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A IGREJA DE JESUS CRISTO X A IGREJA DO HOMEM

CHEIO DO CONHECIMENTO DA VONTADE DEUS...

" Por esta razão, nós também, desde o dia em que o ouvimos, não cessamos de orar por vós, e de pedir que SEJAIS CHEIOS DO CONHECIMENTO DA SUA VONTADE, EM TODA A SABEDORIA E INTELIGÊNCIA ESPIRITUAL"

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Egypt: Two Clashes Shake Coptic Community

ISTANBUL, July 7 (Compass Direct News) – Separate cases of sectarian violence in two villages erupted in Egypt last week, shaking the country’s Coptic Christian community as Muslims attacked their homes and security forces imposed curfews in an effort to maintain peace. Last Wednesday (July 1) in the village of Kafr El Barbari in Mit Ghamr, Dakahlia, north of Cairo, Muslim villagers mourning the death of 18-year-old Mohamed Ramadan Ezzat, a student stabbed to death in a dispute with a Coptic grocer, attacked Christian homes with stones, breaking their windows. Ezzat’s family members attacked and burned the Gerges’ store as well as two of the family apartments. During post-funeral violence, 25 people were injured as hundreds of angry Muslims attacked Coptic homes. Separately, in Ezbet Guirgis on Friday (July 3), Muslims set a fire in a warehouse next to a building they suspected Christians were using for worship. The village priest, the Rev. Saman Shehata, had applied for permission to use the building as a church last year, but authorities had rejected it. Shehata told Compass he believed local police authorities spread the rumor that Copts would worship there in spite the denial of his request. “These rumors are most likely spread by the lower ranking people from the police themselves,” Shehata said. “They incite the Muslims to show that they don’t want the building.”

Israel: Non-Arab Christians Seek in Vain for Burial Sites

HAIFA, Israel, July 8 (Compass Direct News) – Here in Israel’s third-largest city, it was not possible for the Russian Orthodox relatives of a 65-year-old woman who died on June 27 to find a Christian cemetery for her. Their plight – for five days the body of Nadejda Edelman was stored at a hospital morgue – is common to Christians of foreign ancestry throughout the country. When Edelman passed away in Rambam Medical Center in this northern Israeli city, it took almost a week to find a grave for her. On July 1 Edelman was buried outside of Haifa in Emeq Hefer Local Council Cemetery – a “secular” site for persons of no faith tradition. There was no cemetery available for Russian immigrant Christians, and Israel’s Arab burial societies tend to be uncooperative, advocates said. “It would be only natural if Christians would be buried in Christian cemeteries, yet the Arab local councils usually decline our requests,” said Dr. Ilya Litvin of Haifa, a member of advocacy organization called Sophia. In Israel’s Arab Christian cemeteries, the heads of local councils are the only ones entitled to make the decisions, but many of them are Christians by birth only; they belong to Communist parties and in reality have little sympathy for religious sentiment, advocates said. “They claim that there is a severe shortage of graves there and little possibility for expansion, yet I believe that it’s just politics,” Litvin said. “They don’t really care about us – we are not Arabs.”

Indonesia: Church, Bible Students Fight Discrimination

JAKARTA, July 7 (Compass Direct News) – Christians have stood up for their rights in two key cases the last few weeks in heavily Muslim Indonesia. Members of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP) in Cinere village, Depok, West Java appeared in court on June 29 to contest the mayor’s revocation of their building permit in March, while students of the shuttered Arastamar School of Theology (SETIA) demonstrated in Jakarta on June 15, asking officials to honor promises to provide them with a new campus. HKBP church leaders filed suit against the decision in the state court in Bandung, West Java. In Jakarta, hundreds of SETIA students demonstrated in front of the presidential palace on June 15, calling on officials to honor promises made in March to provide them with a new campus. At least 1,400 staff and students remain in three separate locations in sub-standard facilities, causing great disruption to their studies, according to the students. The original campus in Kampung Pulo, East Jakarta, closed after neighbors attacked students with machetes in July 2008 and remains cordoned off by police.

Malaysia: Court Set to Rule on Use of 'Allah' among Non-Muslims

MUMBAI, India, July 6 (Compass direct News) – With the Kuala Lumpur High Court in Malaysia scheduled to determine the legality of the word “Allah” in non-Muslim literature tomorrow, what is at stake goes beyond the sanctioned name for God among non-Muslims in the majority-Muslim nation. Such a limit on free speech in Malaysia is especially biting for Muslim converts to Christianity; already the Malaysian government does not recognize their conversions and marriages and still considers their offspring to be legally Muslim. With non-Muslims increasingly feeling the sting of discrimination and Muslims feeling a need to assert a national Islamic identity, the skirmish over “Allah” is clearly part of a greater cultural war. Malaysian authorities and Malaysia’s Roman Catholic Church have continued to lock horns over use of the word “Allah” in the Malay-language edition of the Herald, the church’s newspaper, as they await the ruling. The newspaper had been allowed to use the term until a final court decision, but the Kuala Lumpur High Court on May 30 overturned that brief reprieve.

Pakistan: Muslims Attack 110 Homes of Christians

LAHORE, Pakistan, July 3 (Compass Direct News) – After a Muslim beat a Christian field worker for asking him to let him pass on Tuesday (June 30), a cleric in a village near here used a mosque loudspeaker to announce a call to attack Christians that resulted in more than 500 Muslims ransacking and looting at least 110 houses. With the mosque falsely broadcasting the accusation that the Christian had blasphemed Islam, the Muslim recruits rampaged through Kasur district’s Bahmaniwala village, breaking down gates, wrecking and plundering homes and in some cases beating Christian women. They set various items ablaze including vehicles, though Compass found fire damage to homes was minimal. “We don’t even have potable water, as they have damaged the turbine,” villager Zareena Bibi told Compass. “We knew about the incident, but could never imagine that they would wreak such devastation. They have not spared a single house here.” Outraged that the lower-class Christian field worker on his tractor had asked Muslim Muhammad Hussein to move out of his way, 15 to 20 Muslims had previously mounted a hatchet attack on the family of the field worker, 37-year-old Sardar Masih, wounding his brother’s head, family members told Compass.

China: Office Becomes New Force for Religious Repression

DUBLIN, July 2 (Compass Direct News) – Amid vigorous debate among scholars in China on the status of house churches, one prominent scholar has suggested the government offer more openness and legal standing to house church Christians, but authorities have reacted with raids, arrests, forced church closures and a ban on the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches. Scholar Yu Jianrong and others have concluded that house churches are a positive influence on society, but the government is wary of such influence. The one-year, government-commissioned study by Yu and associates suggested that officials should seek to integrate house churches and no longer regard them as enemies of the state. A summary of Yu’s findings presented at a government seminar in November 2008 had encouraged some house church leaders, but shortly afterwards the Ministry of Civil Affairs banned the Chinese Federation of Christian House Churches. More raids over the past month illustrate what Yu described as a confused approach to religion, with authorities leaving some house churches to operate openly while other churches were specifically targeted for arrests and closure.

Egypt: Court Grants Custody of Sons to Coptic Mother

LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin sons from her estranged husband, who had converted to Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal precepts. The now 15-year-old boys, however, will still be considered Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian. On June 15 the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled that Kamilia Gaballah could retain custody of her sons Andrew and Mario, even though the father converted to Islam and the boys’ religion also changed as a result. The decision overturns a September 2008 ruling by the Alexandria Appeals court that had granted custody of the twins to their father, Medhat Ramses Labib, due solely to his conversion. During this time Gaballah lived in constant fear police would take away her sons. If the court does not allow them to return to Christianity, the family will open up another court case, said their older brother George Medhat Ramses. “Up until now the court said they would have the right to choose their faith,” said Ramses, 21. “But if they don’t, we will start another trial. This is the only way.”

Mauritania: Christians Tense after Murder of Aid Worker

LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – As funeral services were held in Tennessee for Christian aid worker Christopher Leggett yesterday, tensions remained high for Christians in the capital of Mauritania, where he was slain last week. A Christian worker in the capital city of Nouakchott told Compass that following the street assassination of Leggett by an al-Qaeda linked group the morning of June 23, the danger level in the city has forced him and his team to temporarily relocate to a European country. “After the crime various believers were arrested, and the community of workers is going through very tense moments because of another threat by al-Qaeda and the lack of security in the country,” said the Christian, who requested anonymity. “Our leaders have asked us to leave the country for a while, as the government had sent a security force of 10 policemen to guard our home 24 hours a day. Our mobility was limited, and we left the country under police escort to the airport.”

Somalia: Islamists Behead Two Sons of Christian Leader

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 1 (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists have beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, and the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father. Before taking his Somali family to a Kenyan refugee camp in April, 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Kismayo in Somalia. He had received instruction in the Christian faith from Salat Mberwa. Militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab entered Yonday village on Feb. 20, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him on his relationship with Mberwa, leader of a fellowship of 66 Somali Christians. Yusuf told them he knew nothing of Mberwa and had no connection with him. The Islamic extremists left but said they would return the next day. Yusuf fled, and the following day the al shabaab militants showed up at his home in Yonday. Batula Ali Arbow, Yusuf’s wife, said the extremists ordered her to stop what she was doing and took hold of three of her sons – 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7. “I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” Arbow said. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered.”

Mauritania: Islamic Extremists Kill U.S. Aid Worker

LOS ANGELES, June 29 (Compass Direct News) – Funeral services will be held tomorrow for a U.S. teacher in Mauritania who was shot dead last week by Islamic extremists for spreading Christianity. Christopher Leggett, 39, was killed Tuesday (June 23) morning in front of the language and computer school he operated in Nouakchott, the capital city. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North African unit of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, claimed responsibility for the murder on an Internet site, accusing Leggett of “missionary activities.” A North African al-Qaeda spokesman aired a statement on an Arab TV station saying the group killed Leggett because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. His family issued a statement today saying they forgave the murderers but asked that they be caught and prosecuted. “In a spirit of love, we express our forgiveness for those who took away the life of our remarkable son,” they said in the statement, distributed in English, French and Arabic. “On a spiritual level, we forgive those responsible, asking only that justice be applied against those who killed our son.”