MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“NAIROBI — Two people were killed in a grenade attack on a church in a town in eastern Kenya, police said Sunday, amid a spate of violence that has raised concerns for the country’s key tourism industry.

The attackers threw a grenade at a house inside a compound of the East African Pentecostal Church in Garissa late Saturday, killing two people living inside, locals said. Up to four others were injured in the attack.

‘They attacked people who reside in the church compound,’ said a worshipper. ‘Two people died and the others have been taken to hospital.’

National police deputy spokesman Charles Owino confirmed that two people had been killed and said a partially exploded landmine found elsewhere in town had been taken away by anti-terrorism police.

Asked who was responsible for the attacks, Owino noted that Garissa is a predominantly Muslim town and that the target was a church.

‘It could be (religious) rivalry. It could be Al Shebab sympathisers, you can’t rule it out. Anything is possible,’ he told AFP.” Read more.

“The head of Lebanon’s Maronite church said he feared for the fate of Christians in the Middle East if the Arab Spring brought ‘radical groups’ to power to replace autocratic leaders. Patriarch Beshara al-Rai, speaking in Baghdad during the first such visit by a Maronite patriarch, urged Christians not to leave the Middle East.

‘I support the spring when it is a spring, not when it is a winter,’ he told reporters. During his visit, he attended a ceremony marking the first anniversary of an al Qaeda attack which killed 52 people in a Baghdad church. ‘There should be changes in all Arab countries. Dictatorships cannot survive today, we need democracy, freedom of expression and freedom of belief and worship…(But) I fear radical groups might take power and (bring) extremist rule.’

He added: ‘We are with changes in Syria …and with reforms and human rights but we hope the price will not be the same as what happened in Iraq.’

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled the country after years of sectarian conflict.

Attacks on Christians in Egypt after protests toppled Hosni Mubarak in February also highlight the dangers many Christians in Syria fear they will face if protests against President Bashar al-Assad bring him down. Church leaders in Syria say they support reforms but not the demands for a ‘regime change’ which they say could fragment Syria and give the upper hand possibly to Islamist groups that would deny them religious freedom.

Lebanon’s Maronite church leaders have had tense relations with Syria, and led calls for an end to Syrian military presence in Lebanon in 2005. But since protests erupted against Assad in March many said Christians enjoyed freedom of belief under Assad’s secular Baath Party.

Maronites, who have a presence in Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus, follow an Eastern rite of the Roman Catholic church and number around 900,000 in Lebanon. Many more Maronites, possibly up to three million, live outside the country. ‘We are against any (Christian) migration,’ Rai said. ‘We know that all the extremist and terrorist groups and foreign interference aim for this but we have to remain steadfast.'” Read more.

By Massimo Franco – “This is what seems to have happened. The new ruling classes differ from one country to the other but they tend to have in common a stronger Islamic identity. Their more extremist factions push to punish Christian minorities for what is perceived as a double original sin: being allies of former hated regimes, and being ‘agents of western values’, although they have been living there for 2,000 years or so. The result is that the prospect of their extinction as a community is growing.

It has happened already in Iraq, due to the ‘Anglo-American war’ started in 2003. At that time, the number of Chaldeans, the Christian Iraqis, was between 800,000 and 1.4 million. In 2009-2010, it was estimated are between 400,000 and 500,000, and rapidly decreasing. Cairo’s violent repression shows a similar process is under way in Egypt as well, where they still represent roughly 10% of the population.

This represents a georeligious tragedy for the Vatican, which always tried to maintain a frustrating dialogue with Islamic authorities, and which right up to the end persisted in invoking a pacific coexistence in the area.

But it is also a geopolitical failure for the west, and paradoxically for Islam as well. Christian communities have been historically a bridge between western and Arab culture; and a factor of moderation and mutual understanding between the two worlds. Their dramatic decline signals the collapse of this symbolic bridge, and the growing strength of an ‘Arab street’ fed with consumerism but also with prejudices and a widespread hostile mood against Christians.” Read more.

And the ‘Arab Street’ isn’t just anti-Christian, either:

Revelation 6:8a, “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him …”

By Evelyn Lin – “At least 150 people were killed in a series of gun and bomb attacks in northern Nigeria on Saturday, the Islamist Boko Haram sect claimed.

The radical Islamic sect Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks, which included bombing a government building and gunning down over 63 people in the northern city of Damaturu, while another suicide attack in neighbouring Maiduguri town left for dead.

A spokesman for Boko Haram said the group is responsible for the series of overnight attacks.

President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the assaults which officials said included at least five suicide bomb blasts and ‘directed security agencies to ensure the arrest of perpetrators of these heinous acts,’ said a statement from his spokesman Reuben Abati.

As corpses piled up in the morgue, a rescue agency official told AFP the body count stood at 150.

The attackers bombed their targets then took on the security forces in gun battles in Damaturu. Residents said gunfire rang out for several hours across the city after the explosions.

‘It was a suicide bomb attack at one of our buildings. The attacker came in a Honda CRV and rammed into the building and explosives exploded,’ Lawal told AFP.

A journalist described scenes of chaos and destruction in Damaturu.

‘In fact, Damaturu is looking just like Libya… burnt cars and buildings.’ In a mainly Christian neighbourhood of Damaturu called Jerusalem, six churches were bombed in addition to a police station.” Read more.

The vast majority of Western evangelical churches still teach a ‘pre-trib rapture’.  If the truth about what is happening right now in the world were to be told to every one of these churches, many would begin questioning some of the old dispensational ideas being taught regarding eschatology when a significant number of authors and prophecy teachers rely heavily on a ‘pre-trib’ canvas.  Heaven forbid if the Church ever began doubting those materials …

By Michael Carl – “About half of all the pastors in America’s churches today do not want to tell their congregations that there are forces in the world that persecute Christians for their beliefs, because it’s a ‘downer,’ according to the results of a startling new poll.

The Barna Research Associates survey, commissioned by Open Doors USA, says a significant majority of American Christians, some three out of four, want to hear about the persecuted church.

But the same study showed that 52 percent of America’s pastors don’t want to talk about persecution and have no plans to talk about it.

In the nationwide poll of more than 800 Christians, 74 percent of America’s churchgoers want to hear about the persecuted church.

But the same survey said only 48 percent of the pastors want to discuss the issue.

Open Doors President Carl Moeller says the survey shows that American Christians are not isolationists.

‘Much of what we’ve been hearing from people and in my experience of speaking with people all over the country would indicate that American Christians really want to know what’s happening to their brothers and sisters in Christ all around the world, particularly those that are suffering for their faith in Christ,’ Moeller said.” Moeller said.” Read more.

Christian Bishop in Egypt: Christians Are Currently Experiencing Their Worst Time in Recent Centuries, Many Now Unable to Buy or Sell – “Christians in Egypt are currently experiencing their worst time in recent centuries. This statement was made by the Coptic Orthodox Bishop Stephanos of Beba and Elfashn to the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Christians are being violently killed under the eyes of the international media. Also, for the first time in many years, churches are being systematically burned and destroyed… Problems are also experienced in day-to-day life because calls are often made in the media not to buy from Christian merchants or to sell anything to Christians. Businessmen are therefore faced with a struggle for economic survival. Christians are indirectly excluded from employment…” Read more.

Islamic Militants Calling Themselves ‘The Unknown Soldiers of The Hidden Imam’ Threaten to Hunt Down and Execute Christians Who Flee Iran – “Islamic militants with suspected ties to Iranian security forces have been terrorizing evangelical Christians with threats to ‘repent’ or die, it was reported Sunday. Christian Solidarity Worldwide has reported that 11 Iranian Christians who fled Iran in the wake of a government campaign against Christianity have received threats via email to ‘repent’ or face extrajudicial execution, from a group identifying itself as the ‘The Unknown Soldiers of The Hidden Imam.’ The threatening emails that were sent to each individual on Sept. 14 aspired to extend the arm of Iranian Islamic militancy beyond the borders of Iran by implying that, although the recipients have left Iran, they have not escaped the ‘acute eyes of the unknown soldiers.’” Read more.

Egypt: Islamists Boast, ‘We Won’t Leave Any Christians in This Country’ – “A group of Muslims burnt down part of a church Friday – the Islamic Sabbath – in the village of Marinab, according to a report published in the daily Al Masry Al Youm. The village, situated close to the town of Edfu in the Aswan Governorate, is located some 800 kilometers south of Cairo. Security sources said Muslims rampaged through the village in what appeared to be a pogrom, clashing with the Christian residents and destroying their shops.” Read more.

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan – “There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime. In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan’s new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country. The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the State Department’s latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and covers the period of July 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, also states that ‘there were no Christian schools in the country.’” Read more.

Iraq: Islamic Extremists Want to Eliminate Christians From Country, Mass Movement of Christians Continues Unabated – “Ongoing violence against Christians in Iraq has produced an accelerated exodus of believers recently and numbering in the hundreds of thousands over the last 10 years, said Open Doors USA officials… ‘At the beginning of the summer, Open Doors estimated the number of Christians remaining in Iraq at 345,000. However, the number decreases every month,’ officials stated. ‘It is an estimation; some even think there are less Christians left in the country than that,’ another Open Doors member said.” Read more.

“A Somali Christian in Kenya is nursing injuries after young Muslim men from his country beat him with iron rods and wooden clubs last week, leaving him unconscious at a church entryway.

Hassan, a 25-year-old refugee from Somalia whose surname is withheld for security reasons, had hardly been raised as a Muslim, having received Christ at age 7. But the Somali neighbors in Kenya who attacked him left him for dead on Oct. 27, bleeding and naked, on the assumption that as a Somali he was born into Islam and was therefore an apostate deserving of death, the young man told Compass.

He and his mother, a convert from Islam who fled war in Somalia 10 years ago after the death of her husband, are part of an underground house church.

In a town in Kenya undisclosed for security reasons, Hassan was returning home from running errands at 8:30 p.m. when the six young Muslim men stopped him. They hit him with a metal bar on his forehead and face, he said, and he lost two teeth on the spot. Others hit him on the back.

Some stomped on his stomach while he was on the ground as others hit him on his legs, he said through bandages on his nose and above his mouth. His hands were bandaged where they wounded him with a knife.

The attackers stripped him of his clothes as he bled and dragged him away, dumping him at the entrance of an area Presbyterian Church of East Africa. Some passersby found him and called his mother, whose name is withheld for security reasons.” Read more.