Evangelists beaten for handing out tracts
Pastor Dale Morgan
Evangelists beaten for handing out tracts*
Four took Christian message to conference that taught Islam
Posted: February 8, 2007
Voice of the Martyrs
Four evangelists who are supported by Voice of the Martyrs have suffered
beatings by a crowd of irate Muslims, but they first succeeded in
handing out more than 13,000 Christian tracts at a conference on Islam.
Officials with VOM, a U.S.-based Christian group helping members of the
persecuted Christian church worldwide, said one of the beatings was so
severe that the Christian apparently suffered internal bleeding as a result.
But the message was delivered, much as Jesus described in Matthew 16:18,
where he announces that "thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build
my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Gates, of course, generally are immobile, implying that it is the
Christian message that advances. That is what happened at the Pakistan
conference, VOM said.
"We are thrilled to stand with such courageous Christians," said Todd
Nettleton, a spokesman for VOM. "These men bravely carried Christ's
message of love to some of those who need it most, even though it was
costly to do so.
"We are blessed to be able to provide medical care for them, and to
continue to provide gospel materials to Pakistani Christians who risk so
much to live for Christ," he said.
The team was at a Muslim festival in the city of Pakpattan on a Friday
late last month. The four-member team handed out more than 13,000
Christian messages at that event before being attacked by radical Muslims.
VOM reports that three members of the team were beaten up, then taken to
the police station where they were detained and questioned before being
released.
The fourth member, however, "was badly beaten by a mob of more than 100
angry Muslims, who then dragged him through the crowd before taking him
to the police station," the VOM reported. "He was beaten so severely
that he reported blood in his urine and his stool."
VOM said workers on the scene are overseeing his hospitalization and care.
Tens of thousands of Muslims gather for similar conferences each year in
Pakistan, where they are lectured on the demands of Islam and ordered to
follow the Quran's instructions on handling apostates, VOM said.
VOM is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to
help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the
world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville,
Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.
It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started
smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before
Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for
his refusal to recant Christianity.
He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about
the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security
Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound
scars on his body.
The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized
in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released.