Published  Today |

May 10, 2008
By Feng Changle
Epoch Times Staff
On May 5, Tian Yixiang, the director of the military bureau’s security command center for the Beijing Olympic Games, told a reporter from the military channel of Xinhua News Net that the main threat to security of the Olympic Games are “domestic forces against China, including the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Tibetan Independent Movement, and Falun Gong. These groups regard the Olympics as an opportunity to interfere and create damage.”
With less than 100 days to go before the opening ceremonies in August, China’s regime-controlled media has been amping up the publicizing of Tian’s speeches. According to him, the Chinese government has mobilized army, marine and air militia from four military regions. Military airplanes, helicopters, ships, ground-to-air missiles, radar systems and anti-chemical weaponry have all been engaged. Since 2005, the military has been testing its surveillance systems and conducting Olympics-specific training and drills in preparation for the upcoming Games.
Many Chinese citizens have been critical and skeptical of the regime’s broad deployment of the military for the Olympic Games.
When interviewed, Mr. Liu, who resides near the main stadium for the Olympic Games, said, “Why has every Olympic Games been treated like a war? Are they hosting a sports event or starting a war? I really don’t understand why the navy has to be involved, and why they need to practice drills in remote seas. Are terrorists coming to Beijing via aircraft carrier?”
He continued with a sigh, “The atmosphere is so tense now, and the Games haven’t even begun. It makes us common folk feel unsafe. I don’t think the Olympics has been done like this in the past (in other countries), and neither will it be done like this in the future.”
A worker from Tianjin said, “[The regime] is truly sparing no costs. I am sure they won’t even make much money from the Games. We common people want food, housing, and to survive, not the Olympic Games. What’s the significance of the Games? We have worked all our lives and only make a few hundred dollars a month from our pensions. Inflation is steep, and I have a whole family to feed. How can we survive? Some people say supporting the Olympic Games is showing patriotism. What do we have to show, for our patriotism?”
A person from Shenzhen remarked, “Inflation, unemployment, and stock market losses are all serious. The burden of debt is so heavy. What can the Olympic Games bring to the common people? Isn’t it just a torch? The torch relay has no meaning, and is a pure waste of money and time.”
The person went on, saying, “The government is too vain. They really don’t spend money wisely. If they used the money on health insurance, more Chinese people will be able to see a doctor, and fewer would have to die, while their family members must watch helplessly. The government will have to pay for its vanity, at some point.”
A migrant worker from Anhui Province commented, “It has to be a world record that the Olympic Games has brought in troops from four different military regions. The government can’t even take care of daily things, let alone defend the Olympics. There are so many thieves and robbers in the streets. How many of the crimes are ever solved? I myself was robbed today. I felt helpless and totally unsafe.”
A person from Beijing said, “I think the Beijing Olympics will incur a financial loss. The expense of using the military, public security officers, police, as well as all levels of public or private guards, will add up to a huge sum. The whole population has been involved in defending the Olympic Games, as though a civil war was about to break out. Is the Olympic Games a sports event or a war? Why are TV and radio trying to spread propaganda about ‘waging well this defensive battle for the Olympics’? I think the Chinese government is treating everything as its enemy. They are not providing security. They are initiating a war.”

The Sydney Morning Herald
May 10, 2008
Kirsty Needham
It’s not just Tibet that China stands over, Kirsty Needham reports from Xinjiang.
He was arrested as he arrived at the school gate, in full view of fellow students and his teachers. Taken away by police, the Uygur teenager remains in jail three months later.
His crime was to look at websites and send an email to an overseas group - daily activities for most teens. But in Xinjiang, the vast region of desert and mountains in China’s far west, this constitutes a political crime - no matter how young the emailer - if it suggests contact between the Uygur ethnic minority and external organisations pushing for Xinjiang to become a separate, Islamic, state.
His friends say they do not really know what was in the email. There has been no trial. The school was afraid to get involved - it would only lead to more arrests. Guilt by association is common here, I am told.
“Thieves receive better justice here than people accused of political crimes,” says Ali (not his real name), the director of an Islamic network whose work involves assisting unemployed youth.
In the Olympic year, and particularly since the Tibetan monk uprising that reached neighbouring provinces, things have been worse, Ali says.
Any hopes held by some of his young friends of being in Beijing for the Games in August - perhaps to sell Xinjiang’s famous dried fruit to tourists - have gone, because, he says, people are being denied permission to travel to other provinces.
At the edge of an empty paddock, sitting in the gutter of one of the new highways built by the Chinese Government as it seeks to show off the infrastructure benefits it has brought to the region, Ali can speak boldly because there is no one within earshot. But he says there is no freedom of speech in Xinjiang, and secret police and informers are widespread, even among the Uygurs.
He knows many people, like that schoolboy in another town, who have been taken away this year, and of Uygurs working as secret police who have broken down crying after questioning those brought in as “terrorism” suspects under China’s “strike hard” campaign against Islamic separatism.
“Tibet is better off than Xinjiang because the world is watching. But no one watches or knows about Xinjiang,” he says.
Once on the fabled Silk Route between East and West, now the gateway to central Asian countries with which China has struck gas pipeline deals, Xinjiang sits on a third of China’s oil reserves. The Government says that it has spent $U125 billion ($133 billion) on infrastructure in western China, and this year forecasts Xinjiang’s gross domestic product to rise by 12 per cent.
Ali concedes the Chinese have invested heavily, and life is good for the urban middle class of Xinjiang’s neat capital, Urumqi. But he explains that those seeking independence are motivated by other factors. In common with the Tibetans, their gripes centre on the loss of cultural identity, social inequality and lack of religious freedom.
In the ancient trading post of Kashgar, a large notice erected by the Government in the grounds of the 15th-century Id Kah mosque warns that worshippers should “oppose ethnic separatism and illegal religious activities”.
“Young people cannot learn about their religion,” Ali says. Children under 18 are not allowed inside mosques, and by the time they reach this age “their minds are formed and they have no time for religion”. He blames the vacuum left by the absence of religion for a rise in alcoholism, drug abuse and prostitution in Uygur society. Xinjiang has the second-highest HIV infection rate in China.
The Uygurs feel the Chinese are wiping out their culture, he says, as large numbers of Han Chinese, encouraged by the Government, have migrated to Xinjiang and now make up about half of the population. Students must speak Chinese, not Uygur, in school.
Young Uygurs say it is difficult to find work after graduation. The official unemployment rate is 4 per cent, but is said to be much higher outside Urumqi, and higher among the Uygurs who live in greater numbers in smaller towns. Rural incomes of about 4500 yuan ($683) a year are four times lower than those of urban residents.
Ali says the Government has become aware of the problem of ethnic discrimination in the workplace by Chinese companies and government departments, but he says it may be too slow in addressing the issue.
“I do not hate the Chinese, because they are just people, but we need to be treated equally,” he says.
The Uygur people make up 8.8 million of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region’s population of 19.6 million, and their presence here dates back to the clan of Dingling in the third century BC and the kingdom of Gaochang in the eighth century BC.
In southern towns such as Yarkand, on the edge of the Taklaman Desert, historic mosques draw thousands to Friday prayers but are no longer permitted to serve as Islamic pilgrimage sites. A rich heritage of Uygur kingdoms is remembered in the dusty tombs of past kings and the Uygur queen and recorder of folk songs, Ammanisahan.
But in the multimillion-dollar Xinjiang Autonomous Region Museum in Urumqi, the Chinese Government puts forward a different history: “In 59 BC Xinjiang was listed as [the] Han Dynasty’s domain formally and it became an inalienable component of the great motherland.”
Although housing an admirable collection of Tang dynasty relics, the museum has scant detail on the arrival of Islam in Xinjiang between the 10th and 14th centuries, the role of the Altun mosque in Yarkand as an important Asian madrassa, or Islamic school, in the 16th century, or prominent Uygur scholars or poets.
“Xinjiang has been the multinational homeland from ancient times. Forty-seven nationalities live here today,” reads a display that highlights the colourful hats of the 12 largest ethnic groups. These include 1.35 million Kazaks, 40,000 Tajik’s, 11,100 Russians and 4900 recently arrived Tartars. The role of the Uygurs is played down as just one ethnic group among many. A similar argument - that there are many other ethnic groups living in Tibet - is frequently rolled out in the Chinese state media against Tibetan “splittists”.
In recent weeks a convoy of 50 People’s Liberation Army trucks could be seen rumbling across the desert roads of Kashgar; and large groups of military officers from Lanzhou, in Gansu province, and riot police in open trucks were a daily sight in Urumqi. Hundreds of village walls have been painted with red slogans urging people to put the nation first and build a peaceful society. Security is tight at Xinjiang’s airports, bus and train stations because of a history of bombings by violent separatist factions, and a recent failed attempt by a suicide bomber to blow up an aircraft.
The Government is concerned that terrorists will seek to use the Olympics to draw international attention to their cause, particularly after the Tibetan protests. Uygurs are keen to learn of the world’s reaction to the Lhasa uprising.
But Ali is sceptical of the Government’s report last month that it had uncovered a plot by Xinjiang separatists to kidnap foreign journalists and tourists during the Olympics.
“This is just politics. Who do the terrorists hate? It is not the foreigners.”

When I first encountered Calvinism in a Southern Baptist Church, it was with several of my church members criticizing the use of the public invitation. Particularly, they objected strongly to my use of any appeal to “decide” or “choose” in any way.
[I generally avoid the use of the public invitation in the way I experienced it growing up. I have written three major essays on problems with the public invitation. Leave Your Seat; Leave Your Sin Parts 1, 2 and 3. Nonetheless, I do believe that if the Gospel is rightly proclaimed and manipulation and false assurance are avoided, a public invitation can be appropriate and even helpful. I remain convinced that Baptism is the profession/confession of faith scripture calls for, but I am not unalterably opposed to all invitations or instructions to seekers. I’ll be glad to discuss this more in the comments section as I have time.]
These good Calvinist friends looked at any use of the words “decide” and/or “choose” as dishonoring to the sovereignty of God and misrepresenting the depravity of human beings. We can’t “decide” or “choose,” they would say, and it was wrong of me to ever ask anyone to “make a decision” or to “choose” the gospel.
This troubled me greatly, to say the least, and I spent weeks in my Bible trying to get some peace on the matter. These were evangelistic and missions-minded Calvinists, at least as far as I knew, but they avoided and condemned the language of choice/decision like poison. When I came close to it, they confronted me with all the passages that humans are “dead” in sin, and can’t choose or decide. Asking such people to respond to an invitation or choose Jesus was simply offering false assurance to the unconverted.
I have continued to hear this kind of commentary from Calvinist friends and critics, and I have moved several times in my personal response and understanding. I continue to endorse the essays linked above. I believe the kinds of invitations that are common in Southern Baptist life run the gamut from horrendous to helpful, depending on the kind of preaching they follow and the ethics of the person giving the invitation. But I find myself having some pretty deep disagreement with this kind of reaction to any call to make a “decision for Christ.” Here are some of my reasons.
1) The full teaching of Calvinism on this subject includes the affirmation that, under the power of the Holy Spirit, human beings do respond in faith to the preaching of Christ. Calvinists differ as to whether this work of the Holy Spirit amounts to complete immediate regeneration or whether there is a work of “drawing” and “awakening” that may exist separately from or prior to complete regeneration and faith. (Yes, this raises the possibility that some sinners may respond to the work of the Holy Spirit, but not be regenerate at that time or in the future. This raises some serious questions that should be addressed elsewhere.)
If the Holy Spirit promises to draw, awaken or regenerate human beings, then the language of evangelism need not be narrowly restrictive. It must be plain that the command is to “believe on and trust in,” but there are a number of ways to direct sinners to place their faith in Christ, all honoring the intent of Biblical texts. I believe that if the Gospel is presented Biblically, it is not wrong to speak of “deciding to follow Jesus Christ” or “choosing Christ.” I believe those terms must be correctly contextualized, but they are usable.
2) In fact, in some cases, preaching a “choice” or a “decision” for Christ may be the most helpful and clearest way to present the gospel.
Take, for example, Jesus’ conversation with the rich young man in Mark 10. What is Jesus asking the young man to do? What is the passage asking the reader to do? Is it really distorting the passage to say we are being asked to make a choice or a decision to follow Christ?
This seems to be the case in a number of Jesus’ teaching, particularly in parables, where the audience is aware of the claims of Jesus, and the competing claims of sin or the world. For example, is Jesus the treasure? Is he the pearl of great price? We must make a decision, a choice, in order to encounter and respond to these texts personally.
I do not believe we can listen to the teaching of Jesus without being confronted with choices about the nature and presence of God, the nature of reality, the value of Jesus and the good news of the Gospel. The Gospel is an announcement, but to believe it is to choose and decide, as well as to believe and trust.
3) It becomes rather bizarrely one-sided to say we are empowered to believe, but to “decide” is an act of human will. Belief has always been a term that needed definition, especially in contemporary culture. So other terms, with proper definition and illustration, can be just as Biblically and essentially accurate.
There is no way to say that the reality of belief is labeled in some unseen way, so that “believing” is an acceptable term, but “choosing” and “deciding” are not. The work of the Spirit is described in the Bible, but it is not restricted to one English word or another. The reality of a spiritual experience is multi-faceted and can be offered and described in a number of ways as long as the Biblical context is maintained.
It is interesting that John Piper has often invented and promoted entirely new vocabulary and descriptives, and some of these terms are non-Biblical, but frequently used in evangelism. Take note of how Piper uses the terms “savor” and “treasure” to describe faith. Would it be unacceptable to say you should savor Jesus Christ? To treasure him? Would these terms be misleading?
4) I believe that hyper-Calvinism lurks around the edges of this discussion. I read hyper-Calvinistic reasoning frequently in the reformed blogosphere, though this would be frequently denied. This is the insistence that the parameters of evangelistic language are extremely narrow, and those who do not use an approved vocabulary or follow an accepted list of necessary points, then the gospel has been neglected and denied.
In fact, this is a dangerous denial of the process of communication that is essential to missions and translation work. The key is surrounding our language with Biblical context and content, not following an approved vocabulary. Those patrolling the outer regions of the blogosphere looking for offenders who aren’t following specific lists of allowed terms and language are, in my view, functional hyper-Calvinists.
In my preaching situation, I rarely give an invitation. (Since we aren’t a church, we don’t baptize.) I do invite students to choose Jesus as Lord. I tell that a decision to follow Jesus as Lord is my goal for them. I invite them to have conversations and ask questions. I describe faith Biblically, but I also use as many language pictures and illustrations as possible. As one called to announce the gospel, I believe the communication of the message of Jesus is a matter of keeping to the truth, not following a script.

www.chinaview.cn 2008-05-10 00:03:33
 
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    DALIAN, Liaoning Province, May 9 (Xinhua) — Chinese courts handed down about 30 percent fewer death penalties last year compared with 2006, sources from a forum revealed on Friday.
    On January 1, 2007 China’s Supreme People’s Court took back the power of death penalty review. The effect is a stricter and more appropriate application of capital punishment, said Li Wuqing, a judge with the No. 1 criminal court of the supreme court.
    Wu Sheng, a judge from a court in Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, said at the forum that the number of approved death penalties decreased by up to 40 percent last year in that city.
    The right to issue death sentences was given to provincial courts in 1983 to deal with a sudden surge in crime.
    Since the application of the ultimate penalty came back to the hands of the central authorities, many people are hoping it will be used more sparingly, implemented more cautiously, and handed down more evenly.
    According to the new practice, all death penalties pronounced by local courts must be reviewed and ratified by the Supreme People’s Court. Each death sentence must be reviewed by three judges, who are required to check facts, laws and criminal procedures and precedent.
    Legal experts, researchers and judges from China and Britain participated in the forum held in this port city of Liaoning Province, northeast China with a focus on restriction and abolition of the death penalty.

Editor: Yan Liang

Jennifer Riley
Gospel Herald Correspondent
Thu, Apr, 17 2008 12:42 PM PT

An insider of John McCain’s campaign said the Republican nominee-in-waiting refuses to use his faith for political gains and is debating whether to speak more openly about his relationship with God.
“John McCain has an innate sense that using your faith for election is wrong and that his faith is extremely private,” said a McCain religious advisor, who wanted to remain anonymous, to David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“He is not someone who feels comfortable expressing it on the campaign trail and I think a lot of it has to do with the feeling that he’s using it for public gain,” the source added. “I’m not saying he won’t discuss his faith in public forums. Is he going to do it? I don’t know.”

McCain has kept a low profile when it comes to “God talk,” despite the prominent role religion has played in this year’s presidential race.

Both Democratic candidates Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) have participated in forums hosted by Christian organizations and candidly spoken about the influence that faith has on their political decisions.

Last fall, Clinton spoke at a HIV and church conference hosted by Pastor Rick Warren and his wife Kay at Saddleback Church, while Obama held a series of gospel concerts featuring Grammy-award winning Christian artists ahead of the North Carolina primary.

Meanwhile, McCain’s former Republican presidential rival, Gov. Mike Huckabee, is an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who frequently weaved Bible passages and references to God and faith in his stump speeches.

But McCain has remained rather mum on his faith. He is officially an Episcopalian but has attended a Baptist church for some 20 years.

This past weekend, McCain declined to attend the high-profile Compassion forum – which featured Clinton and Obama discussing their faith and moral issues. But the source explained that the McCain campaign saw the forum as more of a Democratic event – it took place nine days before the Pennsylvania primary – and would likely attend another similar event in the fall.

Beliefnet.com’s “God-o-Meter” – which measures a candidate’s rate of God-talk and effectiveness – gives Clinton a 9, Obama an 8, and McCain a 4 out of a possible 10 points.

However, the campaign insider is unconvinced grassroots activists are requesting to hear McCain speak more about his faith.

“I’m not completely convinced that John being forced to talk about his faith is the thing that he needs to do,” the source said. “Maybe he will someday if that’s something he feels called to, because John McCain doesn’t do things he doesn’t feel called to.”

Regarding the Democratic candidates’ appeal to faith voters, McCain’s religious advisor said evangelicals and Christian voters are not going to ignore the abortion and gay “marriage” issue, which will cause them to differ with Clinton and Obama.

The source contends that Christian voters will look for a candidate that offers the “full package,” and only McCain represents their view on abortion and traditional marriage while also taking on Darfur, poverty and other humanitarian efforts taken up by Christians.

 

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

A Pentecostal church in the internationally unrecognised entity of Transdniester is still banned from worshipping in its church building, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Pastor Yuri Semenyuk told Forum 18 that he is also now facing criminal prosecution for alleged forgery of documents, although he has not been given a copy of the charges. Prosecutor Vasily Tarnukov categorically denied this to Forum 18, but an independent legal source confirmed that state Commissioner for Religious Affairs Pyotr Zalozhkov had instigated the charges. Jehovah’s Witnesses in the entity are also facing sustained harassment and refusals to register some of their congregations. However, after the entity’s President Igor Smirnov received “many appeals” from local unregistered Baptists about harassment and fines against them, a presidential official told church leaders that they could meet and that officials “didn’t have the power to ban them.” The entity’s parliament is considering drafts of a restrictive Religion Law and a National Security Concept, which are likely to hit hardest independent Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Bessarabian Orthodox Church.

Six months after his congregation was banned from worshipping in its church building, Pastor Yuri Semenyuk, has complained to Forum 18 News Service of new harassment from the authorities. He leads the Full Gospel Church of Christ the Saviour in the city of Tiraspol, capital of the internationally unrecognised Republic of Transdniester in eastern Moldova. Transdniester does not recognise the authority of the Moldovan Government over the breakaway entity. An official from the city Prosecutor’s Office visited him on 6 May to inform him that a criminal case had been launched against him on 9 April. “This was the first I heard about it,” Semenyuk told Forum 18 from Tiraspol on 7 May. “The official showed me the document but as is their usual practice I wasn’t given a copy.”

Vasily Tarnukov, the city Chief Prosecutor, categorically denied this. “No legal case whatsoever has been lodged against Yuri Semenyuk,” he told Forum 18 on 8 May. However, an independent legal source confirmed to Forum 18 on 8 May that Pyotr Zalozhkov, Transdniester’s Commissioner for Religious Affairs, had instigated the charges against Semenyuk under Article 324 of the unrecognised entity’s Criminal Code. This article punishes forgery.

Transdniestran President Igor Smirnov - to whom Zalozhkov reports directly - himself initiated the ban on Semenyuk’s 300-strong Pentecostal church worshipping in its church in October 2007 (see F18News 20 December 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1066). Semenyuk told Forum 18 that officials are currently claiming that he presented forged documents when re-registering his Church in 2005. “This case is the latest attempt to halt the activity of our Church,” he complained.

Semenyuk said documentation allowing the transfer of the church building from residential to non-residential use is nearing completion. “This has been done to prevent us getting legal power to resume services once more.” He blamed Transdniester’s Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Zalozhkov, for the move. “He doesn’t want this to happen, so he falsified facts and the prosecutor’s office at his request launched the criminal case without any investigation or even speaking to me.”

Commissioner for Religious Affairs Zalozhkov is, Semenyuk said, trying to prove that after Zalozhkov had approved the re-registration statute, the Church had registered a different statute with the Justice Ministry. “We repeatedly had to change the statute as Zalozhkov dragged out the re-registration process over six months,” Semenyuk reported.

Forum 18 repeatedly tried to reach Zalozhkov on 8 May but the telephone went unanswered.

Semenyuk’s Church has been unable to meet as a body for worship since late 2007. Last October, Anatoli Guretsky, Transdniester’s senior Prosecutor, ordered him to halt worship at the church building, which he owns personally. Tiraspol’s mayor ordered him to take down notices outside that it is a church (see F18News 20 December 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1066).

Pastor Semenyuk – who points out that the congregation itself still has legal status – told Forum 18 that it chose to abide by the Prosecutor’s order and has not met for worship as a single body. He said it meets in small groups only. “Of course we want to be able to meet once again all together,” he told Forum 18.

Semenyuk also reported other harassment. He said on 6 May, the same day the city Prosecutor’s Office sent a representative, the local policeman came to question him about notices church members allegedly put up in the town to advertise public services in 2006. “He questioned me until 10 pm about little cards that church members must have posted on lampposts,” Semenyuk told Forum 18.

He added that six smaller congregations associated with his Church elsewhere in Transdniester have not been able to gain registration.

Meanwhile, Jehovah’s Witness Vyacheslav Radulov narrowly escaped being punished on 8 May by the City Court in Bendery [Bender, also known as Tighina], Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 the same day. “Judge Osovskaya reluctantly cancelled the case after Radulov presented to the court an earlier Supreme Court decision that confirmed that registration is not needed to be allowed to hold religious meetings,” one Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18 from the city in the wake of the hearing.

Trouble began for Radulov on 21 March, the day before the Jehovah’s Witnesses this year held their major feast, the Memorial of Christ’s Death. Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 that he was summoned by the District Department for Fighting against Economic Crimes. The head of the department warned him that the plan to commemorate the Memorial of Christ’s Death the following day, at a private home in the village of Parcani, should not go ahead. Later that day Radulov was summoned by the local police chief, who repeated the same message.

The following day, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses were meeting, some 40 demonstrators in a bus and seven cars arrived to protest against them. The Jehovah’s Witnesses report that the demonstrators held by signs reading “Today Jehovah’s Witnesses – Tomorrow NATO” and “Sect Beware”. A police car was parked at a nearby road junction, but the Jehovah’s Witnesses say officers did nothing to protect the meeting. “The demonstrators were accompanied and protected by Cossacks [a type of local militia] carrying whips,” the Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. The demonstrators eventually dispersed after Radulov telephoned the head of the village administration.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses insist the demonstration was organised by the local Orthodox priest with the backing of local officials. They say the priest was visible in the bus during the protest.

The following day the Parcani police chief summoned Radulov to the police station, where he was given a summons to appear before the Police Commissioner in Bendery. On 24 March Radulov went to the Bendery police, where the Jehovah’s Witnesses say he was interrogated by “high-ranking officers”. After interrogating him they accused him of holding an unapproved religious meeting in Parcani. They lodged a case under Article 200 of Transdniester’s Administrative Code, which punishes failure to register a religious community.

Radulov was initially summoned to Bendery City Court on 10 April, but this was postponed until 23 April. During the hearing, the judge asked him about how the 22 March meeting was organised, how many people were present, whether children were there and how people were invited. Radulov’s lawyer moved to have the case abandoned in the light of an earlier Supreme Court decision (see F18News 17 October 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1035). The case was postponed until 8 May, when the motion was accepted.

Officials at Bendery police told Forum 18 on 8 May that the chief, Major Oleg Obruchkov, was away that day. His deputy, Yevgeny Gulchak, refused to discuss why Radulov had been harassed merely for holding a religious meeting. “You mustn’t ring the police,” he told Forum 18 angrily. “If you ring again we’ll put you inside.” He then put the phone down.

Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 that on 6 April in Dubosary [Dubasari], Cossacks demonstrated against another of their meetings holding similar banners. They say no police attended.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have faced intermittent harassment in recent years in Transdniester. Two of their communities – in Tiraspol and Rybnitsa [Ribnita] – have registration, but have been unable to re-register as they would like. “We want to re-register with new statutes which are in line with the current Religion Law,” one Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18. “But officials refuse to process the applications.”

The Jehovah’s Witness added that two other communities in Transdniester – in Grigoriopol and Bendery – lodged registration applications in 2006, but that these have got nowhere. “The Religious Affairs Office refused to give its conclusion about these applications, so we went to court. But after the Religion Law changed these cases became irrelevant. They still refuse to register us.”

Council of Churches Baptists – who refuse to apply for state registration – also face intermittent harassment in Transdniester. Baptists told Forum 18 from Tiraspol on 8 May that on 26 March local police tried to stop an evangelistic service with a visiting choir from Germany at their church in the city. “An hour before the event started some 20 police officers blocked the road providing access to the prayer house,” Baptists reported. “They insisted that the guests went away and that all those already gathered should disperse. We had to hold our service on the streets in front of the gates of the prayer house. The police several times tried to disrupt the service.”

Three church members – Pavel Timoshchuk, Peter Gruzevich and Vladimir Baron – were taken to the police station, not being freed until 9 pm. Police forcibly removed the rest of the church members from outside the church. Administrative cases were drawn up against the three and they were due in court on 28 March. However, this was postponed until 1 April, when only Timoshchuk and Gruzevich were summoned.

At the 1 April hearing Gruzevich was found not guilty, but Timoshchuk was fined 30 Trandniestran Roubles (20 Norwegian Kroner, 3 Euros or 4 US Dollars). “This is only the cost of half a kilo of meat – it is symbolic,” one Baptist told Forum 18. When he refused to pay the fine, arguing that it is not a crime to meet for worship without registration, the court ruled that the sum should be deducted from his wages. Timoshchuk works as an electrician at the Central State Library in Tiraspol, a state job that makes it easy for the authorities to deduct the fine.

The Baptist added that later in April, after protests at the harassment continued to arrive at the office of Transdniestran President Smirnov, an official from the President’s Office in Tiraspol summoned three church leaders. “The official told them that the church could continue to meet and that they didn’t have the power to ban them,” the Baptist told Forum 18. “He added that they had received so many appeals and asked them to help stop them.”

Several times in 2007 Transdniester’s Religion Law was amended, strengthening the powers over registration by Zalozhkov’s office. “This was all done very quietly,” one local religious leader told Forum 18. “It has made it still harder for religious groups to gain registration.”

A planned new Religion Law was presented last October to Transdniester’s parliament. This would stop any new religious communities, unaffiliated to existing registered denominations, from gaining legal status for ten years. This would deny them the right to produce and import literature, set up religious colleges, and invite religious workers from outside Transdniester. Independent Protestant congregations or faiths such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses are likely to be most affected.

But also hard hit is likely to be a newly-established diocese of the Bessarabian Orthodox Church. Local Russian Orthodox Church officials, as well as Transdniester state officials, have indicated their strong opposition to the new Bessarabian diocese (see F18News 31 October 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1041).

Also still in parliament is a draft National Security Concept, presented in October 2007. Among the many dangers it says Transdniester faces is, according to its Article 27, “the activisation of the activity of foreign religious organisations and missionaries to monopolise the spiritual life of society”. It calls for measures to “counter” their “negative influence”.

A parliamentary spokesperson told Forum 18 on 8 May that neither the draft Religion Law nor the draft National Security Concept has yet been presented in the full parliament for a first reading. (END)

An understanding of divine generosity that inhibits us from calling sinners to bring the burden of their sin and guilt to Calvary is a denial of the gospel.
Charles Hodge was a severe critic of the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher. A champion of Calvinist orthodoxy at Princeton Seminary in the 19th century, Hodge had witnessed the influence of the German theologian during his own graduate studies in Germany, and was deeply disturbed by what he saw as Schleiermacher’s rejection of the Bible as an infallible divine revelation. Schleiermacher’s embrace of the rationalist critique of biblical authority, Hodge insisted, undermined the most fundamental tenets of the historic Christian faith.

But on the same pages of Systematic Theology where Hodge set forth his critique of Schleiermacher—who had by this time been dead for several decades—he included a brief personal footnote about Schleiermacher. During his studies in Germany, Hodge reported, he had frequently attended services at Schleiermacher’s church and had been impressed that the hymns sung there “were always evangelical and spiritual in an eminent degree, filled with praise and gratitude to our Redeemer.” He went on to note that he had been told by one of Schleiermacher’s colleagues that often, in the evenings, the theologian would call his family together, saying: “Hush, children; let us sing a hymn of praise to Christ.” And then Hodge adds this tribute to Schleiermacher: “Can we doubt that he is singing those praises now? To whomever Christ is God, St. John assures us, Christ is a Saviour.”
I read Charles Hodge often, and I do so for more than historical curiosity. My worries about theological trends in the early 21st century are not far removed from Hodge’s worries in his own day. Like him, I worry about trends that undermine biblical authority, thus encouraging the abandonment of historic doctrines. I even share Hodge’s particular love of Calvinist orthodoxy.
Indeed, it is precisely because I find so much to agree with in Hodge’s critique of liberal theology that I am also pleased that he added the personal footnote about Schleiermacher. I believe he was sending us a signal—one that we very much need to hear today as evangelicals.
Many evangelical commentators these days insist that salvation is closely tied to doctrinal clarity. Here, for example, is how one prominent evangelical leader criticized those of us who have endorsed the various “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” documents: “What those signers … are saying is that while they believe the doctrine of justification as articulated by the Reformers is true, they are not willing to say people must believe it to be saved. In other words, they believe people are saved who do not believe the biblical doctrine of justification.”
I can’t speak for others who look for common ground with Roman Catholics, but he certainly has me right: I am passionate in my agreement with Martin Luther on justification by faith alone. But do I believe that a person can be confused about this doctrine and still be saved? Absolutely. I wish that many of my Catholic friends would subscribe unambiguously to the views about salvation by grace alone that I hold preciously. But is their failure to do so a reason for me to doubt their salvation? Here I side clearly with Charles Hodge: “To whomever Christ is God … Christ is a Saviour.”
Convicted Civility
In a speech I heard several years ago, the Japanese-American theologian Kosuke Koyama put it nicely: We all have to decide, he said, whether we have a generous God or a stingy God. And the truth is that we evangelicals often give the impression that we have decided to be a spiritually stingy people. A recent Barna Group survey, for example, offers evidence that many young people in the larger society think of evangelicals primarily as “judgmental” types, hostile toward folks in other religions and mean-spirited in our attitudes about homosexuality. Even many young evangelicals share some of these assessments of the older generation. A leader at an evangelical college said it this way: “A lot of our students worry about typical evangelical attitudes toward people who have different belief systems and lifestyles. It’s not that they don’t take the Bible’s teachings seriously. It’s just that they have gotten to know Muslims and gays, and they are embarrassed by the harsh spirit toward such folks that they see in the older generation. If we don’t do something about this negative image soon, we could easily lose them for the evangelical cause.”
Nothing here justifies our capitulating to moral relativism or retreating from the insistence that salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone. We must resist those errors with all of our being. An understanding of divine generosity that inhibits us from calling sinners to bring the burden of their sin and guilt to Calvary is a denial of the gospel.
A number of years ago, I wrote a book on the subject of Christian civility. I was inspired to do so by a delightful line in one of Martin Marty’s books. People today who are civil, Marty observed, often don’t have very strong convictions. And people who have strong convictions often are not very civil. What we need, he said, is convicted civility.
I have spent a lot of time trying to promote convicted civility. I have to confess, however, that I sometimes get a little nervous about that project. It is so easy—as Marty made clear—to err on one side or the other; holding both up simultaneously takes constant effort. And I would hate to have assisted the cause of a freewheeling sense of divine generosity that does not maintain vigilance in protecting and defending the truth of the gospel.
But the effort to keep this marriage together needs to be made. The proper antidote to relativism and universalism is not a retreat into a stingy spirit. We must be clear in telling others about the hope that lies within us, the apostle Peter teaches; but he quickly adds that we must always do so “with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15–16).
Humility and Our Own Mystery
The obligation of nurturing a gentle and reverent spirit toward those with whom we disagree takes on a new urgency for us today in engaging those who represent non-Christian religions and lifestyles. How do we convey our Christian convictions while displaying a spirit of generosity in our relationships with others?
The challenge here is profoundly spiritual in nature. We evangelicals have often failed to show a proper spirit in our public relations because we have not displayed a proper spirit toward our private selves.
One of my predecessors in presidency at Fuller Seminary, Edward John Carnell, got in serious trouble for some things he said on this subject. In his inaugural address in May 1955, he talked about the need for theological humility, an emphasis that so disturbed many of his colleagues that Carnell never quite recovered from the gloom that descended on the beginning of his presidential career. I would like to think that evangelicals are now ready to affirm the wisdom of what he said in that address.
Carnell’s main theme was the need to approach those with whom we disagree with a sense of mystery grounded in an acknowledgement of the mystery of our own inner lives. Quoting the oft-sung “invitation” hymn—”Just as I am, though tossed about, with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come”—he reflected on the mystery of those inner conflicts that take place in “the depths of our own selfhood.” “How can we treat other people as if they were empty or superficial beings, without the same kind of mystery?” he asked.
In the opening sections of his Institutes, John Calvin argues that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self are intimately intertwined. Carnell was extending this important insight: A failure to acknowledge the complexity of our own inner workings inevitably leads to a failure to acknowledge the mystery of God’s dealings with others.
Isaac and Ishmael
Two summers ago I was asked to give the final lecture at a Chautauqua-sponsored weeklong series focusing on “the Abrahamic religions.” The audience, made up primarily of mainline Protestants, some Roman Catholics, many Jews, a few Muslims—and almost no evangelicals—had already heard from some excellent speakers representing Judaism and Islam, as well as from a Roman Catholic scholar. My assignment was to conclude the series with a presentation about the role of evangelicals in public life, focusing on our relationships with Jews and Muslims.
My speech was mainly devoted to what I see as some of the key weaknesses and strengths of evangelicalism as a public presence in American culture. But I concluded by informing my audience about two personal aspects of my own faith perspective. The first involved an encounter I had recently witnessed between a Jew and a Muslim. About thirty or so American religious leaders representing Christianity, Judaism, and Islam had the privilege of a closed-door session with King Abdullah of Jordan on one of his visits to the United States. We were impressed by the Arab leader’s professed commitment to encouraging fellow Muslims to cooperate with Jews and Christians in countering the toxic influence of extremists in each of our communities. His responses to probing questions were equally impressive—indeed, they were often quite inspiring.
As our session neared its conclusion, an elderly rabbi asked for a final word. He told the king that he was deeply moved by what he had shared. “We need you in our world of turmoil today,” he said, “but I worry about your safety and the well being of your family.” He pledged to pray for King Abdullah and his loved ones. And then the rabbi offered, as a fellow descendent of Abraham, the well-known ancient blessing: “The LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The LORD lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
I told my Chautauqua audience how moved I was by that encounter. As an evangelical Christian, I said, I believe with all my heart that the God I worship, the God of Abraham, looked down on that scene, where a descendent of Isaac gave a blessing to a descendent of Ishmael, and smiled and said, “That’s good! That’s the way I want things to be!” I’m not entirely clear about how to work this into my theology, I confessed, but I’m willing to live with some mystery in thinking about that encounter.
But then I quickly moved to the second aspect that I needed to share. “Those of you who watch professional football games know that there is often somebody in the crowd right behind the goalposts who holds up a ‘John 3:16′ sign. I need to tell you this: That’s me!” I find I need to live with some mystery about what God is doing in the Abrahamic religions. At the same time, I cannot fail to proclaim the John 3:16 message that God has sent a Savior, and that those who believe on him will not perish but have everlasting life.
Both of the points I made to the Chautauqua audience were about divine generosity. We serve a God whose generous ways with others are beyond our capacity to grasp. But that same generosity has been clearly displayed in the marvelous grace that sent our Savior to Calvary—an abundant grace that is greater than all of our sin. The proclamation of that overwhelming generosity must not be muted, even as we live in the presence of mysteries we cannot comprehend.
Richard J. Mouw is president and professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary.