Persecution in Mexico

What do you think of when you think of Mexico? Illegal immigration? A hot vacation spot? What you may not realize is how much persecution exists there and how widespread it is.

[…]

While Mexico does have religious freedom laws, much of the persecution takes place in more rural areas where it is harder for the government to keep tabs on how Christians are being treated.

Plus, Musselman said the response to the Gospel has been tremendous throughout these villages: “One of the reasons there’s been an increase in persecution is the indigenous people are really responsive to the Gospel.”

As the church grows, Musselman said persecution increases, but then the church grows even more.

To shed light on everything taking place there, VOMC created a video, Mexican Voices: Testimonies of the Persecuted.

Source: Video seeks to raise awareness about persecution in Mexico

Of Visionaries and Moneywagons

A yet-unmet friend recently theorized and bemoan-ized via email:

“The visionaries have no money,
and the moneywagons have no vision.”

Fuller quote: “Somehow, I wish there were a link between the visionaries…and the moneywagons in our midst. The visionaries have no money, and the moneywagons have no vision. Well, that is an overgeneralization, I admit. But things do tend to be that way.”

Context 😯

“Incredibly Naive”

Also not that long ago, junk DNA was being defended as an important element of the Darwinian evolution paradigm.

Just one decade of post-genome biology has exploded that view. Biology’s new glimpse at a universe of non-coding DNA — what used to be called ‘junk’ DNA — has been fascinating and befuddling. Researchers from an international collaborative project called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements ENCODE showed that in a selected portion of the genome containing just a few per cent of protein-coding sequence, between 74% and 93% of DNA was transcribed into RNA2. Much non-coding DNA has a regulatory role; small RNAs of different varieties seem to control gene expression at the level of both DNA and RNA transcripts in ways that are still only beginning to become clear. “Just the sheer existence of these exotic regulators suggests that our understanding about the most basic things — such as how a cell turns on and off — is incredibly naive,” says Joshua Plotkin, a mathematical biologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Source: Evolution News & Views: Exploding the Darwin-Friendly Myth of Junk DNA

Suggested Reading: The Biblical View of Science (Lester E. Showalter; Rod and Staff Publishers)

Alert: India Email

Did you get this email?

You may have recently gotten an e-mail prayer alert that reads like this: “Please pray for churches in India. Buddhist extremists in India burned down 20 churches last night. Tonight they plan to destroy 200 churches in the province of Olisabang. They plan to kill 200 missionaries within 24 hours.”

Rev. Samuel Stephens with India Gospel League says this message is false. He writes, “If this were true, I would have been one among the first few to receive such information because of the presence of our extensive network of pastors and church planters spread over a good part of the country. Further, there are no provinces in India. We have states and districts. There is no state or district named Olisabang.”

Another fact that debunks the e-mail’s veracity: Buddhist extremist groups are prevalent only in Sri Lanka, not in India. Violent attacks on Christians and pastors and the destruction of churches by Buddhist extremists are becoming increasingly frequent and widespread in Sri Lanka.

However, IGL says Buddhists and Christians in India have lived peacefully and in amity with each other for years. Stephens notes: “I am led to believe that this message is a deliberate, planned and mischievous attempt by Hindu extremists to damage the good relationship between Buddhists and Christians. It is intentionally sent out to create animosity between these two groups.”

Source: E-mail rumor spreads anti-Christian sentiment

I didn’t.

Haiti: Remember?

Earthquakes all over the place, it seems.

And each seems to blur further the memory of the previous.

So a reminder about Haiti seems in order:

Three months have passed since the earthquake struck Haiti. In that period of time, three other significant earthquakes of greater or similar magnitude struck Chile, Taiwan and, just this week, China.

However, the road to recovery in Haiti seems so overwhelming. “The extent of the damage and the people who have been left homeless, and the many who are still recovering from injuries is of a tremendous magnitude. That need still exists,” said Ron Sparks of Baptist Haiti Mission.

Much of this is due to the poor infrastructure which existed in Haiti prior to the earthquake. According to Mid-Hudson News Network, “It was certain pre-exisiting economic factors that led to the amplified devastation which occurred in that impoverished country.”

Sparks said other countries hit by earthquakes had internal support through resources and jobs. But in Haiti, “They have no jobs. They have no food or medical care beyond what’s brought in and offered to them.”

Building from the ground up will be a slow process.

Thus, Haitians are looking for hope.

Source: Pre-existing problems slow reconstruction and continue to plague Haiti

April 19

1529 — At the Second Diet of Speyer, a group of rulers and independent cities protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms, beginning the Protestant Reformation.

1775 — The American Revolutionary War begins with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

1919 — Leslie Irvin makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.

1961 — The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.

1971 — Charles Manson is sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders. (As far as I know, that was never carried out.)

1993 — The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco (Texas) ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.

1995 — The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is bombed, killing 168. (Timothy McVeigh has since been tried, convicted, and executed. See 1971 entry above for perspective.)

2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.

2010 — US Supreme Court justices seem to split sharply on whether a law school can deny recognition to a Christian student group because it won’t let gays join.

Private
Above all, love God!

since November 9, 2005