Persecution in Ethiopia

Hundreds of Pentecostal Christians, many of them young people, have been jailed and their churches closed within the past year in Ethiopia. Leaders among the 176 delegates who attended the assembly of the United Bible Societies held recently in Addis Ababa (see following story) worked behind the scenes in an apparently vain attempt to secure their release. When the UBS delegates left the city, at least seventy Pentecostals were known to be in prison, while many others were out on bail. They were arrested on unsupported charges that ranged from immorality to occultism. Trials were scheduled last month, but the government had issued no confirmation or information on them late in the month.

UBS officials were able to piece together information from a variety of sources. The sources indicate that a revival broke out about eight years ago in the northern part of the country, led by a Finnish Pentecostal group in the city of Asmara. Ethiopian converts formed their own independent Pentecostal movement. They opened chapels in rented houses and ordained elders as they sought to build an indigenous church. Most of the converts were young people educated but poor.

The next step was to register with the government, as required by law of all religious groups, but official recognition was not granted. The number of converts increased, with as many as 1,000 attending charismatic conferences.

Opposition arose. In 1967, a crowd attacked a Sunday-morning gathering of the faithful in one city, injuring several and burning Bibles and hymnbooks. Police arrested some of the Pentecostals, including a few of the injured.

Leaders of the movement appealed to Emperor Haile Selassie, and he appointed an investigative commission. The accusers produced an allegedly hired witness with an infant purported to have been born in the chapel that had been attacked. This later proved to be a fabrication, it was reported, and the results of the inquiry were not made public.

In another appeal, the government security agency declined to recognize the movement on the grounds that public services might provoke further disturbances. The movement then submerged somewhat, although services were often conducted openly. Membership continued to grow, and young converted teachers in the public schools had a strong influence among their students. By 1971, the indigenous Pentecostals were established in every province of Ethiopia and had strong groups in the four largest urban centers.

In December, the security agency circulated a seven-point statement of charges, accusing the believers of widespread immorality, wearing long hair, abusing strangers, and stealing. Further, it said, the group preached that Christ would return in three years and that everybody should join the Pentecostals.

Leaders vehemently denied the charges, but many Ethiopians apparently believed the document. Some attended meetings out of curiosity and were themselves converted. Opponents tried to link the group to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose refusal to salute the flag and support the government has gained them wide disfavor. Hostility increased; there were more attacks, beatings, and arrests. After another appeal, the emperor reputedly rebuked security officers who had imprisoned and beaten believers in the town of Harrar. But when meetings began again at Harrar, more jail sentences and fines were handed down.

Upon subsequent appeals, Selassie is said to have asked for solid evidence to substantiate the seven-point document and to have appointed a new commission to review the situation. Still, no findings were released and no permission was granted to hold meetings.

In the absence of a permit the Pentecostals this year closed their chapel services and began meeting in homes. In August, about 275 were gathered on the grounds of an English nursing sister’s home when police broke up the meeting and jailed most of the participants. (Simultaneously, similar raids were apparently carried out elsewhere in the land.) They were charged with holding an unlawful meeting. The civil code prohibits more than five in a non-religious meeting. To no avail the believers insisted their meeting was religious. A few pleaded guilty and were fined, but the majority denied any wrongdoing and went to jail. Some lost their jobs as a result.

Several hundred Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested at the same time; seven landowners bailed them out and hired a Christian attorney to defend them.

Many Ethiopian Pentecostals believe the opposition has been inspired by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which claims about 40 per cent of the population. One priest reportedly complained to a charismatic leader, “You are getting all the young people and leaving us with beggars and the aged.” And it is no secret that the Orthodox patriarch, Abuna Theophilos, views the movement as a threat; it is attracting large numbers of young people from Orthodoxy. It all amounts to an outcropping of the Jesus movement in Ethiopia.

An American Presbyterian layman, who recently visited Pentecostals in a women’s prison, said the believers there looked on their confinement as an opportunity to spread the Gospel among fellow prisoners who might not otherwise hear. They have formed a choir that sings nightly, he noted.

A close observer of the scene believes the situation will be resolved if the charismatic movement catches hold among the Orthodox in Ethiopia as it has in Egypt, where the movement is thriving with little public opposition.

Marriage, Swedish Style

Marriage seems to be going out of style in Sweden—and church leaders say it’s because belief also is passé. A study recently released by the state statistical bureau tells how bad the situation is.

Since 1966 the number of marriages has plummeted 35 per cent, and 1971 recorded the lowest number of marriages in a century. The sharp decrease is most evident in the age bracket of twenty-three to twenty-six. Bureau head Erland Hofsten says couples no longer consider marriage necessary. “Our love is so strong there’s no need) for a ring or a marriage certificate,” chant young couples.

But such a free-wheeling view of marriage causes problems for children (see July 7 issue, page 36), and Sweden’s legislators are concerned. For three years they have been at work on new marriage and divorce laws. A proposed law would make it more difficult for couples with children to get divorced than for those without any.

Superstar Over Israel

Jesus Christ Superstar is being filmed in the ancient Nabatean city of Avdat in the central Negev. The National Parks Authority provided the main-location site to the film company free of charge, along with Herodion (near Bethlehem) and the Beisan Roman theater, in hopes of attracting tourists and encouraging more foreign film-makers to come to Israel.

While there is uneasiness in Israel over Superstar’s popularity, no one would compare it to the offensive Oberammergau Passion Play. Israel’s national radio regularly features the heavy beat of “What’s the Buzz?” and the tender strains of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.”

Still, the uneasiness is there, and some have moved to allay it now that the crews are on location, and especially because the film promises to get wide exposure in the theaters of the land—unlike the stage version. Reassurance came from Geoffrey Wigoder, Jerusalem Post writer on world Jewry and anti-Semitism, who wrote at length telling Israelis why they shouldn’t get uptight over it. There are problems in the stage version (Jews are portrayed as more violent than the Romans), but the film version promises to be more kosher, he assured his readers. Wigoder quoted from an assessment of Superstar made for the American-Jewish Committee: “It does not repeat the myth of the Jews as Christ-killers condemned by God for all time; it does not claim that all Jews of Jesus’ time knew him and forsook him.”

Besides, he notes hopefully, the film is being made in Israel (authorities have screened the script) and produced by Norman Jewison, who showed “an uncanny empathy” for the Jewish soul in Fiddler on the Roof.

DWIGHT L. BAKER

Zeal In New Zealand

There is talk of revival among New Zealand’s three million inhabitants. A series of Jesus festivals over the past few months culminated with a “march for Jesus” that was said to be the largest march in the nation’s history. More than 20,000 denominational people, Catholic Pentecostals, and counter-culture youth linked arms and sang outside Parliament in Wellington, the capital.

Prime Minister John Marshall, an active Presbyterian, joined other Christian leaders on the speakers’ platform and declared that “only through conversion” can lives—and the nation—be changed. Minutes later, 400 registered their decisions for Christ.

DAVID W. VIRTUE

Pakistan Tragedy

Gloom still hangs over much of the Christian community in Pakistan following the government take-over of nine Protestant and Catholic colleges and a serious incident of violence associated with it, according to a missionary source.

The Christian community numbers less than a million, but up to 10,000 at a time marched in peaceful protest in Lahore just prior to the nationalization move, said the source. But in Rawalpindi, about 2,000 Christians—mostly women—were marching from the century-old Gordon College (founded by United Presbyterians) to the President’s house two miles away when police stopped them. As their leaders discussed the situation with the police, the marchers sat along the road praying and singing.

Suddenly, the police attacked with tear gas, then began shooting, the source stated. The main leader was shot in the back and killed as he tried to quiet his people. Three others died and about fifty were injured. Many were jailed.

The police and press next day reported that the Christians had fired first, a charge denied by Christian leaders who were there. The turmoil has subsided, but tensions still run high.

The Christian colleges were founded at a time when no other colleges existed. Over the past two decades, noted the source, control of the schools was transferred to national Christians. At least 90 per cent of the students are Muslims.

Britain’S New Church

Britain’s first union across denominational lines occurred last month with the merger of the 175,000-member Congregational Church in England and Wales and the 60,000-member Presbyterian Church of England. They are now the United Reformed Church (URC).

The two churches began negotiating union in 1945, at times facing “hurdles in our path that seemed impossible to overcome.” URC moderator John Huxtable told the thousands crowding Westminster Abbey for the wedding ceremony and millions more watching on TV. (Huxtable was formerly the executive minister-secretary of the Congregational Church.)

Even now there are problems. Two dissenting Presbyterian churches have decided to form an outpost of the Church of Scotland, and some Congregationalists have formed a continuing Congregational association. Fewer than 20 per cent of the Congregationalists bothered to vote at all on the merger.

The URC is being urged by officials of other denominations to take the initiative in arranging multilateral union talks between others in the “Big Five”: Anglicans, Church of Scotland, Methodists, Baptists, and Catholics. “If the national communions in this country do not unite,” warned Huxtable, it will lead to a condition of confused impotence for the church.

DAVID COOMES

The New Rabbis

Israel has two new chief rabbis, outspoken Shlomo Goren, now head of the Ashkenazic Jews, and soft-spoken Ovadia Yosef, new leader of the Sephardic Jews.

Goren is a retired brigadier general, former army chaplain, and paratrooper, who won recognition for his helicopter front-hopping and for consecrating holy places as fast as the Israeli armies recaptured them during the 1967 Six-Day War. And he was the one who blew the shofar (ram’s horn) from the Wailing Wall at its recovery. He was Golda Meir’s choice for the top rabbinical post (most of the world’s Jews, nearly 84 per cent, are Ashkenazim).

Goren is also known for his stand against Israeli civil marriages and for his antagonism to “Christian-Jewish dialogue” (see August 25 issue, page 41). He said he did not intend to deviate “one iota” from ancient Jewish law.

Yosef’s goal is to “restore the rabbinate … to its former glory.” Less flamboyant than Goren, he got exposure when he ruled that slacks—previously outlawed—were less indecent than mini-skirts for Israeli army women.

The two rabbis (both of them defeated incumbents, a first in Israel’s rabbinic circles) have some hard problems to consider, problems left unsolved by their predecessors. Among these are civil marriage, divorce, conversion, and most difficult of all, the definition of a Jew. Goren seems confident that his tenure will bring solutions.

Objection Overruled

American missionary-evangelist Spiros Zodhiates, head of the American Mission to Greeks, was acquitted of charges of proselytism in a trial in Pyrgos, Greece, but was found guilty in another trial of making unauthorized appeals for funds. Both he and George Constantinidis, his embattled Greek associate (see June 9 issue, page 47, and August 11 issue, page 39), were sentenced to five months in jail. They are free pending appeal.

The charges were brought by Archimandrite Germanos Paraskevopulos of Pyros. He alleged that newspaper ads placed by Zodhiates sought to convert Greek Orthodox readers to Protestantism. The ads held that salvation was by faith alone, he complained, whereas Orthodoxy teaches that salvation is only in the Greek Orthodox Church and that sins must be confessed before an Orthodox priest. Arguments centered on what Orthodoxy really teaches.

Two Orthodox priests of the Patriarchate of Alexandria testified on behalf of Zodhiates. They revealed that two Greek Orthodox newspapers published in Cairo and Alexandria carried the ads. Both papers are financially supported by the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria, who would have intervened to forbid publication had he disagreed with their content, they argued.

A Pyrgos church official informed Patriarch Nicolaos of Alexandria about the priests’ testimony; the pair later received a registered letter dismissing them from service in the patriarchate.

It was the second time in three years that Zodhiates won anti-proselytism cases in Pyrgos. But in a succeeding trial, it was established that Constantinidis received a $4 donation from a Pyrgos evangelical in response to an ad appealing for funds for mission workers in West Irian, New Guinea. The archimandrite pointed to a law forbidding such public appeals without special permission from the Greek Ministry of Welfare. Zodhiates said he had never heard of the law before and pointed out that contributions had been received from other parts of Greece with no hassles from the government. Other journalists testified that they regularly publish such appeals without permission. The public prosecutor moved for acquittal, but the judge went ahead with sentencing.

Bible Breakthrough

A breakthrough in Bible distribution in Eastern Europe through official and legal channels was reported at the twenty-fifth anniversary meeting of the United Bible Societies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A UBS regional secretary said Bible work had tripled in Eastern Europe in the past five years and is progressing without hindrance in all Iron Curtain countries except Albania. Modern speech versions are being prepared in Yugoslavia, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Four translations are in process in the Soviet Union. Distribution is mainly through churches, but some bookstores are selling Bibles.

A total of 176 delegates from seventy countries attended the World Assembly, the UBS’s first. Emperor Haile Selassie, who brought greetings, was given a historical catalog listing the 1,399 languages into which at least one book of the Bible has been published.

A goal of distributing 500 million Bibles worldwide annually by 1980 was set. Another aim is to prepare Scripture selections for use in literacy programs in thirty-two new languages each year. Last year 181 million Bibles and portions were distributed throughout the world.

The UBS seeks to coordinate the program of fifty national Bible societies at work in more than 150 countries.

DECOURCY H. RAYNER

Brethren In Spain

Taking advantage of Spain’s new Law of Religious Liberty, delegates to the twenty-sixth annual meeting of the nation’s Plymouth Brethren booked a downtown Madrid theater for a public evangelistic rally. Well-known Brethren evangelist Fernando Vangioni of Argentina preached to a packed house, and more than one hundred prayed to receive Christ at the invitation. Many Scripture portions were distributed, and numerous Christian books were sold at the theater’s entrance.

It was an evangelistic first for the Brethren, Spain’s largest Protestant denomination (ninety-five churches with 120 full-time workers). Brethren assemblies sprouted throughout the northwest and northeast regions soon after the arrival of the first resident British missionaries in 1868, but groups date from 1836 in Madrid.

JOSE FLORÉS

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