Saudi Arabia’s government tries to stop the spread of the gospel inside this tightly sealed nation. But foreign converts are evangelizing faster than ever.
Are the world’s 17.5 million Saudis hostile to Christians and their Jesus? In theory, of course not. The Muslim holy book, the Quran, reveres Jesus as a prophet and calls for respect for both Christians and Jews as “People of the Book.”

But in today’s reality, it looks otherwise. Certainly the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leads the world roster for unbending regulations designed to keep its 100 percent Muslim population untainted by Christian influences. After all, the Muslim prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to protect Islam’s two holy cities by keeping non-Muslims out of Mecca and Medina, and today’s Islamists think the ban should cover all Arabian soil. Some 1.2 billion Muslims bow in prayer several times a day toward Mecca, where they are expected to come on pilgrimage at least once in their lifetimes.

So at every international airport and border crossing into Saudi Arabia, customs officers comb through suitcases, confiscating everything from cross emblems to Christmas cards. Some travelers even have to fight to keep their personal Bibles because first and foremost the goal is to stop copies of Christian Scriptures from getting into the country.

The kingdom’s unbending intolerance of all non-Muslim worship within its borders is even more notorious. Although almost a million of the country’s 7 million foreign workers are Christians, Saudi law categorically forbids them to gather for public worship. The royal family insists it recognizes the right of non-Muslims to worship in private. But it’s no secret that the religious police, or mutawe’en, offer a standing bounty of 50,000 riyals (five years’ salary) for exposing a house church.

In particular, these religious vice squads target house churches of non-Westerners discovered to be worshiping secretly, usually forcing the arrest and deportation of their leaders. Any Westerners tend to be handled with kid gloves, but other expatriate Christians are severely mistreated while under arrest.

They may be subjected to verbal abuse, beatings, cruel lashings, or refused meals and thrown into filthy, crowded cells. In the absence of due process of law they are rarely granted either legal or consular access for months on end.

Saudi Arabia’s ruling Wahhabi interpretation of Muslim beliefs and practices declares that Islam thrives on “hostility toward infidels.” Islamic religious teaching has dominated some 70 percent of the nation’s educational curriculum in recent decades. In the last few years, Saudi youngsters have also been carefully indoctrinated against Christian beliefs.

“Young schoolboys are eager to tell you now that the Jews didn’t manage to kill Jesus, that the Bible has been changed, parroting all the usual Muslim attacks against Christian beliefs,” one former businessman in the kingdom says.

One of the best sellers in Mecca and Medina during the last year was a 1,200-page compilation of the greatest fatwas (religious prohibitions) on modern life. Good Muslims were warned to shun all non-Muslims–don’t befriend them, don’t smile at them, don’t greet them on their religious holidays.

Even on the Internet, more than 2,000 Web sites are blocked by Saudi authorities. According to a Harvard Law School study, most of the blacklisted sites are “sexually explicit, or about religion.” Undoubtedly the government’s biggest headache is trying to block all the new Web sites popping up almost weekly inviting surfers to read the New Testament in Arabic online.

The paranoia is so intense that the name “Jesus” is a search-engine word in the Saudis’ sophisticated surveillance system, which monitors all telephone calls and e-mail messages in and out of the kingdom.

An Old Dilemma

It all adds up to antagonistic resistance to the gospel, so far as the Christian public worldwide understands it. It’s a blanket rejection of Jesus and His message, right?

Not according to one veteran missionary to one of the world’s toughest places for spreading the gospel.

“I don’t believe the Saudis have rejected Jesus,” Brother Andrew told Charisma. “They just haven’t met Him yet.”

According to Christians with years of firsthand experience inside the kingdom, the Dutch founder of Open Doors is right. But to the shame of the Christian church, this dilemma is nothing new. It’s been true for all of the last century, and many before.

“As there is practically no native church in Arabia,” missionary J.C. Young wrote in 1906, “one can scarcely speak of Islam’s attitude toward it.”

Essentially, say those committed today to seeing that “native church” formed, Saudis have not had a chance to know the truth about Jesus because Christians are still hiding behind a bundle of ready-made excuses, such as Muslims don’t want to talk about Jesus; evangelism is too dangerous; it’s illegal; and so on.

“During my seven years in Saudi Arabia, my students asked me questions almost daily about Jesus and Christianity,” one former university professor told Charisma. “Sure, they were scared to talk about this with me in front of anyone else, but they were astonished to meet a devout non-Muslim.”

In contrast, another professor, also a believer, told Charisma that during his first year in the Arabian Gulf as a university lecturer, none of his Arab students seemed remotely interested in his attempts to develop spiritual conversations, unless it was to ask him, condescendingly, why he hadn’t become a Muslim yet. An encounter with one student, however, revealed that the devout practice of Islam can sometimes be an unwitting attempt to satisfy a genuine spiritual hunger.

One early morning, after being unusually awakened by God, the professor had opened his Bible and started to read and pray. Slowly he was flooded with an overwhelming sense of God’s presence.

“I felt literally ‘washed’ in God’s presence during that hour,” he recalled. “It was one of the deepest experiences of intimacy with God I have ever known.”

Afterward, he left for work at his regular time, refreshed in his spirit beyond words. After classes, he was delayed and had to wait for a ride home. While he was working in his office, one of his students came by.

After the usual small talk, the Arab asked abruptly, “Professor, you are a Christian, right?”

“Yes, I am,” the startled professor replied.

“So would you tell me what’s so special about Christianity?”

Without hesitation, his teacher answered, “Personal intimacy with God.” And then he went on to tell the young Muslim about his time alone with God that morning.

The student stared at him in silence. “Professor,” he said after a long pause, “I would give anything for what you just described. I have done everything Islam requires of me.

“I do my prayers five times a day, I have memorized the entire Quran word- for-word, I fast during Ramadan, I have made a pilgrimage to Mecca–everything. But I have never, ever, experienced anything like what you just told me.”

It was such a simple answer to give, the professor said later. “But God wanted to be sure I had it right, so He woke me up that morning so I wouldn’t dare say anything else.”

A Melting Pot of Christianity

Nevertheless, resident expatriates discount the occasional reports of “hundreds” of Saudis who have come to faith in Christ inside the country during the last decade.

“I think it’s the same wishful rumors getting recycled every year or so,” one long-term resident of the kingdom remarked wryly. Invariably, he said, they include veiled hints about one secret believer or another with “royal” connections, although no one is able or willing to verify the reports. Still, he is quick to confirm that he personally knows a number of Saudis who have chosen to follow Christ, whatever the cost.

“We’re meeting them now,” another Westerner agreed. “Some are being quietly discipled, and certainly some are facing persecution–from their families if not local authorities.”

Often, something initially “quickened their spirit” to the reality of the gospel–a dream, personal contact with a Christian believer, an isolated kernel of truth. One Saudi-born believer in Christ who “was afraid to read or even touch a Bible” all his life told Charisma that because of a dream he had he prayed to Jesus in a time of great need.

A zealous Muslim, he had won top honors in religious competitions at school and even led mosque prayers as a teenager. But then his parents divorced. Shattered, he abandoned his prayer habits and stopped believing in God.

Instead, he filled his life with his business career and making a lot of money. It was not until he was faced with a desperate problem he knew he could not solve that he suddenly remembered God again.

“For five years I hadn’t even thought about Allah,” he recalled. “I was ashamed to ask him for help because I wasn’t a Muslim any more. I didn’t pray, or believe, so I knew I deserved the death penalty.”

But he’d had a dream once about Jesus, so he began to wonder if the prophet of the Christians could help him. “Jesus, help me!” he had cried aloud.

Within 36 hours he learned that his dilemma had been solved, convincing him he needed to find out who Jesus really was. Then Jesus appeared to him in a second dream only days later.

“Right then, I started wanting to read the Bible,” he said. After one year of reading the Bible in an honest way, I found my way to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I found out how much God loves me.”

For the majority of Saudi believers, however, a final point of decision came as they wrestled with the powerful New Testament account of the life and words of Jesus.

Significantly, Western Christians admit they are not at the forefront of what the Spirit of God is doing inside the kingdom today. “With our preset agendas, we Westerners think we’re great mission strategizers,” one European commented. Twenty years ago, he said, God had a better strategy.

“Who would have ever thought of sending unconverted, nominal Catholic Filipinos to take jobs by the hundreds of thousands in Saudi Arabia, getting them converted to a vibrant, saving faith in Christ right there in the kingdom, and then releasing them to witness?” he asked.

The European recalled a secret meeting of Filipino believers he attended in one of Saudi Arabia’s major cities in the mid-1980s. Some 120 Filipinos were present, each leading his own fellowship of 10 to 100 people. Together they represented some 10,000 Filipino believers. But when he asked how many of the 120 leaders had known Christ personally before coming to Saudi Arabia, only three raised their hands.

“These Filipinos just had the Scriptures, that’s all,” he said. “The first time they read through the book of Acts, they assumed the same things would happen to them–they would be beaten, people might suffer and even die, but there would be miracles, and it would be infectious!”

Together with other Asians and African believers, Filipinos continue to take the brunt of stiff crackdowns against their mushrooming underground meetings. But their grassroots witness will be felt for generations–lived out day after day while they work as maids, drivers, nannies, nurses, computer programmers, construction workers and in dozens of other jobs in Saudi homes, public institutions and private firms.

Largely because of the fervent impact of these believers upon the expatriate underground church, one deported Christian said that Saudi Arabia has become “the greatest melting pot for Christians in the in the heart of Islam!”

Prayer Before Politics

If nothing else, say Christians working there, their jobs give them a unique foothold to understand, love and pray by name for their indigenous Saudi colleagues and neighbors.

None of the expatriates here expect Christ’s Great Commission to be fulfilled in Saudi Arabia through Western demands for “reciprocity” or legal guarantees of religious freedom. “It’s the work of prayer, pulling down the strongholds of fear and revealing the power to turn from sin to God,” one said.

“Something, someone has to dethrone Islam,” another mused.

A century ago, American missionary Samuel Zwemer declared confidently that because 85 percent of the Muslims in the world had come under colonial rule he expected most of them to become Christians in short order. In fact, colonialism proved to be a great deterrent to the cause of Christian missions, even as the war on terrorism is proving to be today. The Christian message becomes blurred by association with Western politics and military objectives, raising a formidable psychological barrier for the Saudi Muslim to even want to consider who Jesus really is.

“Prayer has changed so much already,” stressed one longtime resident of the region. “But still, it’s only brought us to the edge.”

At the dawn of 2003, Saudi Arabia remains wide open for one-on-one, holistic witness by thousands of foreign Christians. “It’s up to us whether we’re willing to be a part of it or not,” one frontliner declared, “but Jesus is building His church there!”

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Barbara G. Baker is the Middle East bureau chief of Compass Direct, a news agency raising awareness of Christians who are persecuted for their faith. She has lived in the Muslim world for the last 27 years.

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Adherents worldwide: 1.2 billion

Largest concentrations: Islam comprises about 20 percent of the world’s population. After Christianity, it is the largest religion in the world. The countries with the largest numbers of Muslims–more than 100 million each–are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Numerous other countries, primarily in North Africa and the Middle East, are almost entirely Muslim.

History: Islam was instituted in A.D. 610 when Muhammad received the first of a series of revelations, supposedly from the angel Gabriel, that were recorded and later became part of the Quran, Islam’s sacred book. Muhammad doubted the origin of the revelations at first, but his wife convinced him that they were divine and encouraged him to teach what he had learned. Muhammad quickly gained a following. In A.D. 630 he took control of Mecca, and within a year he brought together all the tribes of the Arabian peninsula under the religion of Islam. Today the religion has two major sects–Sunni and Shiite–and several minor ones.

Core beliefs: Muslims have both beliefs and obligations. The obligations are required practices such as reciting the shahadah, a statement of commitment; praying; fasting; giving alms; and making a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one’s lifetime. Core beliefs include:

* There is one true God, whose name is Allah.

* Between God and humans there are angels, two of whom are assigned to each person, one to record his good deeds and one his bad.

* God has spoken through many prophets, but Muhammad is the last and greatest of all.

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Forget Ford and Chrysler. Detroit is now known as a hub of Muslim faith in this country.

Take a virtual tour through the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, and you might think you’ve been transplanted to the Middle East. Signs for local shops are in Arabic. Mosques are as plentiful as churches. And the local McDonald’s serves hallal, or “lawful,” chicken nuggets, which are prepared according to Muslim dietary codes.

With an estimated 300,000 Muslims in metro Detroit, this is an unofficial hub of American Islam. Figures for the number of Muslims nationally are mostly unavailable, but estimates range from 1.5 million to 7 million. Largely because of immigration, the State Department considers Islam one of the nation’s fastest-growing religions.

Despite media efforts to portray Islam as a peaceful religion, Christians in Dearborn say ministering to Muslims can be intimidating. One group declined to talk with Charisma because they feared backlash from Muslim leaders. They say Muslims are not permitted to convert, and those who do may be ostracized from their families.

Yet ministers reaching Muslims encourage Christians not to stereotype. Carl Ellis Jr., head of Project Joseph, a ministry to American converts to Islam, notes that most U.S. Muslims are loving people.

Partly in an effort to assuage harassment of Muslims and Arab Americans, Haaris Ahmad, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), portrays Islam as largely misunderstood. He argues that the oppressive practices in many Islamic nations misrepresent the Quran’s teachings.

This moderate form of Islam is common in the United States, Ellis says. Many U.S. Muslims emphasize the peace-loving passages of Muhammad’s earlier revelations, while militant Muslims focus on his later writings. However, Ellis says true Islam encompasses both perspectives.

Whether they believe Islam is peaceful or not, Christians will likely be surprised that the face of Islam is quite diverse. Seventy percent of the nation’s 3 million Arab Americans are Christians–even in Detroit, where Muslims readily acknowledge that at least 50 percent of the Arab population there is Christian, though Chaldeans, a historically Catholic community from Iraq, estimate 70 percent.

CAIR reports there are 1,209 mosques in America with an estimated 2 million participants, 33 percent of whom are southern Asian, 30 percent African American, and 25 percent Arab.

Conversions have long been highest among African Americans, who mostly practice orthodox Islam rather than the version taught by the Nation of Islam, which was founded in Detroit. Yet since 9/11, Ahmad says the media attention Islam has garnered has attracted new followers. Most are college-educated Caucasian women who have found that Islam “is a very rational religion,” he says.

Ironically, Ellis has observed that most American converts to Islam are former Christians who were searching for authentic Christianity. He says the key to ministering to them is threefold: praying, demonstrating Christ’s love, and wisely applying the Bible to their core questions and concerns.

Muslims who immigrated to the United States can be a harder sell, but Mark Gabriel, a former Muslim professor who converted to Christianity, encourages Christians to befriend their Muslim neighbors. “Love Muslims with the love of God,” he writes in his book Islam and Terrorism (Charisma House). “We must have the courage to reach out and touch their need with the gospel of love.”
Adrienne S. Gaines

In Australia, where people create their own religion with crystals, spirit guides and holistic medicine, Christians are offering New Agers the path to truth.

After years of searching for lasting quality in a bazaar of esoteric beliefs, Dorothy Bond’s pursuit of New Age enlightenment foundered. Her quest had taken her around the world, relieved her of many thousands of dollars and even gained her a seven-year internship at the exclusive Gurdjieff School of Philosophy in New York.

Back in Melbourne, Australia, she attended a retreat with a Sufi sheik from Turkey whose teachings held a worldwide following. He seemed, Dorothy admits, a “lovely, gentle old man who spoke peace and love all the time.” Then she met his wife and heard quite a different story. “She said to me: ‘I don’t understand why you people look at this man as god. You should try living with him!’ And it was, like, where’s the integrity here?”

Bond lives in the town of Wandin in the Dandenong Ranges, an area of forest-roofed hills on Melbourne’s eastern outskirts where Buddhas and goddess-idols have long since replaced gnomes as most-favored garden statues. The sheik’s wife reinforced Bond’s growing conviction that New Age was founded on deception, a conviction that had gained strength as she had scaled the hierarchy and faced the transition from student to teacher.

“I knew I had techniques, but I knew I hadn’t found what I was looking for,” she says, “and I found it very difficult to take the responsibility for other people’s spiritual journeys and pretend that I knew more than I actually did.”

The Age of Aquarius

Since its appearance as a fringe phenomenon in the 1960s, New Age has leaped into the mainstream of Western culture. It embraces a hodgepodge of beliefs and practices and derives its name from the “Age of Aquarius” that astrologers claim the world is entering.

Some of these claim scientific respectability, but others are unreservedly mystical. Holistic medicine, Western Buddhism and fortunetelling are some of its better-known spheres, but it also claims such unlikely fields as psychoanalysis, feminism and quantum physics–the latter being one of the “new science” disciplines that offer a more nature-friendly body of knowledge.

Wicca, the modern-day gloss for witchcraft, is spiraling, particularly among women, as it purports to be a natural expression of feminine spirituality. Modern witches say they are tapping into the “all-pervading life force.” They deny any supernatural element to their activities, claiming the church has falsely tarred them as devil worshipers.

A major lure of New Age is its perception that modern society’s problems stem from a suppression of the spiritual–and that Christianity is largely to blame for this. Bond is determined to correct this view.

Fourteen years ago she cried out to God, admitting she was lost. The next day she found in her mailbox a pamphlet titled I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life. She followed it up, accepted Jesus and is today a founding member of the Eternity Team–a Melbourne-based mission to New Agers that includes many former adherents.

“We really wanted to go back in and talk to people about our experiences, about how we’d perceived Christianity in a certain way and how, when we encountered Jesus, it really did change our whole worldview. It blew us out of the water–we didn’t expect to find what’s in the gospel,” Bond says.

The New Age expo Mind, Body, Spirit has been in Australia since 1989 and now holds annual festivals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and many smaller centers. Theologian Philip Johnson is one of Australia’s foremost Christian authorities on New Age, and his organization–Global Apologetics and Mission–has maintained a booth at the Sydney event since 1991.

“New Christian churches hopelessly enmeshed in a system of thinking and being that is dying,” Johnson says. “It does not see the church speaking forthrightly in any meaningful way that touches people at their points of need or addresses the kinds of crises that Western society finds itself in.”

Johnson believes the church has “circled the wagons” against the esoteric onslaught and has failed to ask the vital question: “Why are people over there looking for answers rather than in our for these answers?” New Agers generally have no problem with Jesus–as long as He is not presented as the Son of God or the only way to salvation.

Johnson has traced an emerging New Age mythology about Jesus. One school claims He traveled as a teenager to India, Tibet or Japan to gain spiritual wisdom. “The underlying thread there is that Jesus’ message is compatible with all religious traditions,” Johnson says. Other schools maintain Christianity was originally a pagan mystery religion that turned a purely mythical “Jesus” into a historic figure.

Lee-Anne Benn of Coastlands International Christian Centre in Adelaide also encounters these distortions. Benn trains teams of evangelists for the city’s annual Mind, Body, Spirit festival and warns them they will meet people with “Jesus consciousness” who will nonetheless deny the deity of Christ.

“I ask the guys to listen a lot and speak as little as possible because I genuinely believe that when you don’t believe truth, there’s going to be that cry in the heart,” Benn says. “So I try to train them to listen for it and go in on it when it opens up.”

She finds people are particularly receptive to personal testimonies of a loving, giving God. Lack of compassion and an obsession with self are major elements she identifies in New Age that differ from Christianity. “They basically say that it’s all about karma. You’re creating your own problem [through] thinking negatively in the first place,” Benn adds.

Perhaps surprisingly, the teams have been received favorably at the festivals. Benn has been recognized as having good “energy,” and she, like Paul and Barnabas did, has had to fend off claims that she has divine status.

“I’ve been told by people in there that they can see the light around me and I’m one of the chosen,” she says. Yet Christianity remains only one of many samples in an endless search. “People may be into crystals one year, then the next year they’re into auras, and the next year they’re into angels,” Benn says.

Eternity Team member Debbie Lisibach compares New Age to a huge mix-and-match supermarket where seekers can customize their belief systems and ignore inconvenient items like accountability for sin. Lisibach, like Bond, spent many years in New Age.

In the picturesque Dandenongs town of Sassafras she ran a shop selling esoteric books and crystals. She recalls the spiritual hunger her customers sought to assuage.

“People used to come to me for crystal healing,” Lisibach says. “I firmly believed that crystals had an energy of their own, and people would pay any amounts of to have it done to them.”

Reaction against the intrusive treatments of Western medicine has fueled a whole new industry in interests such as ayurveda, reiki, chakras and even “psychic surgery,” whose practitioners claim to heal using the heat energy of their hands with the help of spirit guides who were doctors in previous incarnations.

Time Australia devoted its August 26 cover story to the attempts of medical science to analyze traditional Chinese medicine. The report revealed that scientists are unable to say how some of the most undeniably effective potions and treatments work–acupuncture being a prime example.

Lisibach believes many of the substances and practices God originally meant for healing have been misappropriated. Though former New Agers like her warn against a blanket condemnation of holistic medicine, misplaced faith in alternative remedies has erupted into controversy in Australia after several cases of death or aggravated suffering. Last September a group of prominent Melbourne physicians called for more government regulation of the natural-medicines industry and for public debate on the ethics of withholding conventional treatments.

Professor David Ashley of Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital told of the death from cancer of a boy whose parents had withdrawn him from chemotherapy in favor of a natural remedy. The boy began treatment, Ashley said, with a 60 percent chance of recovery. He said he was “surprised” by the high number of similar cases he was hearing about from physicians, including the death “in a terrible state” of a boy whose parents had denied him palliative care because they believed an alternative treatment would cure him.

In another instance, child protection authorities in Victoria issued an order requiring the parents of an epileptic baby to administer anti-convulsant medicine a doctor had prescribed. Although the baby was suffering many prolonged seizures every day, the parents were relying solely on a natural therapist’s treatment. With the alternative-health industry now such a powerful influence, the debate is set to be long and loud.

A Crystal Clear Gospel

Despite the difficulties of evangelizing New Age adherents, there are encouraging reports. Eternity Team member Rob de Bruyn is also on the Jesus Evangelism Team of St. Martin’s Anglican Church in the Dandenongs township of Belgrave Heights. Once a month the team heads deeper into the hills to Kallista, where the town’s community market has become a pretext for a New Age expo.

After chatting with one stallholder, de Bruyn gave him a Bible and some literature on forgiveness. For the next hour he watched the man as he retired to the back of his stall and pored over the text, leaving his wife to deal with customers. Then the man came back wanting to give his life to Jesus.

“He looked deeply disturbed, and he couldn’t understand how his past–he was a soldier, and he did some bad things–could be forgiven by God,” de Bruyn said. He answered the man’s questions and led him to Christ.

However, all teams agree it is hard to settle former New Agers into the church. “They’re scared stiff of churches,” Bond observes, and stresses the importance of committed mentoring to provide a firm grounding in the faith.

Benn also knows it can be a long process. “Their spirit can be born again, but they’ve still got to work through that mind-set that says it’s all about their personal peace and happiness,” she points out.

Lisibach is living testimony to this, having encountered a very bumpy road during the year after she accepted Jesus. For a while she continued earning her living by talents such as Tarot readings.

“I was still fighting with the church and my beliefs,” she says. “I had a foot in both camps and was very confused. I had lots of people saying they’d pray for me and trying to tell me my beliefs were wrong, but I had nobody I could actually talk to who had been down the same road. So to come into a church with all that was very hard.”

The reactions of some Christians to her dilemma almost wrecked her faith, she admits. Fortunately she met Bond, who was able to disciple her from a basis of shared experience.

Philip Johnson’s book Jesus and the Gods of the New Age, scheduled for release in the United States this summer, addresses this task of having an effective Christian mission to the New Age movement. Johnson believes the church needs to discard its New Age phobia and learn how to work the subculture as a fertile mission field.

He points out that it has many altars to unknown gods, like the one the apostle Paul found in Athens. Even astrology presents an opening for the gospel through the three wise men of the nativity–whose star led them to Jesus.

Bond calls her salvation in Christ a homecoming that finally satisfied her spiritual hunger. Her experience refutes the criticism that Christianity is too narrow. “Because it is narrow,” she says, “I’ve been able to put roots down, I’ve been able to grow, I’ve been able to flourish. I was never planted in New Age. I had hundreds of options, but you’re never planted, you’re never home.”

Yet, Johnson insists, it is just the sort of place where Jesus would have been–introducing the God who is permanent, unchanging and greater than all other options combined.

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Adrian Brookes is a writer based in Melbourne, Australia. His particular interest is writing on missionary activities in Australia and around the world.

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Adherents worldwide:Unknown

Largest concentrations:Europe, South America, United States, Australia

History:The New Age Movement is the result of the teachings, practices and philosophies of many different religions, primarily Hinduism and Buddhism. It is not a true religion but a set of beliefs from which adherents may pick and choose based on their own spiritual interests. It became prominent in the United States as a result of the influence of various Eastern philosophers and 19th century spiritualists. It wasn’t until actress Shirley MacLaine declared her affiliation with the movement in the 1980s that people saw how widespread it had become.

Core beliefs:

God is the divine energy that flows within all things–the “Ultimate Reality,” “Universal Mind or Self” or divine “Oneness.”

Everything is fundamentally divine–and therefore good–because it flows from this divine Oneness.

Mankind’s problem is that we have lost sight of our true nature as beings who are connected to the Universal Self. We need enlightenment to see ourselves as we are.

Man is able to shape reality through the power of his mind.

Reincarnation is necessary for the process of spiritual evolution.

Though God Himself is impersonal, there are spiritual beings who can be contacted through various means (channeling, for example) to act as spirit guides.

The goal of the New Ager is to relinquish his individuality and achieve unity with the Universal Self.

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A small town in Arizona has become a New Age stronghold in the United States.

Yoga and dance teacher Beth Rigby can’t really explain why so many people are attracted to Sedona, Arizona. But she knows that this small community of 12,000 people–surrounded by the red-rock formations of Oak Creek Canyon–is “magical.”

“Sedona calls people,” Rigby says. “I can’t explain it. When people come, they often have a deep sense of home.” After moving here in 1997 she founded Healing Retreat Adventures. Several times a year she takes tourists on seven-day excursions into the wilderness for yoga, “transformational dancing” and what she calls “past-life remembrances.”

Her clients come from all over the world. What calls tourists to Sedona?

Rigby believes the town is in the middle of a New Age “vortex,” or power center, where “electromagnetic energy comes out of the earth.” She doesn’t exactly know how the supposed energy field works, but she suggests that Native American tribes tapped into the source of it centuries ago.

“There are so many power spots here,” says Rigby, who compares Sedona to Stonehenge in England, or the Egyptian pyramids. She hires Native American healers to accompany her on the outings.

Rigby is not alone in her pursuit of Sedona’s magic. Despite its tiny size, the town has more than 70 New Age bookstores, astrology centers and healing studios. One Web site advertises the city as a new “spiritual capital” and claims that psychic energy is released from a spiritual portal created by nearby Bell Rock, Table Top Mountain, Boynton Canyon and Cathedral Rock. Another group in town, Ashtar’s Trinity, is using crystals and light rays to lay a metaphysical “grid” over Sedona so that extraterrestrial beings will help earthlings “ascend” to a higher realm.

Current research suggests that New Age spirituality is growing in the United States. While there are many other cities with larger numbers of New Age bookstores and crystal shops, Sedona probably has the highest number per capita. Other communities with unusually high New Age activity include Seattle; Boulder, Colorado; Austin, Texas; Gainesville, Florida; and Asheville, North Carolina. (One directory says that Asheville has 422 New Age establishments, more than some entire states.)

In Sedona, spiritualist groups outnumber evangelical churches at least 3 to 1. “We are definitely the minority,” says Gordon Story, 55, pastor of First Assembly of God, one of only two charismatic or Pentecostal churches in the town. His congregation, which has about 50 members, is “larger than most evangelical congregations here,” he says.

But Story adds there are signs that the gospel is making an impact: Bible-believing pastors are working together, and new doors are opening for outreach. “Good things are starting to happen,” he adds. “We are determined to push back the darkness.”
J. Lee Grady

In North Korea, brave Christians are willing to give their lives to share Christ with just one person.
In August, a 38-year-old soldier named Cho Bung-il went back to North Korea from China to spread the gospel. By the time you read this, he probably will be dead.

Cho has returned to a land so repressive that thousands of Christians are being worked to death in Nazi-style death camps. It is a land so secretive that we know the names of only a few dozen of these believers.

“As soon as I return to North Korea,” Cho told Charisma, “I will be accused of blaspheming the name of Kim Il Sung for fleeing the worker’s paradise that he constructed.” Cho gave himself a “1 percent chance of survival,” smiled, and began the walk back to his homeland.

This man is walking back to the world’s most atheistic–and most religious–country. For it is here in North Korea that communism is an unabashed religion.

Kim Il Sung is not just a leader. He twisted the idea of a Christian Trinity and imposed an ungodly trinity on his subjects. According to scholar Bahn-Suk Lee, Kim Il Sung became the almighty father, Kim Jong Il was “the active word,” the son; and Juche ideology was the very spirit of the revolution. The dictator became a god.

I remember first arriving in North Korea back in 1988 and being fascinated by an opera that praised the great exploits of Kim Il Sung. The words of the chorus were projected at the side of the stage: “Kim Il Sung gives eternal life to the Korean people for 1,000 years.”

I stayed in the country for a few weeks. In subsequent visits, I learned that Kim Il Sung claimed he was born in a stable, began his rule at age 33, called his communist regime “The Three in One,” claimed to have appeared at more than one place at one time and is called “The Immortal One.”

In North Korea, everyone has to worship this leader. It is considered a crime to sit on a newspaper containing his photograph. Since his death in 1994, Kim Il Sung’s physical remains lie in state, well guarded for all to pay homage to. According to the ideology, he has now left his work to his son, Kim Jong Il, who has taken his god-mantle.

Life Inside a Prison State

“Mr. Cho, why are you going back to die?” I asked him. “Can you not work for the gospel from China?”

“But they can’t hear from China” he told me. “In North Korea it is virtually impossible to hear about Jesus Christ. We are utterly cocooned. I only recently discovered that my father and mother were Christians, but they knew I would be tricked into betraying them, so they never told me.”

Tears began to run down his cheeks. What kind of society is so monstrous that even Christian parents dare not share Christ with their own children? I wondered.

Cho was raised to worship Kim Il Sung. At school he studied the dictator’s thoughts. At mealtimes he thanked him for his food. In the evenings he would march home in military formation to the sounds of Kim’s speeches blaring from loudspeakers.

And whenever anything good happened in his life, he would go to the huge golden statue of Kim that formed the center of every town, and give thanks to the “Great Leader.” He was taught religion was a drug and that Christians were traitors who wanted only to harm others.

There were no churches to make Cho think twice. There were no foreign broadcasts to give him another perspective (the radios had only an on-off switch preset to the official channel). And there certainly were no Christians to talk with.

“It never occurred to me that North Korea was not the best of all possible worlds,” he explained. “Kim Il Sung was god, his son Kim Jong Il was his rightful heir, and I dedicated my life to serving them, as did everyone else.”

Cho married and joined North Korea’s army. He served 10 years, receiving home-leave only twice. Stationed most of that time in the sterile capital of Pyongyang, he was posted near his hometown in the north in 2000. He was shocked to see the effects of a famine that had begun five years earlier.

“Everywhere people were laying by the road, sick or dead,” he said. “No smoke came out of any chimney. Blackouts were common. There were confirmed cases of parents eating their grandparents to stay alive.”

The famine still continues. Some say the death toll has reached 3 million. It is the world’s quietest humanitarian disaster of the last decade, and it may have reduced the size of the total population to less than 19 million.

Escape from Hell

Cho was ordered to shoot civilians who clambered onto trains after nightfall in their desperation to move to another area in search of food. He shot three people.

“I felt nothing. I was just obeying orders,” he said. “One of them was a young, pregnant woman. She looked like she was 50. She was probably 20.”

Soon Cho would feel real fear. After he was allowed home-leave to attend his mother’s funeral, he discovered that his wife and child had starved to death two years before. He was never told because of an administrative oversight.

As he was reeling from this news, he heard his father say some words at the funeral. He could hardly believe his ears. His father whispered, “May she rest in the bosom of Jesus.” Cho worried that others may have overheard these taboo words.

Two weeks later he was called in by his superior officer. “What did your father say that day?” the man demanded. “He is under investigation, you know!”

Cho secretly packed a knapsack and slipped away into the night. “I knew it would not be long before I was arrested as the son of an anti-communist revolutionary. My father was sure to be in a labor camp already,” he told me.

Cho was not far from the border, so he used his uniform to pose as a guard pursuing refugees across the frozen Yalu River into China. Two million Koreans live in the Chinese provinces that border North Korea. He thought if he could just find a family they would feed him.

But they turned him in to the police, and he was soon sitting in the back of a truck bound for North Korea. He escaped by hurling himself out of the vehicle and down a cliff.

Suffering from his injuries, he fended for himself for a few days before desperation led him to knock on the door of a house. There was a red cross painted on the lintel, and he assumed it was a Chinese medical station. Hands grabbed him as he fell forward and lost consciousness.

Cho awoke to the sound of music. He was not in a hospital, but a living room. A dozen people were there, singing and clapping their hands.

“I assumed they were singing songs to Chairman Mao,” Cho said. “So I said, ‘You must love Mao very much to sing the way you do.'” There was a silence, then they burst out laughing. “Oh, we are not singing to Mao,” they said. “We are singing to Jesus!”

Cho fainted on the spot. When he awoke he was afraid. “I thought they would kill me. That’s what I was told Christians did.”

But he was nursed back to health, and he told his new friends that he wanted to know this Jesus they sang about. He found Christ as a result of their witness and began to learn about the faith.

He was given a training course in an underground house church. He also received a Bible, and in two months he memorized the four Gospels and the book of Romans. In July he announced his intention to return to North Korea.

“Mr. Cho, why are you going back to die?” I asked him again. He pointed to the Bible. “We need to hear these words. My prayer is that I do not get executed on the spot, but sent to a concentration camp. At least I can witness there. But even if I can speak to one person before I die, this Word is worth it!”

Despite the most intense persecution, there is still a church in North Korea. Estimates range from a credible 10,000 to a wishful 500,000 believers. The true church is too deep underground to count.

Churches were strong before Kim Il Sung took power in 1946. In fact Korea had 400,000 believers–with 50,000 in Pyongyang alone, earning it the nickname, “Asia’s Jerusalem.” But most of these old believers have died, or they are too scared to share their faith.

But the exodus of refugees fleeing famine has meant new opportunities for evangelism. Between 200,000 and 300,000 North Koreans have fled the famine and moved to China. So many of them are becoming believers that it prompted an elderly evangelist to coin a remarkable formula: “persecution + famine = growth.”

“I think the seeds that will bring revival are being scattered now at last,” the old man said. “The refugees cannot find Christ in the country–the propaganda is too all-pervasive. They cannot stay in the society–the famine is too extensive. So they come out [to China] and encounter Christians for the first time, and often experience real love for the first time. After they find this, many feel they have to go back and share the good news, even if it means life and probably death in a labor camp, like Mr. Cho.”

The labor camps are hellish places. A camp survivor, Soon Ok Lee, who became a Christian after reaching South Korea, told of the conditions in the camps in her harrowing memoir, Eyes of the Tailless Animals.

She says Christians were kept separate from other prisoners and were forbidden to look up at the sky. They were given the most dangerous jobs in the camp. Guards received automatic promotion if they forced Christians to recant their faith.

Once or twice a month, guards would pick on Christians for “re-education.” One day a Christian was hung upside down. When he failed to renounce his faith the enraged guard thrashed him, cut him and trampled him to death, and then forced all 6,000 prisoners to walk over his body. He then warned everyone: “This is going to happen to you if you ever believe in heaven.”

“Mr. Cho, why are you going back to die?” I asked a third time.

“Because I might be the uncut rock,” he says mysteriously, referring to his favorite Bible passage in Daniel 2:34-35. It describes how God will take a small rock and destroy a huge statue with feet of iron and clay.

“The idolatrous kingdom of North Korea will fall,” Cho says. “God will send a rock to smash its feet, and I will play my part. Who knows? Perhaps the time of smashing has already come!”

North Korea may be a fortress of cruel atheism, but brave Christians like Cho are not intimidated by it. They know that their message of love will soon penetrate this dark prison they call home.

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Alex Buchan was from 1996-2002 the Asia Bureau Chief of Compass Direct, a news agency reporting on the persecuted church. He is now writer-at-large for Open Doors International, a ministry that serves the suffering church worldwide.

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Adherents worldwide: 240 million

Largest concentrations: China and Russia in the East; Europe in the West

History: The term was originally used in Greece to refer to those who did not believe in the official state gods. Eventually it came to be used to identify all those who deny the existence of a divine being.

Core beliefs:

There is no God.

Life can be explained naturally rather than supernaturally.

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In Madison, Wisconsin, atheists lack big numbers–but they have missionary zeal.

Atheism is not the religion of choice in the United States by any means. According to statistics gathered since the September 11 attacks, at least 71 percent of Americans say they never doubt the existence of God–even if they don’t attend church or list any religious preference.

But unbelief has taken hold in certain regions of the country, including Madison, Wisconsin. In this leafy Midwest city, people who dislike religion have found a comfortable home.

That’s what Dan Barker found when he arrived in Madison back in the 1980s to visit the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a group that publishes Freethought Today, a journal for people who oppose belief in a personal God. Based in an old sandstone building in downtown Madison that was once a church and later a rectory, FFRF has only 5,000 members. But from its headquarters it lobbies for a strict separation of church and state and has engaged in legal action against religious groups.

“Madison is a pocket of atheism,” says Barker, a former Assemblies of God minister who turned away from his faith 20 years ago. “Even the Christians here are open to us,” he says of Madison, noting that a Methodist church recently invited him to speak to a Sunday school class.

Barker, who admits he is now “an evangelist for atheism,” says his group differs slightly from American Atheists, the larger atheist organization founded by the late Madalyn Murray O’Hair. That’s because FFRF also welcomes agnostics, “freethinkers” and other skeptics, while American Atheists has always stood for a stricter interpretation of unbelief.

O’Hair, whose high-profile murder in the 1990s was never solved, often debated pastors and philosophers to try to prove that God does not exist, and she even wrote an essay against agnosticism–the theory that God exists but is uninvolved in human affairs.

O’Hair’s crusade against God began in the early 1960s when she successfully convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that prayer in schools is unconstitutional. A California atheist was not as successful in 2002 when he went to court to have the Pledge of Allegiance pulled from schools because it contains the phrase “under God.” Although a federal appeals court ruled in his favor, the decision was overturned. But the flap over the pledge gave atheists a higher profile.

“We are coming out of the closet,” says Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, which sponsored a “Godless March on Washington” on November 2. It drew only 2,400 people. Joining in that event were members of 70 groups including Atheists Anonymous, Teens Without God and the Maine Atheists Union–whose slogan is “Nobody has all the answers and nobody ever will.”
J. Lee Grady

In the Dominican Republic, where occult practices have been mixed with Christianity for centuries, the Holy Spirit is cleansing His church.
She attended Mass devotedly, but the roles of spiritual seeker and guide would be reversed when the priest made his secret visits to her home to consult the spirits through her. Inheriting the “gift” from her mother, Micaela saw no conflict between her prayers in church and reading of the cards and candles in front of her private altar.

But though she was widely sought after for her abilities, she wrestled with an inner emptiness that led her deeper into the arcane. Then a friend told her about a church where they talked about Jesus as a living friend, and during a visit she realized that she had found what she had been looking for.

“I had been involved in metaphysics and these other philosophies; when I came to know Jesus, everything was so clear, so easy–you didn’t have to go and do anything or pay anyone,” she recalls.

Micaela decided she had to get rid of the altar–where scented candles, oils, holy water, fruits and flowers were placed as offerings to the Virgin Mary and other saints–despite the warning from friends that if she did so the spirits she had previously turned to for help would “come against her.”

But after smashing the altar and renouncing her involvement with it, she felt the presence of God flood her home. “My life has turned around 180 degrees,” she says. “I feel free, feel peace. Before when I wanted something I would have to do lots of rituals; now I know that I have a heavenly Father, and I can just pray and ask Him.”

Micaela’s story is far from unusual, not only in the Dominican Republic (DR), but also the wider Caribbean region, where syncretism–the merging of different religious beliefs and practices–is woven through its history and culture. Just as those in other countries in Latin America that have known the intertwined legacies of Spanish rule, Catholic domination and African slavery, Dominicans readily embrace the reality of the spiritual world.

But their mixing of tribal beliefs and traditional Christianity replaces the gospel of grace and freedom with deities that need to be appeased. Beneath a veneer of Christian teaching are often pagan concepts and occult practices.

They may attend church regularly, but wear charms to ward off evil. They pray for health, but visit the curanderos (faith healers) or brujos (witches) to make them better. A prominent businessman recently tried to sue after the spell he paid to have cast failed to win him the love he was seeking. Botanicas, or herb shops, sell potions with which customers can shower to gain business favor, sexual potency, romantic interest or good luck.

Santeria, or the “way of the saints,” which essentially gave Catholic saints’ names to the spiritist deities revered by African slaves, is widespread. Espiritismo, or spiritism, is practiced by many churchgoers such as Micaela who believe those they make contact with are sent by God. Liborismo and the Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit of the Congos are two Catholic-related cults that flourish, while more recently syncretism in one of its contemporary forms–New Age–has begun to grow.

Then there is voodoo imported from neighboring Haiti, which shares the Caribbean island with its larger and more populous neighbor probably best known to Americans only for its baseball players, good beaches, cigars and easy divorce laws.

Voodoo here is more sinister than its frequent B-movie portrayal–so much so that one travel firm that offers tourists a visit to a typical ceremony, where spirit possession is welcomed, cautions that while it is a “fascinating experience” it is not for the squeamish.

Religious syncretism is simply “pervasive, but not visible,” observes Israel Brito, a pastor and missiologist who has played a key part in the growth of evangelical churches during the last dozen or so years. “Dominicans are, by background, magical people; it plays a role in everything we do, from our health to our relationships to our taboos.”

Challenging the Darkness

Although most of the Dominican Republic’s 8 million population is ostensibly Roman Catholic, there are probably only as many devout Catholics as there are evangelicals. Since around 1990 the evangelical church has doubled to about 7 percent of the population, through some aggressive evangelistic efforts.

Prayer and spiritual warfare are also, not surprisingly, an important element in the advances that have been made. Pastor and nationally known Christian broadcaster Jorge Plourde is widely recognized as a leading authority on the subjects, crediting an emphasis on them with his church having planted almost 40 new congregations during the last decade.

At the end of August he rallied hundreds of Christians in the national boxing stadium in the capital, Santo Domingo, to give the devil a thumping. The all-night prayer rally was held for the second successive year in advance of September’s festivals venerating many patron saints and culminating in a feast for the Virgin Mary.

As a worship band played and intercessors circled under the domed ceiling, Plourde stood in the ring, punching a fist into the air as he declared: “Glory to God! We are here to declare that Jesus is the Lord of the Dominican Republic!” He told Charisma in an interview: “We have to cover the spiritual realm against [the festivals] because idolatry is dominant over the Dominican Republic.”

Plourde’s call to tough prayer has been embraced by many, with pastors and intercessors going to some of the “high places” of history to call on God to break the power of the past.

But he caused even some close allies to question his methods when he set his sights on the Independence Day celebrations in the capital. The Mardi Gras-style event has traditionally been avoided by Christians for its revelry and glorification of wickedness, epitomized by the wearing of horned masks. But Plourde decided to put a float in the parade.

Members of his church spent a month in prayer and fasting beforehand, then walked the length of the carnival route a few days before the event, praying and sprinkling anointing oil. On the day, they manned a giant float decorated as a lion and handed out thousands of tracts. “We have to go into the place and rebuke the spirits,” he says. “It’s like softening the air.”

While they may not be as evident as in the Independence Day partying, spiritual clashes are almost routine in many churches, too, as people come to Christ from syncretistic involvement. Foursquare missionary Charlie Finocchario recalls how one “sweet young girl” who had been dedicated to the spirits by her mother ended up writhing on the floor like a snake when he prayed for her.

“Churches work a lot in the area of inner healing and breaking ties with the past,” he says. “There are people involved in Santeria, and they fear stopping because they fear the powers they have contacted won’t let them leave.”

Pastors routinely teach about idolatry, but while new believers are encouraged to make a break with their past, some church leaders are concerned that converts who accept Christ may just end up swapping Catholic-based syncretism for what is essentially an evangelical form.

“When someone comes to Christ, the powers are broken, and it is a matter of moving the rubble away,” comments Raffy Paz. Dominican-born, he spent the first half of his life in New York, returning to his homeland to pastor a few years ago. “There’s an issue of tearing down the stronghold that in many ways is not so much spiritual as practical–teaching them how to live differently.”

That many times sets new Christians in social and cultural conflict with their wider family, which may for generations have embraced and passed on syncretistic practices the new believers no longer feel comfortable with. “It puts them in a position of Grandma vs. the Bible,” Paz says.

He and others note that people who once sought to appease the spirits through offerings and rituals may apply a similar grid to their relationships with Christ–whom they now believe they have to keep happy through dedicated service. “They will change teams, but not sports,” Brito says.

“You go to church and you will see people worshiping and praising with all their might, and what they are really trying to do is please God, still,” comments David Greco, a charismatic Bible teacher and author who ministers frequently in the Dominican Republic. “‘If we worship and sweat, if we really sing for three hours, maybe the Holy Spirit could do something.’ These are the influences that are still there.”

That attitude is fostered by church leaders, especially among conservative Pentecostal congregations where women can’t wear pants or makeup.

Syncretistic belief is subtly reinforced by general Dominican attitudes to authority, shaped by a history of conquest and dictatorship, that accept the idea of the “strong man” being in charge. Top-down leadership is commonplace in charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches.

All of which begs for a greater revelation of the gospel’s message of grace, which leaders such as Cesar and Luisa Gonzalez say is desperately needed. The couple founded the Spiritual Growing Center after coming to know Christ in the Catholic Church and leaving when they realized they could not reconcile their new faith with the syncretism they saw all around them.

“We talk to our people about the great freedom of the Spirit we have in Jesus Christ,” Luisa says. “Our country has had many dictators, and the people are used to such treatment, to paying for everything. It’s very difficult to accept grace–the old ways are more comfortable, more understandable to them.”

Threshold of Revival

But that awareness is growing, with what many see as a new move of the Spirit. Jorge Reynoso, a one-time communist revolutionary who now oversees more than 300 churches in the DR and other parts of the Caribbean and Central America, is so confident the country is on a spiritual threshold he is currently planning to build a church that will accommodate 10,000–five times the size of the largest currently in existence.

Reynoso and others believe that as the first place in the New World to hear the name of Jesus, on Christopher Columbus’ arrival in 1492, the DR has a destiny in world missions, a spiritual counterpoint to its 16th-century days of great wealth–only this time the riches will be heavenly, not earthly. “God is trying to bring the revival, but there are many firemen in the church,” Reynoso says of the resistance some have to the move, which has included reports of dramatic healings.

Among the signs of hope he points to is a growing unity among evangelical churches, which has seen them agree on a shared liaison office to the government, for the first time. Not that everyone is so positive. Francis Montas, a youth evangelist and administrator with a prominent Christian radio station, thinks that “we have confused being together with being united.”

Catholic-Protestant divisions are still strong. Some Catholics have window signs in their homes telling prospective door-to-door evangelists to keep away. The charismatic renewal has touched the Catholic Church, but many of those affected end up leaving for one of the new nondenominational congregations.

Politically and socially the Catholic Church still has influence in the country, despite its waning attendance. Montas sees the physical location of Catholic churches–in the center of the cities and towns–and the Protestant ones–typically in the suburbs–as reflecting their relative influence on wider society.

Reynoso also believes a healing of relationships between the DR and Haiti is important. Last year he led a delegation of about 20 Dominican pastors who crossed the border to ask forgiveness of their Haitian counterparts for the historic bad blood between the two countries.

While there are now thought to be some 5,000 evangelical churches across the DR, there are about as many villages without one. All Protestant denominations have experienced growth during the last few years, though the greatest gains have been among the neo-Pentecostals.

Their move away from the legalism of some of the older churches–including the use of Christianized salsa and merengue music in worship, much to the horror of some conservatives who equate the popular Latino styles with licentiousness–has drawn curious visitors.

Rafael Montalvo’s vibrant church meets in a Santo Domingo high school, where instead of an emphasis on strict dress codes, the accent is on expressive worship and fervent prayer. “When society looks at us, they are a little bit surprised or astounded, because they say, ‘You can’t be Christians and wearing clothes like that,'” Montalvo laughs.

Liberty over legalism is stressed in the discipling of new believers, too. Recognizing the influence of syncretism, Montalvo says: “We talk about light, and the evil things go out. [We tell them], ‘Behind the witch doctors there are demons, so let’s seek God and not look for answers from these other things; we can get our direction straight from the Bible.'”

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Andy Butcher is Charisma’s senior writer and news director. He traveled to the Dominican Republic in August to compile this report. Jaime Luciano and Omayra Alvarez helped him translate interviews.

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Adherents worldwide: Unknown

Largest concentrations: Heavy in Latin America

History: Since the earliest days of Christianity, syncretism–the combining of beliefs and practices from different religions, often with opposing views–has invaded the church. The influences of Judaism, gnosticism and other pagan religions or cults on Christianity created a variety of expressions of the faith that the apostle Paul warned against in the epistles. Wherever Christianity has been introduced since its inception, elements of the religious traditions already practiced in the existing culture have threatened to interfere with its purity.

Core beliefs: Various, depending on the religious traditions being drawn upon.

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Miami is a headquarters for Santeria.

In South Florida, thousands of people practice a mix of the occult and Christian beliefs.

They look like evidence from crime scenes–or maybe bizarre fictional clues left for the forensic super sleuths of CBS’ new TV show CSI: Miami. Patches of scorched earth littered by blood-stained clothing, mutilated animal carcasses discarded in trash piles, headless chickens bobbing on the banks of the local Miami River.

These, however, are the byproducts of religion, not crime (even the clothing was stained with animal, not human, blood). For years in Miami these actual scenes and others like them have offered glimpses into the secrets of Santeria, a syncretistic Caribbean religion practiced by perhaps as many as 100,000 people in Florida’s southernmost metropolis.

Santeria (“way of the saints”) blends ancient beliefs of the Yoruba and Bantu people of Western Africa with Iberian Catholicism. It dates back some 500 years to Cuba, where it originated with the more than 1 million slaves of the Yoruba diaspora.

They secretly formed a new religion, Regla de Ocha (“Rule of the Orisha”), that defied their Spanish owners’ will for them to practice Catholicism by substituting Catholic icons for Yoruban dieties. It was their way of tricking their owners into believing they worshiped Christ instead of their own god (Olorun) and prayed to Catholic saints instead of their own spiritual guardians (orishas). When a slave prayed to an orisha, Spanish taskmasters thought he was praying to a saint.

Today, however, many former Santerians are praying with sincerity to Jesus. Miami’s Little Havana, the heart of the city’s Cuban-American community, is considered a “hotbed” of Santeria practice, say Christians who work in the district with the Hispanic Project, a church-planting ministry of the Assemblies of God.

Their church, Centro Cristiana Casablanca, occupies a strategic storefront corner of the district along its famous thoroughfare, Calle Ocho. A spokesperson for the church said they have been encouraged by the congregation’s impact on the local Santerian community. Many Santeria followers have come to Christ, she said–from
santeros (priests) to entire families.

It is debatable when the first Santerian community sprang up in Miami, but since the 1970s the impact of the religion on the culture and politics of Miami has been undeniable. Over the last 28 years local Santerian leaders have held their first conference with scholars and Roman Catholic priests under the sponsorship of the Florida Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Miami; taught workshops on Afro-Caribbean religions for law enforcement, medical professionals and cultural organizations; worked with the Dade County School Board to establish religious exemptions for Santerian students; and opened the country’s only established Santerian church, Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye (CLBA).

The CLBA rose to prominence after it won a landmark First Amendment decision in 1993 against the City of Hialeah, a local municipality. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case that Santerians were protected under the Constitution to sacrifice animals as part of their religious practice.

Miami has bustled for decades as the de facto capital of Caribbean and Latin American culture. Pastor Janie Boulware-Wead of Centro Cristiana Casablanca embraces the local Santerians as part of the mission field in her church’s backyard.

“Miami is of strategic importance as the gateway of the Americas,” she says. “What a great missions opportunity to literally touch the entire Spanish-speaking world.”
Jimmy Stewart

In Thailand, where people visit temples to appease thousands of gods, pentecostals are aggressively winning converts.
Not far from the Chao Phraya River that curls about the center of downtown Bangkok is a temple complex surrounding the spiritual and geographic heart of this country of 61 million people. Inside is the ceremonial grand palace of the king of Thailand and Wat Phra Kaew, a temple glistening with orange and green roof-tiles and millions of pieces of mirrored glass that sparkle and glisten in the sun.

The air is full of the sound of tinkling chimes. Scenes from the Ramakian–a Thai-Indian epic–decorate the muraled walls of the cloister surrounding the temple, displaying demonic images that are part human and part bestial with monkey faces.

Before the temple is an outdoor altar to various deities, where devout Buddhists burn incense and place lotus blossoms and chrysanthemums as offerings. Visitors are told to cover their legs with trousers or a long, modest skirt to gaze at the Green Buddha, a jasper quartz or nephrite jade figurine placed on a 20-foot dais overlooking respectful worshipers. The statue even has its own wardrobe: three robes marking dry, rainy and cool seasons, which are changed by the king himself. On the palace grounds sits another statue, this one representing Phra Siam Devadhiraj, which missionary Charles Kraft believes is the governing principality over Thailand. Thais believe this spirit has protected the nation from foreign invaders.

One of the world centers of a religion that claims 360 million followers worldwide is housed in Thailand. This austere religion, based on the principle of obtaining a blissful state–nirvana–after one has sufficiently tamed his or her passions, does not believe in a creator God, much less a loving or benevolent one. Rather it holds to the life principles taught by the Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. Founded six centuries before Christ, Buddhism eventually settled into three strands: Theravada, Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism.

Theravada Buddhism, which is prevalent in Thailand and Southeast Asia, is tremendously resistant to Christianity. Despite the heroic and sacrificial work of missionaries and national Christians, the growth rate of the Thai church is one of the slowest in the world. The Four Spiritual Laws do not work well in a society that does not believe in God, and the demands of Sunday church and weekly Bible study do not sit well in a society used to only a few temple visits per year.

Yet Bridge Communications, a book distributor squeezed into sixth-floor offices across the street from an upscale brothel, has the Thai franchise for the blockbuster Left Behind series. It has sold 15,000 copies to date, highly unusual for Christian books in this country. Typically, a Christian book might sell 1,500 copies over two to three years. Tribulation Force, released last May, also is doing well.

Buddhism has little to say about the end of the world. Some Buddhists are fascinated by the idea of a second coming, as there is a legend of another Buddha arriving on the world’s last day to bring about a period of peace.

“Our strategy is to penetrate Christian values and references throughout society using the media,” says managing director Somjai Raksasee. “That works in Buddhist society. If you share the gospel directly with a Buddhist, they will dismiss it as a Western religion. But they won’t throw away something they buy in a bookstore.”

A Resistant Mission Field

Christianity did come to Thailand literally from the West in 1567 through Portuguese Catholic missionaries. They were not allowed to convert the Thai, nor were Protestant missionaries who began arriving in the 1830s. Not until 1878 did King Rama V allow other religions to be proclaimed.

Today, the Thai government recognizes five Christian groups: Catholics, Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists and the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand: 1,200 congregations of assorted Protestants.

Outside of Bangkok, churches are smaller and more isolated. In central Thailand north of the capital, congregations are informal affairs in simple buildings where no shoes are allowed, according to Thai custom. One is pastored by a Buddhist convert who sought out Christianity for intellectual reasons. Another was founded in a rice field by a matriarch with leprosy patients for her congregants. It is now mostly made up of local merchants who befriended one another in the weekly marketplace.

Raksasee, who grew up Buddhist and was converted at age 22 through a Christian girlfriend, publishes a Christian magazine, Tomikachun, which means “The Saint,” for scattered Thai Christians. His company also translates material from Focus on the Family: No Apologies and Drug-Proof Your Kids. Both have been distributed in 40,000 secondary schools in Thailand by the government, as there is little other literature available to a society known for its huge numbers of HIV-positive citizens and its notorious sex industry.

“In this way,” Raksasee says, “we build relationships, we build trust, and we help people solve their problems.” Bridge has been operating only four years in Thailand, but it’s already producing some of the country’s top-selling books, such as a children’s Bible. However, there is no Thai Christian radio or TV station, and 90 percent of Bridge’s writers are American. Raksasee can list only 10 Thai Christian authors. “Translating,” he says, “is easier than writing, for us.”

Thailand, a polite country where strangers are greeted by a graceful folding of the hands held to one’s lips, is filled with people who one missionary describes as “pleasantly resistant” to Christianity. Like Japanese Buddhists, the Thai inclination is toward group and community, and their social networks make it extremely difficult for an individual to convert to another religion, thereby becoming a minority and outcast.

Buddhists have no concept of sin, which involves rebellion against a God who they do not believe exists. Suragarn Tangsirisatian, director of Youth for Christ in Thailand, works with university students he says are materialistic and obsessed with sex. Buddhism, which preaches indifference to the world’s longings instead of giving guidance on how to deal with them, has been of little help. Some students even prostitute themselves to earn money for much coveted cell phones, so he distributes copies of No Apologies to teach abstinence.

“In Buddhism, sex is all illusion, so it is no good,” he says. “Sex is evaluated as something that keeps you from nirvana.”

Tavivat Puntarigvivat, a Buddhist scholar at Mahidol University in Bangkok, refutes any claim that sex is illusory to Buddhism but does say the religion is being undermined by corruption within its own clergy and a Muslim minority in its four southernmost provinces.

“Other religions are taking advantage of the weakness of Buddhism in order to gain their converts,” he says. “Muslims in Thailand have been trying to enter Thai politics to pave the way for the growth of Islam in Thailand. They have successfully pressured us to change a number of laws in favor of Islam. The number of their converts is increasing, which alarms Thai Buddhists.”

Tangsirisatian says: “Most students want to know the basics of Christianity. We don’t have persecution in Thailand. We have prejudice against Christians, but not opposition. Thais have an easy-going mentality. It’s hard to confront them. But once we get intense about Christianity, there will be persecution.”

First the Christians need to get educated, says Silawech Kanjanamukda, director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand since 1983. The country has 25 Bible schools and five Bible colleges or seminaries and can use a lot more, he says, such as the Oklahoma-based Rhema Bible Training Center, which set up shop three years ago in southern Bangkok.

Both Raksasee and Kanjanamukda cited Pentecostal churches and training centers as the most effective in reaching the Thai because of their emphases on worship and aggressive evangelism. Wirachai Kowae, who founded the Assemblies of God (AG) in Thailand in 1969, is fiercely independent, friendly and proud of his country to the point that he says the Thai church no longer needs the help of foreign missionaries.

However, he owes his conversion to a 1957 visit by an American evangelist, T.L. Osborn, when he was 15. Today the country has 70 AG congregations that comprise 4,000 to 5,000 members. “The way we present the gospel is midway between gentleness and boldness,” Kowae says. “Thai people are gentle by nature. But you have to be bold enough to tell them what they need to know.”

Bold Witnesses

Theravada Buddhism in particular has strong Hindu and animistic influences, he adds, and can get quite occultic. Flowers or food are put in front of “spirit houses” in even highly sophisticated Bangkok neighborhoods to appease the neighborhood deity. Because Thais perceive the world as supernatural, they have no problem with miracles recorded in the Bible. Human sacrifice is seen as giving great spiritual power, and evidence of it is said to be under certain Thai temples.

Buddhism is the ultimate salvation-by-works program through karma, the idea that a person’s behavior leads to reward or punishment. One contributes to temples or gives food to a monk or even buys a cage filled with sparrows in order to set them free–all to gain merit. When a Buddhist earns enough merit, the evil he or she has done in this or a previous life will be canceled out so he or she will be reincarnated into a better existence.

Many Thai men traditionally become monks at the age of 20 for at least a few months, which brings great merit. The strict lifestyle, which involves keeping some 227 rules, also creates a spiritual stronghold.

Moreover, the king of Thailand is constitutionally required to be a Buddhist. The mantra of Thai life–nation, religion and king–illustrates how religion and monarchy hold the country together. The current king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is accorded godlike status. Having ascended the throne in 1946, he has been a stable figure in an era that has seen more than 20 prime ministers, 16 constitutions and 17 coups. Even T-shirts of his pet dog are prized.

Not only is the monarchy a source of spiritual energy for most Thais, but King Rama V is often worshiped as deity, and pictures of the royal family are seemingly on every wall in every building in the country. There is a reason for this omnipresent mixture of shrine and state. When the Buddhist base of a society is weakened, other religions can move in, notes Nobutaka Inoue, a Buddhist scholar at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, who studied the crumbling of Korean Buddhism after World War II.

“Christianity did better in Korea after the war because the Buddhist infrastructure was much weaker there,” he says. “The religious figure–priest, pastor and monk–is less functional these days. The story of Buddha is being spread more through comics,” citing a famed illustrator, Tezuka Osama, as an example.

Thai Buddhism lacks some of the intellectual rigors of Buddhism in Japan, as it is far more superstitious and rife with desires for good luck, power and help from the spirits. And Thai society has Buddhism interwoven into its daily life far more than does Japan, where Buddhism has fragmented and atheism is growing.

But in Thai markets, phallic wood carvings are placed in money baskets in shops or stalls, idols are sold in markets, and zodiac signs are hung about as good luck charms. Amulets also are hot sellers, as are incense sticks to be placed about the outer corners of a home.

Pentecostal worship cracks some of the spiritual resistance, Kowae says. He pastors Romyan Church, a large Bangkok congregation with an adjoining bookstore. It attracts 500 on a Sunday; a huge turnout compared with the typical Thai congregation of perhaps 20 people.

“I do believe this country is under control of the spirit of darkness, whose temples are everywhere,” he says. “A lot of people say the Thai are hard to win, but they’re not. They are open. They have a spiritual hunger. We had people saved at my church last Sunday. We can get them saved, but it’s hard to make them strong.”

It is a challenge to preach to the more passive southeastern Asian personality, he says, and the churches that are growing are the ones with the more aggressive leaders. One was Kriengsak Chareonwongsak, who founded Hope of Bangkok, a Pentecostal denomination that is still going strong.

“Of all the Thai Christians, the Pentecostals are winning converts the fastest because they are aggressive in their presentation,” Kowae says. “Sometimes people here beat around the bush too much.”

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Julia Duin, an assistant national editor for The Washington Times, visited Thailand and Japan in April and May.

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Adherents worldwide: 360 million

Largest concentrations: China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar

History: Buddhism was founded by a native of India, Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 B.C.), during the sixth century B.C. as a result of a spiritual experience during which he claimed to have attained “enlightenment.” He became the Buddha, or “enlightened one,” and began to teach others the path to this desired state, which he called the “Middle Way” because it eschewed the extremes of both affluence and asceticism.

Gautama won thousands of followers, but for 200 years after his death, Buddhism was confined to his homeland. Not until King Ashoka ruled India (274-232 B.C.) and became a proponent of the new religion did it spread to other countries. Today there are three major branches of the religion: Mahayana Buddhism; Theravada Buddhism; and Vajrayana, or Tibetan,
Buddhism.

Core beliefs: Beliefs among Buddhists are diverse. However, most Buddhists share at least the beliefs contained in Buddha’s Four Noble Truths:

* Life is made up of suffering.

* The cause of suffering is a craving for temporal things.

* The key to freedom from suffering is to eliminate this desire.

* The means to eliminate desire–and therefore suffering–is the Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

The ultimate goal in life for a Buddhist is to reach “nirvana”–a state of existence that is free from all desire.

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Movie stars have helped make Los Angeles the headquarters of Buddhism in the West.

Los Angeles may be the second largest city in the country, but experts say it has become the first unofficial headquarters of Buddhism in the United States.

According to the Sonrise Center for Buddhist Studies (SCBS) in Sierra Madre, California, a group that seeks to equip and train the Christian community to evangelize Buddhists, Diana L. Eck, director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University, believes “Los Angeles is writing the history of Buddhism in America.”

It boasts the home of the largest Buddhist temple in the Western Hemisphere, Hsi Lai, or “Coming to the West,” which recently purchased the Christian Narramore Center for $6.5 million for their new Buddhist University.

“All in all, Buddhism is making incredible inroads into America’s religious, political and cultural circles,” say officials for SCBS, which was started in 1988 by Jim Stevens, a Buddhist leader for 14 years before he became a Christian. “It has unfortunately become the religion of choice in Hollywood.”

Buddhism’s influence in America has been bolstered by endorsements by a growing number of celebrities, including singer Tina Turner, actor Richard Gere, model Cindy Crawford, golfer Tiger Woods and Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

Additionally, the latest wave of Buddhist movies such as Little Buddha, Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun have accelerated the visits on the Free Tibet Web site from 500 hits per week to 40,000. According to the Sonrise Center, Gere’s production company has sponsored a tour with Tibetan monks who last year began efforts to build sand mandalas (Buddhist symbols of deities) in 100 U.S. cities within 18 months.

“These will attract hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting seekers and observers who are blind to the reality this represents as this temporary home to 722 Tibetan deities, also known as demons,” SCBS officials say.

To former Thailand missionary Alex Smith, a “minister at large” with Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) International, which specializes in Buddhism, Buddhists are “the neglected giant in missions.”

“Today it claims 10 million followers in the . alone, where over 1,500 Buddhist temples are countable and hundreds of Buddhist associations flourish,” Smith writes in his booklet Buddhism Through Christian Eyes.

Smith believes American churches face a daunting challenge with the recent growth of Buddhism in the West–a phenomenon of the last 50 years that could likely increase in the 21st century.

“Among the major world religions, Buddhism, with its emphasis on meditation, purity, peace and ethics, appears to be the most nonthreatening,” says Smith, who spent 20 years in Thailand with his wife, Faith, serving in pioneer evangelism, church planting and training of national leaders.

Joseph and Hannah Ems, regional facilitators of the Tibetan Buddhist world for the Network for Strategic Missions in Virginia, told Charisma: “Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism, is overtly a power religion with real demonic power displays. It is a ‘do it yourself’ religion, which often suits Westerners seeking freedom to live outside structures of morality, yet meeting their inherent need for spiritual answers.”

Ministries that try to reach Buddhists say prayer is the key. Littleton, Colorado-based OMF has resources for reaching Buddhists as well as for praying for the Buddhist world through its Web sites and .
Eric Tiansay

My daughters laughed at me last month when I got a buzz cut and bought a used Army uniform to wear at Charisma’s Get on the Front Lines conference. They thought my costume was a publicity stunt. And they worried that if I was seen in public, people would assume I was one of those paramilitary weirdos who hide assault rifles and fertilizer bombs in their garages.

Don’t worry. I don’t own a gun, and my garage has room for only bicycles, rollerblades and lawn equipment. I’m a peaceful family guy. But I cut my hair and donned these battle fatigues to make a prophetic statement to the church. And I’m not growing my hair back until the church hears me out.

My heart is stirred because I hear the sound of war. Do you hear it?

When I say war, I’m not talking about American military action against Iraq–even though that is a real possibility. I’m talking about a spiritual offensive against the forces of darkness, a battle launched by brave Christians who are serious about advancing the gospel in this generation. When I say war, I’m not talking about grenades, smart bombs or ground troops. I’m talking about humble people who are so full of the Holy Ghost that their prayers, love and faith can send territorial demons screaming in terror in seven directions.

God has called us to be a victorious army. But there’s a problem: The American church has become a civilian force. Our uniforms are folded and put away, and our weapons are rusty and in disrepair. The devil is advancing, yet his movements aren’t showing up on our malfunctioning radar screens. It’s not too late to launch a counterattack, but we must take these steps to become combat-ready:

1. Develop a warrior mentality. Most American Christians don’t want to launch an offensive against the devil. We don’t like war. We’d rather enjoy our middle-class comforts while believers in China, Pakistan or Vietnam do all the struggling. We have no idea what it means to spend time in the trenches where the bullets are real and the body bags are filled with family members and friends.

We’re like a bunch of weak-kneed draft-dodgers. We think church is a “bless me and make me rich” club, so we let prosperity preachers tickle our ears and lull us to sleep. First Peter 4 says we are called to suffer. Let’s memorize it and let God change our warped theology.

2. Allow regular tent inspections. Got some sin hidden under your mattress? Don’t wait for the preacher to give an altar call. He may have some contraband under his bed, too. The Holy Spirit is requiring all warriors to embrace radical holiness. We can’t advance on the battlefield if we’ve given the devil a place to hide in our own hearts.

3. Know your mandate. Quit looking up in the sky and hoping for Jesus to
rapture us out of here tomorrow. In Acts 1:7-11, Jesus asked the disciples (who were staring into the clouds) to refocus their attention on the job at hand–which was to evangelize the world. His orders haven’t changed. We have many fierce battles ahead before that assignment is completed.

4. Receive new power. If you feel weak and ineligible for this war, join the crowd. None of us is qualified to be in this army. But when we trade our strength for His, hell will suffer some major damage.

Let’s roll!

In Nepal, the world’s only official Hindu state, Christians are breaking strict
religious laws to win converts.
Every October, millions of Nepalis celebrate Deshain, the most important Hindu religious holiday. On the eighth day of the 10-day celebration, men pull out their razor-sharp khukuris, and the slaughter begins.

According to tradition, the goddess Durga is to be worshiped through animal sacrifices for her victory over evil. Chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, water buffalo–none are exempt from having their throats slit or heads lopped off. Their blood splatters stone altars strewn with flowers, rice, grains and coins. It sprays taxis, buses, trucks, even motors at hydroelectric power-plant facilities.

“I’ve heard Westerners say the Nepalis are savages,” says Sarla Mahara, Nepal director for Christian Aid Mission, an agency assisting approximately 169 indigenous missions worldwide. “But in reality, the blood sacrifices simply show their search for God.”

Mahara knows what she’s talking about. Born and raised a Nepali Hindu, she converted to Christianity at age 24. Her relatives still offer animal sacrifices.

“The Nepalis have an amazing understanding of God and sin, more so than North Americans,” Mahara says. “Their word for sin–pap–clearly conveys the concept. Like in Old Testament days, their sacrifices are attempts to get rid of that sin.”

The spiritual search infiltrates every aspect of life in the world’s only official Hindu kingdom, landlocked between India, China and Tibet. With Hinduism embracing 330 million gods, the capital, Kathmandu, boasts more temples than houses and more idols than inhabitants. Chants and strains of tantric hymns haunt twisted ancient streets dotted with pagodas, stone idols, spinning prayer wheels and multicolored prayer flags.

Of the 24 million people populating Nepal, almost 75 percent are Hindu, according to Operation World’s 2001 statistics. Buddhists make up 16
percent, followed by Muslims with 5 percent and Christians with less than 2 percent.

A recent government census downplays Christianity’s growth, reporting its presence as less than percent. Nepali pastors refute the census results, saying some areas were not properly surveyed because of the 6-year-old Maoist insurgency that has claimed more than 4,000 lives. Also, Christians claimed to be Hindus to avoid discrimination.

Despite the lack of written Scriptures (there are at least 124 distinct languages spoken in Nepal), the church is growing exponentially. Pastor Simon Pandey, secretary of the National Churches Fellowship of Nepal, believes there are 500,000 Christians in 3,000 or more congregations in the Himalayan kingdom today–a stark contrast from 1959 when the first church group was formed with 29 believers. Most have converted in the last decade after a bloody revolution in 1990 that left hundreds dead, instituting a constitutional monarchy after years of rule under an absolute monarchy.

Nepal’s borders opened to the outside world in 1951, at which time a limited number of foreign missionaries and aid organizations were allowed to enter. Since then, in an attempt to preserve the Hindu kingdom, the government has upheld laws condemning evangelism or conversion to other faiths. At the same time, it claims religious freedom, as long as one follows the faith of his or her parents.

“The constitution says one can practice his faith–Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, whatever–but conversion is against the law,” Mahara says. “If you’re a second-generation Christian, it’s OK because you’ve inherited your faith from your parents. It’s like a catch-22. How are you going to have second-generation Christians if conversion is illegal?”

Baptism is considered the ultimate proof of conversion. Performing the rite can result in a six-year prison sentence. The person being baptized can face a prison term of up to two years. Church meetings are technically illegal, although congregations are generally free to worship within the confines of their buildings, which are registered under the names of three or four members.

A Land of Miracles

Whether or not the law is enforced often depends upon individual police officers’ and local authorities’ attitudes toward believers. If a regional government representative is anti-Christian, believers face a greater degree of scrutiny and possible persecution. Urban Christians enjoy greater freedom than their rural counterparts, who find that oppression often comes more from family and society than from the law.

“Christianity is still regarded as the foreigner’s religion,” Mahara says. “Converting brings shame. New believers are regarded as untouchables, the caste you don’t mix with.”

The Maoist uprising has presented believers with new challenges. In some regions, Maoists have closed churches. In other areas, they forbid Christians from removing political banners they’ve hung.

“Because of the Maoists’ takeover attempt, police can arrest or kill anyone suspected of being a terrorist,” explains John Schwartz of Gospel For Asia (GFA), an agency that provides Bible training for 6,000 national believers across Asia. “These laws are being used against Christians, like in the case of ‘Brother S,’ a GFA missionary accused by Buddhist lamas [monks] of being a terrorist, then threatened by police with death if he continued to preach in his village.”

Manja, another of GFA’s Nepali missionaries, was imprisoned two years ago after being accused of murder. He was sentenced to 20 years incarceration even though witnesses testified to his whereabouts on the day of the crime.

Despite opposition, God is building His kingdom, largely in the countryside among illiterate villagers. Extreme poverty and political instability have left people hungry for truth.

Physical healing is one of the main tools God is using. One American missionary (who asked not to be identified because of security reasons) has devoted more than three decades to Scripture translation. He estimates that miracles and healings are responsible for at least 80 percent of conversions among villagers.

“These people aren’t worried about getting to heaven,” he says. “They’re worried about basic survival–having enough food to eat, not falling off walking trails, keeping their babies alive. They’re worried about surviving the demons. They’re not going to adopt Christianity if God doesn’t have the power to heal them or meet their needs.”

He recalls several situations in which villagers have been healed from poisonous snakebites, which, in rural Nepal, mean certain death. In one case, a viper bit a woman’s hand. As the victim’s arm swelled, she called on a local believer, Prem Singh, to pray. He did so, but only after presenting the gospel to her. After he’d prayed for healing, the pain ebbed down her arm and out her fingers. The woman returned to work the next day.

In another instance, a viper bit Singh in his foot. As poison ran up his leg, he defied Hindu tradition that says snakes are gods and not to be killed. He grabbed a stick, killed the viper and prayed for healing. Within minutes, the pain drained down his leg and out his foot. Singh finished herding his goats and walked home. Two fang marks in his foot proved his story and cemented his reputation as having the gift of “snake-bite medicine.”

Believers report that not everyone who witnesses a healing accepts Jesus as his or her Savior. Witch doctors sometimes claim the credit. For that reason, believers often ask the sick or wounded, “When you’re healed, who will you say healed you–Jesus or the witch doctor?” If they reply, “Jesus,” they receive prayer.

The missionary speaks of Pitam and Kumari, a Christian couple frequently asked to pray for the sick and mentally ill. On one occasion, a man and woman facing the impending death of their 30-year-old daughter approached them. Discouraged by seeing people refuse to believe even after witnessing many healings, Pitam and Kumari prayed, “God, do something really big this time!”

When they arrived at the woman’s house, they found her near death, lying on her mud-and-rock veranda. The moment they stepped onto the veranda to pray, she sat up and began talking.

Visions of Christ

Daniel Ghale, a former witch doctor who converted to Christianity after reading the New Testament, directs one of Kathmandu’s half-dozen Bible training centers. He says he has witnessed the lame walk, the blind see and the deaf hear. He reports that villagers’ animals are also healed when believers pray for them.

Stories are told of villagers being saved after encountering visions of Christ while walking along remote footpaths, or of villagers praying to a god named Jesus after dreaming about Him.

Mahara says she has met illiterate people able to recite the entire Bible. “We sat around the fire at night, and they told stories and recited Scripture like I’ve never seen before,” she says. “These are simple people–they just believe. All they know is that Jesus Christ is God, and He died for them. He’s their Savior. There’s not much question regarding doctrine or theology or biblical interpretation–the things that become stumbling blocks to intellectuals.”

The situation is different in remote areas and urban centers where denominations including Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Lutherans and Anglicans have moved in since the 1990 revolution. As congregations become affiliated with denominations, many Nepali pastors are sent to the United States for education. When they return, they often incorporate American church traditions into worship.

“Nepali worship services are becoming like mini-American churches. That saddens me,” Mahara says.

Even though mass gatherings are currently squelched due to Maoist activity, the last decade witnessed unprecedented events uniting believers from all denominations. In 1991, a Billy Graham crusade was broadcast into a Kathmandu stadium via satellite each evening for nearly a week. Approximately 5,000 people attended each service. In 1993, the government granted permission for a peaceful Easter march through the city. At least 5,000 believers participated.

The church’s growth continues to explode even though it faces persecution and opposition from the World Hindu Federation which has openly demanded that the government formulate policies to control proselytizing.

Approximately one-fourth of the population has viewed the Jesus film. Bible correspondence courses have resulted in many new churches being planted. According to Operation World’s statistics, there are now more than 13 Bible colleges and seminaries. Smaller Bible training centers disciple groups of eight to 12 men and women for several months each year.

Although hundreds of graduates are working among the millions of unreached Nepalis in India, Sikkim and Bhutan, the majority are returning to their own villages, evangelizing and encouraging fellow believers. Key denominational and indigenous agency bodies also are discussing plans for a unified discipleship plan.

To the 500,000 disciples of Christ living in the shadow of the Himalayas, the bloody Deshain ceremony no longer marks Durga’s victory over evil. Rather, it provides an opportunity for them to gather with fellow believers to celebrate ultimate victory gained through Christ’s perfect sacrifice.

They’ve been set free from the religion of Hinduism and a way of life steeped in ritualistic tradition. They’re willing to pay the price so their countrymen can hear the gospel and experience the victory for themselves.

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Grace Fox is an award-winning writer from British Columbia. She and her husband worked in Nepal for almost three years.

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Adherents worldwide: 900 million

Largest concentrations: Nepal, India, Mauritius, Guyana

History: Hinduism is one of the oldest and most complex religions, having originated in India around 1500 B.C. as a polytheistic, ritualistic system of beliefs. As it developed, the rituals performed became so involved that a priestly class was created and a form of scriptures, the Vedas, were written to provide instructions for how to conduct the rituals. Today Hinduism, a syncretistic blend of religious, philosophical and social doctrines, comprises an entire family of religions, with widely varied beliefs and practices.

Core beliefs: Although Hinduism is extremely diverse, most Hindus believe in Brahman, the Three-in-One God (Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; and Shiva, the Destroyer); Brahman-Atman unity (the understanding that man is extended from and is one with Brahman); the Caste System; the Law of Karma; reincarnation (a series of rebirths through which each soul, by right living, can rise to a higher state); nirvana (the final state reached when the soul is freed from the cycle of rebirths); and Dharma (the Law of Moral Order, which must be followed to reach nirvana).

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Its new converts say Hinduism offers a spirituality without absolutes.

The U.S. Congress got a taste of Americans’ broadening thirst for Eastern spirituality on September 14, 2000, when Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala became the first-ever Hindu priest to deliver the opening-day prayer to the House of Representatives.

Samuldrala, from the Shiva Vishnu Hindu Temple in Parma, Ohio, delivered the invocation before India’s Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, addressed a joint session of Congress. Today America boasts a practicing Hindu population of approximately 1.4 million people, a mere speck of the estimated 900 million Hindus in the world.

In the last 30 years, Hinduism surfaced in America quietly through the popularity of self-help practices such as yoga and meditation. But a more formal, ritual-worship, Americanized brand of Hinduism has found easy inroads into a highly mobilized, materialistic American society that loathes the confinement of traditional religion, with its buildings and hierarchical establishment.

In recent years, Hindu temples have sprung up all over the United States in cities such as Houston; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Orlando, Florida. Hinduism had a slow start in the states until American writers including Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) lauded the Bhagavad Gita, a poetic Hindu devotional work.

In 1893, Swami Vivekananda introduced the nature of Hindu ideals in a public forum at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. A year later, the swami founded the Vendanta Society in New York–the first Hindu organization aimed at converting Americans to Hinduism.

But it was the Immigration Act of 1965 that brought a huge influx of Asian immigrants to the United States. Hindu immigrants from India began building temples with a focus on the ritual worship of images during the 1970s, mainly under the branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Better known as the Hare Krishna Movement, it is not accepted as legitimate by many mainstream Hindus in India, despite support from the late Beatle George Harrison.

In America, says noted author and missions strategist Dean C. Halverson, spirituality is in, and organized religion is out. Halverson is a campus minister and the director of Apologetics for International Students. He befriends and shares Christ with Hindus and people of other faiths by working with international students.

“Hinduism is popular because it offers spiritual techniques, and it leaves the matter of supplying a foundation for convictions or beliefs up to the individual,” Halverson says. “Because our culture does not believe in absolute, objective truth, we place value not in the finding of the truth, but in the searching for it.

“Christianity, on the other hand, is viewed as answering the question, ‘What does He require of me?’ But the idea of ‘requiring something of me’ is not popular in today’s culture.”

Hinduism, Halverson notes, offers a path, but not so much a goal. “Yes, there is a goal, but the goal is so far out of reach that it is virtually unreachable. The goal requires innumerable incarnations to attain. But that’s OK, Hindus think, because there’s joy in the search.”
Billy Bruce

Though it feels like everything is crumbling around us, we have a choice; we can watch from the sidelines or be used as God’s vessel in the midst.

The times you and I now live in could be lumped into categories ranging from “unsure” to “unsettling” to “unnerving” to flat-out “frightening.” One great positive during these days, however, is the fact that God is not the least bit nervous about what’s happening.

He, in fact, told us there would be periods like this. Living our lives from God’s perspective allows us to share one of many distinct advantages with Him–we can have peace while troublesome times are brewing all around.

Some passages in the New Testament provide us with a parallel to current world affairs. Consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 24. His disciples asked Him, “‘What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?'” (v. 3, NIV). When I think about how Jesus answered His followers, it seems as if He had been watching today’s CNN Headline News reports. He said:

* Many would come in His name and deceive many. That was true in Bible times and, unfortunately, is still true today.

* We would hear of wars and rumors of wars. That is the essence of terrorism, isn’t it? Are we or other nations at war, and if so, where and against whom?

* Nation would rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. “Once an ally, now a foe” is the story of relations between many countries. Tomorrow could always bring a role reversal between peaceful nations.

* Famines, pestilence and earthquakes would occur in various places. Even in the United States we have hunger, AIDS, cancer, Ebola, hepatitis C and earthquakes–not just in California, but also in the Midwest and along the East Coast.

* Persecution would arise and many would be offended because of the gospel. Seemingly over nothing we will split marriages, friendships, relationships, even churches. I have met people who become offended at the drop of a hat.

The list continues with lawlessness abounding (often evident in the church as well as the world) and love growing cold (toward God and others). This could get downright depressing. But take courage–causing fear is not the Lord’s purpose in these verses; neither is it my purpose in this column.

To these disastrous yet prophetic truths Jesus adds words of instruction, encouragement and exhortation. In them lie liberating truths that are applicable to our lives, whether we are living in the actual end times or not.

Liberating truth 1. “‘Watch out that no one deceives you'” (v. 4). How? Get solidly grounded in your everyday walk with Christ. Become deeply rooted in God’s Word. Some clear-cut contributing factors that can lead to deception include having no knowledge of Scripture, patchwork theology, unrestrained pursuit of carnal appetites and a know-it-all spiritual attitude.

Liberating truth 2. “‘See to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come”‘ (v. 6). The good news is, we can do something about what troubles us. When you live with a solid assurance of who God is and what His Word says, your trust will be in Him and not in the circumstance du jour.

Liberating truth 3. “‘But he who stands firm to the end will be saved'” (v. 13). This is probably not a favorite sermon topic (for a pastor or for his flock), yet Jesus wouldn’t speak of it if it weren’t a necessary element of personal end-time victory. The message of enduring hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ is probably not the most popular way to recruit workers for ministry either, but the Scripture says, “We count them blessed who endure” (James 5:11, NKJV).

Liberating truth 4. “‘And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come'” (v. 14, NIV). God will make sure that in good times, bad times or end times, the gospel will be preached. The question is, will He do it with us or without us?

You and I have a choice of either being on the sidelines watching or being in the middle of it all as a vessel of love, life, healing and salvation.

Let’s not wait until the end times to allow Jesus to use us to bring others into the kingdom of God. Let’s start today!

The Holy Spirit is moving today in unprecedented ways, even in countries where the gospel is not welcome.
So many Christians I meet today worry that the sky is falling. They say: “The world is getting so dark. I just hope Jesus comes back soon.” They are afraid of foreign terrorists on our airplanes, anthrax in our mailboxes or snipers near our Home Depots. They want to evacuate the planet every time the stock market drops, gasoline prices rise or Osama bin Laden issues another one of his cowardly threats via videotape.

That’s sad–because God did not call us to walk in fear or to run from giants. His command to Joshua–“Be strong and the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9, NASB)–is our mandate today. We are commanded to replace our fears with faith. We are called to invade darkness with the light of the gospel. No matter how formidable our enemies may be, and no matter how small or weak we feel when we face them, we should remember Joshua’s words: “For you shall drive out the Canaanites, even though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong” (Josh. 17:18).

Thankfully, Christians in other countries are displaying apostolic courage in the face of resistance. Risking jail, torture and martyrdom, they are proclaiming Christ, planting churches and overthrowing ancient demonic powers. Even in the Islamic world, where radical clerics and suicide bombers are warring for control, statistics show that more Muslims are coming to Christ today than in any other time in history.

This special Holy Spirit Around the World issue of Charisma will show you how God is working in the most oppressive spiritual environments. For example, you will discover that the gospel is spreading in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where religious police disrupt meetings and monitor Saudi citizens who visit Christian Internet sites. You’ll also learn how a North Korean evangelist put his life on the line last year (and is probably dead by now) so he could preach the gospel in the world’s only atheist state.

As you read these reports from North Korea, Saudi Arabia, France, Australia, Nepal, Thailand and the Dominican Republic, I hope you will see the world differently. Recognize that the giants aren’t as big as you have thought. Let faith arise, and then go out and invade the darkness around you.

In 2003, commit to a lifestyle change, not to a list of unrealistic goals.
Question: I’ve not been able to lose the extra weight of my last pregnancy, five years ago. I feel unattractive and depressed. My New Year’s resolutions for this have failed. What can I do?
., New Bern, North Carolina

Answer: If you want to make a New Year’s resolution, don’t waste time on fad diets and unrealistic exercise goals. Instead, commit yourself to a lifestyle change that has irrefutable scientific proof behind it.

The “Women’s Health Initiative Study,” conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, reported in 1999 a dramatic reduction in cardiovascular diseases that was attributed to down-to-earth lifestyle changes enacted by some of the participants. More than 16,000 female nurses participated.

Half of them continued with their typical American lifestyle. The other half kept the study’s specific lifestyle changes. All of them attended regular medical checkups.

At the end of five years, the courageous lifestyle-changers were rewarded. Their incidence of heart attack, congestive heart failure, stroke and hypertension was 82 percent lower than that of the junk-food junkies! (Of course, men benefit equally from healthful lifestyle changes.)

The health of these nurses was improved dramatically through very reachable goals. They could not smoke or drink alcohol (except in moderation–one glass of red wine with meals), and they had to stay in shape by eating a Mediterranean-style diet, exercising a half hour a day and maintaining a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 percent. A BMI of 25 percent is quite forgiving–only 10-15 pounds over your ideal weight.

You’ll look great, feel more energetic, and lower your risk of heart disease and cancer if you will begin to avoid processed and junk foods, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, increase your intake of nuts and olive oil, and eat fish instead of red meat. A Mediterranean-style diet resembles the one God gave the Jews in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Still, it can be difficult to maintain a diet varied enough to obtain all the nutrients we need. Even the strictest vegetarians I know believe in supplementation. I recommend a natural-food supplement. Try to verify that the supplement you choose is derived from a plant source and is processed naturally.

I also strongly recommend adding fresh carrot juice to your diet. The anti-oxidizing power of carrots is second to none.

Carrot juice is to free radicals what RoboCop is to criminals–it stops them dead in their tracks!

Remember, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Don’t contaminate it with junk food.

Question: I have been smoking for 15 years. Every New Year’s Eve I promise to quit, but I just can’t do it. Do you have any advice?
M.T., Chicago, Illinois

Answer: It’s incredible to me how more than 1.5 million Americans die each year from heart disease and cancer. If only 30 percent of them are smokers, then that means cigarette companies lose almost 500,000 clients a year–and aren’t even fazed by it. They just convince more people to smoke.

I won’t try to “scare you straight.” I think you already know your body is to be a temple for God. But my heart goes out to you because you have a very difficult chemical and emotional dependency.

I have seen in our addiction program at my hospital that people can kick heroin, cocaine and alcohol much more easily than they can quit cigarettes. I even have had patients with lung cancer tell me they will not be giving up their cigarettes. It’s tough as nails to quit.

Medications and medicated patches can help with the craving. We also do detoxification therapy and have helped many people simply with good nutrition.

If you have tried everything, my advice is that you take this to God in prayer. He is the only one who can fill the space in your spirit and mind that you are currently filling with smoke.

Do you remember how Jesus had to cast out a demon because His disciples couldn’t? When they asked Him why they failed, He told them it would come out only with prayer and fasting (see Mark 9:29). Likewise, that’s the only way many people can quit smoking.

The Lord is always willing to help. If you really want to quit, God will deliver you.

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Francisco Contreras, M.D., oversees Oasis of Hope Hospital (), a cancer-care facility in Mexico widely known for alternative-treatment methods. He is the author of several books on health, including his new The Coming Cancer Cure (SiloamPress, ).