The Crosswalk.com staff wishes you and your family all of God’s blessings in the coming new year!
In Today's Edition:
- Pakistan: Four Suspects in Christmas Day Grenade Attack Arrested
- Physician and Author Discusses Indispensable Link Between Prayer and Medicine
- Three Executions in Vietnam Alleged as Part of Government Crackdown
- Nigerian Pastor killed in Escalation of Islamic Violence
Pakistan: Four Suspects in Christmas Day Grenade Attack Arrested
(VOM – USA) According to ASSIST News service, four people, including a Muslim cleric who allegedly urged his followers to murder Christians, were detained after a Christmas Day grenade attack at a church killed three girls and injured a dozen others. Two assailants in burqas, the traditional women's garb, tossed a grenade at a Presbyterian church in a village about 160 miles south of Islamabad. An attack in Islamabad was thwarted when police found two grenades and 20 bullets hidden in a shopping bag near St. Thomas Protestant Church where about 1,000 worshippers, including foreigners, attended the Christmas Day service. The Associated Press quoted the pastor as saying, "It was God who changed the plans of those people." www.persecution.com
Physician and Author Discusses Indispensable Link Between Prayer and Medicine
(Charisma News) A well-known preventive medicine physician and author believes God's "pathway to healing" can include the use of natural means of healing as well as supernatural healing. "Even though we are living in a great age of technology, I can unequivocally tell you that nothing or no one is more accurate in detecting disease than the Holy Spirit," writes Dr. Reginald Cherry. "I could share story after story with you about patients who came into the clinic and were touched by God," adds Cherry, who for 25 years has practiced diagnostic and preventive medicine, and alternative medicine at his Houston clinic. Cherry says prayer is the "essence" of his medical practice, noting, "God can move instantaneously and supernaturally when He chooses. Cherry believes Scripture is a good prescription for any sickness and disease. "What we are actually seeking and believing God for is the manifestation of healing in our bodies. When you begin praying for God to illuminate the pathway that will lead to the manifestation of healing in your body, you are 'rightly dividing the Word.' Jesus bore in His body not only the sins of man, but also the diseases of man, which are the result of sin." www.charismanews.com
*** Dr. Cherry’s free weekly newsletter, “Pathway to Healing”, is available to you via Crosswalk.com. To subscribe, please visit: https://www.crosswalk.com/community/newsletters/.
Three Executions in Vietnam Alleged as Part of Government Crackdown
(Baptist Press) Vietnamese authorities have executed three ethnic minority Christians as part of a recent crackdown on "illegal" Christian churches, according to the Montagnard Foundation, a human rights watch group based in South Carolina. The three Montagnard believers from Buon Gram village in Vietnam's Central Highlands were reportedly injected with an unknown drug and died in convulsions after being convicted of participation in anti-government activities in February 2001. Those "anti-government" activities included a peaceful protest by hundreds of Montagnards in favor of religious liberty and against government corruption in key Central Highlands cities. Following the protests, Vietnamese authorities began a systematic campaign to force Christians out of unregistered churches, which they believed had been infected by American Protestant thought that, as one source put it, "opposes the programs of the country." A report released last April by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based human rights lobby, cited multiple instances of torture, mutilation and intimidation on the part of Vietnamese authorities. Excerpts of HRW's report on the repression of Montagnards are available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/vietnam. Further information on the plight of Montagnard refugees in Cambodia is available from the United Nations High Commission on Refugees at http://www.unhcr.ch.
Nigerian Pastor killed in Escalation of Islamic Violence
(VOM – Canada) A prominent Nigerian church leader has become the latest victim of Islamic violence against Christians in Plateau State. 69-year old Bitrus Manjang, vice president of the Church of Christ, Nigeria, was murdered in his home town of Riyom, about 30-miles from the city of Jos. Pastor Manjang was gunned down by a rioting Muslim mob as he stepped from his car after parking in his garage. Also killed in the attack were his daughter-in-law and six-year-old grandson. Manjang had just returned from several church meetings in the city of Jos when a mob of Islamic militants entered his village at 5:00 P.M. Five other people were killed and at least a dozen were hospitalized with injuries. Pastor Manjang’s death is the latest act of violence against Christian leaders in Nigeria’s Plateau State. Earlier this year, Muslims attacked Christian residents of Riyom and one week ago Christians were attacked in the remote village of Bacit. www.persecution.net
