A Dark Weekend in India
Monday morning for Christians in the US is generally a chance to look back at a peaceful day of worship. Yesterday was a poignant reminder to me of the freedoms that we have, as my church body publicly gathered on the beach for a baptismal service. We could gather without fear to watch these public expressions of faith in Jesus Christ.
It was a very different weekend for our brothers and sisters in India. Believers in India know that they risk everything to gather together, and this weekend the forces of evil were at work.
In Shimoga, a city in the southern Karnataka province, Hindu radicals attacked a prayer meeting yesterday, using "clubs, cricket bats, and knives," as reported at Persecution Update India. The attackers destroyed the furniture, musical instruments, and even the building, but worse yet injured many of the believers. The number of injured is uncertain, but two pastors and a number of other believers are being treated for their club and knife wounds. (Update: More information available from the All India Christian Council.)
In northern India, a YWAM worker was attacked by fundamentalists believed to be members of the World Hindu Council. Kamal Kantu was beaten in front of his wife and children. This attack is just the latest incident in what appears to be a concentrated anti-Christian propaganda campaign in the Himachel Pradesh province.
In Rajpur, another militant Hindu group attacked a small church service. They destroyed the Bibles and hymnals, chanting anti-Christian slogans and threatening believers. The attackers then handed the Christians over to the police, where no one can find out what is happening to them. The police in this area are known to be sympathetic with the Hindu radicals, and these believers in custody need our prayers.
And back down south, in Andhra Pradesh, two pastors have been threatened with arrest because they prayed for their senior pastor, who was in the hospital with a broken leg. Hindu radicals, after being "tipped off" that the pastors were praying in the hospital, pressured the hospital administrator into lodging a complaint with the local police office. That threat was not enough, though, and the hospital discharged Pastor Barnabas immediately, despite his broken leg!
These believers certainly need our prayers.