Evangelical Relief Efforts Are under Way in Violent Sri Lanka

Racial turmoil between Hindus and Buddhists leaves 100,000 people homeless.

By the time racial violence ended in the central Asian island nation of Sri Lanka recently, some 400 people had been killed and 100,000 left homeless. It was thought the centuries-old tension between the majority (70 percent) Buddhist Sinhalese and the minority (22 percent) Hindu Tamils was easing. But the outburst crashed those hopes and devastated an economy that had been slowly recovering.

The recent turmoil began with the July 23 slaughtering of 13 Sinhalese (government) soldiers by a radical group of Tamils seeking, ostensibly, the establishment of an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka.

Retaliation by the Sinhalese was swift and sure. Throughout Sri Lanka, but especially in its capital city, Colombo, Tamil homes and businesses were looted and burned. Some Tamils were reportedly doused with gasoline and burned alive, to the cheers of onlooking Sinhalese.

The bulk of the relief and rehabilitation effort is being carried on by Christian organizations, although Christians make up less than seven percent of Sri Lanka’s 15 million people.

Some of the wealthier Tamils have fled to India; others have begun to rebuild their businesses. But tens of thousands have nothing and nowhere to go.

Evangelical Christians and organizations are seeking to provide both short-term care and a long-term plan to channel the displaced Tamils back into Sri Lankan society, MAP (Medical Assistance Programs) International sent emergency medical supplies valued at $250,000. Southern Baptists donated materials for a portable field hospital.

Other organizations involved include World Relief, Campus Crusade, and the Salvation Army. Anglicans, Missouri Synod Lutherans, Presbyterians, and the Assembly of God Church have crossed denominational boundaries to coordinate their effort.

The Sri Lankan Evangelical Alliance Development Services (LEADS) is the coordinating organ for a large part of the evangelical effort. The head of LEADS, Reg Ebenezer, is a Tamil and a Dutch Reformed minister. He sees in this time of Tamil persecution unlimited opportunity for church growth. “They have trusted in padlocks, iron gates, and in their gods,” he says. “And these have not provided security.”

Christians In Nepal Are Harassed By The Government

The Christian church in the Southeast Himalayan nation of Nepal endures under the scrutiny of the government’s watchful eye. A recent crackdown by the district administration in the Katmandu Valley led to the jailing of several believers, including a pastor, on charges the church was leading Hindus to change their religion.

Late last year, Nepal’s only Bible school was shut down. Since then, special police in plain clothes have been mingling with Christians at church services.

In Nepalese law, attempting to change another’s religion is considered a serious crime. But at a public inquiry, Christian missionaries and nationals testified that the major role of the church was not to change Hindus but to serve as a place for worship, prayer, and spiritual growth among Christians. Freedom of worship for Christians is guaranteed by Nepal’s constitution.

During three weeks of meetings with police, the jailed pastor’s friends were able to build rapport. He was eventually released, and worship services at his church have resumed. The church is confident the government will drop its charges that the church is prompting Hindus to change their religion. But evangelism in Nepal has received a message.

A New Christian Legal Group Fights For Religious Liberty

In Delaware, a Roman Catholic nurse was denied unemployment compensation because she refused to work for an abortionist. An Orthodox Jew in the same state was denied an absentee ballot for an election held on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

In North Carolina, two men were sued for libel after they picketed an abortion clinic with signs that indicated that doctors performing abortions are murderers. At an abortion clinic in New York, a man was arrested for criminal trespassing after he knelt to pray.

What do these persons have in common? They all have had run-ins with the law after they acted on their religious convictions. And they all have received legal assistance from the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting human life and preserving religious freedom.

Attorney John W. Whitehead, the institute’s president, says the organization provides legal aid for religious people who cannot afford their own attorneys. The Virginia-based institute is funded by private donations.

Whitehead says the United States government has strayed from the principles on which the country was founded. The Declaration of Independence, he says, was based on Judeo-Christian principles, which he sums up as “you are to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and … to love your neighbor as yourself.

“If you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll give your neighbor his rights,” says the 37-year-old lawyer. “That’s the key there. It’s protecting his rights—his rights to property, his rights to be born, his rights to worship his God.”

Since its founding in July 1982, the Rutherford Institute has taken part in six legal cases involving the infringement of religious liberty or the freedom of speech. Defending opponents of abortion is in line with the institute’s first priority: protecting the sanctity of human life.

The organization’s other four priorities include the protection of the “traditional family”; protection of churches and Christian schools; the protection of free speech and freedom of religion in the public arena, including public schools; and helping people in Communist countries who are oppressed because of their religious beliefs.

Whitehead says freedoms in this country are slowly being eroded, a trend he says could lead to an authoritarian state.

“It first begins with a nation that forgets God. Once they move away from the source of their blessings … it all ends up the same place—oppression of people.”

To reverse the trend, he says, Christians need to resist the forces that are trying to secularize American society. He says one of those forces is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“Our problem’s not so much the ACLU as it is their mentality,” he says. “But their mentality is the same as in a lot of state governments—what I call secularism.… I think their philosophy is antireligious.”

In one instance, the ACLU sued the city of Pawtuckett, Rhode Island, to force the removal of a nativity scene from the city’s Christmas display. Lower courts ruled in favor of the ACLU. The case has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Rutherford Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of the city’s creche display.

However, the ACLU is not always on the opposite side in legal battles. The ACLU filed a brief in support of an Orthodox Jewish woman who was denied an absentee ballot to vote in an election held on a Saturday. The Rutherford Institute is representing the woman in court.

The institute also is defending a Delaware woman who was arrested for disorderly conduct after she entered an abortion clinic to counsel women and to distribute prolife literature.

By request of the U.S. Justice Department, the institute prepared a legal memorandum on the issue of state regulation of religious schools. Representatives of the institute also testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in behalf of a bill that would guarantee equal access to public school facilities for student-initiated religious gatherings.

The author of five books, Whitehead recommends that Christians get involved politically to provide a Christian influence in society and government. But he cautions against supporting candidates just because they are Christians.

While his books advocate Christian political involvement, Whitehead stresses that he is not arguing in favor of a “Christian America” or a theocracy. “Christianity that comes in and makes people pray [in public schools] and becomes oppressive is no better than the other system.”

RON LEE

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