China’s Pre-Christmas Church Crackdown Raises Alarm

China takes down crosses.




Joel Kontinen


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While China has liberated itself from communist ideology, the state’s ideology is seen in how it reacts to non-communism. Three years ago, it took down 1200 crosses and it has kept Christian lawyers and human rights activist behind bars.

Now, “A recent surge of police action against churches in China has raised concerns the government is getting even tougher on unsanctioned Christian activity.

Among those arrested are a prominent pastor (Wang Yi) and his wife, of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Sichuan. Both have been charged with state subversion.”

However, “the Christian population has grown steadily in recent years. There are now an estimated 100 million Christians in China, many of them worshipping in so-called underground churches.

Wang Yi is the leader of one such church, the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, the capital of south-western Sichuan province.”

Police have raided the church and its school. The society’s tactics will probably cause it to go deeper underground.

Source:

China's pre-Christmas church crackdown raises alarm. BBC NEWS (18 December).

Animal Rights vs. Human Wrongs: Alfie Evans vs. Cecil the Lion

The hospital where Alfie Evans died. Image courtesy of Rodhullandemu, CC BY-SA 4.0.




Joel Kontinen

When an American dentist killed a lion in Zimbabwe in 2015, thousands of people saw it as the ultimate crime.

Now, three years later when a court ruling allowed a children’s hospital to withdraw life support for Alfie Evans, a 23-month old toddler from Merseyside, UK, the outcry was far less pronounced.

Alfie was admitted to hospital in December 2016. He had a degenerative brain condition and was the focus of a fierce court battle.

His parents asked the Pope to help transfer the boy to a children’s hospital in Rome for treatment, but the British High Court rejected the move, as doctors argued that continuing treatment was "not in Alfie's best interests."

Who knows? Doctors are humans and as such they make mistakes.

But what stands out in this unfortunate case is the attitude of the man in the street who is more willing to fight for the rights of animals like Cecil the Lion than resist the wrongs done to a British toddler.

Might Darwinian evolution throw a dark shadow on our priorities?

Source:

BBC news. 2018. Alfie Evans: Legal battle toddler dies. (28 April).

Animal Rights Vs. Human Wrongs, the Darwinian Connection

For many activists, animal rights mean more than human wrongs.





Joel Kontinen

Animal rights seem to count more than human wrongs in a world where belief in molecules-to-man evolution has caused a devaluation of our place among all other living beings.

The rise of the culture of death, as seen in abortion and euthanasia, serves to diminish human worth.

At the very same time, activists want to free animals from “cruel psychological experiments,” which they see as demeaning as torture and child abuse.

Recently, Science reported on how the activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had sent letters to people living near the homes of

“U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins and NIH researcher Stephen Suomi, revealing their home addresses and phone numbers and urging their neighbors to call and visit them. The tactic is the latest attempt by the animal rights group to shut down monkey behavioral experiments at Suomi’s Poolesville, Maryland, laboratory.”

An activist said that the bad treatment of monkeys was comparable to “having a sexual predator in your neighborhood.”

While we should certainly not mistreat animals, activists seem to think that animals (like a lion called Cecil) are more important than humans.

Many, for instance, Peter Singer, would want to re-define animals as persons.

However, in doing so, they diminish human worth. At least part of their struggle is against biblical ethics that start with the unique place we have in the created order.

Only humans were created in God’s image. Only humans can sin, and Christ died for humans, not animals, on the cross, redeeming us from sin.


Source:

Grimm, David. 2015. Animal rights group targets NIH director’s home. Science (18 November).

Cecil the Lion vs. Planned Parenthood’s Commercial Baby Parts

Last year, Cecil looked like this. Image courtesy of Vince O'Sullivan/Flickr, Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0).





Joel Kontinen

An American dentist killed a famous lion in Zimbabwe. Many were furious, and understandably so, as luring Cecil the Lion outside a national park and shooting it with a bow was not a humane thing to do. The badly wounded animal was killed the next day.

Some were calling for the dentist to be hanged.

In contrast, when it became obvious that Planned Parenthood was engaged in a profitable business selling organs harvested from aborted babies, the criticism was much more muted.

One might suspect that this has something to do with evolutionary thinking that attempts to downplay human exceptionalism and treat us as animals and animals as persons.




Source:

Bomberger, Ryan. 2015. Cecile Versus Cecil: One is the World’s Top Predator, The Other is a Lion. Life News (July 30).

Dying for Following Christ: Almost a Genocide, As Persecution Explodes

While the cross is a source of hope, it also brings persecution.




Joel Kontinen

Jesus predicted that His followers would be hated and persecuted. Even the secular media are noticing that this is exactly what is happening around us.

Christians are confronted with a very disturbing trend: Globally, more of us are facing persecution, discrimination, ostracism and perhaps even death for just one reason – following Jesus.

Recently, The Guardian published a longish article on the plight of Christians. For a Christian, the Middle East is the least safe place. Pope Francis has described the plight of Jesus’ followers in the area near Christianity’s birth “as a form of genocide.”

While ISIS is the main culprit, it is by no means the only one.

The Guardian quotes David Alton as saying that perhaps “as many as 200 million Christians in over 60 countries around the world face some degree of restriction, discrimination or outright persecution.”

He goes on to say:

“Whatever the real figures the scale is enormous. From Syria, Iraq, Iran and Egypt to North Korea, China, Vietnam and Laos, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, from Cuba, Colombia and Mexico to Eritrea, Nigeria and Sudan, Christians face serious violations of religious freedom.”

In some cases, campaigns by fellow-Christians and human rights organisations have brought relief from persecution and even freedom, for instance, for Sudanese doctor Meriam Yahia Ibrahim and Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.

However, thousands of others remain behind bars. Iranian Pastor Saeed Abedini and Pakistani mother Asia Bibi have been imprisoned on very spurious charges.

In some places, Bibles are being burnt.

Even in the west, Christians are increasingly being ostracised and discriminated against because of their biblical views on marriage and morals, for instance.


Source:

Lyons, Kate. 2015. Dying for Christianity: millions at risk amid rise in persecution across the globe. The Guardian (27 July).

UK Green Party Wants to Give Human Rights to All Animals

Meerkats would probably also want their rights.



Joel Kontinen

The UK’s Green Party has plans for giving all “sentient life forms” the human rights mentioned in Article Five of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

It states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

The suggestion would for instance also protect creatures that are not altogether cute, such as fruit flies and horseflies. They are, after all, sentient beings.

Reporting on the plans, The Telegraph states that it “would impose the same prison sentences for the killing, torture or ‘kidnapping’ of dolphins, whales, apes and elephants as would occur for equivalent crimes committed against humans.”

The Greens also propose to ban all commercial horse and dog racing in the United Kingdom.

The tendency to elevate animal rights is nothing new. As long as evolutionists believe that mushrooms are our brothers, we will probably see or hear about many other efforts to do away with the distinction between humans and animals.

Peter Singer, for instance, wants to define chimpanzees as people. In 2008 the Spanish parliament approved a resolution that calls for the right to life and freedom for great apes.

Thomas White, who is an ethics professor, has suggested that dolphins should be treated as ”non-human persons."

It seems that many adherents of the green movement think that animals matter more than humans.

While they champion animal rights, they have forgotten to protect human rights.

According to the biblical worldview, we should care for animals but we should certainly not worship them or pretend that they are human (even though they might be cute).


Source:

Holehouse, Matthew. 2015. Rodents to be given human rights under Green Party plans. The Telegraph (7 March).

Sudanese Logic: Christian Doctor Faces Death Penalty for Marrying a Christian

Sudanese authorities are aiming to stamp out Christianity. A minaret in Port Sudan. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

For westerners, understanding Sudanese logic seems almost impossible. Take the case of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Sudanese doctor. She faces the death penalty for marrying an American Christian.

According to a brief news item in Christianity today, “[Mrs] Ibrahim has been imprisoned, along with her 20-month-old son, in Khartoum since February. She is married to a South Sudanese Christian with U.S. citizenship—Daniel Wani—but because her father was a Muslim, the state does not recognize her marriage and charged her with adultery and apostasy in March.”

She is due to be executed once she gives birth to her second child. The charges against her are weird, as she has never been a Muslim and is legally married to a US citizen.

What is more, the Sudanese government is infringing on her basic human rights laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They include the freedom to choose one’s spouse and one’s religion.

Source:

Tracy, Kate. 2014. American's Wife Faces Sudan Death Penalty after Pregnancy.Christianity Today (13 May).

Saving Lives Is Torture, According to Abortion Lobby

An abortion group is lobbying the UN to ban pro-life views as torture. Image courtesy of Spiff, Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen


Nobelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that the misery prevalent in the communist Soviet Union was a result of ignoring God: “A great disaster had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.”

When one exchanges the image of God for descent from apes, the consequences are almost always bad – especially for the weakest in society.

It seems that the pro-abortion group The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has not learnt anything from history.

CRR sent a bizarre letter to the UN, claiming that religious leaders promoting life “contributed to torture and ill-treatment perpetuated by other states by negatively interfering with the development of state policy on abortion, in violation of its obligations under Articles 1, 2, and 16.”

This, of course, is ridiculous. Adopting an Orwellian strategy, CRR seeks to re-define words, making them mean exactly the opposite of what one would expect.

Pro-abortion groups have even previously used extremely questionable methods.

In real life, humans do not become humans through magic but they are human beings months before their birth. Created in the image of God, unborn babies deserve full human rights.

Source:

Clark, Matthew. 2014. Will the UN Criminilize the Pro-Life Movement as “Torture”? ACLJ.org (May 12).

Killing Insects Is immoral, Activist Claims

Insects come in many shapes and sizes.



Joel Kontinen

Brian Tomasik wants to reduce suffering in humans and “other sentient beings.” Interviewed recently on Vox.com, he spoke on killing video game characters and the need to alleviate the sufferings of insects:

“Even if you count just raw number of neurons, insects outweigh humans by a few orders of magnitude. While humans may matter a lot more for instrumental reasons related to the trajectory of the far future, in terms of pure morally relevant amount of sentience, insects may dominate on Earth at the moment.”

While insects are tiny, Mr. Tomasik thinks that they are by no means insignificant and have the right to be happy:

”Unfortunately, this has pessimistic implications for the net balance of happiness and suffering in the wild. Many insects live just a few weeks, and they give birth to hundreds or thousands of offspring, most of which die shortly after being born. Life even for the survivors may also involve hunger, disease, and death by predation, lack of water, or something else.”

He is especially worried about the suffering that humans cause by raising insects for food:

“As one example, insects are raised and cooked for food in many parts of the world, such as Mexico and Thailand. In many cases, these insects are fried or roasted alive. And entomophagy may become more popular in Western countries as well. I think raising insects is a bad idea because they have such high infant-mortality rates that their cultivation inherently leads to lots of unavoidable suffering. But if insects are raised for food, there should at least be welfare standards for their living conditions and especially for their slaughter. Some entomophagy companies in the US claim that freezing their insects to kill them is humane, but it's disputed whether freezing is actually painless for insects. More research and attention is needed here.”

He is critical of any methods that might hurt insects:

“Another area where humans affect even more insects is pest control on crops. It's not clear that insecticide use per se causes net harm -- because the insects killed would have died naturally, and it may be that insecticides keep insect populations much lower than they would otherwise be. But if we do use insecticides, we should favor those that kill more quickly and less painfully. "Natural" pest-control methods like Bt sprays or introduction of predator insects may be among the most unpleasant, because evolution has presumably designed insects to find death by bacteria or predators painful. Investigating which insect-control methods are most humane, and developing new ones, could be a way to help literally trillions of insects through a person's career.”

While eliminating all kinds of suffering might be a laudable mission, we should remember that morality is an immaterial trait that cannot have come about by blind Darwinian processes. In a purely Darwinian world we would not be expected to judge a tendency like killing insects to be morally wrong.

In order to pass moral judgement on whether something is right or wrong, we would have to admit the existence of a Moral Lawgiver, who is not of this world. To do so, we have to believe that as humans we are special – immensely more valuable than insects.

Source:

Matthews, Dylan. 2014. This guy thinks killing video game characters is immoral. Vox.com (April 23).

Six Years in Prison and 600 Lashes for Obeying Christ

El Greco: Christ carrying His cross (1580). Image courtesy of Wikipedia.






Joel Kontinen


It is not always easy to follow Christ. The cost of discipleship can be very high, especially in some parts of the world.

Recently, a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a Lebanese Christian to a six-year prison sentence and 600 lashes for converting a female co-worker, who later fled to Sweden.

The court sentenced a Saudi man, who was also involved in the lady’s conversion, to two years in prison and 200 lashes.

The men obviously gave the woman some Christian books to read.

Source:

Steffan, Melissa. 2013. Saudi Arabia Punishes Two Christians for Converting Coworker. Christianity Today (17 May).

No Execution: Iran Frees Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was released from prison. Image courtesy of Present Truth Ministries.


Joel Kontinen

Last Saturday, an Iranian court heard the case of pastor Youcef Nadarkhani for six hours and decided to drop the charge of apostasy.

However, the court sentenced Nadarkhani to three years in prison for attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity. But as he already had spent 1,062 days behind bars, the court saw that he had completed his sentence and could return to his family.

There are still countless Christians who are persecuted and imprisoned for their faith in Muslim countries.


Source:

Victory: Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani Freed!
ACLJ.org. 8 September 2012.

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani Illegally Imprisoned for 1000 Days

Joel Kontinen

All people should in principal be able to enjoy freedom of religion. However, Iranian authorities seem to think that this does not apply to Christians.

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has now been illegally imprisoned for 1,000 days. Watch this video for ways in which to show support for him.



You can read more about Pastor Youcef here, here, here and here.

Imprisoned Iranian Pastor’s Attorney Sentenced to Prison

Pastor Nadarkhani and his family. Image courtesy of Present Truth Ministries.




Joel Kontinen



The case for Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani is becoming increasingly complicated and difficult. An Iranian court sentenced his attorney Mohammad Ali Dadkhah to nine years in prison for “violating national security and spreading propaganda against the regime.”

With his attorney behind bars, no one will represent pastor Nadarkhani.

Nadarkhani has been in prison since October 2009. His “crime”? Preaching the gospel.


Source:

Weber, Katherine. 2012. Youcef Nadarkhani's Attorney Sentenced to Prison; Iranian Pastor's Fate Unknown The Christian Post. (3 May).

Medical Study: It’s OK to Kill Newborn Babies

Joel Kontinen


In late February, the Journal of Medical Ethics published an online article entitled "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?" It is perhaps no surprise that it has made headlines all over the world.

“Slaughter newborn kids, say academics,” the british tabloid The Sun interpreted the gist of the paper. It was not a misinterpretation, as the paper’s abstract says:

“Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

In other words, authors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue that killing babies (regardless of what one chooses to call them) before birth is no different from killing them after birth. They are at least consistent.

What is troubling is their low view of human life. It seems to be inspired by Darwinian evolution and it reminds me of the opinions of Peter Singer and PZ Myers.

In contrast, here’s what Gianna Jessen, who survived an abortion, says about her life:




Sources:

Giubilini, Alberto and Francesca Minerva. 2012. After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? Journal of Medical Ethics. (23 February) doi: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100411.

Wilson, Graeme. 2012 Slaughter newborn kids, say academics. The Sun (1 March).

Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani Is Still Alive And Needs Our Support

Joel Kontinen

Illegally imprisoned for 874 days, Christian pastor Youssef (Youcef) Nadarkhani is still alive and needs our support. The human rights organisation American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has initiated a Twitter campaign in order to show the Iranian authorities that pastor Nadarkhani is not alone.

If you have a Twitter account, you can join others in supporting him. See details here.

Iranian Court Sends Youssef Nadarkhani Nearer to Death

Pastor Nadarkhani and his family. Image courtesy of Present Truth Ministries.






Joel Kontinen

Recently, Fox News reported on Youssef (Youcef) Nadarkhani, the Iranian pastor who is facing the death sentence for converting to Christianity. Sources close to Nadarkhani and his legal team say that an Iranian court has made its final verdict in the case.

Nadarkhani’s supporters are afraid that the pastor might be executed at any time.

The Present Truth Ministries website has a page on instructions for helping pastor Nadarkhani and his family.

“The greatest power we have on earth is prayer. God works mightily and powerfully through the effectual fervent prayers of the righteous,” the ministry website reminds us. It also suggests practical ways for helping pastor Nadarkhani and all who are persecuted for trusting in Jesus Christ.

Sources:

Daftari, Lisa. 2012. Iran court convicts Christian pastor convert to death. Fox News (22 February).

How you can help. Present Truth Ministries.

Iran Threatens to Execute Home Church Pastor – But the Case Is Bizarre

Joel Kontinen

Denying Islam can lead to severe problems, especially in Muslim countries. In 2009 an Islamic court in Iran sentenced Youssef Nadarkhani to death because of apostasy. He had become a Christian.

The police arrested Nadarkhani for the first time in 2006. The Iranian Supreme Court upheld the ruling against him last year. Nadarkhani, the pastor of a small house church, will be hanged if he does not ”repent” of his apostasy.

Recently, a bizarre development occurred in Nadarkhani’s case. After US and British leaders had appealed to Iran, the Iranians changed the charge against him.

According to Christianity Today, “though Nadarkhani was found guilty and sentenced to death for apostasy in 2010, the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars News reported on September 30 that he will now be executed for Zionism, rape, and extortion.”

There is nothing new under the sun, however. Not so long ago, a totalitarian state in Europe used to diagnose dissidents as being mentally ill and send them to get treatment. Iran seems to have adopted a similar strategy.




Source:

Feddes. Morgan. 2011. From Death Sentence to Rape Charges, Iranian Pastor’s Case Is Rare—and Disputed. Christianity Today. (6 October).

Great Britain’s YWCA Drops Christian From Its Name

As Europe is debating the right to display crucifixes in public, Great Britain drops the word Christian from the name of a well-known Christian association. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

Christianity is obviously not very trendy in Great Britain. Recently, a well-known Christian association changed its name. Known as the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) since 1855, the association assumed the name Platform 51. (51 per cent of the population are women.)

The initiative for the name change came from YWCA. A spokeswoman for the association said that the name no longer reflected what its members represented since not all of them are Christians.

None of YWCA’s other 124 national organisations is planning to follow Great Britain’s example.

For some time, Britain has treated Christians harshly and trodden on their rights.

Recently, Owen and Eunice Johns, who are evangelical Christians, forfeited their right to be foster parents because they refused to give up their Bible-based views on sexual morality and said that homosexuality is a sin.

Source:

YWCA loses Christianity from title. The Telegraph 7 January 2011.

China Keeps Blind Human Rights Activist Chen Guangcheng in House Arrest

In the country ruled by Chairman Mao’s successors, many rural Chinese still lack basic human rights. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Although the People’s Republic of China has become an economic superpower, many Chinese still lack the rights stipulated by the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2005 human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who has been blind from birth, found out that the local authorities had forced 130 000 mothers to undergo abortions or sterilisations in the Linyi area in Shandong.

Having exposed their zeal for the one-child policy, he was imprisoned for four years on trumped-up charges. Chen was released in September 2010, but since then he has been kept in house arrest with round-the-clock surveillance:





Source:

China Aid

China Tortures Christian Lawyer

Gao Zhisheng. Image courtesy of Voice of America.



Joel Kontinen

Chinese police beat and mistreated human rights activist Gao Zhisheng for 48 hours without a break. Gao, a Christian lawyer, has had to suffer terribly for his courageous stand against human rights abuses in China. For several years the police have taken him from one prison to another. At times, his wife and children have not even known whether he was alive.

Unfortunately, many western leaders have been reluctant to take up the issue with Chinese leaders for fear of losing a lucrative market for their goods.

You can read more about human rights infringements in China on the China Aid webpages.

Source:

Hutzler, Charles. 2011. AP Exclusive: Missing Chinese lawyer told of abuse. The Washington Post. (10 January)