KAREN STATE, Burma, May 4 (CDN) — Amid global euphoria over reforms in Burman-majority parts of Burma, life has changed little for more than 3 million Christians and other minorities left to suffer from one of the world’s longest running civil wars.

Headlines around the world hailed the induction on Wednesday (May 2) of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament as the beginning of a new era in Burma, officially known as Myanmar. But for the 150,000 Internally Displaced People (IDP) living in eastern Karen state’s 4,000 IDP camps, life is still about landmine blasts, gun and mortar attacks, and the possibility of a final war between armed insurgents and the Burma army.

Burmese President Thein Sein, a former military general, has introduced political reforms – the release of hundreds of political prisoners, new laws allowing labor unions and strikes and a gradual easing of media restrictions – and has reportedly ordered troops to stop offensive in ethnic areas, but senior military officials have not heeded his orders.

As part of its reform initiatives, the Burmese government is trying to ink ceasefire agreements with armed ethnic groups, including the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Karen rebels, however, believe the talks are a government strategy to buy time and prepare for a showdown.

“We have seen similar efforts by the government in 1949, 1963, 1996 and 2004, but each time talks broke down,” said Saw Htee Ler, a rebel leader with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, which has been fighting for autonomy for more than five decades.

The government strategy, he added, is to engage the KNU in peace talks so that the military can bring supplies – arms, ammunition and food – into KNU-controlled areas without clashes.

“They have been able to freely bring in supplies in huge quantities without our men attacking them due to the tentative peace agreement reached in January,” Ler said. “They seem to be getting ready for major military operations against us in the near future.”

Aw John Nay Moo, a Karen commando from the KNLA’s “Special Force,” said the KNLA was still recruiting and training people.

“Peace talks do not mean our struggle is over,” he said. “We need to be ready all the time for a possible clash.”

Christian Civilians Targeted
Most of Burma’s Christians are from the ethnic minority groups of Karen, Karenni, Kachin and Chin and are predominantly Baptist. It is estimated that roughly 1.4 million Karens and Karenni, 1.1 million Chins and 900,000 Kachins are Christian.

While it is largely a struggle for self-determination in all ethnic states and all civilians suffer in the crossfire, the Burman-Buddhist dominated Burmese troops are often accused of being harsher on Christian civilians than on their Buddhist counterparts.

Ler, who was guarding a base on a hill about 30 minutes from an IDP camp, said military personnel target civilians because they are seen as the strength of the KNU.

“And Christians are targeted simply because their [government troops’] religion is Buddhist,” he said.

Ler said he had seen pictures of burned churches and received reports of such incidents.

Moo, the KNLA commando, agreed that Christian civilians were attacked more than Buddhist civilians. He cited a 2007 incident in Pekey Der village in Papu District under the KNLA Brigade 5 area, where troops burned down a church and “defecated on the Bible.” Moo said he learned of the incident from the church pastor.

Ler and Moo, who said they are Christians, said that they joined the KNLA to protect their land and people.

Saw Tu Tu, head of the Karen Refugee Committee, said that while all civilians face attacks, troops will not kill a Buddhist monk. “Military personnel usually take shelter in Buddhist temples,” he added.

Some churches, however, are attacked out of misunderstanding, he said.

“KNLA soldiers run to hilltops – that’s where churches are normally built – to take a strategic position when military personnel launch attacks on them,” Tu said. “And troops think the bullets are being fired from the church, and they retaliate.”

Naw K’nyaw Paw, an executive member of the Karen Women Organization who just returned from a trip to several Karen villages, said many Christians install Buddhist statues and keep Buddhist pictures in their homes to prevent attacks.

“A Christian-majority village under the KNU Brigade 1 area has turned into a Buddhist village, and the church there has been converted into a Buddhist temple, just so that government troops will not attack them,” Paw said.

In “White” and “Brown Zones,” where the government has full or partial control respectively, the medium of instruction is Burmese and not the Karen language, she added.

“They don’t even teach Karen history,” Paw said. “The government is clearly seeking cultural uniformity. We fear that we will be assimilated into the Burman culture if we give up our struggle.”

Women suffer more, she said, noting that government soldiers force local people, including women, to work as their porters, and women are often harassed sexually.

Some cases of extortion by KNLA soldiers have also come to light, but most Karen people believe these are isolated cases and maintain that KNU’s policies strictly prohibit unethical practices.

The religious dimension of the conflict can also be seen in the origin of the KNU. On Christmas Eve of 1948, Burmese forces launched a mortar-and-gun attack on a church in Mergui in southern Tenasserim Division, author Ashley South writes in his book, “Ethnic Politics in Burma: States of Conflict.” Over 80 Karens were killed and several injured. This was followed by deployment of Burmese troops in Karen state in January 1949. The KNU was then formed, followed by the KNLA.

In 1961, then-Prime Minister U Nu’s government passed the State Religion Bill in a joint session of parliament, making Buddhism the state religion. This deepened the conviction of the ethnic minorities that the Union government was being used as a tool for Burmanization and “occupation” of their areas. This followed the formation of the KIO, comprising mainly Christians, and its armed wing, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin state, bordering China.

In predominantly Christian Kachin state, government troops have attacked KIA soldiers and civilians since a 17-year ceasefire broke down in June last year. The fighting has displaced over 75,000 people since then, according to the Kachin Development Networking Group.

Most recently, Burmese troops fired mortar shells between Bhamo area and the city of Laiza on April 26 despite ongoing peace talks. The shelling killed two children and injured two civilian adults in Kone Law village, Kachin News Group reported. The same day, heavy fighting was reported near the northern town of Laiza, KIO’s main base, as rebels sought to block attempts by the Burma army to deliver reinforcements and supplies to a strategic army position.

Around 3,000 government forces have moved into locations around Laiza, according to Agence France-Presse.

“They are preparing to attack the KIA base in Laiza … they have reinforced a lot of troops and sent a lot of artillery but have not attacked yet,” an anonymous official was quoted as saying.

Some, however, are still hopeful of a peaceful resolution in ethnic states.

Nyo Ohn Myint, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, who is helping the government to establish peace with ethnic armed groups, said there was a deep-rooted mistrust between the two sides that was hindering peace talks. He hoped for a change in the relationship between the two sides by around 2020.
Little or No Change
Amid conflicting media reports on how reforms have impacted ethnic minority states along Burma’s borders, where most Christians live, Compass met the displaced civilians and rebels from the KNLA at an IDP camp on a hill surrounded by landmines. The 3,000 people in this camp live in a forest area that the Burma army has unofficially designated as a “Black Zone,” an area entirely under the control of rebels.

Government troops stationed not too far from the hill can shoot-on-sight not only at Karen rebels but also civilians.

“I have no idea about the reforms being introduced in ‘Burma Proper,’ said 59-year-old Pohla Win, a lay leader of a Baptist church in the camp. “I have just heard about it on BBC Burmese radio.”
Win was seated on the floor of his house, made of bamboo and dry leaves, overlooking the Salween River where Karen children were swimming.

“I and my family will be killed on the way if we attempt to go back to our village,” he said.

Win said he fled his village in 1985 after Burmese troops launched an offensive in the area. But he arrived in this camp 18 years later, running from one village to another, walking on terrain where landmines had been laid by both the military and the rebels. Most of the families here had similar stories of how they reached the camp.

There is relative peace in the state after a tentative agreement was reached between the KNU and the government in January.

“Government check-posts are now less strict, and there are fewer clashes between troops and Karen soldiers,” said Paw of the Karen Women Organization. But there is “absolutely no change” in Black Zones, she added.

In February, more than 1,100 new refugees, about 450 of them Christian, arrived at the seven refugee camps in Thailand, “which shows there were clashes between the troops and Karen soldiers after the January’s peace agreement,” said Tu of the Karen Refugee Committee. This is in addition to the existing 74,000 registered and 53,000 unregistered refugees in those camps.

The Karen are among six other non-Burman ethnic groups – including Karenni, Kachin, Chin, Mon and Shan – that do not see their land as part of Burma. During British rule, which ended in 1948, the states where ethnic people lived were collectively known as “Frontier Areas” and were administered separately by the British, as opposed to “Burma Proper,” which was, and is, home to ethnic Burmans, mostly Buddhist.

After independence – while ethnic minority leaders were discussing with their Burman counterparts conditions under which they could join the new Union of Burma – Frontier Areas were presumed to be part of the Union under the leadership of Prime Minister U Nu, a Burman nationalist. Civil wars erupted and continue today.

Burmese President Sein is from the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which won the majority of the seats in parliament in November 2010 elections, which were seen as rigged. A source close to the government said the split between moderates and hardliners in the military was real, and that the hardliners were perhaps trying to send a signal to the president that the military “old guard” is still in power.

The constitution of Burma gives more power to the military than the civilian president and reserves one-fourth of seats for military officials in legislative bodies at all levels.

The possibility of a full-fledged war cannot be ruled out even if it is against the will of President Sein. Ethnic armed groups say they are prepared to take on the military, which could lead to an unprecedented civilian toll.

Mitt Romney may or may not become the first Mormon to move into the White House next year, but a new study shows that Mormonism is moving into more parts of the country than any other religious group, making it the fastest-growing faith in more than half of U.S. states.

Michael Patrick and Eduardo Martins, both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, observe Temple Square from an observation deck in Salt Lake City/Photo by Jerilee Bennett

The 2012 Religious Congregations and Membership Study, released Tuesday, shows that the mainline Protestants and Catholics who dominated the 20th century are literally losing ground to the rapid rise of Mormons and, increasingly, Muslims.

The study is conducted once every 10 years and can track Americans’ religious affiliation down to the county level, from the largest (Los Angeles County, where Mormons grew 55 percent while Catholics shrank by 7 percent) to the smallest (Loving County, Texas, which is home to 80 people and one nondenominational evangelical church).

Romney’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported 2 million new adherents and new congregations in 295 counties where they didn’t exist a decade ago, making them the fastest-growing group in the U.S. Mormons were the fastest-growing group in 26 states, expanding beyond their historic home in Utah to the heart of the Bible Belt and as far away as Maine.

Muslims came in second, with growth of 1 million adherents in 197 new counties, to a total of about 2.6 million. Overall, non-Christian groups grew by 32 percent over the past decade.

“Mosques have multiplied at a growth rate of about 50 percent,” said Dale Jones, a researcher with the Church of the Nazarene who worked on the study as part of the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.

“They have more religious centers, and simply moving into the suburbs puts you closer to where a lot of your folks are living.” While other studies tally total membership, beliefs or worship attendance, the RCMS study counts the actual number of people who are affiliated with U.S. congregations — or, as Jones put it, the people who are “involved enough to the point where they know to count you.”

The study found that while upwards of 80 percent of Americans claim to be Christians, only about 49 percent are affiliated with a local congregation. And that, Jones said, should concern church leaders. “In some ways, our chickens have come home to roost,” Jones said.

“Churches have talked about needing to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ – what you hear is, ‘I need a relationship, I need to be born again,’ but not, ‘I need to be involved in a congregation.’ Guess what? That’s where we are.”

Overall, the survey identified nearly 350,000 religious congregations in the United States, from Albanian Orthodox to Zoroastrian.

Those churches, temples and mosques are the spiritual home for 150.6 million Americans, and researchers say they were able to capture 90 percent of all U.S. congregations.

Like most surveys, the RCMS study relies mainly on self-reported data from churches and denominations.

Some, including several historically black churches, failed to submit information on new numbers. Researchers were able to reach only one-third of U.S. mosques and had to estimate the rest.

The survey did not track growing numbers of secular or religiously unaffiliated Americans – estimated at about 16 percent of the country, according to other studies – because they do not belong to a local congregation. Jan Shipps, a respected non-Mormon scholar of Mormonism who’s now retired from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said Mormons’ “astonishing” spread into new counties is likely due to church leaders’ decision to split large wards (congregations) into separate smaller wards on opposite sides of a county line.

“The way they organize themselves makes for more congregations,” she said. “They don’t have big huge congregations like the independent churches.”

The study also tracked the growth of nondenominational and independent evangelical churches, which combined represent the nation’s third-largest Christian group, at about 12.2 million adherents across 35,000 congregations.

Catholics, while losing about 5 percent of adherents in the past years, nonetheless remain the nation’s largest religious group, at about 59 million.

The Southern Baptist Convention came in second, at 19.8 million, but its 50,816 congregations made it the group with the most churches. The rapid growth among American Muslims likely has several explanations, researchers said: growth in the suburbs, an increased willingness by U.S. Muslims to stand and be counted, and more mosques being built to serve more worshippers.

Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, saw growth explode by a whopping 473 percent in and around Orlando’s Orange County, according to the RCMS study, and he thinks the growth is actually double the 10,000 new Muslims reported by the study.

He said Muslim growth has been fueled by a wave of post-9/11 converts, American-born children of immigrants having kids of their own, and jobs in the booming medical industry.

In central Florida, he said, Muslims are just following everyone else in search of “better weather, cheaper prices, cheaper homes.” “I doubt in the next decade we will grow as much,” he said

. “It’s like a new product when it’s first introduced, there’s lots of interest. But now we’re more of a known quantity and we’re not going to be opening as many new mosques as we were in the last decade.”

Find out how your county’s religious makeup has changed in the past 10 years here.

Map of Predominant Religious Groups Courtesy of 2012 US Religion Census

Map of Evangelicals (Blue) vs Mainline Protestants (Yellow) Courtesy of 2012 US Religion Census

RadicalIslam.org has launched a petition to boycott the large electronics retailer Best Buy for providing financial support to the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations .

(RNS) Opposition to gay marriage is significantly lower in 2012 compared to the previous two presidential campaigns, a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows.

For the first time, the level of strong support for gay marriage is equal to the level of strong opposition, researchers report. In the April 4-15 survey, 22 percent of Americans say they strongly favor permitting legal marriage for gays and lesbians; an identical percentage said they strongly oppose it.

In 2008, strong opposition was twice as high as support — 30 percent vs. 14 percent.

In 2004, when a host of anti-gay marriage ballot measures helped propel social conservatives to the polls, opposition was more than three times higher than support, 36 percent to 11 percent.

In comparison to the changes in views on gay marriage, not much has changed concerning support for legal abortion. In 2009, less than 50 percent of Americans favored legal abortion but that support rebounded to more than half of the U.S. population and has generally fit trends dating to 1995.

This time around, as in recent election cycles, voters say social issues — such as gay marriage and abortion — are not as important as the economy and jobs. While more than 80 percent of Americans cite the economy and jobs as top voting issues, far fewer rated abortion (39 percent) and gay marriage (28 percent) as very important.

The survey on gay marriage was based on interviews with 1,514 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

(RNS) Back in John Kerry’s ill-fated 2004 presidential campaign, Democrats tried to attract so-called “NASCAR Dads” – white, working-class, mainly Southern fellows – to try to blunt George W. Bush’s re-election and show folks that Kerry was not a wealthy patrician who only appealed to “soccer moms.”

Now Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition is trying to corral what might be called “NASCAR Christians” in hopes that social conservatives will give Mitt Romney a crucial boost in November.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition is pitching its voter drive on the ad space of a Ford to be driven by Reed Sorenson on Saturday (April 28) in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series race at the Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.

“There are an estimated 75 million NASCAR fans, many of whom live in battleground states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. This vote has significant overlap with the evangelical and Tea Party vote,” Reed said.

“An estimated 20 percent of NASCAR fans are not registered to vote. They tend to be pro-family, patriotic, and conservative in their values.”

But will they vote for Romney? He has much the same baggage that Kerry had – a Massachusetts political lineage, lots of money and some difficulty trying to connect with Joe Six-Pack, not to mention the evangelicals who are frequently suspicious of Romney’s Mormonism and conservative bona fides.

Romney’s own venture onto this turf didn’t go so well. Stopping by the Daytona 500 in February, Romney made a silver-spoon gaffe by saying that he doesn’t follow the sport that closely, “but I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.”

Still, Romney can’t afford to lose this demographic, and key Christian conservatives are trying to rally white evangelicals to a candidate that many have never fully embraced.

Orit Sklar, an FFC spokeswoman, did not provide figures on how much the NASCAR sponsorship cost, but said it would be worth it given the number of potential conservative votes at stake.

“We try everything and we like to see results,” Sklar said. “I can foresee us, if this is a successful venture, doing it again.”

The Faith and Freedom name and logo will appear on the Ford’s hood and rear quarter panels, along with texting information. FFC volunteers will provide voter registration forms and voter guides to the crowd of 150,000 in Richmond, while an estimated 6 million viewers are expected to watch at home, FFC said.

This isn’t the first time that the NASCAR demographic has been targeted by those looking for conservative Christians. Back in 2004, marketers behind Mel Gibson’s controversial movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” covered Bobby Labonte’s Daytona 500 car with ads for the film, which went on to become a huge box office hit.

(RNS) For two years of her life, Louise Allison says she looked and felt like trash. She was a straggly-haired teenager sold for sex on Dallas streets. Her traffickers often drugged her and dumped her in a park to await customers.

Storm Ervin (below) places her handprint on the canvas freedom banner at the Freedom Movement booth on the University of Missouri campus Monday, April 23. The Freedom Movement is part of a nationwide effort on university campuses to end human trafficking.

Allison is one of millions of people who have been trafficked—or sold into slavery—for underage sex or forced labor. Now she directs Partners Against Trafficking Humans, a Little Rock, Ark.-based Christian nonprofit that provides safe housing for human trafficking survivors.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told a Little Rock audience earlier this week (April 25, 2012) that the Justice Department would have zero tolerance for forced labor and underage prostitution—problems that plague the United States as well as developing nations.

The cause of human trafficking has gained traction within the faith community, especially among college students who are working across faith lines toward a goal of eradicating the bonds that enslave an estimated 27 million people.

Across the United States, dozens of colleges and high schools planned spring or fall events to bring attention to the problem of human trafficking.

Many of these events, including a Freedom Movement Week held April 23-27, were inspired by Passion 2012 earlier this year. Passion 2012, a 42,000-student worship conference in Atlanta last January, centered on human trafficking and raised more than $3.3 million from the mostly student attendees to support nonprofits that fight human trafficking.

Claude d’Estree, who directs the Human Trafficking Clinic at the University of Denver, has watched a growing number of faith-based groups take up this issue since he began human trafficking work in 1998. D’Estree noted the importance of religious leaders in U.S. fights over slavery 150 years ago.

“It’s not surprising to me that religious groups got involved again,” d’Estree said.

Texas A&M junior John Amini, 21, prayed about how to spend Spring semester at Texas A&M while attending the Passion 2012 conference. After hearing speakers on human trafficking, he decided to unite college campuses in a national battle against it.

Amini and friends soon had more than 30 U.S. college campus partners. In addition to the five universities participating in Freedom Movement Week this month (April 2012), other schools are creating programs for fall and raising money.

At Texas A&M, students created an anti-slavery benefit album with sales benefiting anti-trafficking nonprofits Tiny Hands International and Unlikely Heroes. Amini said the Texas A&M chapter hopes to raise $25,000, with about $6,000 raised so far.

Amini said that although Freedom Movement is driven by Christian values, non-Christians are welcome. On other campuses, Jewish and Muslim student-centered groups are joining the fight against human trafficking.

Sophomore Jane Carter (right) paints Zane Vandnais’ (left) hand green for the hand-printing event at the Freedom Movement booth in Lowry Mall on the University of Missouri campus Monday, April 23. The Freedom Movement is an organization on campuses across the U.S. that raises awareness to prevent human trafficking.

Seattle-based Robert Beiser, who directs social justice programs at the University of Washington Hillel, said Jewish students identify with the retelling of the Biblical story of Moses leading slaves out of Egypt by groups fighting human trafficking.

“Students were really getting energized about the idea that they could use our cultural identity as Jews and Passover as a starting point to work on this issue,” Beiser said. University of Washington students helped launch the national Freedom Shabbat in collaboration with Not for Sale, a nonprofit group.

Students reached out through social media and other means to get more than 100 synagogues and other Jewish communities active in Freedom Shabbat, usually held around Passover.  The group also works to encourage grocery stores to carry fair-trade gelt—the chocolate coins given during Hanukkah—in order to guarantee that no slaves helped produce the cocoa.

Not for Sale working most closely with the Jewish community is looking for Muslim leaders to build a Freedom Salat movement for Muslim students and groups.

Kevin Austin, who manages Not for Sale’s faith outreach, said seven Muslim communities have pledged to participate once Freedom Salat is fully launched.

Trafficking Graphic2

JUBA, South Sudan, April 26 (CDN) — Christians faced increased hostilities in Sudan over the past few weeks, culminating in an attack on a Christian compound in Khartoum by a throng of Muslim extremists armed with clubs, iron rods, a bulldozer and fire.

Breaking down the compound wall with a bulldozer, the assailants on Saturday (April 21) set fire to the Gerief West Bible School and the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) building; they also damaged three other places of worship and other buildings in the same compound, sources told Compass by telephone. Also damaged were a clinic, a home for the elderly, classrooms and living quarters.

“What happened could not be imagined – it was terrible,” said the Rev. Yousif Matar, general secretary of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church synod. “They burned all furniture of the school and the church as well.”

Following a fiery call by hard-line Muslim sheikh Muhammad Abdel Kareem on Friday (April 20) to a crowd of more than 500 to destroy “the infidels’ church,” he led the attack the next day, sources said.

“Tomorrow at 8 a.m., Muslims in this area must gather in front of the infidels’ church and destroy them,” Kareem told the crowd, according to Compass sources.

The next morning, according to Christian support organization Open Doors, authorities held the mob back about a kilometer from the compound, but the assailants dispersed and found their way back early in the afternoon.

“Police at the compound stood back and did nothing to prevent the mob from vandalizing the compound,” Open Doors stated in a press release. “There was no cordon around the Bible school or church, as some have stated in other media reports.”

Besides the SPEC church building, the worship venues damaged in the attack were halls used by Ethiopian, Indian and ethnic southern Sudan congregations, according to Open Doors. The organization reported that area residents told the Sudan Tribune that the assailants were the same ones that had threatened to attack the church, apparently calling for the deportation of southerners in Sudan and terming them “foreigners.”

Ethnic southern Sudanese were ordered to register for citizenship this month or be deported following South Sudan’s secession last July 9.

Shouting “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]” and “No more Christianity from today on – no more church from today on,” the attackers stormed the Bible school bookstore and burned Bibles and other literature, sources said. They threatened to kill anyone who resisted them, they said.

All the Bible school’s office equipment, library books and students’ personal belongings were destroyed by fire, according to Open Doors.

Some students, staff and members of some churches were beaten, according to Philip Akway, a pastor and former general secretary of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church; SPEC clergyman John Tau’s right hand was wounded, while deacon John Bouth sustained a chest injury.

The assailants also burned trees on the property. On April 9, the mob had arrived with a bulldozer and threatened to demolish the Bible school, saying it was located on land that should be returned to “the land of Islam” because southern Sudanese were no longer legal citizens (see www.compassdirect.org, “South Sudanese Christians Trapped in Hostile North,” April 19). Police arrived and forced the assailants to withdraw from the school compound, but the Islamists threatened to take the land by force.

At press time Bible school students remained scattered, with some of them taking refuge in Christian homes far from the area, while others fled to churches in northern Khartoum, sources said.

Church leaders told Compass they were concerned that such incidents could lead to Muslims in Sudan taking church lands.

Arrests
Other incidents last week indicated that Christianity is not welcome in Sudan, according to Open Doors. Catholic Church personnel working for SudanAid, the church’s humanitarian organization, have been arrested in Nyala, in Darfur, and their office has been closed, the organization stated, citing a report from Sudan Catholic Radio Network.

“Church leaders in the area fear that this may escalate,” according to the Open Doors statement. “They feel very isolated and vulnerable.”

Last week, the organization added, three churches in Khartoum were warned that their buildings would be demolished if they continued services. The three churches were the Episcopal Church of Sudan Baraka Parish Church, the Sudan Interior Church in Dar Es-Salaam outside Khartoum, and a third church in Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum.

Worship Stopped
Previously hostilities against Christians had flared on April 6, when police rushed into a Sudanese Church of Christ compound in Omdurman and forced the congregation to stop worshipping, Christian sources said.

The congregation was preparing for a Good Friday Easter service.

“We told the police officers who were in charge of the force that it was unfair to stop the Christians from worship while Muslims enjoy the same privilege freely without any objection from the police,” a Christian source said.

Police said that it was Friday and therefore only Muslims could pray, and that the mosque service must not be interrupted by the “songs and praises of the infidels,” a source said.

Usually churches are only barred from using loudspeakers during Islamic Friday prayers in Khartoum. Also, shops are ordered to close during Friday prayers, with those doing business fined, jailed or losing their commercial license.

“You must stop the worship because Friday’s Muslim prayers are now starting” police told the worshiping congregation, according to the Rev. Kowa Shamal.

With Christians already complaining about increased discrimination since predominantly non-Muslim South Sudan seceded, church members were greatly discouraged by the shut-down, sources said.

Muslims are favored in Sudanese law and policy, with the notorious Sudanese Public Order Police making sure that sharia (Islamic law) is enforced, often without any legal aid for non-Muslim suspects, they said. The country, which President Omar al-Bashir has vowed will become a more strictly Islamic state, plans to prohibit the construction of church buildings, they said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (RNS) A satellite church affiliated with controversial Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll was vandalized early Tuesday (April 24) and a group calling itself the “Angry Queers” has reportedly taken responsibility.

Stained glass and other windows were broken at the Mars Hill Church, according to a post on the Facebook page of Pastor Tim Smith.

“Neighbors of the church reported seeing several young adults in black masks throwing large rocks into the windows,” a church news release said. “Police stated that a bank in the area was also vandalized in the same way and that they believe the vandalism was planned ahead of time, most likely by an activist group.”

On Tuesday, KPTV FOX 12 reported it had received an email from someone using the name “Angry Queers” and claiming responsibility.

Mars Hill Portland opened last October. During the first service, protesters gathered in front of the church and yelled obscenities at worshipers to speak out against the church’s stance on homosexuality. Mars Hill Church was founded in Seattle about 15 years ago by Pastor Mark Driscoll, who preaches against homosexuality and believes it’s a sin.

In his Facebook message, Smith encouraged church members to continue their work.

“The good news is our church is off to a great start,” he wrote. “A few piles of broken glass doesn’t change anything for us.”

The Rev. Chuck Currie, a liberal Portland pastor who has criticized Mars Hill’s theology, nonetheless urged that the vandalism be treated as a hate crime.

“If Mars Hills Church represents the worst of Christianity, and I believe it sadly does, those response for this attack represent the worst of Portland,” Currie said.

(Stephen Beaven writes for The Oregonian)

JOS, Nigeria, April 25 (CDN) — One person was killed and nine others were injured last night after suspected Islamic extremists attacked a TV viewing center in a Christian area of Jos where a crowd had gathered to watch soccer.

At about 10:15 p.m. at the viewing center, one of many such establishments popular in Nigeria for watching soccer matches, the attackers drove past the site and threw an explosive device at hundreds of Christians watching the match, eyewitnesses told Compass.

Some 10 minutes after the bombing, security agents evacuated the injured to Janvak Hospital just a few meters away. Medical personnel at the hospital were treating four of them under strict supervision of police and other security agents. Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba reportedly said one person died in the blas

Soldiers and police under the Joint Military Task Force charged with keeping peace in embattled Plateau state cordoned off the area around the establishment. Authorities have not ruled out members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram as suspects.

The bombing marks the second time in two weeks that the Christian area has been attacked. Boko Haram, which seeks to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) throughout Nigeria, was suspected of a detonating a bomb a few meters from the center during Easter celebrations that injured five Christians. Various churches in Tudun Wada, Jos, commonly use the site as a base for evangelistic campaigns aimed at social venues in the area.

Christian and Muslim communities live in close but separate quarters of the Tudun Wada area of Jos, and the attacks have heightened tensions between them. The area comprises eight churches – Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Bishara 2, Angwan Yashi, ECWA Good News Church, Assemblies of God Church, Redeemed Peoples Mission, Solid Rock Church, Deeper Life Bible Church, and Christ Way Baptist Church.

Suspected Islamic extremists bombed three TV viewing centers in Christian areas near Jos on Dec. 10, 2011. A few minutes into soccer match televised at Yangwava Television Viewing Center at Ukadum village, a bomb went off, killing 31-year-old Joshua Dabo.

During the same game, bombs exploded at two other viewing centers in predominantly Christian areas of Jos, injuring at least 10 others, including four in critical condition and two in a coma (see “Christian Areas of Jos, Nigeria Bombed, Killing One,” Dec. 15.)

Plateau state, in central Nigeria, has been especially volatile recently as it lies between the country’s predominantly Muslim north and Christian south. Nigeria’s population of more than 158.2 million is divided between Christians, who make up 51.3 percent of the population, and Muslims, who account for 45 percent. The percentages may be less, however, as those practicing indigenous religions may be as high as 10 percent of the total population, according to Operation World.

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