There is some good news coming out of Iraq. Christian churches are growing at an unprecedented rate.
Beneath the rubble of news about bombings, hostage-taking and political wrangling in Iraq lies a more positive picture of young evangelical churches.

In the northeast, Iraqi Kurdistan offers a haven for Christian activity as the two rival Kurdish governments grow in their toleration of Muslims becoming Christians. In the south, the evangelical church is growing rapidly.

In Baghdad, a total of 15 evangelical congregations have started since the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003. Officially, only two evangelical churches-both Presbyterian and led by Egyptian nationals-existed in the capital during Hussein’s rule. Now there are Baptists, Methodists, and Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) congregations, all led by local Iraqi pastors.

“The people are open like never before,” says Ghassan Thomas, pastor of a CMA church in Baghdad. “It is because we have no peace. This is how we connect our message to the nation: I preach on the topic, ‘How do we get peace?’ and everyone listens, especially when I talk about the deeper peace that Christ brings.”
Most of the members of the new churches come from the Presbyterian Church, and some come from historic Christian denominations such as the Chaldean Catholic or Syrian Orthodox, which have been in Iraq for centuries.

“Muslims, too, want peace,” Thomas says. “Many of them are frightened. When the hostages are killed, often a Quranic verse is used to justify it. So many Muslims are scared of their own god. When we preach that God is love, it is so liberating to them.”

Southern Iraq is deemed too dangerous for foreign Christian workers. Most have pulled back to the more stable Iraqi Kurdistan. More than 4 million Kurds reside in this northern mountainous region, which has enjoyed autonomy since the first Gulf War in 1991.

Two Kurdish political factions control the area. Arbil is the main city of the domain of Massoud Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party, and Sulemaniya is the power center of newly elected Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

In both regions Kurdish refugees are flooding back. There is little street crime, and authorities have severely curtailed the activities of Islamic extremists. This has brought much prosperity to the area, which many believe is one reason the respective administrations-in their courting of Western investment-have markedly improved their defense of religious freedom.

“The last 10 years have been a golden time here, and it is set to continue with Talabani becoming president,” says Yousif Matty, a leading pastor of the Kurdish Evangelical Church, a denomination in the north comprising Kurdish and Arabic Christians. “He has been very strong on emphasizing the rule of law. Also, the Kurds have suffered at the hands of Islamists and have no love for them.”

Matty’s churches have a few hundred members, from both Muslim and Christian backgrounds. He runs four bookshops, two schools and other projects, and he received a $500,000 plot of land from the government to build his church. The government has also welcomed other Christian nongovernmental organizations.
The other evangelical denomination in the north is the Kurdish Language Evangelical Church, which is exclusively Kurdish-speaking and made up primarily of Kurds.

“There is always persecution from the family when a Muslim becomes a Christian,” says the Kurdish pastor of one fellowship in Arbil. “That will not change any time soon, but it used to be that the new convert would face persecution from the state also, yet this is less true today.”

Resisting Islam

The influence of the Kurds, who represent 25 percent of the Iraqi population, is important to the future of the country. President Talabani has less power than the Shiite prime minister, but some Christian leaders believe the best bulwark against a strongly Islamic Constitution may be the influence of the Kurds.

Though Sunni Muslims, the Kurdish people are one of the least observant groups in the Middle East. They were expected to oppose the Arabs, whom they believe have humiliated them for decades. Last summer, Nestorian Bishop Issac of Dohuk correctly predicted the Kurds would keep the constitution from becoming too Islamic.

“’Shariah’ is really Arabic, and the Kurds will resist all attempts to Arabize the culture of Iraq,” Issac says. “If we go the Shariah route, it will be like in Iran where our [Nestorian] church is less than 10 percent of the strength it was before [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini took power.”

Another point of light for the Iraqi church is that many of the 40,000 or so Christians who fled after a spate of bombings in August 2004 have returned to the country. Yet the numbers of those still in refugee camps in Jordan and Syria remain significant-perhaps 10,000, though precise figures are not available.

“It’s not the end of the world that so many Christians have fled, because it has spread the Iraqi church over the world,” Issac says, “and the new communities established in America and Australia are providing many resources we would not have received if we had all remained in the land.”

The news is not all positive, of course. Iraq remains a country in crisis. At a recent conference for 70 Iraqi pastors, all had to travel early in the morning to avoid trouble on the roads. And although they stressed that the streets gradually have become safer since the beginning of the year, church meetings throughout the south are held at 4:30 in the afternoon-with everyone at home behind locked doors by 7:30 p.m. for fear of insurgent and looting activity.

Law and order still has not been adequately restored, nor have basic services. Patience has run out with U.S. and British forces’ failure to restore stability after two years in the country.

“No population will support an army that cannot protect it,” one pastor says. “The goodwill has completely gone.”

Middle-class Christians are also continuing to emigrate in alarming numbers, as those in key professions such as medicine are targets of kidnapping and extortion. This exodus has decimated some newer evangelical churches.

Strife From Within

The Iraqi churches also face internal challenges. Some priests from the historic churches have bullied the new evangelicals. In Baghdad, a priest from the Chaldean Catholics told those who had left his church to attend Baptist services: “We will not bury your relatives who attend our churches.” Some leaders of the older church denominations have slandered evangelical congregations as “part of a Jewish conspiracy to control Iraq.”

Also, though the evangelicals are skilled in evangelism, the church is young and immature. “Our outreach activity is so much stronger than the discipling function of the church,” Matty warns. “We have radio outreach, schools, bookshops, but the church itself is not concentrating in deepening its life, nor are the leaders getting trained enough.”

Some church leaders see the splitting of the evangelical churches into so many new-and often foreign-backed-denominations as an indication of disunity. And not all missionary aid is well-spent. Some pastors have used foreign support to buy expensive cars and upgrade their lifestyles, leading to envy among other pastors.

Yet for all these challenges, the mood among 70 evangelical pastors meeting in April was guardedly optimistic. A pastor of one of the three Baptist congregations in Baghdad, who did not wish to be named, forecast three trends.

“One, the evangelical church will grow stronger, but many of its numbers will leave,” the pastor says. “However that’s not so bad. They will probably come back with more teaching and maturity, and it will benefit the church in the long term.

“Two, the historic churches will get even more negative. I see them as the major persecutor of the evangelicals in the future. It is as it always was.

“I am translating a book called The Trial of Blood, which calculates that the institutional churches killed 50 million Christians from 315 to 1570.

“Three, the Islamic extremists will moderate, though it may take a generation.”

Yet even when conflicts are at their sharpest, there are hopeful signs. Pastor Thomas from the CMA church in Baghdad tells of an incident that occurred when he received death threats written on cardboard after erecting a sign outside his church that said, “Jesus is the Light of the World.”

On the cardboard was scrawled: “Jesus is not the light of the world. Allah is, and you have been warned.” It was signed, “the Islamic Shiite Party.”

Thomas loaded up a van full of children’s gifts from a Christian relief agency, together with some Bibles and medicines, and drove to the headquarters of the Islamic Shiite Party. When he came to the compound, he demanded to “see the big sheikh, I have gifts for him.”

He was taken to meet the leader, and he introduced himself as a pastor.

“We respect you,” the sheikh said.

Thomas said, “Christians have love for you, because God is love, our God is a God of love.”

Again the sheikh replied: “We respect your God. We respect Jesus.”

This was the opening Thomas had been praying for. He said, “If you respect Jesus, would you let me read you His words?” He took out his Bible and read the words of Jesus from John 8, “I am the light of the world.” Then he brought out the cardboard with the death threat.

The sheikh read it and looked ashamed. After a brief pause, he said: “We are sorry. This will not happen again. You are my brother. If anyone comes to kill you, it will be my neck first.” The sheikh even attended Thomas’ ordination as the pastor.

“No one is expecting the situation to improve for the better quickly,” Thomas says, “but we believe that God is moving in these times and that the future will be more peaceful, especially if Christians will befriend good Muslims and work together.” ?

The Church of the Forgotten

Christians have worshiped in Iraq for hundreds of years, but their suffering has been overlooked by the world.

Though reports of church growth in Iraq have begun to surface only recently, Christians have been living in the region for centuries. Centered in northern Iraq, in the land once known as Nineveh, the Assyrian Church is one of the oldest Christian communities in the history of the faith. No stranger to difficulty and persecution-most recently during the pernicious rule of Saddam Hussein-the Assyrian Church is once again in dire straits.

Although the Assyrians and other minorities in northern Iraq praised the capture of Hussein by U.S. and allied forces, those groups have been leaving the country in droves. According to a recent statement issued by the Religious Freedom Coalition, in the last year more than 60,000 Assyrians and other minorities have fled Iraq. Those who remained are being subjected to increasing pressure and persecution.

A chief source of frustration is the inequitable distribution of reconstruction funds and resources. Michael Youash, executive director of the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project, says these funds are being distributed through Kurdish authorities to the detriment of Assyrians and other non-Muslim minorities. He says even basic infrastructures such as electricity and water are being selectively disbursed based on religious and political grounds, leaving non-Muslim areas virtually uninhabitable.

The Assyrians and other minorities also feel disenchanted with the new regime. The Assyrian International News Agency, , is reporting that voter fraud and irregularities in the most recent elections resulted in the massive disenfranchisement of the Christian electorate.

Perhaps the most critical issue currently facing the Assyrian Church and non-Muslim minorities, however, is the looming specter of an Islamic Republic of Iraq. This fall, a critical vote was to be taken on Iraq’s new constitution. At press time, controversy surrounded Article 7, which read, “Islam is the official religion of the State.”

Under Hussein’s regime the country remained largely secular. Observers feared the push for Islamic rule was being fueled by outside extremists who received monetary support from international sources dedicated to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. In July, grave reports already were surfacing of Christian persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists, including intimidation, kidnapping, church burnings and murder.

Internally, the push to institute Islam is coming from the new leadership, many of whom returned to Iraq after the liberation and are characterized as out of touch with Iraqi people. Iraq’s new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaffari has been quoted as saying, “If we do not put Islam as the religion of the state, the people would revolt!” This despite evidence that the Iraqi people themselves desire a secular state.

There is some hope that the new constitution will grant the Assyrians some level of autonomous governance. Yet many are concerned that a premature withdrawal by American forces might leave them in the lurch.

“We are extremely grateful for what the Americans did,” says Ken Joseph Jr. of , “but 1,500-plus American heroes did not give their lives to create the Islamic Republic of Iraq.”

Meanwhile, Assyrian believers say they are facing a challenge from Christian organizations which, instead of empowering and equipping the indigenous church, are eroding its base by establishing new churches from existing congregations.

In the end, Joseph says, “One of the key indicators of a country’s health is its ability to protect and preserve its minorities.” In this respect, the plight of the Assyrian church and other non-Muslim minorities should be a sign of great concern.
David Mundy

SPOTLIGHT

No Limits

Israel Houghton says nothing is impossible for God

Recording his latest CD live in South Africa was a dream come true for worship leader Israel Houghton. Live projects capture the crowd’s energy and excitement anyway. But in South Africa, where Houghton says he didn’t have to “convince the people that they’re hungry” for God, the experience exceeded his expectations. Houghton says Alive in South Africa has some surprises—like the moment when “God showed up” as the crowd sang along to “Alpha and Omega,” an African worship chorus. But what he hopes leaves the strongest impression on listeners is a prophetic declaration “that there is absolutely no limit in God.” Right now, he says, “the favor of God is extra pronounced. If you sow you will most definitely reap. There’s no limit.”
Adrienne s. Gaines

Prayer Point

Thousands of families have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina, which rocked the Gulf Coast in late August. Charisma invites you to join us in praying:

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:

Iran-born pastor Donald Fareed says democracy will prevent new Christians from being killed in Muslim nations
Donald Fareed, a former Muslim, is used to receiving death threats during the call-in segment of his satellite TV show. But attempts at intimidation, illness and meager funding have not stopped the Iranian-born pastor from preaching the gospel to Muslims.

From his base in San Jose, Calif., Fareed reaches millions of Muslims in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and parts of Iraq each week through his broadcasts. If his salvation message wounds radical Islam, his calls for democracy adds salt. “Without democracy, new Christians are killed,” Fareed said.

Born in Iran during the Shahís reign, Fareed said the secret police arrested him at the age of 12 for complaining about government corruption. Though raised as a devout Muslim he fled a few years after the Iranian revolution in 1978-79, arriving in the U.S. with $23.

After launching a successful janitorial business, Fareed drifted into Sulfism, an Islamic cult, and embraced several New Age religions, including Scientology. But when three ministers wound up in his home in 1990 he came to Christ.

A few months later he said Jesus appeared to him in a vision, explaining the meaning of the cross. Soon his wife, Rima, accepted Christ and both were baptized in a local Iranian church. Recognizing his zeal, church leaders sent him to Istanbul, Turkey, in 1993 to do street evangelism. There, he met Bishop Heik Hovsepian, head of the Iranian Assemblies of God. They became friends, and Fareed began helping him get Christians, endangered by the new regime, out of Iran.

Then in January 1994 Hovsepian was killed in Tehran. “They carved his heart from his chest,” Fareed said. “Before that I was afraid to speak out about the oppression. But right then and there I made a commitment to follow in his footsteps.”

He soon planted two Persian churches in the Bay Area that have since brought more than 500 American Muslims to Christ. In 2000, he started the nonprofit Persian Ministries International and was soon struck by a sometimes-fatal muscle condition called Fibromyalgia Syndrome. Yet instead of slowing him, the thought that he might soon die intensified his efforts. So when longtime Muslim friend Sattar Deldar offered to sell him airtime on Deldarís Appadana International, Fareed started his broadcast.

Through his Bridging the Gap Ministries, he also teaches churches how to evangelize Muslims. His ìWhy I am Not a Muslimî sermon announcement on a church sign created a Bay Area controversy that put him on several TV stations.

“His ministry has had an incredbile effect in Iran and the U.S.,” said Kyle Windson, global ministries pastor at San Jose’s South Valley Christian Church, which oversees Fareed’s ministry. “The attack in London shows us how important it is to reach Muslims for Christ.”
Ed Donnally