Founder of the Center for Moral Clarity, Rod Parsley says believers must influence public policy
Popular charismatic minister Rod Parsley has been touring the nation, telling Christians that they must continue to make their voices heard in the political arena.

“Although the Christian block represents the largest special-interest group in America, our values are being trampled under foot,” said Parsley, pastor of 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio.

“Only 2 percent of the population of America claim to be homosexual and yet their issues are being moved forward at a much more rapid pace than ours are on the floor of the Congress. So we believe we need a lot more players on the field.”

To that end, Parsley in July launched the Center for Moral Clarity (CMC), a grass-roots, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization aimed at mobilizing Christians around public policy issues that have spiritual roots, namely gay marriage, abortion and genocide in Sudan. Parsley said he expects the CMC ( ) to have broader appeal among charismatics than other Christian political groups.

“Of course, there’s room for everybody. The problem has been, historically, that the church has been too silent on these issues,” Parsley said. “Our stance is that we’re going to be silent no more. Our history compels it, our times demand it, our future requires it, and we believe God is watching.”

He said the CMC will champion just issues that challenge leaders on both sides of the political line. “It is certainly wrong that homosexuals are lobbying to change the definition of marriage in America. But it’s equally wrong that one of out six of our children are going to bed every night hungry,” Parsley said.

“It’s equally as wrong that racism is still rampant in our society,” he continued. “It’s equally as wrong that a woman only makes 78 percent of the wage that a man in her position makes. So we need to speak out on all of these issues for righteousness’ sake.”

Beyond pushing for passage of a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples only, Parsley said the CMC is working to raise awareness about the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, which would enable pastors to speak out about political issues without their churches’ tax-exempt status being threatened.

Sponsored by North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, HR 235 passed in the House in July but must still be considered by the Senate. Parsley said the bill is critical in light of hate-crimes legislation that is being used in Canada and Sweden to prosecute pastors who speak out against homosexuality.

In June pastor Ake Green, who leads a 40-member Pentecostal church in Sweden, was sentenced to one month in jail for saying “abnormal sexual practices are like a cancerous growth in the body of society” during a 2003 sermon. Fellow Swedish minister Ulf Ekman was sued for alleged hate speech against homosexuals, though authorities decided not to prosecute the megachurch pastor.

Parsley said Canadian broadcasts of his Breakthrough TV program can include his reading Scriptures about homosexuality, but not his explanation of the moral implications of those verses. He said a similar trend is emerging in the United States.

In September, the California legislature passed a hate-crimes bill that is much like Canada’s laws protecting homosexuals from offensive speech. Similar legislation was being considered in Congress, though it failed to pass in the House.

U.S. ministers say attempts to silence religious speech have intensified. Bishop C. Anthony Muse, pastor of Ark of Safety Christian Church in Washington, D.C., was accused of endorsing himself two years ago when he solicited votes during a campaign for public office.

A former Democratic Maryland legislator and president of Clergy United in the D.C. metro area, Muse said he paid $100,000 in legal fees to combat threats to his church’s nonprofit status before being found faultless.

In Philadelphia, Michael Marcavage, an activist and director of Repent America, was arrested with 10 others for passing out Christian literature at the city’s OutFest gay pride event Oct. 10. They were charged on eight counts, including criminal conspiracy, which is a felony, and ethnic intimidation, which Marcavage and his attorney believe to be part of the state’s hate-crimes law.

Previously, Marcavage had been escorted from a council meeting in Lansdowne, first community in Delaware County to have an openly gay man on the council–after attempting to read a passage from Romans 1, which condemns homosexuality. He was scheduled to stand trial before the end of the year and faced up to 15 months in jail and a $2,800 fine.

Joseph Murray, Marcavage’s lawyer and a staff attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, said that even if a minister is overzealous, the First Amendment protects his or her freedom to speak.

Days after the Philadelphia incident, Murray filed a suit against the City of Philadelphia for habitually violating Marcavage’s First Amendment rights. Murray said he has seen an increase in cases of Christians who were arrested for engaging in religious free speech.

“The political climate today is not particularly friendly toward Christians,” Murray said. “Right now, we are not living in the country that most of us grew up in.”

Parsley said prayer, information and activism are the three tools the CMC will use to mobilize Christians at the grass roots. Before the November election, Parsley urged congregations to start by simply voting, citing statistics that there had been a 40 percent drop in voter turnout among evangelicals.

In October, he spoke to the 3,000-member Grand Rapids First Assembly of God in Michigan. “I deeply feel our country is at a crossroads,” said pastor Scott Hagan. “I try to be very careful when it comes to mixing the kingdom and politics. [Parsley’s sermon] is definitely not a candidate-driven message. When public policy begins to speak to issues directly spoken to in Scripture, it has nothing to do with a candidate.”

He said he hoped the message motivated his congregation to prayer and “godly citizenship, not political activism … not toward politics, but toward righteousness.”

For his part, Parsley said he hopes more Christians will run for local-government seats, serving on school boards and city councils. He said he’s not worried about having complaints against his ministry filed with the IRS. “I believe that the church that claims to uphold the cause of Christ yet condemns confrontation is little more than a social club that wants rain without thunder and lightning,” he told Charisma.

“Our armor prophesies that we are headed for a conflict, and I believe we’re built for the battle; we’re created for the conflict. The church is nothing unless it is salt and light in the society into which the Lord has infused us. And we’re looking for revival–a true, genuine, culture-shaking move of God where the moral climate of our cities is changed, and the effect is felt like shock waves throughout the entire nation.”

Adrienne S. Gaines

Bishop T.D. Jakes’ first film, which tackles sexual abuse, landed in the top 10 in the movie box office after its Oct. 1 release. Woman, Thou Art Loosed: The Movie, based on Jakes’ best-selling 1993 book of the same name, opened at No. 6 with $2.5 million, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

“We’re thrilled with the opening,” Jakes, 47, told Charisma. “We’re very optimistic about the response that we’re getting. … There seems to be a groundswell of demand for this movie.”

Starring Kimberly Elise (The Manchurian Candidate) as a woman traumatized by childhood sexual abuse who lands on death row, the movie opened in 408 theaters in 77 cities nationwide, about a tenth the number of Shark Tale, which opened as the top weekend movie with $49.1 million.

Jakes, pastor of the 28,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas, said the film would be shown in more theaters in subsequent weeks, although he didn’t have specific figures. The movie reportedly played before sold-out theaters in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Detroit and Atlanta.

“I didn’t even know what to expect with the movie [in the box office],” Jakes said. “I had no experience in films. Ignorance is bliss. I was really excited for what has emerged. I see [domestic abuse] as an epidemic in our society. I see this movie as a catalyst for deep healing.”

A collaboration between Jakes’ for-profit T.D. Jakes Enterprises and producer Reuben Cannon (Love Don’t Cost a Thing, Get on the Bus), the R-rated Woman, Thou Art Loosed intersperses gritty scenes of sexual abuse, drug use and domestic violence with Jakes preaching a Los Angeles revival and ministering to the condemned prisoner.

Jakes has not revealed the cost of the film, but he said it was funded with his own private money, as well as financing from investors, including talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, director Spike Lee and actor Danny Glover.
­Eric Tiansay

Pentecostal Bishop Charles Blake says African Americans have been positioned, like Joseph, to reach out to Africa

Seeking to replicate the level of commitment Jews demonstrate toward Israel, a bishop in a predominately African American Pentecostal denomination has launched a nationwide campaign to raise tens of millions of dollars for Africa primarily through black Christians.

The impetus for the effort is the AIDS and HIV pandemic, which thus far has killed about 17 million Africans and left 14 million children there orphaned.

Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., senior pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles, founded the nonprofit Save Africa’s Children three years ago after touring the continent and seeing the ravaging effects of the disease on the population.

Now Blake, who supports orphans through $3 million in contributions, is seeking to significantly broaden the program. With the United Nations projecting that the number of orphaned children will triple by 2010, Blake is pressing African Americans to ratchet up their commitment to Africa to make a bigger dent in the problem.

“I am appealing to African Americans–but not just African Americans exclusively,” said Blake, who recently celebrated his 35th anniversary as senior pastor of the 24,000-member congregation and serves as first assistant presiding bishop in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC).

“The divine providential positioning of African Americans is like the divine positioning of Joseph, who was [oppressed] but ultimately came to power and prosperity and was able to help his people,” he added. “Our purpose is to reach back and become for Africa what Jewish Americans have become for Israel.”

Save Africa’s Children is supporting 28,000 children in 160 “orphan-care projects” across Africa. The orphan-care projects include families who agree to raise the orphans; “cluster huts,” which care for 10 to 15 orphans at a time; and orphanages.

“I saw the poverty of people whose income is $200 to $300 a year,” said Blake, who last visited the continent over the summer and recruited a delegation of doctors to examine and treat the orphans.

“I saw a continent of people who are hard-working and struggling to enhance themselves, but without the resources,” he added. “Most of the orphan-care projects had twice as many children on the waiting list as are in the program.”

By 2010 Blake wants to raise enough money to support at least 50,000 children in 1,000 orphan-care projects. Thus, he is appealing to the public on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which regularly televises from his sanctuary, and to 60,000 black churches for support.

To further spread the word, the campaign will produce a documentary, an infomercial and public service announcements on the orphans, said Darrell Smith, the foundation’s executive director. “Our goal is to help Africans help themselves,” Smith said.

“The civil rights movement started in the black church,” Smith said, adding that he hopes the campaign can mobilize African Americans in a similar way.

Meanwhile, Blake, who helped found the Pan African Charismatic Evangelical Congress, has sounded the Africa theme at his home church by hosting ambassadors from nations, including Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania, as well as cultural exchange programs.

And he has urged members to join the fund-raising drive. “This is our motherland; we have to help out,” said Marcos Day, who has raised $3,000 through $5 and $10 donations dropped into an empty five-gallon water bottle at his San Fernando Valley barbershop.

Blake, who was among about 10 prominent African American ministers who helped persuade President Bush in 2001 to pledge $15 billion in aid for Africa, said: “We are more prosperous than any other black people on the face of the earth. When we use our influence, Africa will have a higher priority [among Americans] and will advance.”
Dion Haynes in Los Angeles

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For more information about Save Africa’s Children, write to P.O. Box 8386, Los Angeles, CA 90008; call 1-866-313-2722; or e-mail info@.

The nation’s leading jockey uses his fame as a platform to share Christ within the horse-racing industry

At 4 feet, 11 inches and 106 pounds, Pat Day stands tall, sharing his faith unashamedly to the horse racing community and fans alike.

“Christianity to me is not a way of life, it is life,” he said. “My heart’s desire is to share that wonderful news.”

He points to Christ in media interviews, while among jockeys and track employees, and at public speaking events sponsored by the Rack Track Chaplaincy of America Inc. (RTCA). Always pressured for autographs he writes, God loves you. John 3:16 alongside his signature.

Day’s professional credits earned him a coveted berth in the Racing Hall of Fame in 1991. An ex-rodeo cowboy, he joined the thoroughbred racing circuit in 1973. At 50 years old, he has collected more than 8,700 victories and is the leading active jockey in North America. His winning purses top $290 million.

Day learned long ago that scaling the pinnacle of success does not gain contentment. “I had fame and fortune and all that the world had to offer,” he said. “I discovered that it was very hollow and short-lived.”

Jostled out of a deep sleep in Miami in 1984, he turned on the television in his hotel room. His eyes collided with evangelist Jimmy Swaggart pleading with the audience to receive Christ. “I just got down on my knees and wept and invited Jesus Christ into my life,” Day said. “My life changed radically and instantaneously. I had come to the conclusion that the moment I accepted Christ the chains had been broken. I had been set free from the addiction to drugs and alcohol.”

In 1985 his wife, Sheila, became a born-again Christian.

Day considered leaving the racing circuit. “As I baby in Christ I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go,” he said.

Pursuing a seminary degree and becoming a minister were serious options. He shared his dilemma with an RTCA chaplain. Together they searched the Scriptures and prayed for God’s direction. “And through that process the Lord revealed to me that He saved me to work within the [racing] industry and not to leave it,” Day said.

Some jockeys knocked his conversion as a religious fad. “They called me a Jesus freak and Bible thumper,” Day recalled.

But today he is a respected role model with a national reputation. “Pat is willing to help people,” said Robert Landry, a veteran jockey. “He lets people know he believes, but he doesn’t bother you about it. He’s a great inspiration to young riders.”

Christians have criticized Day for working in a field that abets gambling and have chided him for riding on Sundays. “I don’t have any problem doing what I sense and believe God would have me to do,” said Day, who attends Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky.

Besides sharing Christ in his daily walk, Day is RTCA’s chief spokesperson to the racing industry. He recently launched an annual RTCA tour of racetracks, where he meets fans, participates in media promotions and shares his testimony. “Because of this tour Christ’s name has appeared on a lot of sports pages,” said Ed Donnally, a spokesman for RTCA ().

The association oversees 50 chaplains in 80 racetracks and training centers in the United States and Canada. About 20 of them represent Pentecostal denominations, including eight from the Assemblies of God (AG). “Salvation is at the forefront of what we do,” Donnally said. “We hope to bring in 25,000 decisions for Christ in the next five years within the horse racing industry.”

Racetrack chaplains minister to a forgotten and unchurched subculture of grooms, hot walkers, exercise riders, starting gate crews and trainers. Danger, low pay, long hours, boredom, loneliness, alcohol abuse and drugs are all part of the scene. “There’s a city behind every racetrack of 800 to 2,500 people,” says Alvin Worthley, director of AG Chaplaincy Ministries. “Many don’t leave the racetrack. The church has to come to them.”

Instead of reveling in success, Day leverages it as a platform for evangelism. “The only thing that I can take credit for is the desire to serve God,” he said. “Everything I have and all that I am is by the grace of God.”
Peter K. Johnson

The Canadian province has allowed independent tribunals to employ the Islamic legal code since October 2003
A 1,400-year-old Islamic system of family and business law that was approved without public fanfare in Ontario in October 2003 is now under review by the province’s government.

After several women’s- and human-rights groups decried Ontario’s use of Shariah law, which they say can be unfair and dangerous to women and children, the province’s Ministry of the Attorney General ordered a review of the Arbitration Act. The 1991 legislation enables independent tribunals from various religions to arbitrate matters of family and business law according to their beliefs and customs.

Though the Jewish community also uses the act, criticism has mostly been levied against Muslims. Opponents say in extreme cases, Shariah law has permitted Muslim men to beat their wives, divorce them for not having sex on demand and gain uncontested custody of children over a certain age.

Still others worry that the law is a ploy for Muslims to gain a greater influence in Canadian society in hopes of establishing political Islam. Homa Arjoman, a transitional counselor for immigrant Muslim women in Toronto, is spearheading the International Campaign to Stop Shariah Courts in Canada, where she estimates the population of Muslims is between 600,000 to 800,000 people. Most live in Ontario.

“Whenever the population of Muslims increases in a geographical area, it’s part of the Muslim mandate to run their own ‘state’ within the secular state,” said Arjoman, who fled Iran in 1989 for fear of execution after serving as a women’s-rights activist.

Ontario, which has a Muslim community numbering 420,000, is the first place in the world other than Muslim-run countries to utilize Shariah law. British Columbia is also considering allowing independent Shariah law tribunals.

Although the decision of the tribunal can be appealed through the Canadian court system, opponents say the likelihood is small that a Muslim woman would do so because of the pressure put upon her to be a “good Muslim.”

“The shame and shunning a Muslim woman who ‘goes against the flow’ faces from her own family and community is so great that most of them don’t want to risk losing everything that’s important and will often stay in abusive, controlling relationships because of this,” Arjoman said.

She cites the situation of one woman in her caseload who, since the introduction of the Shariah arbitration board, was divorced by her husband because she couldn’t have sex with him. The woman, who is in the advanced stages of cancer, was declared divorced and thrown out of the house along with her six children in the middle of the night. Her husband married another woman three days later and now has custody of the couple’s six children, while his former wife is dying in a Toronto hospital.

“We don’t believe in Shariah law because Canadian law is just and fair,” said Alia Hogben, head of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and a former women’s social worker. “There’s enough research that demonstrates that none of these laws have been fair to women.”

Abused women who fled their native lands to experience equality in Canada are afraid their husbands will track them down if they hear Shariah courts have been legalized in Ontario, said Maged El Shafie, president of One Free World International, a Christian human-rights organization.

“Shariah law is evil, and it is dangerous because it’s a stepping stone to the potential establishment of an Islamic state in the West,” said El Shafie, an Egyptian Christian who found political refuge in Canada after being tortured for his faith in Egypt. “It’s also a threat to Jews and Christians because the Quran states clearly that Muslims should not take Jews or Christians as friends or business associates.”

Janet Epp-Buckingham, counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, says her group is carefully monitoring the issue. “It’s a cause for concern when the Web site of the Canadian Society of Muslims says that the push for Shariah law in Ontario is part of a larger plan for this law to become more prominent in Canada,” she told Charisma.

“A number of family lawyers in Toronto have mentioned that it’s making a big difference to their practices because more and more issues amongst Muslims are being resolved at the Shariah tribunal.”
Josie Newman in Toronto

Ruth Fazal’s Oratorio Terezin pays tribute to the thousands who died in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II

A Christian woman’s oratorio about thousands of Jewish children and cultural elites who died in a Nazi-run ghetto is striking a chord in Jewish communities wherever it plays.

Oratorio Terezin is a 100-minute musical score arranged to Old Testament prophetic Scriptures and the poetry of the children who perished in the Terezin ghetto north of Prague during World War II.

It was composed by violinist and worship leader Ruth Fazal, who employed a 60-voice children’s choir, 60 professional adult singers and three internationally acclaimed soloists to accompany the 80-member orchestra.

Terezin, originally known as Theresienstadt, is an 18th century fort built by Czechoslovakian ruler Joseph II to protect nearby Prague from invasion. During World War II, the Nazis filled the fortress with 140,000 distinguished Jewish
artists, musicians, writers, children and the elderly, creating a false cultural Mecca to fool the world and the media.

Behind the scenes, though, conditions were horrific; the occupants either died of malnutrition, disease and exposure or were shipped off to concentration camps. Only 10 percent of the 15,000 children who lived there survived the war. Their poetry and artwork was found years later hidden in stone crevices.

“The Lord showed me He wanted me to write this after a friend gave me I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a compilation of the poetry and artwork of the children,” said Fazal, who travels internationally as a worship leader. “I felt the Lord was saying, ‘Ruth, I want you to take the poems and weave them together with Scriptures into an oratorio.’

“It’s essentially about Israel, the bride, being called and wooed to Christ, the bridegroom. It’s also a vehicle to impart God’s heart for Israel to the church.”

Oratorio Terezin made its world premiere in Toronto in November 2003. Then in March, Fazal took a 20-member chorus from New Streams Children’s Choir, the 40-voice Bratislava Boys’ Choir and the Slovak Philharmonic Choir on a four-city tour of Europe. In April, Fazal and her team will tour Israel. The oratorio will make its U.S. debut in November.

During the European tour, Fazal was honored by the Jewish museum in Bratislava, Slovakia, where the oratorio was also voted the best cultural event in the country. In Bratislava and Prague, public forums on anti-Semitism were held in conjunction with the performances.

“The highlight for me, though, was in Prague,” Fazal said. “The Israeli ambassador sought me out after the performance and said: ‘I hope tonight never ends. It’s like bringing the dead back to life.'”

The daughter of a Church of England vicar, Fazal accepted Christ at 16. After attending Guildhall School of Music in London, Fazal received a scholarship to study the violin in Paris for two years. In 1975 she moved to Toronto, where she is music director at Little Trinity, a downtown charismatic Anglican church.

“During the four years it took me to write [the oratorio], the Lord took me on a journey to the cross, to the heart of Christ’s suffering like I’ve never experienced,” Fazal said. “I understood that every place of suffering … in our lives is an invitation to intimacy with God.

“I realized … the only place of cumulative suffering is at the cross. So that is the only way for us to understand the cumulative suffering of the Holocaust.”
Josie Newman in Toronto

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For more information abour Ruth Fazal and the Oratorio Terezin, visit

Once a drug dealer in Baltimore, today pastor Zachery Tims leads a fast-growing church in metro Orlando
When Zachery Tims was 14 and facing an attempted murder charge in 1984, he never dreamed he would be the pastor of a megachurch. Today, Tims oversees New Destiny Christian Center (NDCC), a 5,500-member congregation in Apopka, Fla., located in metro Orlando.

The charismatic pastor who became a drug dealer at age 12 and joined a gang at 13 was facing a lengthy jail sentence for shooting a drug dealer when God had mercy on him.

“The charges were dropped to juvenile assault,” said the Baltimore native, who shares his testimony on national TV shows such as TBN’s Praise the Lord program.

The teen spent a year and a half in Maryland’s forestry camps for his crime. But it wasn’t until years later, when he had three recurring dreams that he was being tormented by demons, that Tims realized his need for Jesus.

“I was 19 and terribly bound by cocaine,” he explained. Tims ran to the home of a man in his neighborhood known as the “Holy Roller” and said, “I’m ready to get saved.”

“These demonic things would be circling around my head. A bright light would come into the room, and then Holy Roller would appear in the dream, and that’s when the demons would flee,” he recalled.

The new convert joined a Spirit-filled church and within seven years earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Towson State University and a theology degree from Maranatha Bible College.

The 35-year-old pastor knows firsthand that God’s power can transform a life. And that’s the message he and his wife, Riva, who pastors alongside her husband, share with the thousands they reach through their ministry.

NDCC ministers to drug addicts, families, singles, the poor, married couples and others through its 33 ministries. But it wasn’t until the church organized teams to evangelize the community that the membership began to swell.

“Pastors Randy and Paula White of Without Walls [International] Church in Tampa, [Fla.], taught us evangelistic outreach,” Tims said. “We went from being just another church on the block to being a church.”

NDCC’s reach can be felt throughout the Orlando area. The church’s Higher Ground TV program can been seen on The Word Network and on other stations. The pastor can also be heard repeatedly on radio. Locals say the church’s huge billboards that bombard central Florida’s skyline also draw people. NDCC’s philosophy: “If Budweiser can promote its product, we can promote Jesus.”

For Tyrone Mitchell, 34, New Destiny is a lifesaver. After serving five years in a federal penitentiary, Mitchell arrived at NDCC “a broken, messed up man.”

“When I showed Pastor Zach my monitoring ankle bracelet from jail,” Mitchell said, “he placed his hand on my shoulder, and through his tears told me he would do whatever he could to help me. The church didn’t judge me, they loved me.”

In an effort to accommodate its growing, racially diverse congregation, NDCC purchased 21 acres of property in 2000 to build what it calls the City of Destiny. The first phase includes a building currently serving as a temporary, 2,000-seat sanctuary. Its three-story Generation Next youth building, which is near completion, houses a cafeteria, six basketball courts, a fitness center, a 400-seat youth chapel, a two-lane bowling alley and more.

As NDCC continues its project with a 5,000-seat worship center slated for 2006, Tims oversees the church in three locations. Every Sunday, the pastor zips across the city in a helicopter to make it to the church located in Kissimmee, Fla., roughly 30 miles away. A family life center is housed at a third location in Orlando.

The Tims have seen God’s supernatural provision in their lives and ministry. During the early days of his pastorate, Tims and the family lived off $15,000 a year, a salary his wife earned as a customer service manager at a hotel. But again, the pastor said, God proved faithful when a stranger appeared at NDCC and donated thousands of dollars to him.

“The man said, ‘God told me to give you enough money to pay off all of your bills,'” said Tims, who told the man his bills amounted to $10,000. “I was depressed because they actually totaled $23,000.”

Within weeks, the donor returned and paid all of the pastor’s bills, and years later, paid NDCC’s $54,000 TV debt. “I deserved nothing from God,” Tims said. “Jesus took me from dope to hope.”
Valerie G. Lowe

Lost Coin missionaries comb Athens’ brothels and night clubs to help women find a way out of the sex trade
A Christian ministry based in Greece has taken the parable of the lost coin to heart.

Drawing its name from the Luke 15 passage in which Jesus describes a woman who swept her house clean searching for one lost coin, Lost Coin combs the streets of Athens searching for women who want help escaping the sex trade.

But because prostitution is legal for adults in Greece and widely accepted, even by many in the church, Lost Coin staff members and volunteers from local churches regularly go to brothels, bars and hotels where the sex trade thrives. They strike up friendships with women, offering them practical help, counseling and a way out. Recently, the two-year-old outreach established a drop-in center.

“One of the most prevalent ways of prostituting in Athens is through small-time pimps who keep women in private apartments,” said Lost Coin director Jennifer Roemhildt, an American missionary in Athens. “These girls are completely locked away and really beyond rescue by anyone but God. We offer a bridge to the healing community that the church is supposed to be.”

During two years of on-the-street ministry, Lost Coin has assisted about 150 women who were working in prostitution, but few actually seek new jobs. Roemhildt said that without an effective exit strategy, women who want to escape are not able to. The church, she adds, at times makes it more difficult.

As an example, Roemhildt said that when an Albanian woman or teenage girl trafficked to Greece has been a prostitute, even if by force or coercion, she cannot return to her village because of the shame.

“Most people not only on the streets but even in evangelical churches would say that prostitution is actually a public service,” she said. “They think that it reduces violent crime and rape. We need to work with the churches so that they can bring out the theology of redemption and receive women back who have been abused and used.”

During the Summer Olympics in August, teams of Christians hit the streets of Athens five nights a week. Spearheaded by Lost Coin–the Athens-based arm of International Teams, a nondenominational missions group headquartered in Illinois–these teams sought men and women who work in the sex industry. In expectation of an increased demand for prostitution an estimated 2,000 to 10,000 women had been trafficked to Greece, Roemhildt said. The BBC News reported a similar estimate.

As it turned out, business at Athens’ brothels was not as brisk as it had been during the 2000 Olympics in Australia–which Roemhildt said was an answer to prayer and a huge opportunity to step into the gap and offer ministry.

About 70 volunteers from Lost Coin and several other ministries–including Youth With A Mission, Operation Mobilization, the Southern Baptist Convention and some Greek churches–made contact with about 250 male and female prostitutes. They offered free bottles of water that had been donated by the Greek Orthodox Church and struck up conversations.

They talked about how the women and men could leave prostitution, and told them how much Jesus loves each of them. Lost Coin was ready to meet needs, including the offer of temporary shelter, help in returning to a person’s native country and prayer.

One contact was a Russian woman who received her first Bible. Another was a high-ranking representative of the Union of Greek Prostitutes. She was open to further discussion about how women who suffer in prostitution might be helped.

Roemhildt estimates that about 10,000 women work in the Greek sex industry even without the increase for the Olympics. Ninety-five percent of those have
been trafficked and come from five language groups.

Women and minors have been forced or coerced away from Albania, Moldova, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and Nigeria, among other nations.

Beyond the direct outreach, teams of intercessors gather as support. And in Thessalonika, a major transit point for women trafficked to Athens, missionary Whitney Brown leads prayer walks.

“Satan is thinking that he has a good thing going,” Roemhildt said. “He is seeking to steal, kill and destroy, but God wants to bring women into a place where they can come to know who He is and that He cares for them. And He is doing it.”
Steven Lawson

Iraqi Churches Bombed

Five Christian churches were bombed in Iraq Oct. 16, the first full day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Assist News Service (ANS) reported. There were no reported casualties from the series of blasts that erupted outside five Baghdad churches in the course of an hour. At press time, no one had been blamed for the attack. This was the second coordinated attack against Christians in the predominantly Muslim country. The first series of church bombings led to Christians fleeing Iraq for relative safety in neighboring countries, ANS reported.

50,000 Killed in Religious Conflict in Nigeria

A Nigerian government study released in September reported that more than 50,000 people have been killed in Muslim-Christian clashes since 2001, BBC News reported. Previous figures estimated that 10,000 had died in the violence that has mostly pitted Christian farmers against Muslim animal herders in Plateau state. The deaths were split among men, women and children.

Christian Converts Found Dead in Afghanistan

Since June, five Afghan Christians have been killed in separate incidents, Compass Direct reported. The first death was reported July 1 after a Taliban spokesman called Reuters news service and announced the murder of Mullah Assad Ullah. The man said Ullah’s throat was cut with a knife because he was preaching Christianity. Another Christian’s body was found Aug. 7 near his abandoned car, while three other men were stabbed or beaten to death in separate incidents in July, Compass said.

Indian Christians Return To Hinduism

The World Hindu Council (VHP) announced the “re-conversion” of 75 tribal Christians to Hinduism Sept. 19, Compass Direct reported. Christian leaders say the Hindu council deliberately targeted Christians in Orissa state, in eastern India, who were not attending church services. The Rev. D.B. Hruday of the All India Christian Council said VHP members have threatened tribal Christians in Orissa state with the loss of government welfare benefits if they refused to convert to Hinduism, Compass said.

Marriage Amendment Rejected in House

The Marriage Protection Act failed to pass in the House of Representatives Sept. 30, missing a two-thirds majority with a 227-186 vote. The bill failed to pass in the Senate in July. Pro-family groups expressed disappointment at the House vote, but said they would continue to fight for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman. “This vote is very important because it puts lawmakers on record concerning this issue,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. “No one expected the marriage amendment to garner two-thirds approval in the House on the first vote. But this majority vote in favor of the amendment sets the stage for this amendment to return to the House in the next Congress.”

Legislator Under Fire From Millionaire Activist

Republican Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave issued an urgent letter to supporters in October, saying she had been targeted for defeat by Tim Gill, former chairman and founder of Quark Xpress and founder of The Gill Foundation, a gay rights organization. Musgrave wrote that Gill has poured $1 million into attack ads against her campaign, which she believes is because of her support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. At press time, election results had not been announced.

FDA Approves Medical Chip Implant

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved use of an implantable computer chip that can pass a patient’s medical information to doctors, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Roughly the size of a grain of rice, the VeriChip, produced by Delray Beach, Applied Digital Solutions, already are being used in pets, livestock and 200 people working in Mexico’s attorney general’s office who access secure areas. The Oct. 13 decision marks the first time the FDA has approved the use of such a device, which stores a code that releases patient information when a scanner passes over it. In addition to its prior use for security-related matters, the chip is also being used in club-goers in Spain, who use the device to speed drink orders and payment, the AP said.