Persecution Report

An estimated 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation according to Open Doors.
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May 10, 2011
Nigerian pastor’s wife, children among Christians killed in attack
by Obed Minchakpu

KURUM, Nigeria — As she lay on the ground after being shot and then slashed with a machete, Dune James Rike looked into her husband’s tear-filled eyes and asked, “Is this the end between us, so we shall not be together again?”

Pastor James Musa Rike told Compass he held the hands of his dying, 35-year-old wife and told her, “Hold on to your faith in Jesus, and we shall meet and never part again.”

Muslim extremists who attacked Kurum village, in the Bogoro local government area of Nigeria’s Bauchi state, had already killed two of the couple’s children in a rampage that began Wednesday (May 4) at midnight. Rike, pastor of a Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregation in Kurum, next heard the cries of his 13-year-old daughter, Sum James Rike, a few yards away.

“I rushed to my daughter, only to discover that she too was cut with a machete on her stomach, and her intestines were all around her,” he said. “I held her hand and began to pray, knowing she too was about to die. She told me that the Muslim militants told her they would kill her and “see how your Jesus will save you.”

The girl told her father that she responded by telling them that Jesus had already saved her, and that by killing her they would only be making it possible for her to be with Him. Pastor Rike prayed for her as she died.

Shooting and setting homes on fire, the Muslim extremists killed 12 other Christians in the attack. Bauchi police reported 16 people dead – one man, three women and 12 children.

Pastor Rike said that when the attackers reached his house, they tried to force their way into their bedrooms.

“I opened a backdoor, and we ran out into the dark night while the militants pursued us,” he said. “They shot my wife and two of our kids as they tried to escape.”

Pastor Rike said that after killing the two children, Faith James Rike and 1-year-old Fyali James Rike, the assailants cut his wife’s abdomen with a machete.

“I was shocked at what I saw,” he said. “I knew my wife would not last long, and the only thing I did was to encourage her to hold on to her faith in Jesus.”

The Muslim extremists set more than 20 houses ablaze before leaving the village, he said.

Pastor Rike and his son survived the attack, and he said his adopted daughter, Whulham James Rike, was injured and receiving treatment at the General Hospital in Bogoro. He said five others others were also receiving hospital treatment.

Among those killed, church sources said, were Murna Ayuba; Angelina Ezekiel; Dorcas Sunday; Asabar Toma; Rhoda Joseph; Dhunhgwa Zakka; Bukata Amos; Ishaku Amos; Kalla Amos; Amos Daniel; Samidah Joel; and Changtan Joel.

The Muslim jihadists also stole money and the other valuables from the Christian village as they withdrew, church sources said.

The area has a history of sectarian violence, and the attack follows the death of hundreds of people in Bauchi and other northern states last month after Muslims rioted over the April 16 election of a Christian, Goodluck Jonathan, as president. He defeated a Muslim candidate, Muhammadu Buhari. Saying more than 200 church buildings were burned, Christian leaders in northern Nigeria have called for a federal probe into the violence, in which Christians mounted counter attacks.

Northern Nigeria climbed to 23rd place in 2010 from 27th in 2009 on Christian support organization Open Doors’ World Watch List of nations with the worst persecution.

The church where Pastor Rike ministers has about 30 members and has been in existence for more than 50 years. Those killed were members of the three churches in the village – the COCIN church, St. John’s Catholic Church and an Evangelical Church of West Africa congregation.

Pastor Rike said the incident has strengthened his faith in Jesus.

“Whatever is the situation, I will never forsake Christ,” he said. “All human beings are created by God, and our attackers must know that they need to abandon anything that will lead them to destroy creations of God.”

Nigeria’s population of more than 158.2 million is almost evenly divided between Christians, who make up 51.3 percent of the population and live mainly in the south, and Muslims, who account for 45 percent of the population and live mainly in the north. The percentages may be less, however, as those practicing indigenous religions may be as high as 10 percent of the total population, according to Operation World.

Christian Church Burnings Are Happening All Over The World

Christian Church Burnings Are Happening All Over The World And The U.S. Media Is Deadly Silent About It by endoftheamericandream.com


Did you know that hundreds of church burnings have taken place all over the globe so far in 2011? For a large percentage of those of you that are reading this article, this is the first that you have heard of it. And do you want to know why? News stories about church burnings and the persecution of Christians around the world are not "politically correct" enough to get into the mainstream media most of the time. Have you ever noticed that an overwhelming percentage of news stories about Christianity in the mainstream media are negative? There seems to be an unspoken rule that you should never report on anything that would portray the Christian faith in a positive light - even if it is reporting on how churches are being mercilessly burned to the ground. Others fear that reporting on church burnings would somehow justify the endless wars in the Middle East. But the truth is that many of the regimes that the U.S. government has put in place or is propping up are actively involved in the persecution of Christians. Whatever religion you belong to, and whatever your political philosophy is, we should all be able to agree that church burnings are evil. If you cannot agree that there is something wrong with burning churches to the ground then something is wrong.


In the United States, our founding fathers established "freedom of religion" as one of our fundamental rights. Many of our founding fathers had escaped horrific religious persecution in Europe and many of them knew firsthand how insidious it can be.

Today, hundreds of churches around the world are being torched. I am a Christian and I am not going to be ashamed to shed light on these great crimes. If you don't like that, then maybe you should ask yourself why that is the case.

The following are just a few examples of the widespread church burnings that we have seen so far this year....

Egypt

In the aftermath of the U.S.-backed "Egyptian revolution", church burnings have become a regular thing all over Egypt. The recent burning of a Coptic church right in the middle of Cairo has plunged the provisional government in Egypt into crisis mode as a recent article in The Telegraph noted....

Egypt's caretaker government has held crisis talks after attacks by Muslim mobs on Coptic Christian churches in Cairo left at least 12 people dead and drove the country's growing religious tensions to the brink.

The following is the kind of video footage that is very rare to see on U.S. news programs. This footage is of Saint Mary Church in Cairo burning wildly after it was firebombed by Egyptian radicals on Saturday....


Can everyone agree that this is wrong?

I hope so.

Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated incident. Christians in Egypt now must watch out for attacks every single day. This latest round of violence against Christians really got going back on New Year's Eve when 21 people were killed and 43 people were injured when a massive bomb went off outside a Coptic church in the city of Alexandria, Egypt.

That attack was so horrific that it actually did get a little bit of attention in the U.S. press.

Egypt is spinning out of control and the horrific persecution of the Coptic Christian minority (about 10 percent of the Egyptian population) is rising to frightening levels.

Earlier this year there was an attack during which an estimated 4,000 Muslims violently assaulted Christian homes and burned a church in the Egyptian town of Soul which is about 18 miles from Cairo.

What would you do if there was a mob of 4,000 people rampaging down your street looking for Christian homes to burn?

Egypt used to be a fairly stable place, but unfortunately that is now no longer true.

Pakistan

It has become incredibly difficult to be a Christian in the nation of Pakistan. Church burnings and physical attacks on Christians have become commonplace.

The following is how an article posted on Asia News described the recent problems in one particular province....

Tensions are running high in Gujranwala, a town in the Pakistani province of Punjab, recent scene of repeated attacks by Muslim extremists against the Christian minority. Yesterday, a mob attacked Christian homes and places of worship, setting fire to a number of churches. Only the action of police prevented any loss of life and injuries.

For some Christians in Pakistan, the persecution goes far beyond just having a church burned down.

For example, one Pakistani Christian named Arshed Masih died after radical Muslim leaders, backed by police, burned him alive for refusing to convert to Islam while his wife was raped by police officers. This incident, which took place on March 19th, 2010 is just another example of how horrible things have become for Christians in Pakistan.

Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, dozens of churches are being burned. The international media is reporting that 69 churches in a single Ethiopian city were burned just in the month of March alone.

How would you like it if an angry horde came into your town and burned down all the churches?

The following is how Radio Netherlands describes what has been going on in Ethiopia ....

Evangelical churches and homes of Christians in Asendabo, about 300 kilometers southwest of capital Addis Ababa, and other towns in the Jimma region were torched earlier this month. Thousands of them have fled their hometowns to safer areas.

More than 46 churches belonging to the Pentecostal Kale Hiwot (Word of Life) Church and 23 belonging to other Christian groups have been burnt down, says Temesgen Wolde, coordinator of the Kale Hiwot department in Jimma City. His church shelters eighty refugee Christians in a tent.

Nigeria

In Nigeria, hundreds of church burnings have been reported so far this year. Many of them took place after the Christian candidate for president defeated the Islamic candidate for president back in April. Thousands of Christian homes and businesses were destroyed and nobody is sure how many Christians were actually slaughtered. The following is how an article posted on FRONTPAGEMAG describes what went down....

Angry that Christian President Goodluck Jonathan defeated Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari, Islamists in the Shariah-ruled north began rioting on Monday, April 18, 2011, after preliminary results of the April 16 election were announced. Soon newspapers featured grisly photos of charred bodies lining the streets. Hundreds of churches were burned and thousands of Christian-owned businesses destroyed, according to the Christian human rights group, Open Doors. And International Christian Concern reported that the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress was still "discovering more details of massacres that have been carried out in the hinterland." Upwards of 40,000 Christians have been displaced in the past few weeks.

But did you hear about any of this in the U.S. media?

Perhaps there was a "blip" or two about the "election violence".

Instead of focusing on real issues, our media at the time was absolutely obsessed with promoting U.S. military action in Libya.

The truth is that the U.S. government and the U.S. media have never really shown much concern for the good people living in places like Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sudan. For years and years, countless thousands of Christians in Sudan were being slaughtered by government-backed forces and countless thousands of Christians were actually being sold into slavery, and yet our government did nothing.

But then a handful of people died in a revolt against the government in Libya and our government "was forced" to act for "humanitarian" reasons.

What a joke.

The U.S. government does not really care for the people of Africa but the truth is that those people are just as valuable as anyone else.

When we see churches around the world being burned down we should care just as much as if churches in the United States were being burned down.

And you know what?

Persecution of Christians in the United States is growing too.

In California, one high school student named Kenneth Dominguez was suspended for talking about Jesus Christ with his fellow students. According to The Christian Post, Dominguez "didn't shout or preach out loud and he limited his talk to lunch breaks and the hallways, and not the classroom."

Not only that, there is no record of anyone ever complaining about it.

But he got suspended anyway.

You see, the truth is that the word "Jesus" has become a dirty word in the United States today.

Just try saying it (not as a curse word) at school, at work or at a public event some time.

One U.S. Navy chaplain even had to face a court-martial for standing up for the right to pray "in Jesus name" in the U.S. Navy.

So, no, this is not a "politically-correct" article.

But you know what? Since the founding of this nation a whole host of our countrymen have bled and died to protect our basic freedoms.

One of those freedoms is the freedom of religion.

When there is an attack on the freedom of religion we should all be alarmed because it is an attack on all of us.

If you say that you love liberty and freedom, you should be against the persecution of Christians wherever it is found around the world.