This week's persecuted church: India

Village leaders will meet church advocates after Hindus opposing the construction of a church tore down the partially built structure and stopped all work at the site on Saturday.

A 20-member committee comprising 10 members each from the Christian and Hindu communities in a village in Haryana state has been formed to determine whether construction should continue. Building work had started just five days before the attack.

The head of the Hindu delegation, Hanuman Prasad Bishnoi, claimed the majority of villagers were against the church’s construction. Bishnoi also serves as the Sarpanch (head) of Patli Dabar village in the northern state’s Sirsa district.

Apart from two people who have converted to Christianity from Hinduism, none of those associated with the church are from the village, he said.

Thought of the Day:  철물점
Song of the Day:  Feeder-Feeling A Moment

This week's persecuted church: Indonesia

Government actions have made little difference, citing a “urine attack.”

That attack in May involved a Muslim mob throwing plastic bags of urine and feces at members of the Batak Christian Churches in Bekasi, Indonesia.

“The Indonesian government seems indifferent to the rise in religious intolerance. Only a few days after the urine attack, the religious affairs minister for the country, Suryadhama Ali, claimed that Indonesia was ‘the most tolerant country in a world,’” Morgan said.

Morgan said there’s no in-depth information on the level of penetration of the Indonesian government by jihadi groups, but he says the number of violent incidents is increasing.

“I can tell you that we’ve seen a rash of incidents carried out in recent months by radical groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front against Christian churches,” Morgan said.

Morgan also cites a mid-June incident.

At that time, “an Indonesian official in Aceh, the same region where a huge terror cell was busted in 2010, ordered 20 Christian churches to be torn down by the congregations themselves,” Morgan said.

“So far the Christians have mostly ignored the order as far as we can tell, but we also have a report that one of the churches in Aceh was attacked by a large angry mob during its Sunday service,” Morgan said.

Thought of the Day:  Retreat
Song of the Day:  The Game-Hate It or Love It

This week's persecuted church: Kenya

Kenyan Muslims are joining the police in protecting churches in the northeastern province where Christians have come under increased attack from suspected Somali Al Shabab Islamic militants.

Following July 1 attacks on churches in the town of Garissa -- close to the Kenyan-Somali border -- local Muslim leaders have decided to provide their own protection to the churches of their Christian neighbors. Last Sunday, July 8, local Muslim youths and their leaders patrolled with the police during church services, and no attacks were reported.

The patrols are a strong statement of rejection for the militant methods and ideology of Al Shabab, the Somali Islamist militant group that is suspected of carrying out the July 1 attacks in Garissa. By targeting Christians, militants in northern Kenya appear to be punishing Kenya for sending troops into Somalia to attack Al Shabab, and to prop up the shaky Somali government.

Thought of the Day:  Spaghetti!
Song of the Day:  Kingsmen-Louie Louie

"Paradoxes"

O Changeless God,
Under the conviction of the Spirit I learn that
the more I do, the worse I am,
the more I know, the less I know,
the more holiness I have, the more sinful I am,
the more I love, the more there is to love.
O wretched man that I am!
O Lord, I have a wild heart,
and cannot stand before thee;
I am like a bird before a man.
How little I love thy truth and ways!
I neglect prayer,
by thinking I have prayed enough and earnestly,
by knowing thou hast saved my soul.
Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be an evangelical hypocrite,
who sins more safely because grace abounds,
who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood cleanseth them,
who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell,
for he is saved,
who loves evangelical preaching, churches,
Christians, but lives unholily.
My mind is a bucket without a bottom,
with no spiritual understanding,
no desire for the Lord’s Day,
ever learning but never reaching the truth,
always at the gospel-well but never holding water.
My conscience is without conviction or contrition,
with nothing to repent of.
My will is without power of decision or resolution.
My heart is without affection, and full of leaks.
My memory has no retention,
so I easily forget the lessons learned,
and thy truths seep away.
Give me a broken heart that yet carries home the water of grace.

Arthur Bennett, editor, The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, revised edition (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), pp. 128–129. 


Thanks, Sam.


Thought of the Day:  Louis C.K.
Song of the Day:  Utada Hikaru-First Love (Piano)

Finals Week

My school is going through finals this week, so I get to show movies.  For my first year students, I decided to show The Sandlot.

For my second year students, I showed Big.

I'm so glad they enjoyed both movies.  It's weird having so much freedom.  I don't have any classes for the next three days, so I'm just going to go ahead and start preparing my lessons for second semester.  That and lots of Youtube.

Thought of the Day:  홍어
Song of the Day:  The Tokens-The Lion Sleeps Tonight

This week's persecuted church: Pakistan

Thousands of people dragged a Pakistani man accused of desecrating Islam's holy book from a police station in central Pakistan, beat him to death and then set his body on fire, a police official said Wednesday.
The incident highlighted the highly charged nature of Pakistan's blasphemy laws, under which anyone found guilty of insulting Islam's Prophet or the Quran can be sentenced to death.

Gujar said the victim seemed to be mentally unstable. He was arrested after residents said he threw pages of the Quran into the street. While the man was being questioned, some people started making announcements over mosque loudspeakers, urging residents to go to the police station and punish him.

Within hours, thousands gathered outside and demanded the man be handed over to them. Gujar said police tried to protect him, but the mob turned violent. They burned several police vehicles and wounded seven officers before grabbing the man and dragging him into the street, where he was beaten to death and his body set on fire. Gujar said the mob also attacked the house of an area police chief and burned his furniture and possessions.


Thought of the Day:  Craigslist
Song of the Day:  Great is Thy Faithfulness