Church Decimated after Upper-Caste Hindus Stir Hostilities in Andhra Pradesh, India
HYDERABAD, India, February 13, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Attacks and harassment of a house church in southern India have decimated the 40-member congregation and left the pastor injured and demoralized.
Pastor Eswara Rao Appalabattula on Jan. 27 pleaded with about a dozen local residents to stop building a wall meant to block people from attending worship services at his home in L.B. Patnam village, Andhra Pradesh. Led by a local Hindu extremist, the group attacked him, breaking his hand, he said.
“They wanted to build a wall right in front of the church and ban us from using the path,” Pastor Appalabattula told Morning Star News. “I pleaded with them to not do so. But the group of at least six neighbors, both male and female, punched me in my stomach several times and pushed me to the floor.”
They picked up a wooden pole and started beating his hands repeatedly with it, he said.
“I was lying there on the floor screaming for help,” he said. “My wife came running and begged them to stop beating me – it was traumatic.”
The attack topped a month of hostilities and years of opposition against the pastor and his wife, who are in their 60s, from Hindu villagers furious at the presence of a church in their community. On Jan. 5, a Hindu priest had led them to his home, where they threatened to kill his wife, Karuna Appalabattula, as she was doing chores outside,…
Scott Slayton | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Friday, February 14, 2020
Throughout America’s history, many of our leaders have been men who had a firm faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of our leaders who did not have religious faith had read deeply in the Bible and had great respect for its teachings. They also saw religion as a force for good in the world and important for the stability of our republic.
Here are 16 quotes from U.S. Presidents about faith and the Bible:
“My advice to Sunday Schools, no matter their denomination, is: Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your heart and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future.”
– Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States
In an unprecedented move, the Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle, the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, presented a Missionary Vision for a Racial Justice initiative that aims to repair and commence racial healing for individuals and communities who were directly injured by slavery in the diocese. The announcement was made at the 171st Diocesan Council held in Waco, Texas, February 7-8, 2020.
The Missionary Vision for Racial Justice initiative includes a $13 million commitment towards racial reconciliation projects and scholarships for the future training and education of people of color.
“The goal is to support the people of our communities who were actually injured by our past actions,” said Doyle. Doyle further explained to the clergy, delegates and members of the diocese, that he recently met with 38 representatives of the Historic Black Churches to invite their future collaboration and support. He worked for many years to dream with leaders and implement this initiative. “I have sought to undergird this work with the best theological and practical ideas in this present moment and from across the church to reinforce and amplify remedies and imagine a different trajectory for our future.”
The Bishop of Texas also reminded the audience that the Rt. Rev. Alexander Gregg, the first bishop of the diocese, including parishioners, had household slaves. “People don’t realize that our first congregation, Christ Church, Matagorda, was built by slaves. This is our truth. It is the truth of this diocese,” said Doyle.
Doyle added that although clergy and laity alike have spoken out against slavery, racism, and even courageously stopped lynching in our communities, other leaders, on the contrary, have defended slavery, white supremacy, and remained silent. Furthermore, Doyle also shared that he believes some lay leaders in the nineteenth century and early twentieth participated in lynching.
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, commended the initiative. “When I read the Missionary Vision for Racial Justice, for a moment, to be honest, it took my breath away … One translation of the word ‘inspiration’ is ‘God breathed.’ What you, the good people of the Diocese of Texas have done together with God is something truly God breathed, inspired!’”
The money for the Missionary Vision for Racial Justice Initiative will go to fund the Bertha Means Endowment at Seminary of the Southwest, the David Taylor Scholarship at Seminary of the Southwest, the Pauli Murray Scholarship Fund at Seminary of the Southwest, the Thomas Cain Fund for Historic Black Churches, the Henrietta Wells Scholarship Fund for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), the John and Joseph Talbot Fund for Racial Justice, and the Episcopal Health Foundation Congregational Engagement.
During a recent sermon given at a Moody Bible Institute conference, missionary and author Francis Chan told the audience that he and a team of other Christians had witnessed the miraculously healing of several people in a rural village located in Myanmar, including two deaf children.
The video of Chan’s entire sermon was posted online by the Moody Bible Institute.
Chan, the former teaching pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, California, was preaching at the conference earlier this month when he told a story about visiting a village that had no believers.
“At one point, we were in this village that had no believers, like zero. Not a single one,” he recalled. “And this lady had built a relationship with the head monk and the village leader and somehow was able to work out that we could go into the village.”
“My translator told me he had been in that area before and was chased out with knives and stones thrown at him, so he was terrified,” Chan continued. “But the entire village showed up, and I had the honor of sharing the Gospel through a translator, to be the first one to lay out the Gospel and explain that they had a Creator and explain that He had a son and explain what He did on the cross and the resurrection.”
“There’s no way I can communicate to you how much peace I felt,” the pastor stressed. “I am sharing the Good News with a village of people who have never heard of this before. I can’t tell you how right it felt.”
The Crazy Love author told the audience that he asked God to help him heal the villagers who were suffering.
“I’m going, ‘God, please, please hear,'” he recalled. “People started coming forward for healing.”
“Every person I touched was healed,” Chan said as the conference crowd applauded.
“You guys, OK, this is craziness to me,” he added. “I have never experienced this in 52 years. I’m talking like a little boy and a little girl who were deaf. We laid hands, she starts crying and smiling. These are not Christians who have even heard about Jesus, and she’s freaking out. We lay hands on her little brother, we lay hands on him, and he starts hearing for the first time.”
Chan also admitted that the experience was out of his “comfort zone,” but “Man, it happened. It happened.”
“I thought I had faith, but my faith was at another level,” he noted. “And I think there are some things that contributed — some of it was just faith in His Word, that when Jesus says, ‘I am in you and you are in Me,’ to take that literally.”
Chan explained that although he disagreed theologically with some of his team members, he believes God was “honored by this fight for unity, and I believe God was honored by this pursuit of the unreached, and obeying the Great Commission and we saw power.”
“And I don’t know that that means it will happen every time,” he continued. “My theology says I don’t think it will happen everywhere … but best I understand Scripture, He wants me to believe in my unity with Him, this power that I have because He and I are one. He wants to believe that you and I can become perfectly one.”
Chan also announced that in a few weeks, he and his family will be relocating to Hong Kong. The reality of persecution, he said, has caused him to “evaluate” his beliefs.
The missionary said there’s “nothing like” preaching to people who have never heard Jesus’s name.
As CBN News reported last November, Chan announced he and his family were moving to Asia in February of 2020 to become international missionaries.
The former pastor caused quite a stir in 2010 when he announced to the congregation at Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley he was resigning his post as lead pastor of the church he and his wife founded the same year they were married.
They then founded the house church movement called We Are Church, which is based in Northern California, where Chan moved his family in 2013. There are more than a dozen churches today with anywhere from 10 to 20 congregants and about 30 pastors (two per home), all of whom serve bi-vocationally, meaning they aren’t financially compensated for their ministry work.
Since making the rapid decision to move his family overseas, Chan admitted he is beginning to feel a bit nostalgic about the United States. But in moments of doubt, he said, the words written by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:4 have “convicted” him.
The passage reads, “We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this.”
Watch Chan’s entire sermon presented during the Moody Bible Institute’s Founders Week Conference below.
On Valentine’s Day, stores raise their prices for a dozen roses, restaurants move their tables closer together, and couples proclaim their love and affection for one another. But this year, Google Assistant and a woman named Loretta help us remember the beauty of lifelong marriage.
If you haven’t seen the 90-second commercial, it begins with a man googling the phrase “how to not forget.” You are then introduced – through photos and memories –to the lifelong love shared by this elderly man and his wife, Loretta.
The commercial is low-tech, but highly emotive. It’s simple but profound. And in a society that often promotes entertainment over engagement, this ad encourages the latter.
With nearly 50 million views on YouTube, and almost 7,000 comments, it’s clear that Loretta is striking a chord. Husbands and wives share about the impact of dementia on their spouses; children recount their memory-challenged parents crying during the commercial; others simply quote the commercial’s definitive words: “Remember I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
One woman offered this touching story: “My mother passed away Tuesday … My Dad and I were brought to tears by this commercial. And now he wants me to show him how to get his Pixel phone to pull up these kinds of things about my Mom.”
Why does this ad compel such a strong response? Because it illustrates a fundamental reality: we are made for relationship. When God created Adam, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” The Google commercial resonates with us because we want what Loretta and her husband have: someone who knows us fully, values us greatly, and walks beside us faithfully.
We are designed for intimacy. Not a shallow connection that persists until physical attraction fades. And not the temporary blending of lives that eventually and consciously uncouples, but the lasting union of heart, mind, body, and spirit.
READ: CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Shares His Parents’ Story of WWII Romance
That’s why we admire Loretta’s husband. In the commercial, we see him finishing what he started. She hated his mustache, and he loved her. She snorted when she laughed, and he loved her. She told him to get out of the dang house, and he loved her.
Ask any couple whose marriage is measured in decades to share the secret of their success and you will undoubtedly hear admonitions to communicate well, resolve conflicts, and put each other first. In other words, you will hear that marriage is hard work. The fruits of that labor of love include understanding, trust, and friendship…key ingredients to lifelong love.
Intimacy that endures is built over a lifetime, moment by moment, day by day, and year by year. It’s fueled by commitment and self-sacrifice, not convenience and self-actualization.
Marriage is not for the faint of heart. It’s messy but refining, grueling and yet uplifting, exhausting while fulfilling. You can’t argue with the benefits of marriage: married people are “happier, healthier, and better off financially.” Who wouldn’t want this? But, as with any great endeavor, some seek to reach the destination without adequately preparing for the journey. And today, some are working to completely transform the journey, not comprehending that the destination will change accordingly.
The old playground song talks about two people sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First came love, then came marriage, then came the baby in the baby carriage. The new version is strikingly different. We’ve disconnected sex from marriage, or even love. We’ve separated marriage and parenting into two distinct pursuits for self-fulfillment. And we’ve exchanged lifelong commitment for a lifetime pursuit of momentary satisfaction.
READ: Keys to a Valentine’s Victory: How to Use ‘God’s Bonding Process’ to Build Your Relationship
We’ve done our best to deconstruct families and marriage, but now, sitting in the rubble, a Google commercial shows us what we’re missing. Our society doesn’t work without strong families, and strong families are built upon vibrant marriages.
Loretta’s husband believes he is the luckiest man in the world. Intuitively, we know he’s right.
*****
ABOUT JAMES GOTTRY, VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY
James Gottry is the vice president for public policy at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute (JDFI). He leads the effort to monitor current events and legislative measures that impact the institution of the family and culture, interpret them in light of the Bible, and provide appropriate strategies for response. Gottry’s writings on constitutional law, religious freedom and cultural issues have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, National Review, The Hill, The Daily Wire, Public Discourse, The Federalist, The Daily Signal, and various additional print and online outlets. He has appeared on MSNBC and has been quoted by USA Today, NPR, Fox News and others. He earned his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School and is a member of the Arizona Bar.
Madison Prewett is a contestant on The Bachelor. For those of us who don’t know how the show works (myself included until I did research for this article), a single bachelor meets a pool of eligible women. He then eliminates candidates, culminating in a marriage proposal to his final selection.
During the process, a one-on-one date with a candidate is a significant step forward for her. Thus, when Madison secured such a date with Peter Weber (this season’s bachelor) in last Monday’s show, she needed things to go well in order to stay in the competition.
This is what she told him: “Faith is more than just this passed-down thing to me, it’s literally my whole life and all of who I am. I want, in a marriage, someone who also has that relationship with the Lord and loves that about me and wants to raise a family in that way.”
Of course, ABC cut out her spiritual confession.
In the network’s preview for the next episode, Prewett also says she is saving sex for marriage. “If he sleeps with anybody else, it’s gonna be hard for me to continue to move forward,” she added.
Let’s hope Prewett keeps embracing her faith as the show continues.
Did Geoffrey Chaucer invent today’s holiday?
Valentine’s Day, as everyone knows, is named for St. Valentine. Except we’re not sure which one.
Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were both early Christians who died for their faith. However, according to legend, St. Valentine of Rome signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and healed from blindness. Another legend says he defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare husbands from war.
In AD 496, Pope Gelasius marked February 14 as a celebration in honor of St. Valentine’s martyrdom. However, Geoffrey Chaucer may have invented the holiday we know today. In a poem he wrote around 1375, he linked a tradition of courtly love…
The House of Bishops at the Church of England’s General Synod, have stated that at least 98.3% of abortions taking place in the UK are immoral.
When asked previously in November 2019, Archbishop Justin Welby stated that the Church of England’s stance on abortion was very clear – but then failed to explain what the position actually is. The church’s official written response has consistently stated that there are ‘limited conditions’ for which abortion may be permissible, but has not recently explained what those conditions are.
Asking the Bishops for clarity
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern and lay member of General Synod, asked the Bishops:
“The Church of England has a number of times made the statement: ‘The Church of England combines principled opposition to abortion with a recognition that there can be strictly limited conditions under which it may be morally preferable to any available alternative.’ What are the “strictly limited conditions” where it is “morally preferable” to intentionally kill the unborn child?”
Bishop of Carlisle responds
The Bishop of Carlisle responded on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops:
“The General Synod resolved in 1983 that ‘in situations where the continuance of a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother a termination of pregnancy may be justified and that there must be adequate and safe provision in our society for such situations’ and in 1993 that ‘In the rare occasions when abortion is carried out beyond 24 weeks, ‘Serious foetal handicap’ should be interpreted strictly as applying to those conditions where survival is possible only for a very short period.’ In 2005 the General Synod received a briefing paper from the Mission and Public Affairs Council summarising these resolutions: ‘The Church of England combines strong opposition to abortion with a recognition that there can be – strictly limited – conditions under which it may be morally preferable to any available alternative’.”
Legal grounds under English law
Legal grounds for an abortion under English law, which the Bishops say could be ‘morally acceptable’ would include:
a risk to the life of pregnant woman
termination is necessary to prevent permanent injury to physical or mental health of pregnant woman,
save life of pregnant woman
prevent grave permanent injury to physical or mental health of pregnant woman
substantial risk child will suffer physical or mental abnormalities
Of the 196,083 abortions carried out in 2018, only 1.7% were carried out under these grounds, which the House of Bishops believes could be ‘justifiable’. This includes abortions for any abnormality – most of which were not life-threatening, such as Down’s Syndrome or cleft palate. English law does allow other grounds for abortion … read more
The issue at hand is sensitive, but we want to provide clarity on best practices. How do you respond to key leaders who don’t attend church faithfully? Listen in as Thom and Sam provide five options for how to address this area of concern.
Highlights:
Option 1: Do nothing (and watch things get worse).
Option 2: Discover the reason behind the infrequent attendance.
Option 3: Address the issue one-on-one with the person.
Option 4: Reset the criteria for leadership in the policies or bylaws.
Option 5: Ask ley leaders to sign a covenant.
Resources mentioned in today’s podcast:
Episode Sponsors
Vanderbloemen has been serving churches for nine years, but did you know that Vanderbloemen also serves Christian schools, nonprofits, and Christian businesses? So if you’re listening, and you know a Christian school, nonprofit, or values-based business that is hiring, contact our friends at Vanderbloemen for your staffing needs.
The mission at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by equipping students to serve the church and fulfill the Great Commission. The school offers more than 40 different degree programs, including the new Master of Arts in Church Revitalization in partnership with Church Answers and the Revitalization Network. This 37-hour degree is designed to help students move…
HYDERABAD, India, February 13, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Attacks and harassment of a house church in southern India have decimated the 40-member congregation and left the pastor injured and demoralized.
Pastor Eswara Rao Appalabattula on Jan. 27 pleaded with about a dozen local residents to stop building a wall meant to block people from attending worship services at his home in L.B. Patnam village, Andhra Pradesh. Led by a local Hindu extremist, the group attacked him, breaking his hand, he said.
“They wanted to build a wall right in front of the church and ban us from using the path,” Pastor Appalabattula told Morning Star News. “I pleaded with them to not do so. But the group of at least six neighbors, both male and female, punched me in my stomach several times and pushed me to the floor.”
They picked up a wooden pole and started beating his hands repeatedly with it, he said.
“I was lying there on the floor screaming for help,” he said. “My wife came running and begged them to stop beating me – it was traumatic.”
The attack topped a month of hostilities and years of opposition against the pastor and his wife, who are in their 60s, from Hindu villagers furious at the presence of a church in their community. On Jan. 5, a Hindu priest had led them to his home, where they threatened to kill his wife, Karuna Appalabattula, as she was doing chores outside, she said.
“I did not go to fight with them – but I was panicked,” Karuna Appalabattula told Morning Star News. “I did not know what to do. I asked them, ‘What is this you are doing? Why are you after us?’”
The Hindu priest picked up a large log of wood and came running toward her, she said.
“He kept screaming that he would kill me,” she said. “I was crying for help. But their priest abused me in extremely foul language. They called me names they would never use for a mother, wife, sister or any female member of their families. He called me a Christian prostitute and warned me that he would kill my husband.”
Trembling in fear, she and her husband locked themselves inside the house, she said.
Pastor Appalabattula said the Hindu villagers had stopped worshippers from coming to services throughout January.
“They would threaten and abuse them in foul language and not let them even park their motorbikes in the area,” he said. “Even before they stop at the church, they are chased and sent away.”
He informed a police official, who only told him to peacefully resolve the matter himself.
“He told me that these issues between religious groups may cause riots and advised me not to escalate the matter,” Pastor Appalabattula said. “We had kept quiet and were busy with the ministry, but the following Friday [Jan. 7] and the Sundays on Jan. 12, 19 and 26, the members of the church were stopped on the road and were threatened that they would be brutally attacked if they continued gathering in L.B. Patnam village.”
Throughout the month Hindu villagers shouted obscenities when passing their home, trying to provoke them into a fight, Karuna Appalabattula said.
“Not only were our lives but the lives of believers who come for prayers also in danger,” she said. “That entire month, they did not allow us to be at peace.”
On Jan. 27, they informed police that the Hindu villagers had begun digging a trench for construction of the wall. Officers arrived only after the ensuing attack, she said.
Police told her to order a motorized rickshaw taxi to take Pastor Appalabattula to the hospital, they said, adding that a church member who had also been beaten wanted to accompany them, but officers told him to flee for his life. At the village clinic, doctors said they did not have facilities adequate to treat him and suggested they go to the larger hospital in Vizag town.
“I telephoned some of the church members, but they were scared that they too may come under the attack,” Karuna Appalabattula said. “The doctors at the town hospital in Vizag informed us that his right hand has been fractured.”
Officers at the Cheedikada police station registered a First Information Report (FIR) against 11 villagers but not the Hindu extremist leader, Suresh Panchata, Pastor Appalabattula said. He said he reminded officers that he had complained to them several times since 2011 about Panchata, an upper-caste Hindu, and about telephone threats he had received the previous day.
Government officials within China have confiscated Bibles from churches in recent months and threatened fines as part of an intensified crackdown on Christianity and an effort to eradicate “illegal publications,” according to a new report.
The campaign has targeted illegal underground churches as well as legal Three-Self churches, which are registered with the government.
“If our Bibles are taken away, we have no more,” a pastor of a Three-Self church in Jiangxi province told Bitter Winter, the watchdog behind the report. “We are thinking of asking our congregation members to hide them in the mountains.”
In December, around 10 government officials raided a different Three-Self church in Jiangxi in search of “pirated Bibles” either not printed in the country or printed at illegal printers, Bitter Winter reported. The pastor told them the church owned only legal Bibles printed within the country, but the officials nevertheless seized 30 Bibles.
According to the persecution watchdog, similar raids have taken place “all over the country” as part of a nationwide campaign to “eradicate pornography and illegal publications.”
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