Famous last words: Euplius (304)

On August 12, 304, a deacon named Euplius in the city of Catana, Sicily was discovered by authorities engaged in reading a book containing the Gospels and instructing other Christians. They apprehended him and brought him to Calvisianus, the Roman Proconsul.

When Euplius had entered the tribunal, carrying with him the Gospel books, one of the Proconsul's friends said: “It is not right for him to carry such papers with him contrary to the prohibition of the Emperors."

The Proconsul asked Euplius from where did he get these writings? Did he brought them from his house?

Euplius answered that he had no home. Then the Proconsul commanded him  to read something out of the writings. Euplius opened the book and read these words, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." He then read "Whosover will come after me, let him deny himself.”

The Proconsul asked, "What does all this mean?"

Euplius replied, "This is the law of my Lord, of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God."

The Proconsul, having heard this confession of Christ, said, "Let him be delivered unto the executioners, put to the rack, and thus examined."

Euplius was then brutally tortured and then commanded to deliver up the Scriptures he had with him and to have them burned to the dishonour of Jesus Christ. All of this he steadfastly refused to do.  Instead, he cried out to Jesus, thanking Him that he had been found worthy to suffer for His name's sake.

Euplius was again led to the rack and dreadfully tormented in the same manner as before. But he suffered it patiently, and called upon the Lord, saying, "I thank Thee, O Christ! Help me, O Christ! For Thy sake I suffer all this, O Christ!"

The Proconsul, enraged by this, gave the sentence of death to the clerk of the criminal court.  Then, coming out again from the tribunal, and bringing with him the tablet containing the death sentence, he read the latter aloud, as follows, "I command that Euplius, the Christian, be slain with the sword, because he despises the gods of the Emperors, blasphemes the other gods, and does not repent. Lead him away."

The book which he had with him when he was apprehended was suspended from his neck, and a crier went before him, crying thus, "Euplius, the enemy of the gods and the Emperors, is led to death." Euplius went joyfully to the place where he was to be put to death, continually thanking Christ for His grace. As he walked to his death, he repeated, “I give thanks to Jesus Christ my God. Confirm, O Lord, what you have wrought in me.”

Having arrived at the place of execution, he bowed his knees reverently and prayed for a long time. When he was finished, he offered his neck to the sword, and poured out his blood as a drink offering unto the Lord. His dead body was afterwards removed by the Christians and buried.

(sources: Martyrs Mirror - Thieleman J. Van Braght; Lives of the Saints - Alban Butler)

Why Twitter?

Twitter is one of these things that I find people tend not to be indifferent about. You either “get it” or you don’t.  Lots of my friends, family and even some of my colleagues don’t and so they wonder if perhaps the CEO of a mission organization should be spending his time “twittering”. 

Admittedly, Twitter can chew up your time if you let it.  And the name is a little silly.  However, let me draw out three significant advantages that I have seen in the last three months or so since we started to make Twitter a significant part of our ministry here at The Voice of the Martyrs:

1. Twitter has an unparalleled ability to raise awareness and prayer quickly when necessary.  This became crystal clear to me last weekend when, at 8:13 pm on Saturday night,  I received a tweet from @Iran30 saying: “Maryam and Marzieh to appear before court on Sunday morning.”  Checking the link that accompanied the message, I realized that this was due to take place in less than two hours.  An urgent email request would not likely be read by many people in time, especially not one written late on a Saturday night. And so I forwarded the message on to others on Twitter and began sending out other messages, urging prayer and asking those who received it to please forward the message to others. I then added an article to our main website (www.persecution.net) and to this weblog site.

But had it not been for Twitter, I would not have learned of this important event nor would I have been able to muster significant prayer support for these two women in their time of need (which, if you have read their story, you realize just how much they needed!).  Incidentally, the same thing had happened the week before regarding the attacks on Christians in Korian and Gojra, Pakistan. Again, I learned about them first through Twitter, very shortly after they started. This leads me to my second point.

2. I have seen how Twitter is able to provide me with information in a more concise and timely manner than anything else I use (including email alerts and RSS feeds).  Frankly, I am beginning to get rid of RSS feeds from my browser; Twitter is just that much better and updates more often. When you are involved in the kind of ministry that I am in, conciseness and timeliness vital if we are to do the kind of excellent work that I believe we are called to.

3. Twitter also helps to create personal links with others far better than emails or blog comments do (and without being as bloated and complicated as Facebook, which I can’t stand).  I have already made some valued connections through Twitter that I would not have made otherwise with believers and organizations in other countries.  Twitter also allows me to concretely demonstrate to other ministries involved in serving persecuted Christians that I do not believe us to be in competition as I forward their messages to others, refer others to their websites, and encourage others to “follow” them.  I really do believe that competition between missions only harms the persecuted church.

I have also found Twitter to very helpful to driving traffic to parts of our website that are valuable but which people might not look for. Through Twitter, I encourage people to write to or on behalf of prisoners of faith, post prayers for the persecuted on our prayer wall, check out some of our free downloadable resources, or study some of our articles on our biblical research website on the biblical theology of persecution.  

I would love to hear of your thoughts concerning Twitter and other social media on the Internet.  And, of course, I would invite you to follow us and join us in raising a voice for the voiceless before God and man.

Just a few random thoughts on ministry promotion

This morning as I was thinking through how organizations seek to raise their profiles in the hope (let’s admit it) of raising additional financial support, it seemed to me that most go about it in the exactly the wrong way. It’s not that they don’t walk well-trodden paths. The approach that is typically taken is one that most take, hoping that it will work (and it sometimes does for a time).

And that path is the the path of self-promotion. "Let’s send out our speakers and do advertizing to tell people more about who we are and how wonderful we are! Surely if people knew what we were doing, they would want to support us!"

The fallacy of this approach is that it is based on the assumption that the problem with most Christians is that they don’t know enough. We assume that if we tell people just how wonderful we are and what wonderful work we are doing and planning to do, that they will feel motivated to give to us.

Perhaps it might and perhaps for a short time. But over the long-term? Not likely. And I am not convinced that the problem with most Christians is a lack of knowledge; it’s a lack of connection. People support what they believe in and loyalty is not built on knowledge. Loyalty is built on relationship and a sense of ownership. Organizations that want to succeed in today's world are those who deliberately find meaningful ways to helping people to make personal connections with those whom they are trying to serve. In the case of The Voice of the Martyrs, which I lead, that means finding significant ways of building bridges between persecuted Christians and those in Canada.

It may start with knowledge, but it can’t stop there. Nor can we keep pounding away on the same nail hoping to drive it home if you are meeting concrete-like resistance to begin with. Perhaps, as I twittered today, the problem is not that Christians haven’t heard enough missionary speakers. Perhaps they are tired of being viewed as human ATM machines and that the cure to raising support for your ministry is not talking more about yourself but championing your cause.

Bulletin en français (August 2009)

Téléchargez une copie de notre lettre de nouvelles françaises publiée bimensuellement par notre mission affiliée en Belgique. Notez que l'Aide aux Église  Martyres (AEM) est indépendante de Voice of the Martyrs Canada. Nous n'avons donc pas contribué à son contenu et les projets mentionnés ne sont pas nécéssairement endossés par VOMC.

Newsletter in French (August 2009)

Download a copy of our Belgian mission’s bi-monthly newsletter in French.  Please note, however, that l’Aide aux Eglises Martyres (AEM) is a separate mission from The Voice of the Martyrs in Canada and as such, we do not necessarily endorse the projects mentioned nor did we contribute to the content. 

Also please note that we do not presently have staff who are able to communicate effectively in French. All inquiries and communications with us should continue to be in English.  We hope to provide full bilingual service in the near future.  We are providing the service above as a “first step” in better fulfilling our mission to all Canadians.

“We will not deny our faith” declare Iranian women

We have just received an update Elam Ministries regarding the situation facing two Iranian Christian women, Maryam Rustampoor (27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30), who have been detained for five months in Evin Prison in Tehran for their conversion to Christianity. You will recall that last night we received news from Elam Ministries that these two courageous women had unexpectedly been told that they would brought before the courts on Sunday morning at 7:00 am.  Here is what happened:

In a dramatic session before the revolutionary court today in Tehran, Maryam Rustampoor (27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30) were told to recant their faith in Christ. Though great pressure was put on them, both women declared that they would not deny their faith. Maryam and Marzieh were originally arrested on March 5, 2009 and have suffered greatly while in prison, suffering ill health, solitary confinement and interrogations for many hours while blindfolded.

On Saturday August 8, Maryam and Marzieh were summoned to appear in court on Sunday August 9 in order to hear a verdict on their case. The chief interrogator had recommended a verdict of ‘apostasy.’ However, when they arrived, no verdict was actually given. Instead, the court session focussed on the deputy prosecutor, Mr Haddad, questioning Maryam and Marzieh about their faith and telling them that they had to recant in both verbal and written form. This made it clear that in the eyes of the court, Maryam and Marzieh’s only crime is that they have converted to Christianity.

Mr. Haddad, asked the two women if they were Christians. “We love Jesus,” they replied. He repeated his question and they said, “Yes, we are Christians.”

Mr. Haddad then said, “You were Muslims and now you have become Christians.”

“We were born in Muslim families, but we were not Muslims,” was their reply.

Mr. Haddad’s questioning continued and he asked them if they regretted becoming Christians, to which they replied, “We have no regrets.”

Then he stated emphatically, “You should renounce your faith verbally and in written form.” They stood firm and replied, “We will not deny our faith.”

During one tense moment in the questioning, Maryam and Marzieh made reference to their belief that God had convicted them through the Holy Spirit. Mr. Haddad told them, “It is impossible for God to speak with humans.”

Marzieh asked him in return, “Are you questioning whether God is Almighty?”

Mr. Haddad then replied, “You are not worthy for God to speak to you.”

Marzieh said, “It is God, and not you, who determines if I am worthy.”

Mr. Haddad told the women to return to prison and think about the options they were given and come back to him when they are ready (to comply). Maryam and Marzieh said, “We have already done our thinking.”

At the end of the session, Mr. Haddad told them that a judge will give them his verdict, though it is not clear who will be the judge in their case now. He also allowed Maryam and Marzieh to have a lawyer represent them in the case for the first time since their arrest.

Both women are back in Evin prison tonight. During their five-month ordeal, both have been unwell and have lost much weight. Marzieh is in pain due to an on-going problem with her spine, as well as an infected tooth and intense headaches.She desperately needs medical attention. Two months ago the prison officials told her the prison had proper medical equipment and that they will attend to her, but so far no proper treatment has been given.

Despite the concentrated effort of officials to pressure them into recanting their faith, Maryam and Marzieh love Jesus and they are determined to stand firm to the very end no matter whatever happens. They have demonstrated their love for Jesus and would offer their lives for Him if they were called to do so. After today’s court session they said, “If we come out of prison we want to do so with honor.”

Maryam and Marzieh’s case is a clear and harsh violation of human rights and religious liberty by Iran’s authorities. They deserve the support of all those who respect human rights and to be released without charges so they can pursue a life of freedom.

Please uphold Maryam and Marzieh in your prayers. Pray that God would minister to their physical needs and give them the courage to continue to witness boldly for Christ before authorities and their fellow prisoners. We invite you to post a special prayer on their behalf on our online Persecuted Church Prayer Wall.

We also recommend IRAN 30 as a valuable resource in praying daily for Iran.  Visit www.iran30.org to learn more.

Rethinking the health of “the church” worldwide

If half of what I read today by Christian bloggers or users of social media site like Twitter is to be believed, “the church” is in a real mess. 

The assumption of many is that “the church” doesn’t reach out to the lost, is weak, sinful, and divided. This is true, on one hand, and always has been.  The letters of the New Testament were often written to address problems just like these.  There really has never been a “golden age” for the church, per se.  The spotlessness that the Bride will bring to her Groom will be because of the righteousness of Christ, not because she has cleaned up her own act. 

On the other hand, it could also be argued that, worldwide, the church has never been healthier.  Consider these four “tweets” that I sent out by Twitter this morning:

• Did you realize that developing world Christians outnumber Western ones fourfold?
• Did you realize that worldwide, the Church is growing like crazy and that this is the #1 reason for its being persecuted?
• Did you realize that most Christians worldwide can't and don't thank God for their freedoms and still the Church grows?
• Perhaps it's time we stopped judging the health of the church by our experience of it. God is at work in the world today!

 

This week in persecuted church history (August 9-15)

Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
Hebrews 13:7b (ESV)

August 9, 2002: Three nurses are killed and twenty-three injured when grenades are thrown into a chapel at a Presbyterian hospital in Taxila, Pakistan, as staff were meeting for a morning prayer service.

August 9, 2004: An Assyrian Orthodox Church comes under a mortar attack in Baghdad, Iraq.

August 10, 258: Laurentius, the leading deacon under the bishop of Rome, Sixtus II, is arrested, scourged, beaten with irons, and has his joints dislocated.  He is then placed on a large gridiron over a slow fire and slowly roasted to death.  Having lain there for some time, he is reported to have called out to the emperor a Latin couplet, “Assum est, inquit, versa et manduca"  (This side is done, turn me over and have a bite). His executioner obliged and after he had been tormented for a considerable time, he finally lifted his eyes to heaven and with calmness yielded his spirit to God.

His sense of humour explains why Laurentius (also known as Saint Lawrence) is considered the patron saint of comedians.  His courage and serenity in the face of such torture has a far more significant impact, however.  Witnessing the reality and truth of the Christian faith in his martyrdom, many are said to have been followers of Jesus as a result.

August 11, 1519: Johann Tetzel, the German Dominican priest whose peddling of indulgences inspired Martin Luther to write his 95 Theses, dies. Throughout Germany he had infamously preached, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." Even the papal envoy eventually criticized him. As for Luther, though he once called Tetzel "the primary author of this tragedy," when he heard Tetzel lay dying, he wrote the friar a letter of comfort: "Don't take it too hard. You didn't start this racket."

August 11, 1988: Al-Qaeda is formed at a meeting attended by Osama Bin Laden and several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

August 11, 2000: Sabina Wurmbrand, wife of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand (founder of The Voice of the Martyrs), passes away. Sabina was was born Sabina Oster on July 10, 1913 in Czernowitz, a city in the Bucovine region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which became part of Romania after WWI, and since WWII has been part of Ukraine.

August 11, 2006: Two Laotian evangelists are arrested in southern Laos. A-Kouam (60) and A-Vieng (35) are taken into custody on orders to stop the spreading of the Christian religion, especially among religious minorities.

August 11, 2008: Approximately twenty members of the Shivasainya Youth Association Hindu militant group attack a prayer meeting in the village of Emmanabettur and beat the believers present. Pastor Rajendra Gowda and Pastor Kumara are stripped, placed in a van and taken to a local police station. On route, they are also assaulted by the militants. They were then charged with deliberately and maliciously intending to outrage the religious feelings of others.

August 12, 304: Euplius, a Christian deacon from Sicily, is martyred for owning the Scriptures and proclaiming himself a Christian (loudly and repeatedly). Martyrdom was so common under Emperor Diocletian that many Christians expected it and some, like Euplius, actively sought it out.

August 12, 1553: Pope Julius III tragically orders all copies of the Talmud to be confiscated and burned.

August 13, 523: John I is consecrated pope. Shortly after his appointment, John became the first pope to leave Italy—with unfortunate results. He traveled to Constantinople, the center of Eastern Christianity, but on his return was imprisoned by the Arian king of Italy, Theodoric, who suspected John of conspiring with the king's Byzantine antagonists.

August 13, 662: Maximus Confessor, the Eastern leader in the fight against Monothelitism (the heresy that Christ had divine, but no human, will), dies after being tortured for his beliefs.

August 14, 2005: The first 70 of 300 Christians from Baptist, Seventh-Day Adventist and Apostolic churches are forced to flee their homes in the village of Agua Fria, near Mezquitic in the Mexican state of Jalisco, after refusing to take part in some of the activities being labelled "traditional rites," including drinking liquor and using the hallucinogenic peyote. The first seventy refugees leave on August 14, walking twenty hours across the state border into Tepic, Nayarit.  They leave with only a single change of clothing and are forced to abandon land, crops, homes and personal possessions.

August 15, 1846: Addressing rumours that he mocked Christianity, Abraham Lincoln publishes a broadside on his religion: "That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular . . . "

August 15, 2005: Five American church leaders and twenty-eight Chinese pastors are arrested in Henan province, China.  Four of the Americans and 27 pastors were meeting for fellowship in Luoyang City when they were arrested.  Later that same day, another American and another Chinese Pastor, Wan Dagan, were arrested by plain-clothed agents while walking on the street in Yichuan City.

August 15, 2007: A church building is set on fire and bombed by local Muslims during a worship service at the Mserete Keristos church in the district of Yayu, in southwest Ethiopia. At approximately 1:30 p.m., the roof of the church is set on fire and a large explosion interrupts the prayer service being conducted in the compound. The church building and the houses of three evangelists are destroyed in the explosion.

(sources: Christianity Today, The Voice of the Martyrs)

Prayer: “Grant that we, who now remember these before thee, may likewise so bear witness unto thee in this world, that we may receive with them the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” – taken from The Book of Common Prayer, Canada (1962)

Iranian Christian women to appear before the court Sunday morning

Elam Ministries, a ministry that specializes in serving the growing church in Iran, is reporting that after five months of being detained in Evin Prison in Tehran for their conversion to Christianity, two Iranian Christian women, Maryam Rustampoor (27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30) have been told that tomorrow, Sunday, August 9th at 7:00 am they will be taken to the court where they will hear of the court’s decision. Pray that their lawyer will be allowed to be present.

Elam is also reporting that Marzieh is in pain due to her spine, her tooth and searing headaches and desperately needs to see a specialist. She has not been allowed to, however.

Here is how Elam is recommending that we pray:

Let us thank Him:

• For preserving, sustaining and strengthening them in prison.
• For giving them the grace to be steadfast in their faith.
• For the witness they have been in prison.
• For the love, concern and prayer of many believers around the world.

Pray for their court hearing:

• Pray that the court will set them free.
• Pray that the presence and the anointing of the Holy Spirit will be with them.
• That they will receive healing from all illness
• That the peace of God will cover their minds and their hearts, and will keep them safe in Jesus and refresh them tonight.
• That in all this the Lord will be greatly glorified and His perfect will be done.

Thank you so much for praying.

The Voice of the Martyrs highly recommends using IRAN 30 to pray daily for Iran.  Visit www.iran30.org to learn more.

Former North Korean propaganda officer now fights for freedom

Kim Sung Min is a former propaganda officer for the North Korean Army who is now fighting for the freedom and faith of his home country. Once a diehard socialist, Mr Kim’s eyes were opened to the modern-day Holocaust that was going on around him in North Korea, where Christianity is illegal and even failing to keep a portrait of Kim Jong-Il clean can mean being sent to a political prison camp. Like thousands of other North Koreans, he defected to China. But his newfound Christian faith compelled him to become an advocate for religious freedom for North Korea.

Mr Kim is now the President of the Association of North Korean Defectors and founded FreeNK Radio Broadcasting. He also serves as Dean of Underground University in Seoul, South Korea - a joint project of Seoul USA and Voice of the Martyrs, training North Korean exiles to return to their homeland to serve and grow the underground church.  Here his story in this video produced by The Voice of the Martyrs.

You can also download a high-definition version of this video to share with others.  To support the work of the Underground University, you can make a donation to VOMC’s Underground Church Fund by clicking here.

Christians in Pakistan and Nigeria pray for peace

 

Please remember to pray for your brothers and sisters in Pakistan and Nigeria as they seek to rebuild after suffering such acts of violence.  Consider adding a prayer on their behalf on our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall as a testimony to your solidarity with them.

Pastors brutally martyred in Nigeria

The Nigerian paper, the Daily Sun reported today (Thursday, August 9, 2009) that three pastors had been brutally killed at the instruction of Mohammed Yusuf, the deceased leader of the Islamist group Boko Haram, last week in Borno State, Nigeria. According to an eye-witness, “The pastors alongside one Ibo man were asked to change their faith to Islam like they did to other people taken as hostages. I think there was an argument by one of the pastors which gave the others some level of confidence to also resist accepting Islam.”

Eventually, they were taken to the sect leader in his inner chamber. They were brought out later to the courtyard within the compound where the guards beheaded them one after the other, shouting, "Allah akbar" "in wild celebration accompanied with several gun shots."

Rev. Baba Gata Ibrahim told the Daily Sun in an interview that a pastor in his church, Pastor George Orjih was beheaded on the instruction of the Boko Haram leader because the clergy man refused to accept Islam. He said, “An eye witness who was also captured by the Islamic militants gave us details of how the pastor was killed. He told us they were persuading him to accept Islam and he said over his dead body. He was even said to have preached Christ to Mohammed Yusuf and that reportedly angered the sect leader who then as he ordered that the pastor and others be killed immediately.”

Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that photographs showing the corpse of one murdered pastor from the Church of Christ in Nigeria, Rev Sabo Yakubu, indicate that his heart may have been ripped from his chest. Speaking at his funeral, Rev. Bulus Azi, the regional chairman of the denomination, urged Christians to emulate the pastors who were killed because of their refusal to betray their faith. Quoting from Revelation 7: 9-15, he said that Christians need to prepare to die anytime as their calling demands.

Please pray for the families of the deceased. Pastor Orijah was known as a committed husband and father and it was his concern for his family that led him to return home from his theological studies in Jos. Please consider posting a special prayer for the families of these brave pastors on our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall.

Today, I too am a minority

It is encouraging to read the response of Nadeem F. Paracha, cultural critic and senior columnist for the Pakistan-based Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com website, to the recent attacks on Christians in the Gojra region.  As a Muslim, he finds these attacks reprehensible and I applaud him for having the integrity and courage to publish these words:

Today, I too am a minority

Posted by Nadeem F. Paracha
08 4th, 2009

A riot is when an agitated group or mass of people clash with the police, or with another mass of agitated men and women. It is not a riot when an agitated group of people attack the homes and lives of men, women and children who are not as well armed as the attacking group, or whose best defense in this respect is to flee the scene. So why is the Pakistani media referring to the recent attack by Muslims on the Christian community in the Gojra area as ‘communal riots?’

They were not riots, but an attack. An assault by an arrogant majority on a low-lying minority.

Even though the media did well to cover the episode in which Gojra’s Christian community – their homes, churches and lives – were brutally attacked by mad mobs of self-righteous Muslims, it was frustrating to note that the Punjab government had more than enough information about the attacks before the actual incident took place to nip the frontline miscreants of the attack in the bud. But its officials in the area did absolutely nothing.

Sounding apologetic, the Punjab government retaliated by blaming the attacks on sectarian organizations, which, might very well be the case, especially in the event of the rising number of sectarian organisations that have proliferated in the Punjab province ever since the mid 1980s – especially with the formation of the militant Aunjuman Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (ASSP) in Jhang in 1986.

Mind you, rural and semi-rural Punjab has been the scene of similar attacks on Christians in the past as well. And the reasons given by the attackers have remained the same: blasphemy against the Muslim Prophet committed by Christians and the supposed desecration of the Qu’ran.

On a number of occasions it has been proven that the attacks in the past were nothing more than a case of a certain areas’ influential landowners using the areas’ mullahs to whip up hatred against Christian individuals who had homes or shops or ownership of a piece of land that the landowners were interested in getting. In spite of this, a number of Christians have languished in jails under the controversial blasphemy laws that were first enforced by the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship. Laws that have become a scrooge for the minority communities of Pakistan and a boon for mischievous and psychopathic Muslim landlords and their mullah allies.

The Punjab government has blamed the Gojra incident on a few local Islamist leaders and clerics who had arrived in Gojra not long ago. It is believed by the province’s government that whipping up communal violence is yet another tactic being used by shady sectarian organisations to continue destabilising the province.

Like I said, all this is more than likely to be true, but the more important question is, even if the instigators of the violence were clerics and sectarian organisations and their band of thugs, how would one explain the participation of the common Muslims of Gojra in the attack who were neither paid thugs nor members of the accused sectarian organisation?

When one Imran Aslam, a cleric and alleged leader of a Sunni sectarian organisation started to use the area’s mosques to give vent to the rumours that certain members of the Christian community had insulted the Qu’ran, his thugs were at once joined by young Muslim men whose families had otherwise lived in harmony besides their Christian counterparts for decades in the city.

The same is the case during communal violence in India. Paid thugs and storm-troopers of fundamentalist Hindu groups are usually joined by hoards of  common Hindus whose hatred towards the Muslims has more to do with poisoned religious delusions rather than the political and economic reasons and agendas that their more wily Hindu fundamentalist leaders and thugs harbor.

In Pakistan as well, the sectarian organisations, clerics and their thugs who’ve been directly involved in attacks on the Shia and Christian minorities in the Punjab, have interests and stakes that are usually tied to political reasons or are related to land disputes or personal enmities. On the other hand, it is a highly distorted and hate-mongering version of what constitutes as being Islam in semi-rural or rural Punjab that drives and dictates the madness of the rampaging Muslim mob that ends up becoming the spontaneous army of blood-thirsty foot soldiers of these organisations.

Observers believe that attacks such as the one that took place in Gojra were entirely uncommon in the Punjab till about the early 1980s.

It is when the state of Pakistan under a Machiavellian-Islamist dictatorship started to infiltrate and ‘convert’ Pakistan’s non-puritanical and largely pluralistic ‘mazaar culture’ – of which a majority of Pakistanis were associated with – that many Pakistanis started to shift their religious orientation towards the more puritanical and myopic strains of the religion.

This the state did to radicalise young Pakistani men in its blind and self-centered pursuit to continue offering fighting men to the many mujahideen groups stationed in Peshawar and fighting a CIA-ISI-Saudi-funded ‘jihad’ against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan.

Much has been written and said about the political, economic and social price Pakistan has had to pay for its involvement in the Afghan civil war - from the proliferation of what became to be known as the ‘Kalashnikov culture,’ to a two-fold rise in vicious sectarian violence, to ‘Talibanisation’ and all the way to demonically developing a hate-prone and anarchic psyche that has engulfed the hearts and minds of many young Pakistanis; even those who have little or nothing to do with militant organisations, but can become a direct part of mobs such as the one that attacked the Christian men, women and children in Gojra.

Disturbed and angered by the episode, I made the effort to join a group of Christians who were holding a protest rally against the attack outside the Karachi Press Club. It was sad to note that there were only a dozen or so Muslims who were part of that rally. A journalist colleague of mine was surprised to see me there. He asked me what I was doing at a ‘Christian rally?’

‘I hate majorities,’ I said, spontaneously. ‘Especially if these majorities claim their majority-ism on the basis of the supposed superiority of their collective religion and, more so, at the expense of the land’s minority.’

‘In that case,’ said my colleague, ‘today I too am a minority.

May this not be the last time we read such words of reason and tolerance from Muslims the world over, as they stand up to those who commit violence in the name of their religion.

Famous last words: Laurentius (258)

Laurentius was the leading deacon in Rome, serving Sixtus, Rome’s bishop faithfully during the reign of Emperor Valerian.  In 258, Valerian began his persecution of the church, putting to death a number of church leaders, including Sixtus.  Christians belonging to the nobility or the Roman Senate were deprived of their goods and exiled. 

As Sixtus was being lead off to execution, Valerian is said to have followed him, asking how it was that his master was going off to serve his Lord without him, since he had never “mounted the altar of sacrifice”without his servant previously. Sixtus is said to have prophesized that Laurentius would follow him in three days.

As the leading deacon, Laurentius was responsible for the church’s material goods.  The Roman authorities, thinking that the Christians had great hidden treasures, ordered him to hand them over to them.  Laurentius agreed to do so, but asked for three days to gather them to together. Going out, he assembled the poor, aged and sick in Rome and brought them before the emperor, saying “These are the true treasures of the church.” Furious, Laurentius was ordered to suffer a slow and cruel death.

And so it was that on August 10, 258, Laurentius was scourged, beaten with irons, and had his joints dislocated.  He was then placed on a large gridiron over a slow fire and slowly roasted to death.  Having lain there for some time, he is reported to have called out to the emperor a Latin couplet, “Assum est, inquit, versa et manduca"  (This side is done, turn me over and have a bite).

His executioner obliged and after he had been tormented for a considerable time, he finally lifted his eyes to heaven and with calmness yielded his spirit to God.

His sense of humour explains why Laurentius (also known as Saint Lawrence) is considered the patron saint of comedians.  His courage and serenity in the face of such torture has a far more significant impact, however.  Witnessing the reality and truth of the Christian faith in his martyrdom, many are said to have been followers of Jesus as a result.

Pakistani Muslim groups threaten more violence

International Christian Concern (www.persecution.org) released a disturbing press release this afternoon, claiming that Muslim groups are putting pressure on Pakistani authorities to release from custody those accused of being responsible for the recent violence against Christians in Gora and Korian and threatening to take the law into their own hands and hang the Christian they believe desecrated the Qur’an. Please read and pray for God’s intervention in this volatile situation. We would also invite you to post a prayer on our Persecuted Church Prayer Wall as one way of letting the believers in Pakistan know that they are have not been forgotten.

UPDATE: Pakistani Muslim Groups Threaten More Violence
Threaten to Hang Christian, Demand Release of Clerics Arrested for Inciting Violence

Washington, D.C. (August 5, 2009) - International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that several Muslim groups met in Gojra, Pakistan, today to hold a press conference calling on the government to exonerate religious leaders accused of inciting the anti-Christian attacks that occurred this past weekend. In addition, they threatened to hang the Christian whose alleged blasphemy sparked the violence.

Muslim groups Jamiyat Islami Gojra (a religious group) and Anjman-e-Tajran (a trade union) initially condemned last weekend's violence in their statements. However, they quickly reversed course by calling for the release of Ulma and the other clerics named in the official police report. They further contradicted their initial statement by threatening to hang Talib Masih and others accused of blasphemy in the Gojra bazaar if the government had not arrested him by August 10.

This press conference is a sign that the government has not restored rule of law in this area, and is risking another outbreak of violence by its delay in responding adequately to the situation.

The violence occurred on July 31 and August 1 when mobs of infuriated Muslims attacked and burned over 100 Christian homes after hearing a rumor that Talib Masih and his sons had cut up pieces of the Qur'an to throw in the air during a wedding. A committee investigating the alleged blasphemy has found Talib innocent.

At least 8 Christians were killed, 35 injured, and 45 missing after the attacks.

ICC urges all concerned parties to call the Embassy of Pakistan and urge President Zardari to uphold the rights of religious minorities and take immediate action to prosecute the leaders of the mob, especially the radical clerics who called for the attacks.

Pakistan Embassies:
USA: (202) 243-6500
Canada: (613) 238-7881
UK:  0870-005-6967