Representatives of India’s Dalit Christians are demanding that the government expedite its decision on whether they will be given the same legal rights and protection as Dalits of other faiths.

Churches and Christian institutions observed a nationwide week of fasting and prayer in late August in support of the demand.

In India’s caste system, Dalits are the lowest of the lowest and considered “untouchable.” Though they are entitled to “reservations,” a government plan that reserves 26 percent of jobs and educational placements for Dalits, Christians have been denied those rights.

“The Dalit Christians’ rights were taken away by the 1950 presidential order, which confined the rights to those practicing the Hindu faith,” said charismatic leader Rev. Moses Swamidas, president of Bible Faith Mission in Tamil Nadu.

Dalits of the Sikh and Buddhist faiths won back their rights, but currently Dalits who convert to Christianity or Islam are still denied them.

This discrimination against Dalit Christians was apparent during the tsunami relief operations. John Mary, a 45-year-old Dalit Christian, knocked on scores of doors for help. But being an “untouchable” Christian, she and hundreds of others in southern Indian states were denied government relief assistance.

John Mary was one of the 573 witnesses from the southern Indian states who participated in a public tribunal in August held by the All-India Catholic Union where Dalit Christians demanded equal rights. The hearing was supported by Catholic and charismatic church leaders.

After the hearing, the tribunal determined that Dalit Christians should be given the same rights as Dalits of other faiths. The matter was to be heard before the Supreme Court in August but was handed over to the Justice Rangnath Mishra National Commission for Linguistic and Religious Minorities, an advisory panel that investigates economic and social problems among religious minorities.

John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, said the referral was simply a delay tactic. His group is working to see a law passed that guarantees Dalit Christians equal rights.

As human rights groups work to rid Dalits of the untouchable stigma altogether, observers say a favorable response from the government would improve Dalit Christians’ quality of life. “We face a terrible situation in our villages in southern India,” said B.P. John, a Christian activist in Karnataka state. “Rich and upper-class families confiscate properties of lower caste converts to Christianity. Not long back two of our brothers were killed by goons of a local elected representative who sides with them. It’s a war unleashed by the upper caste on us Dalit Christians.”

The Supreme Court was to hear the case Oct. 18.
Joshua Newton in Madurai, India

Some hope the event will stir a spiritual passion that sparks another great move of God
As the 100th anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival approaches, charismatic and Pentecostal leaders are gearing up for a celebration that they believe could draw more than 100,000 Christians from around the globe.

Roughly 150 ministers from the various streams in the Pentecostal-charismatic movement are working together to organize the Azusa Street Centennial celebration (). The event is to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center April 25-29.

The centennial will feature several services running concurrently each night, including women’s events at Angeles Temple led by Women’s Aglow President Jane Hansen, faith services at Fred Price’s Faith Dome led by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and rallies honoring Azusa Street pastor William J. Seymour at Bishop Charles Blake’s West Angeles Cathedral. A healing crusade will be held April 25.

Intercessors from across the nation have been praying that the celebration would spark a move of God similar to the one that birthed modern Pentecostalism.
Back in April 1906, itinerant black preacher William J. Seymour stood on the porch of the house on 214 Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles and preached to ever-increasing crowds gathered in the street below. He and others had recently been baptized in the Holy Spirit inside the house and had spoken in tongues.

Reports say the presence of the Holy Spirit was so strong people walking by fell to the ground or went to their knees in prayer. After the large crowds caused the house’s foundation to collapse, the group moved to a former stable at 314 Azusa Street, about a mile away. Those meetings birthed a movement that today is believed to have some 600 million adherents.

Event coordinator Robert Fisher, who died Sept. 28 after battling leukemia, hoped the centennial would result in another move of the Holy Spirit. “We do believe it will be a catalyst for a fresh move of God the same way the Azusa Street Revival was originally,” Fisher told Charisma in July.

“For the first time all the diverse streams of the movement that flowed from Azusa Street will be flowing back into it,” added Fisher, who was executive director for the Center for Spiritual Renewal in Cleveland Tenn. “I have a very strong spiritual sense that this is like nothing I have helped with before.”

Organizers are praying that the hallmarks of the Azusa Street Revival, which broke down barriers of racism, economic status and gender, would be evident in April. Unity in diversity and spiritual manifestations are two important themes.

“It’s sad to see the church fragmented, and I believe the centennial has every possibility of bringing us all back together,” said Cornell “Corkie” Haan, the centennial’s chief communications officer. “We are believing for another 600 million Pentecostals in this century. The world is ready.”

Foursquare President Jack Hayford said he is excited about the centennial, but added that it is difficult to say that it will be the “springboard” for the next great revival. “My personal, foremost hope is that those of us from the long-term Pentecostal tradition would come together with enthusiasm, not just to revisit history for its own sake, but to celebrate spiritual passion. That is what I think God honors.”
Ed Donnally in Los Angeles

Zambian pastor Nevers Mumba believes Christians will lead a ‘wind’ of political change that is coming to Africa
Although Nevers Mumba is running for president in 2006, Zambia’s leading newspaper, The Post, still calls him “Pastor Mumba.” It’s a title not easily shaken from the man who launched Zambia’s first Christian television ministry in the early 1990s called Zambia Shall Be Saved.

After Mumba completed a two-year program at Christ for the Nations in 1982, he returned to Zambia, founded 42 churches and launched a TV ministry that draws 2.5 million viewers each week.

African citizens weren’t the only ones watching TV; Zambian politicians began calling Mumba for counsel and prayer.

Although Mumba was content to be Zambia’s pastor, he said two prophetic encounters changed the course of his life.

During a visit to Virginia Beach, Va., to appear on The 700 Club, he received a call from someone wanting to speak with him. The young man was African evangelist Christopher Alam, who told Mumba, “The Lord is going to use you in the political process in your country.”

“At that time I had no thought of becoming involved in politics,” Mumba told Charisma, “and my theology totally contradicted his prophecy.”

Mumba put the prophecy aside and returned to preaching. But a year and a half later, while Mumba was preaching in Canada, a South African preacher asked to meet him for lunch. The two ministers had never met before, and when they sat down to eat in a restaurant, the preacher told Mumba that God would “bring His word to pass, and you shall be in political leadership in your nation.”

Mumba never saw the minister again. But within five years he handed over his TV ministry to an associate and formed an organization now called National Citizens Coalition, which gave him a platform to run for president in 2001.

Mumba lost that election but remained in politics, focusing most of his work on outreach to the poor, orphaned and uneducated. This humanitarian work coupled with his stand against political corruption motivated Zambia’s current president, Levy Mwanawasa, to appoint Mumba as his vice president in May 2003.

Mumba’s popularity increased, and within a year and a half he surpassed Mwanawasa in Zambian opinion polls by 65 percent. While Mwanawasa was traveling internationally, Mumba exposed political corruption that was going on between Congo and Zambia. As a result, Mwanawasa dismissed him as vice president.

Despite this rocky beginning in politics, Mumba announced in March that he planned to run for the presidency as Mwanawasa’s opponent in the 2006 elections. Afterward, Mwanawasa suspended Mumba from his leadership role in the National Executive Committee of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) Party.

In April, another opinion poll showed Mumba leading Mwanawasa by a large margin. Mumba hoped to be elected as presidential candidate for the MMD Party at the convention scheduled for May 4-8.

However, President Mwanawasa postponed the May convention and then expelled Mumba from MMD Party membership, erasing all possibility of Mumba running for president under that party. Mumba’s supports planned to form a new party that will give him a platform to run.

Despite the setbacks, Mumba is not deterred. “I’m convinced once we achieve our goal in Zambia, there will be a domino effect,” Mumba said. “Men of integrity and morality will rise up to take positions of political leadership in countries across … Africa. There is a wind of change, and the church is going to lead this new change that is coming on this continent.”
C. Hope Flinchbaugh

Ministers in the Emerald Isle say the ‘wind of Pentecost’ is starting to blow in the nation’s second largest city
Church leaders in the second-largest city in Ireland, which has a minute number of Christians, say “God is moving” in Cork City, with many accepting Christ and being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Located on the southwest coast of Ireland, Cork is home to 123,000 people, with a college student population of more than 25,000. However, local Protestant leaders estimate only about 2,000 people belong to an evangelical church. In addition, the area is plagued with alcoholism-among the highest rates in the world-as well as depression, suicide and domestic abuse.

“Cork is a very dark city,” said Nick Cassidy, pastor of Donnybrook Pentecostal Church, which is located in the heart of Cork. “It’s full of alcoholism and false religion. Less than one quarter of 1 percent of the Republic of Ireland claim to be born again. We have never seen Pentecost come to this country, not in its real form, but the wind is starting to blow.”

Cassidy, 38, has witnessed it firsthand. He pioneered the church more than 10 years ago with a handful of adults and three children. Today, Donnybrook ( ) is a congregation of about 400 people, comprised of 20 nationalities due to Cork’s large influx of foreign workers.

Located in the middle of the city’s notorious “red light district,” the church is referred to by locals as the “Holy Ground” of Cork, Cassidy noted.

“But since the church has taken up residence here, it is truly becoming holy ground,” explained Cassidy, noting that 100 people received Christ this summer during one-on-one street evangelism. “Every week we see souls come to Christ and people filled with the Holy Spirit. We have seen prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, suicidal people, people suffering from depression, and people who were sexually abused by clerics become born again and set free from their suffering.”

Keith Cullen, 29, accepted Christ this spring after he started attending Donnybrook. “Before that my life had been a bad one,” he told Charisma. “I started drinking when I was 13. At 17, I started getting into trouble because of my drinking. In the last five years, I have seen nine friends and two cousins die of suicide.

“Now that I have been saved, I no longer drink and have peace of mind and love towards people,” Cullen added.

Tony Kirby, 33, also became a Christian while attending Donnybrook earlier this year. Like Cullen, Kirby had an alcoholic background.

“When I came to church, I met some of the nicest people on earth,” Kirby said. “After attending the church for a few weeks, my life changed totally. I stopped drinking, cursing and my way of living got better. I gave myself to the Lord.”

An Assemblies of God (AG) minister in the United States for 15 years, John Bailey, 42, and his family moved to Cork earlier this year to become the only AG missionaries in this region of Ireland. Ironically, Bailey’s family immigrated to the United States from Ireland during the Potato Famine.

Today he works with Donnybrook and other area churches, and he said the spiritual landscape of Ireland has changed in the last few years, with many small churches springing up all over the nation.

“At Donnybrook, as well as in many churches across Ireland, there is a pure river of God flowing,” said Bailey, noting that on Monday nights, a group of about 70 adults pray for Cork as well as for revival in Ireland. “I truly believe that Ireland is one of those places that God has on His spiritual map. Darkness has prevailed here for many years, but there is a time of refreshing and spiritual life coming to the Emerald Isle.”
Eric Tiansay

Prominent charismatic leaders seek to raise awareness about the importance of the Ten Commandments
Fueled by the recent Supreme Court decision that barred the display of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses, a commission has been formed with a mission to bring the Decalogue back to the conscience of America.

The Ten Commandments Commission, formed the day after the June 27 ruling, was launched with a threefold purpose, said commission chairman Myles Munroe.

“We want to restore the values of the principles contained in these commandments back to our postmodern society; replace the Ten Commandments back to the consciousness of society; and challenge the powers that be to reconsider the decisions being made,” said Munroe, a best-selling author and pastor of Bahamas Faith Ministries International, one of the largest churches in the Caribbean.

The commission was launched at the International Charismatic Bible Ministries convention in Tulsa, Okla., where Munroe urged fellow Christian leaders to join his efforts, and where Roni Wexler, commission president and CEO, unveiled the commission’s Ten Commandments pin ().

Munroe says the pin, which displays the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, was designed to make a statement: that “collectively, we can make a difference.”

“Democracy works on numbers, and we believe that there are a lot more people who are for the Ten Commandments than against them,” Munroe said. “We want to rally millions of people to not only take a stand but to do it in a unified way.”

“The slogan here is, ‘If we can’t wear it in public and on buildings, we can wear it on the building of God, which is our bodies,'” Wexler added.

The commission hopes to educate the charismatic community by “getting people to understand what we are standing against and identify themselves with a symbol,” Wexler said. That symbol is the Ten Commandments pin.

Washington, motivational speaker Charles Phillips says the battle is not only against ignorance, but also darkness. “I think that this movement through the Supreme Court was not just to take away the Ten Commandments from … public places,” said Phillips, the commission’s spokesman. “I think it’s also a part of the devil’s strategy to remove God from the consciousness of people.”

Phillips said the group’s efforts are not politically motivated. “Right now we’re just trying to make a statement,” he said. “We’re simply emphasizing the fact that we can display the Word of God, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Mark J. Chironna, commission board member, hopes to see a renewed appreciation for the values embodied by the Ten Commandments. “Those values have to be once again appreciated and understood for a generation that has really been so numbed by situational ethics,” he said. “History proves that when nations do not embrace those kinds of values, they end up being destroyed. If we ignore God, we ignore Him to our own detriment.”

Chironna, pastor of The Master’s Touch International Church in Orlando, Fla., says his church plans to be a part of The Ten Commandments Day, which the commission has declared for Feb. 5.

“I feel that every pastor everywhere on that day should include in their sermon the message of the Ten Commandments, which is bringing the Word of God back to the nations,” Wexler said.

America cannot afford to ignore this discussion, explained Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington, firm that specializes in constitutional law. “I think the idea of getting the Ten Commandments out of the context of a painting on the wall, into the reality of what the Ten Commandments stand for is important,” said Sekulow, whose firm has defended more Ten Commandment cases than any other in the country.

“We need to come together on this,” Wexler stressed. “So it’s Jew and Gentile, black and white. It’s everybody coming together, holding hands and saying enough is enough.”
Suzy Richardson

Observers say Sight & Sound Theatre reaches people who might never step foot in a church
What started with a slide projector, screen, turntable and microphone has become the leading faith-based theater in the nation, attracting some 800,000 patrons a year.

Glenn Eshelman, founder of Sight & Sound Theatres in Lancaster County, Pa., said he and his wife, Shirley, stepped out in faith 30 years ago with their first production, The Wonder of It All.

Today he says that title has become a fitting way to describe the ministry’s growth and popularity. “What you see in the natural absolutely should not be,” said Eshelman, a former dairy farmer and Church of the Brethren minister. “It is a miracle.”

Sight & Sound’s Millennium Theatre, nestled in Lancaster County’s Amish farm country, is considered the largest faith-based live theatre in the U.S. Some even refer to it as “the Christian Broadway.” To Eshelman, it’s a way to reach people who might never sit through a traditional sermon.

Ruth was on stage at the Millennium through Oct. 22. Complete with a 68-member cast and more than 35 animals, the show carried the audience through Ruth and Naomi’s tumultuous journey of faith, love, loss and redemption. The gleaning fields of Boaz came to life on a 300-foot, wraparound stage illuminated by the largest moving light system on the East Coast.

“There is a strong need in the world today for this type of a ministry,” Eshelman said. “For too long, the world has looked at Christian drama as bathrobes and half-cut wigs. Why should it not be equal to that of Broadway, equal to that in Las Vegas.”

Sight & Sound Theatres, which includes the more intimate, 643-seat Living Waters Theatre also in Lancaster County, uses innovative production technology while remaining faithful to its mission. Patrons return year after year for more.

Lancaster County resident Beth Fisher said she has visited Millennium Theatre dozens of times. “The message is the draw,” she said. “I love how they represent the Bible so well. [The stories] are not stretched out of proportion.”

Though it isn’t a traveling theater, Sight & Sound has reached theatergoers outside the U.S. “Delegations from China have visited the Millennium Theatre in hopes of taking Noah the Musical to the Olympics to represent Christianity amongst the other religions,” Eshelman said. “Impossible logistics deterred it from taking place.”

The theater has also helped ministries from within the U.S. develop their drama departments. “Churches are doing [theatre] with excellence, not to compete with the world, but so that it would be intriguing for the world to come in and say, ‘Let me see,'” said producing director Earl Grove. “We’re just doing it in the culture in the way that the culture can understand it.”

Area ministers agree that Sight & Sound is an effective evangelism tool. “Many people that won’t come to a church will come to a theatre,” said Tommy Stoudt Jr., pastor of Victory Church in Lancaster. “They play a critical role in reaching people.”

“The Bible speaks that the body has many members,” Eshelman said. “I feel like we are an arm or member of the body of the church that presents the gospel in this fashion. [It is] all part of God’s final program here to bring in the final harvest.”
Psalms of David is on stage at the Living Waters Theater through December. Noah the Musical is to open in a Branson, Mo., Sight & Sound Theatre in June 2008.
Paula Hornberger in Lancaster County, Pa.

Charismatic attorney David French fights for religious rights as president of secular civil liberties organization
When the new school year started, ReJOYce in Jesus Campus Fellowship hoped to again attract up to two dozen students to its weekly Bible study meetings.

Affiliated with a charismatic church in Los Angeles, the group spent most of the 2004-05 academic year fighting for official recognition after running afoul of the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s (MSE) anti-discrimination policies.

The school yielded in April after intervention by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based organization that publicizes campus First Amendment violations.

“We’re happy we don’t have to have this problem again,” said ReJOYce chapter adviser Daphne Wilson. “We just want to continue to do the Lord’s work, have our meetings open to everyone and be there to help them and spread the gospel.”

The conflict in Milwaukee is only one of numerous battles FIRE pursued in the last year. Among others:

As battles over stem-cell research rage, pro-life couples are calling the adoption method a ‘noble’ choice
As the battle over federal funding for stem-cell research intensifies, some Christians are using leftover embryos for what they say is a more noble cause.

Adoption of embryos-the earliest stage of fetal development-from people who have gone through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and have spare embryos is now a popular choice for infertile couples who believe in the sanctity of life and want to experience the joys of pregnancy.

Doni and Jim Brinkman of Phoenix had their son Tanner after adopting an embryo through Snowflakes, a branch of Nightlight Christian Adoptions agency, located in Fullerton, Calif. “I always wanted a big family, so when we discovered Jim was infertile in 1996, we were devastated,” Doni Brinkman said. “We dabbled with different options, but when I heard about embryo adoption on Focus on the Family in 1999, it seemed like the perfect thing for me to do.”

The process involves adopting several embryos and implanting two or three at a time in a woman’s womb. After completing a home study with Snowflakes, the Brinkmans adopted 11 embryos in February 2000. Doni started carrying two embryos that August but lost one after seven weeks. In May 2001, she gave birth to Tanner, a mischievous redhead with brilliant blue eyes.

“There are no words to describe the miracle that he is, even down to his hair color,” Doni Brinkman said. “I always dreamed of having a redhead, but it seemed impossible because I’m very dark-haired and so is my husband.”

Doni lost the other nine embryos after three successive tries. Still determined to have a large family, the Brinkmans tried traditional adoption. The first two times the birth mothers backed out, but the third time the couple experienced a “second miracle,” when their son Ty Jordan joined the family.

Snowflakes program director Lori Maze said Nightlight started embryonic adoptions in 1997 when the agency’s Christian owner recognized that couples with extra embryos from IVF treatments had two options: stem-cell research or thawing.

“We’ve learned by listening to clients that families who see life as sacred and have extra embryos feel guilty and/or responsible, while those who don’t see embryos as life [at that point] still want to help another couple start a family,” Maze said.

Snowflakes charges $6,600 for embryo adoption and implantation. Shipping and blood work is extra. Since 1997, roughly 151 families have adopted embryos through Snowflakes; 88 babies have been born and 11 more are on the way. Maze said the live birth rate of implanted embryos adopted through Snowflakes is 37 percent.

Although half of all American fertility clinics allow their clients to donate their embryos to other couples, only a handful of adoption agencies give clients the option of adopting an embryo. There are no adoption laws in place yet for embryos, but the agencies that do it have legal papers drawn up for the transfer of ownership. Donors and adoptive parents have three choices-anonymous donation, anonymous adoption and known adoption, in which both sides meet each other.

Diahn Oakley, public relations manager for the National Embryo Adoption Center in Knoxville, Tenn., said the center suggests that donors and adopting families live at least 500 miles apart. “If they live in the same town, a donor might think a child they see on the sidewalk looks like them and wonder if he came from one of their embryos a few years earlier.”

The center, located within Knoxville Baptist Hospital for Women, started in May 2004 through federal funding and donations from the Christian Medical Association. Clients have come from 48 states and four countries to the one-stop shop, where couples can fill out the paperwork and have their embryo transfers done on-site by a fertility specialist. The package, including studies and legal documents drawn up by an outside adoption agency, costs $5,000.

Bonnie Bernard, a professional counselor and executive director of Embryos Alive, an embryo adoption program in Cincinnati, said emotional attachment to the embryos can happen the same way it does with traditional adoptions. “So far, we’ve only had one couple who have chosen to re-adopt their embryos,” Bernard said.

According to the latest statistics available from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, in April 2002 there were 400,000 frozen embryos in fertility clinics across the ,250, or 2 percent of them, were available for donation or adoption.
Josie Newman

Christian Teachers Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

Three Christian women in Indonesia were sentenced Sept. 1 to three years in prison for allowing Muslim children to attend a Christian Sunday school program, Compass Direct reported. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun were found guilty of attempting to convert children under the Child Protection Act of 2002. Jeff Hammond of Bless Indonesia Today said the women asked the children to get permission from their parents before attending the program, and those without permission were asked to go home. The Sunday school teachers were not given the maximum sentence of five years in prison but said they were devastated by the prospect of being separated from their students, who range in age from 6 to 19, Compass said.

International Church in Vietnam Shut Down

Local authorities shut down a 500-member international church in Vietnam Aug. 27, Compass Direct reported. Eric Dooley, pastor of New Life Fellowship, had sought a permit to meet since it was founded in 1997. Dooley said District 5 police ordered the church to close because it had no permit-though the government has repeatedly ignored the church’s efforts to get permission to worship. On Aug. 28, the Sunday after the church was closed, Dooley stood outside the hotel where the church has been worshiping to inform those showing up that they would not be able to meet. Church leaders hope the action does not represent an effort by the national government to harass the church, Compass said.

Chinese Christian Denied Asylum in U.S.

In August, Xiaodong Li was denied asylum in the U.S. because he was a member of an “illegal” house church, Assist News Service ANS) reported. Li, who is receiving assistance from Virginia-based Christian Freedom International (CFI), fled to the U.S. after police raided his apartment in Ningbo, China. CFI said Li was punched, kicked and shocked with electric batons until he “confessed” to organizing “unauthorized” Christian house-church meetings. The 11-member Board of Immigration Appeals determined that Li fled China because he feared legal action, not persecution, ANS reported. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the board’s decision and denied Li asylum. CFI said the ruling will make it hard for others who face religious persecution to find refuge in the U.S. “America was founded by men and women fleeing religious persecution,” CFI said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that a group of unelected officials … have lost sight of this.” The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian law firm that specializes in religious liberty issues, has taken over as Li’s lead counsel.

Investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell says he saw God’s hand at work when 1960s murder cases were reopened

The reporter whose work has led to convictions in several civil rights killings said his main motivation is a biblical sense of justice.

Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger has been credited with reviving a string of civil rights-era cases, prompting lawmen and prosecutors to bring them back to trial.

Those trials have resulted in the conviction this year of Edgar Ray Killen in connection with the 1964 murders of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner; the 1998 conviction of Sam Bowers for the 1966 killing of Vernon Dahmer; and the 1994 conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers.

“As a matter of faith I feel like God’s hand has been involved in these cases,” said Mitchell, 46, who has written a number of devotionals in addition to his award-winning newspaper articles.

The son of a former preacher, Mitchell was born in Missouri, raised in Texarkana, Texas, and was working as a reporter in Mississippi when he saw the movie Mississippi Burning in 1989. It opened his eyes to the South’s legacy of racism.

That same year he got to look at files from Mississippi’s long-secret Sovereignty Commission that documented state complicity in racist acts. And he reported on the 25th anniversary of the Goodman-Chaney-Schwerner murders. “It was kind of a perfect storm that took place in 1989,” Mitchell said.

He has no doubt that God brought it all together. “We don’t begin to understand how God works. His ways are so far above ours. What we have to do is try to get in tune with His will,” Mitchell said.

Some suspects in civil rights killings went to trial but got off with acquittals or hung juries even when guilt seemed apparent. Mitchell found evidence that the state secretly assisted in defending such suspects and that some lawmen lied under oath. Wanting to help redress such injustices, Mitchell began to investigate the Medgar Evers slaying in 1989. But there was little left to go on.

“There was no murder weapon, there was no transcript, no evidence, only a few pages in the court file,” Mitchell said. “But [widow] Myrlie Evers prayed, and amazing things happened.”

A few months after Mitchell began investigating, police ran across a bag of crime scene photos, including a fingerprint. Then Myrlie Evers found a transcript of the original trial. And prosecutor Bobby DeLaughter discovered the murder weapon among some old evidence. “If you wrote a novel and you put that in there, people would say, ‘No, that would never happen,'” Mitchell marvels.

He doesn’t mention his own dogged reporting—work that has been lauded by Newsweek, American Journalism Review and a host of other publications, and has brought him several distinguished awards and a Pulitzer nomination. An actor even played his part in the movie Ghosts of Mississippi, which is based on the Evers case.

Seldom explored in articles about Mitchell are his religious beliefs. “The way I view myself is [as] a disciple of Jesus,” he says simply.

His literary aspirations lean toward writing a discipleship manual and other Christian books. In recent years he’s even felt drawn to the ministry.

Mitchell has caught flak, even been threatened, for his work. The main charge is that he’s digging up a past that’s better left alone.

Mitchell doesn’t mind listening to—and answering—such critics. “As it says in the Psalms, God loves justice,” he said. “Justice is part of the nature of God. He’s a just God. He’s a merciful God, yes, but He’s a just God.”

Especially chilling are people like Beckwith and Killen, who call themselves Christian ministers. Mitchell recalls the night Beckwith told him that if he wrote negatively about white Christians, either God would punish him or “several individuals will do it for Him.”

Although Mitchell believes in the importance of securing justice, he also believes in the possibility of redemption. One of his favorite Psalms is chapter 51, “the idea of recognition of sin and being made white as snow,” he said.

“Some people have called these atonement cases,” Mitchell said. “I view these trials not only as atonement but as kind of redemptive.”
Ernest Herndon