What’s your New Year’s resolution? Getting closer to God? Losing weight? Earning more money? Barna Group set out to discover the New Year’s resolutions of Americans in a survey of more than 1,000 adults.

Not surprisingly, at the top of the list are resolutions related to weight, diet and health (30 percent), followed by money, debt and finances (15 percent) and personal improvement (13 percent). Other Americans listed overcoming an addiction (12 percent), job and career (5 percent) and educational (4 percent).

Only 5 percent of respondents cited a church-related resolution for 2011. Improving relationships, giving more, and having a better life didn’t even garner 5 percent. And God hardly ranked at all.

“Only 9 out of more than 1,000 survey respondents—that’s not quite 1 percent—mentioned that one of their objectives for next year was getting closer to God in some way,” says David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group. “Even in the rare instance when people mention spiritual goals, it is often about activity undertaken for God, rather than a personal pursuit of God or an experience with God.”

As Kinnaman sees it, perhaps the most problematic trend in the resolutions survey is the finding that Americans hinge their efforts at personal change by focusing almost exclusively on themselves, rather than realizing that lasting change often comes by serving and sacrificing for others.

“Churches and faith communities have a significant opportunity to help people identify what makes for transformational change and how to best achieve those objectives—especially by relying on goals and resources beyond their individualism,” he concludes.

What are your New Year’s resolutions? I’d love to hear about your goals, visions and dreams for 2011. Please share with me in the comment box below.

The number of Americans filing for their first week of unemployment benefit fell below 400,000 for the first time in more than two years last week. That’s good news amid one of the longest job droughts in the nation’s history.

But what about unemployed people looking for jobs at ministries, in churches and in other Christian fields?

They can now turn to , a job seekers Web site that’s gaining fast traction online. has seen exponential growth in the past three months with growing site traffic and 18,000 Twitter followers.

lets job seekers match their skills and interests to Christian employment at ministries, churches, and businesses across the nation. On the other side of the interview table, Christian employers can put their job opportunity in front of millions of Americans looking for work.

Have you been unemployed in 2010? I’d love to hear about how God has provided for your needs.

NEW DELHI (CDN) — Christians in India faced a spike in attacks in the past decade, suffering more than 130 assaults a year since 2001, with figures far surpassing that in 2007 and 2008.
 
This year Christians suffered at least 149 violent attacks, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI). Most of the incidents took place in just four states: two adjacent states in south India, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, and two neighboring states in north-central India, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, noted EFI in its report, “Religion, Politics and Violence: A Report of the Hostility and Intimidation Faced by Christians in India in 2010.”

 
Of India’s 23 million Christians, 2.7 million live in the four states seen as the hub of Christian persecution. While north-central parts of the country have been tense for a decade, the escalation of attacks in southern India began last year.
 
This year Karnataka recorded at least 56 attacks – most of them initially reported by the Global Council of Indian Christians, which is based in the state capital, Bengaluru. Chhattisgarh witnessed 18 attacks, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh with 15 and 13 attacks respectively.
 
Christians are not stray incidents but are part of a systematic campaign by influential [Hindu nationalist] organizations capable of flouting law and enjoying impunity,” the EFI report said.
 
In 2009 there were more than 152 attacks across India, and the same four states topped the list of violent incidents, according to the EFI: 48 in Karnataka, 29 in Andhra Pradesh, 15 in Madhya Pradesh and 14 in Chhattisgarh.
 
Three of the four states – Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh – are ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the EFI noted that the high number of attacks on Christians in those states was no coincidence.
 
“While it cannot be said that the ruling party had a direct role in the attacks on Christians, its complicity cannot be ruled out either,” the report stated.
 
In Andhra Pradesh, ruled by centrist Indian National Congress (commonly known as the Congress Party), most attacks are believed to be led by Hindu nationalist groups.
 
EFI remarked that “although in 2007 and 2008 two major incidents of violence occurred in eastern Orissa state’s Kandhamal district and hit headlines in the national as well as international media, little efforts have been taken by authorities in India to tackle the root causes of communal tensions, namely divisive propaganda and activities by powerful right-wing Hindu groups, who do not represent the tolerant Hindu community.”
 
The violence in Kandhamal district during Christmas week of 2007 killed at least four Christians and burned 730 houses and 95 churches, according to the All India Christian Council (AICC). These attacks were preceded by around 200 incidents of anti-Christian attacks in other parts of the country.
 
Violence re-erupted in Kandhamal district in August 2008, killing more than 100 people and resulting in the incineration of 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions, according to the AICC.
 
Soon the violence spread to other states. In Karnataka, at least 28 attacks were recorded in August and September 2008, according to a report by People’s Union of Civil Liberties, “The Ugly Face of Sangh Parivar,” released in March 2009.
 
Before the two most violent years of 2007 and 2008, incidents of persecution of Christians had dipped to the lowest in the decade. In 2006 there were at least 130 incidents – more than two a week on average – according to the Christian Legal Association of India.
 
At least 165 anti-Christian attacks were reported in 2005. But from 2001 to 2004, at least 200 incidents were reported each year, according to John Dayal, secretary general of the AICC.
 
In 1998, Christians were targeted by the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS –India’s chief Hindu nationalist conglomerate and the BJP’s ideological mentor – when Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, Catholic by descent, became the president of India’s Congress Party. Gandhi, the wife of former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, was seen as a major threat to the BJP, which had come to power for the first time at the federal level the same year. The Gandhi family has been popular since the Independence of India in 1947.
 
But Christian persecution – murder, beating, rape, false accusation, ostracism, and destruction of property – had begun spreading across the country in 2001, especially in tribal-inhabited states in central India. The attacks on Christians were apparently aimed at coaxing Sonia Gandhi to speak on behalf of Christians so that she could be branded as a leader of the Christian minority, as opposed to the BJP’s claimed leadership of the Hindu majority. Observers say it is therefore not surprising that Gandhi has never spoken directly against Christian persecution in India.
 
Change in Political Atmosphere
After Hindu nationalist groups were linked with bombings in late 2008, the RSS and the BJP distanced themselves from those charged with the terrorist violence. The BJP also adopted a relatively moderate ideological stand in campaigns during state and federal elections.
 
The BJP, mainly the national leadership, has become more moderate also because it has faced embarrassing defeats in the last two consecutive general elections, in 2004 and 2009, which it fought on a mixed plank of Hindu nationalism and development. The voters in the two elections clearly indicated that they were more interested in development than divisive issues related to identity – thanks to the process of economic liberalization which began in India in 1991.
 
The incidence of Christian persecution, however, remains high because not all in the BJP and the RSS leadership seem willing to “dilute” their commitment to Hindu nationalism. Especially some in the lower rungs and in the regional leadership remain hardliners.
 
How this ideological rift within the Hindu nationalist family will play out next year and in the coming decade is yet to be seen. There is speculation, however, that more individuals and outfits formerly connected with the RSS will part ways and form their own splinter groups.
 
Although politicians are increasingly realizing that religion-related conflicts are no longer politically beneficial, it is perhaps too early to expect a change on the ground. This is why none of the “anti-conversion” laws has been repealed.
 
Four Indian states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Arunachal Pradesh – had introduced legislation to regulate religious conversion, known as “anti-conversion” laws, before 2001, and since then three more states – Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh – brought in such laws, while two states sought to make existing laws stricter.
 
Anti-conversion laws are yet to be implemented, however, in Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. The anti-conversion amendment bills in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have also faced political hurdles.
 
Although the anti-conversion laws claim to ban conversions undertaken by force or allurement – terms that have not been defined adequately – they are commonly used to jail or otherwise harass Christians who are simply following Christ’s mandate to help the poor and make disciples. The laws also require all conversions to be reported to the authorities, failing which both convert and relevant clergy can be fined and imprisoned.
 
Some of these laws also require a prospective convert to obtain prior permission before conversion.
 
Concerns in 2011
Hard-line Hindu nationalists are seeking to create more fodder for communal conflicts and violence.
 
In April 2010, Hindu nationalists declared their plan to hold a rally of 2 million Hindus in Madhya Pradesh state’s Mandla district in February 2011, with the aim of converting Christians back to Hinduism and driving away pastors, evangelists and foreign aid workers from the district.
 
Several spates of violence have been linked to past rallies. India’s first large-scale, indiscriminate attack on Christians took place in Dangs district of Gujarat state in December 1998 after local Hindu nationalist groups organized such a rally. The violence led to mass destruction of property belonging to local Christians and Christian organizations.
 
Law and order is generally a responsibility of the states, but how the federal government and other agencies respond to the call for the rally in Madhya Pradesh may indicate what to expect in the coming months and years in India.

Just because the war on Christmas is over—at least for now—doesn’t mean there aren’t other battles going on in Christendom. People are debating about everything from yoga to trademarks to dog fighting and beyond. Here are a few quirky stories I read in my quest to deliver you the news that matters most.

Should Christians practice yoga? The Wall Street Journal is stirring up quite a debate with its article by the same title. 

What’s in an acronym? Plenty, apparently. But the Los Angeles Times reports that the International House of Pancakes dropped its trademark suit against the International House of Prayer. Did prayer help?

Despite the separation of church and state mandates, some charter schools are finding a home on church grounds, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. Is it a constitutional misstep?

Is Philadelphia Eagles QB Michael Vick unforgivable for his dog fighting days? Clergy members discuss it in this Palm Beach Post story.

Finally, Denver Westword News reports on how Christianity is getting the punk-rock treatment at a Denver church.

What are the most interesting, wacky or offbeat Christian news stories you’ve read lately? Please share!

HO CHI MINH CITY, (CDN) — Granted permission only five hours before a scheduled Christmas event, house church leaders turned an empty field into a rudimentary stadium and welcomed some 20,000 people for a time of worship and evangelism on Sunday (Dec. 26) in Vietnam’s largest city.

The last-minute permission for the event in Ho Chi Minh City reflected the byzantine manner in which authorities have applied Vietnam’s religions laws. The central government’s Bureau of Religious Affairs (BRA) in Hanoi, the body charged with managing religion in communist Vietnam, gave permission for the event to the newly registered Vietnam Assemblies of God (AOG) organization in early December. The Vietnam AOG represents a large grouping of mostly unregistered house churches in the Vietnam Evangelical Fellowship (VEF).

Organizers were grateful for the early permission this year – last year they received only 42 hours notice for an event that 40,000 people attended – but when the AOG superintendent, Pastor Duong Thanh Lam, and other VEF leaders began working out particulars with the Ho Chi Minh City BRA, they met with considerable resistance. After the Ho Chi Minh City BRA finally consented, church leaders said, the organizers found that landlords with potential venues, clearly under pressure, refused to rent them space.

The stand-off lasted until Christmas Day. Meantime, based on the permission from Hanoi, organizers sent invitations to many thousands of Christians in the city and surrounding provinces, and Christians were preparing to come with friends and neighbors to the event, sources said. Some 300 buses, each carrying 60 to 70 passengers, were to bring people from the provinces, they said.

By 11 a.m. on Christmas Day, in spite of official promises, the required permission papers had not yet been granted, church leaders said. Organizers debated whether to push ahead or call off the event – wondering whether communicating word of a cancellation was even possible at that point. Finally at 5 p.m., in an emergency meeting with the city’s ruling People’s Committee, they got a verbal go-ahead and a promise of a written permit.

They said this meant they had only 24 hours to build a perimeter around the field, bring in electricity and water, prepare sanitary facilities, set up chairs, erect a stage, and install the sound and lighting systems.

But the next morning – the Sunday of the planned event – authorities informed organizers that the permission was not for their program but only to provide a place where the buses and people could come so organizers could explain, apologize and send them home, sources said. Organizers said it was another in a series of deeply discouraging betrayals, but that many Christians in Vietnam and worldwide were praying fervently.

Just before noon, a church leader went to the BRA office in a last-ditch attempt to get written permission. He urged officials to think through the possible consequences of many thousands of people arriving in the city for a much anticipated event and finding nothing. Finally at 1 p.m., just five hours before the event was scheduled to start, the BRA issued written permission for a gathering of 5,000 people.

Permission at last in hand, organizers called and text-messaged the many people standing by to help set up to come to the venue in district 12. Sources said they came quickly, like a small army, encountering huge cement culverts and pilings on roads as they approached the venue. These had to be manually removed to allow buses and trucks to enter.

Too late now to set up properly, they said, they did only what was absolutely necessary. They brought in 14,000 chairs on flatbed trucks, and one of the trucks served as the stage. As a backdrop they had time only to put up a large red cross with a white border that, when lit, sources said, stood starkly and powerfully against the night sky.

Crews and volunteers worked feverishly erecting towers and installing sound and lighting systems. Christmas worshippers began arriving in large numbers at 5 p.m., even though people reported authorities had prevented a significant number of buses from embarking on their journey, and that others were intercepted and forced to turn around.
 
The program began only 30 minutes later than the announced start time of 6 p.m., which organizers regarded as a miracle, and people continued to pour into the venue until well after 7 p.m. while worship music was underway. Those attending enthusiastically participated in loud and joyful praise, and sources cited as especially moving a local choir of hundreds singing “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”

As they did last year, the Jackson family of six from the United States sang at the rally. The state-controlled media had earlier given ample coverage to the unique sight of the Christian group giving away their CDs in a busy downtown area.

Pastor Ho Tan Khoa was well into his evangelistic message when the lights went out, although sources said that, miraculously, the sound system was not affected. Thousands of people in the crowd opened their cell phones, lighting the darkness with their digital candles. The failure – or cutting – of the electricity did affect the live video broadcast on , but within about 15 minutes power was restored.

After a song and prayer for healing, Pastor Pham Dinh Nhan asked those who wanted to follow Christ to come forward. Hundreds streamed up, and sources said those who arrived first rushed onto the flatbed truck serving as a stage and clung to the large cross. Organizers estimated 2,000 people indicated a first-time decision to follow Christ.

In a fitting closing song, the Jackson family sang both in Vietnamese and English, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Pastor Duong Thanh Lam then graciously thanked the relevant government departments for “recognizing our need to worship” and for “creating the conditions for this event to happen.”

Those who follow religion in Vietnam were puzzled that the government went to such lengths to hinder the gathering. They cited the government lock-out of a scheduled Christmas celebration in Hanoi on Dec. 19 as an example of interference that will also long be remembered (see , “Vietnam Authorities Move to Stop Protestant Christmas Events,” Dec. 20).

“It seems Vietnam squandered an excellent public relations opportunity at a time when there are renewed efforts in the U.S. Congress to put Vietnam back on the religious liberty blacklist,” said one long-time observer.

Some Vietnamese church leaders and international observers have said they believe officials have clamped down on Christmas celebrations this year because they were alarmed at the size of last year’s Christmas events.

One church leader told Compass of Directive No. 75 of the Ministry of Interior, an Oct. 15 order that presumably forbids such gatherings. Though no church leader has been shown the directive, an official considered to be sympathetic to Christians told a pastor that the directive orders strict adherence to the Decree on Religion 22. This 2005 decree, the main law governing religion, forbids Christians in unregistered groups from any public gatherings, restricting their religious activity to single family worship in their household.

In practice, sources said, many house churches have experienced considerably more freedom than that. Last year many unregistered groups were allowed, though reluctantly, to hold large public Christmas gatherings in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The unregistered house churches are becoming increasingly frustrated. Most have tried to register their congregations according to existing laws but have either been refused or ignored. The freedoms that members of registered churches enjoy are not available for unregistered Christians, sources said, and unregistered Christians are unable to register.

Many speculate that concern over security in the run-up to the January 2011 Party Congress, held every five years, is one reason for the government’s approach. Whatever the reason, all concerned church leaders agreed that the efforts to stop the large Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Christmas events this year were ordered from the top level of government. No leaders said they believe the obstacles resulted merely from disagreements and delays among government departments, as it was sometimes made to appear.

A number of other events held in public venues by the registered Evangelical Church of Vietnam (North) and the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (South) went ahead peacefully. The largest one in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 17 attracted an estimated 9,000 people, with about 1,000 indicating a desire to follow Christ.

In some places, unregistered house church organizations held small Christmas events without difficulty. According to one count, at least 6,000 people throughout Vietnam indicated a first-time decision to follow Christ in this year’s Christmas events.

LAGOS, Nigeria (CDN) — Tensions continued to mount in the Christian community in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state in northern Nigeria, following the killing of a Baptist pastor and five other Christians on Christmas Eve.

The Rev. Bulus Marwa and the other Christians were killed in the Dec. 24 attacks on Victory Baptist Church in Alemderi and a Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregation in Sinimari by the outlawed Islamic Boko Haram sect opposed to Western education.

Those killed at the Baptist church, which was set ablaze, included choir members Philip Luka, 22, and Paul Mathew, 21, as well as 50-year-old Christopher Balami and Yohana Adamu. Philip Sopso, a 60-year-old a security guard, was killed at the COCIN church while 25 other persons were said to have been injured during the serial attacks by the Islamic group.

“It is sad that when Christians were supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, some people, out of wickedness, would come to perpetrate such evil,” said Borno State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria the Rev. Yuguda Ndirmva.

The Boko Haram members reportedly first stormed the COCIN church in two vehicles and detonated bombs that shattered the gate of the worship center and killed the security guard.

Many Christians have taken refuge to avoid further attacks as soldiers and police keep watch at churches and other strategic locations in the state.

Danjuma Akawu, who survived the attack on the Baptist church, said “they hacked the two choir members using knives and petrol bomb before heading to the pastor’s residence, where he was killed.”

Borno Gov. Ali Modu Sheriff said he had alerted police to the possibility of an attack on churches during Christmas.

“It is very unfortunate and sad for the Christian community to be attacked and people killed without any genuine cause,” Sheriff said.

Speaking during a visit to the Baptist church on Saturday (Dec. 25), the governor noted that the attack on the Christian community was an attempt by Boko Haram to create conflict between Christians and Muslims in the state. Several Boko Haram bomb blasts in Christian areas of Jos on Dec. 24 that killed scores of people were said to be an attempt to create the same inter-religious conflict.

Borno state, in northeastern Nigeria, is largely populated by Muslims who have disowned some activities of Boko Haram as contrary to Islam.

Police Commissioner Mohammed Abubakar admitted a security lapse on the part of his divisional police officers, whom he said had been told to watch out for Boko Haram members.

The activities of the Islamic extremist Boko Haram, whose names means “Western education is sin,” were crushed by police in 2009 with the arrest of many of its members and the killing of its leader.

In retaliation, the group had killed policemen and was recently responsible for a prison break to set free its members in the Borno state capital.

Worried about the safety of Christians in Borno state, the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, asked the federal government to curb the growing trend of terrorism in parts of the country.

“We can no longer allow this group of disgruntled elements to get away with these acts of terrorism in Nigeria,” he said.

The general superintendent of Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor William Kumuyi, demanded the arrest and prosecution of the Boko Haram members and others to serve as a deterrent.

“A situation in which feuds easily lead to the burning of churches and the endless killings of church ministers and innocent citizens is an abhorrent trend which must not be allowed to continue,” Pastor Kumuyi said. “The initiative rests on the doorsteps of the security agencies to bring this unfortunate trend to an end.”

In some states, minors seem to need parental consent for body piercings—but not for abortions. Several family and legal groups have taken issue with that law.

Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys, along with Americans United for Life  and ADF-allied attorney Randall Wenger, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the first-ever review of a law requiring parental consent for a minor’s abortion.

The Pennsylvania Family Institute, the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and 70 state legislators are among those who support the law protecting a parent’s right to be involved in their child’s decision regarding abortion.

“Parents should have a right to be involved in their child’s critical life-changing decisions, and that includes abortions,” says ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Secret abortions performed on minors leave children in the hands of a predatory abortion industry that has put profits above parents’ rights and the health and safety of young girls and their preborn children.”

The Pennsylvania law and others like it have already been upheld at the U.S. Supreme Court. The ADF brief argues that a Pennsylvania trial court judge applied the correct legal standard and legitimately exercised his legal authority under the statute when he rejected a minor girl’s request for a secret abortion, stating that she needed consent from at least one of her parents.  
 
Here’s the background: A girl in a lawsuit sought a judicial bypass that would have hidden the abortion from her parents. A Pennsylvania trial court judge denied that bypass. While the law allows for a bypass in certain circumstances, it does not require rubber-stamp approval of every petition. The brief argues that a judge should have the freedom to carefully weigh the evidence and exercise proper discretion in allowing the parents a role in the abortion decision. At least one parent of the girl ultimately consented, permitting the abortion of their grandchild.

“Pennsylvania law appropriately requires that children obtain parental consent to get a body piercing in Pennsylvania, yet abortionists argue that these same children should be able to secretly kill their preborn babies in a risky medical procedure,” said Wenger, of the Independence Law Center, one of nearly 1,900 attorneys in the ADF alliance.  “While the baby in this particular case can never be brought back, the law must be upheld so that Pennsylvania parents may protect their daughters from being victimized under the cover of darkness by the profiteers of death in the abortion industry.

LOS ANGELES (CDN) — One of the two main political parties of the indigenous people in Bangladesh’s southeastern hill tracts prevented Christians from celebrating Christmas, sources said.

The United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), which has demanded that Christian converts return to Buddhism, threatened tribal Christians of at least seven churches in Khagrachari district, some 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

A source requesting anonymity told Compass that a local leader of the UPDF, a regional party seeking autonomy, warned Christians not to hold a Christmas gathering.

“Members of the Kalapani Bethlehem Church could not celebrate Christmas this year,” the source said. “UPDF members threatened them, saying ‘You cannot play the harmonium, drums and sing here. You cannot even worship silently.”

Christian elders told the UPDF leader by telephone that they had arranged food for around 100 people, and the UPDF members allowed them only to eat their rice and curry, he said.

“The UPDF leader threatened them, saying, ‘If you worship today, it will land you in unforeseeable consequences,’” the source said.

Another source requesting anonymity told Compass that Christians at Chotopanchari Baptist Church were unable to celebrate Christmas after receiving a threat from UPDF members.

Five tribal people who are members of UPDF on Dec. 19 called a meeting of 50 Buddhists and seven Christians, including the Baptist church pastor.

“They threatened the Christians, telling them not to celebrate Christmas in the village and not to do any other Christian activities,” the source said. “The UPDF members warned the Christians that if they celebrated Christmas, they would be in grave trouble. They warned the pastor not to take care of the congregation and ordered him to go back to his previous religion, Buddhism.”

Party members also threatened Buddhist villagers, playing them off against the Christians, he said.

“If the Christians are allowed to celebrate their festival, you non-Christian villagers will also be in trouble,” the source said.

About a year ago, unknown assailants vandalized the church building, a tin-roofed structure with walls of straw and a clay floor.

“We tried to reconstruct the church, but the villagers kept us from rebuilding it,” the source said.

The pastor and some members of nearby Shuknachari Baptist Church have been living like refugees for several months due to threats from the armed UPDF.

Of 18 Christian families in the village, only seven or eight families have maintained their faith in Christ in the face of the opposition, with the others returning to Buddhism under compulsion.

The Rev. Leor P. Sarkar, general secretary of Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship, told Compass that religious rights of the tribal Christians were violated in the hill districts.

“It is unfortunate that the Christians of seven churches in Khagrachari district could not celebrate the Christmas due to the armed threats of the UPDF,” Sarkar said. “Another form of religious extremism [Buddhist] is surfacing.”

Muslims make up nearly 90 percent of Bangladesh’s population, with Christians and Buddhists accounting for less than 1 percent of the 164.4 million people. Hinduism is the second largest religious affiliation at 9.2 percent of the people. Theravada-Hinayana Buddhists are predominantly found among the indigenous (non-Bengali) populations mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

“Bangladesh is a secular country,” Sarkar said. “If they [UPDF members] continue persecution of Christians, how can they uphold their political ideology as a decent political party? The way they are keeping Christians from their religious activities is like that of a terrorist or religious extremist group.”

He said Christian leaders had written to top government officials about how the Christians in the hill tracts are being persecuted for their faith, but to no avail.

The UPDF is one of two main tribal organizations in the hill districts, the other being the United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, or PCJSS). The PCJSS, formed in 1973, had fought for autonomy in the region for 25 years, leaving nearly 8,500 troops, rebels and civilians killed. After signing a peace accord in 1997 with the Bangladesh government, the PCJSS laid down arms.

But the UPDF, a political party founded in 1998 based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, has strong and serious reservations against the 1997 Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord. Claiming that the agreement failed to address fundamental demands of the indigenous Jumma people, the UPDF has pledged to fight for their full autonomy.

Last year the PCJSS demanded that the government ban the UPDF for their terrorist activities in the hill districts.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts region comprises three districts: Bandarban, Khagrachuri and Rangamati. The region is surrounded by the Indian states of Tripura on the north and Mizoram on the east, Myanmar on the south and east.

On Christmas Day, Bangladesh President Mohammad Zillur Rahman exchanged greetings with the members of Christian community at a function at Bangabhaban, the presidential palace in Dhaka.

Speaking briefly, he said Bangladesh is a secular country where people of all faiths have been practicing their respective religions peacefully. The statement came on the heels of media reports in Bangladesh about U.S. appreciation of improvements in Bangladesh’s religious freedom record.

The U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report refers to Bangladesh’s success in creating an environment for freely observed religious festivals and reducing violence on religious minorities.

“But the religious matrix in the deep recesses of the hill districts is different,” said Sarkar.

“Their plight is not published in the local or international news media. There is huge difference between the plains and the impassable, hilly areas. If anything happens in the plains, it easily gets noticed in the media, but persecution in the hill districts goes unheard.”

Human rights advocate Rosaline Costa, coordinator of Hotline Human Rights in Bangladesh, told Compass that the UPDF was violating the constitutional rights of the Christians in the hill regions.

“We will investigate the incidents and inform the highest concerned authority, so that Christians in the hill tracts get their religious freedom,” Costa said.

It’s all about one thing at the International House of Prayer’s (IHOP) Young Adult Conference—and that’s Jesus.

Dubbed onething, the annual worship and teaching conference is drawing 25,000 young adults to Kansas City Convention Center this Dec. 28-31.

“There are moments in history when a door for great change is blown wide open,” says Mike Bickle, conference founder and director of IHOP-KC. “We are in the early days of seeing sweeping changes that will confront the status quo in the Church and in society. It is in these strategic moments that the disciples of Jesus will become the hinge of history, that pivotal point that determines which way the door will swing.”

Onething aims to help train and equip a generation to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to love God and people with all their hearts. Young people are coming from across America and over 50 countries, including South Korea, China, New Zealand, and many European and South American nations.

“Right now, we stand at a critical juncture in history,” Bickle says. “All across the earth, the Holy Spirit is visiting His people with power as He raises up a generation consumed with God’s zeal. Zeal to see the fame of Jesus’ name go forth in the earth. Zeal to see revival in the Church. Zeal to see justice established. Zeal to see a great harvest of souls.”

IHOP–KC is an evangelical missions organization based on 24/7 prayer with worship that is engaged in evangelism, healing the sick, inner city outreach, multiple justice initiatives, planting houses of prayer, and training missionaries. IHOP–KC has continued in nonstop prayer led by worship teams since September 19, 1999, and is committed to combining 24/7 prayers for justice with 24/7 works of justice. IHOP–KC offers full-time training in Bible, music, and media schools.

Are we doing enough to raise up the next generation of youth? What more should we do?

One million downloads. That’s the latest milestone is reporting.

After just five months on the market, the free audio-based Bible app created by Faith Comes By Hearing, has become a quick hit on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android-based mobile devices.

offers text and audio in a large number of languages. Faith Comes By Hearing reports that people from 166 countries have engaged in God’s Word through the app, with an average listening time of 36 minutes per person.

“While the apps are great at home, in church and on-the-go, we really see them as a part of a larger strategy to fulfill the Great Commission,” says Troy Carl, Faith Comes By Hearing’s national director and architect of the Digital Bible Project. “We are excited by this rapid growth, and especially the worldwide reach this technology has produced.”

Faith Comes By Hearing is optimistic that this rapid start will only increase as the app is localized into other languages. (Localization refers to the language used when downloading and navigating within the app.) Until recently, that language was English. However, the ministry has just released a Spanish version and other major language adaptations are currently under way. Currently, the ministry has Scripture recordings in 500 languages, with a goal of 2,000 by 2016.