Beirut. Saint Paul stopped in Tyre. Reliable statistics are hard to come by in a place like Lebanon, but the best and most optimistic estimates place the Christians today at around 40 percent of the Lebanese population. There is growing evidence throughout Christian Lebanon of a spiritual revival among the youth. Prayer groups, catechism groups, and Bible-study groups are sprouting everywhere. The Maronite Church is the largest Christian community in Lebanon. They took their name from an early Christian hermit, Maron, who died in 410. They moved into the area of North Lebanon following Maron’s death. The Maronites are Uniat Christians; that is, they are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church (since 1182) yet retain> their own liturgy. Let us pray for the Christians of Lebanon that they would become a mature, praying body who allow the love and compassion of Jesus to flow through them to everyone they encounter. Pray also for the Christian youth in that nation that they would arise and give powerful future leadership in a nation that is more and more being influenced by Islam. Pray for the unity between the many streams of the Christian church in Lebanon.

Source: Intercessors for America

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MEXICO CITY LAWMAKERS PASS ABORTION BILL

Mexico City lawmakers have voted to legalize abortion, a decision likely to influence policies and health practices across Mexico and other parts of heavily Roman Catholic Latin America. The proposal, approved 46-19, with one abstention, will take effect with the expected signing of the new law by the city’s mayor. Abortion opponents have already vowed to appeal the law to the Supreme Court, a move likely to extend the bitter and emotional debate in this predominantly Catholic nation. Nationally, Mexico allows abortion only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the woman’s life is at risk. Doctors sometimes refuse to perform the procedure even under those circumstances. The only countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with legalized abortion for all women are Cuba and Guyana. Most others allow it only in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is at risk. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile ban it completely. An estimated 200,000 women have illegal abortions each year in Mexico, based on the number who show up at hospitals later seeking treatment for complications, said Martha Micher, director of the Mexico City government’s Women’s Institute. Botched abortions using herbal remedies, black-market medications and quasi-medical procedures kill about 1,500 women each year and are the third-leading cause of death for pregnant women in the capital.

Source: Intercessors Network

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NIGERIA: NORTHERN CHRISTIANS WARY OF NEW MUSLIM PRESIDENT

Christians fear that persecution, especially in predominantly Islamic northern Nigeria, will increase following the election of Muslim Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as president. As governor of Katsina state in northern Nigeria, Yar’Ardua imposed sharia (Islamic law) and presided over a system of deliberate denial of land for building churches, as well as government agencies that arbitrarily closed some churches. Major political parties in Nigeria nominated only Muslims from the north as part of an unwritten agreement among leaders that the presidency would alternate between north and south. The Rev. Bulus Polit of the Evangelical Church of West Africa said that it could have been worse. Of the two Muslim presidential candidates, Yar’Adua’s was the more moderate. Had his opponent been elected it would have presented greater problems to Christians in the country.

Source: Intercessors Network

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BRITISH ANGLICAN AND CATHOLIC LEADERS REFUTE ATTEMPTS TO MUZZLE CHRISTIANITY

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Catholic leader Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, have refuted the UK’s National Secular Society which states that religion in the public domain is often “divisive and discriminatory”. Dr Williams and Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor in a joint statement said: “Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development. However, they fail to recognize that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position. If we pay attention to what is actually happening in the United Kingdom and beyond, we will see that religiously-inspired public engagement need not be sectarian, and can in fact be radically inclusive.”

Source: Intercessors Network

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ATHEIST AND CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS CLASH OVER WHETHER FAITH AND SCIENCE CAN MIX

Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins, a Christian geneticist who is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, recently engaged in an intensive debate over the compatibility of God and science. The scientists’ differences were most evident in the topic of creation versus evolution. “From my perspective, God cannot be completely contained within nature, and therefore God’s existence is outside of science’s ability to really weigh in,” said Collins. In his closing statement, Collins emphasized that his faith in God “in no way compromises” his ability to “think rigorously” as a scientist. Instead he said his faith has helped him accept that there are questions unanswerable through science which can only be answered in the spiritual realm.

Source: Christian Post

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