Pakistan - fear amidst the celebrations...
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
As Pakistan celebrates its 60th anniversary today with fireworks, street parties and 21 gun salutes, the Christian communities in Peshawar and elsewhere live in fear following further threats from Islamic radicals. These most recent threats, delivered last week to Christian settlements throughout Peshawar, echo those delivered to the Christians in Charsadda district in May, which I blogged about 'here'.The mentality of the extremists is summed up in a letter that was received by a church leader, which stated, "There is only death for the communities who share similar religion with America and are his agents. Our mosques, and children are being martyred at American orders therefore the Churches will also be wiped out from the face of earth. We will write new history with the blood of the infidels and our suicide attackers are ready to attack the Churches. The death of infidels, their extinction from the face of earth is the foremost objective of our holy war."
A letter from the Christian community in Peshawar, urging fellow Christians to pray for the situation, said...
"... In the present unstable political scenario the Liberal community of Pakistan, the security agencies of Pakistan and the vulnerable minority communities are being threatened and targeted by the Militants. Various suicide attacks have been recently carried out against the Pakistan Army resulting in heavy causalities. The Church and the Christian colonies have always been a soft target for the fundamentalists, and in past, numerous mob attacks have been carried out.
The Christians in Pakistan continue to follow the path of the “Prince of Peace”, Jesus Christ."
The final statement sat with me for some time... as followers of Christ, we resist violence and retaliation, following the way of the Prince of Peace even to death. Easy for me to write as I don't face threats such as these, but for Christians in Northern Pakistan this is a daily reality and a living witness to the good news. As I've urged many times in this blog before... please pray for Pakistan.
I'm Malcolm Chamberlain
from Liverpool, United Kingdom
. I'm married with two young children and, in addition to Liverpool, have lived in Leicester (for the first 18 years of my life), York, Peshawar (Pakistan), Oxford and Walsall. I've been actively involved in the emerging church since 2001, as a founding member of Dream in Liverpool City, and coordinator of the Dream network. I'm currently engaged in research into emerging missional communities, and work as a parish priest and pioneer minister.
