A Christian organization that hopes to translate the bible in all languages of the world by 2025 has launched recently two new bible translation projects in countries where reading the bible is not allowed.

Wycliffe Associates’ CEO Bruce Smith said that the newest effort by the organization is going to be the most difficult one they have faced so far, according to BosNewsLife.

Smith told BosNewsLife this newest endeavor is the most “difficult in Wycliffe Associates’ history. The Gospel cannot be openly preached in these countries and the Bible can’t be read in public.”

Smith said at least one of the nations is a Muslim-majority country with sharia law, where Christians have been long persecuted even by their relatives and community, according to BosNewsLife.

Smith did not confirm that the nation referred to is Saudi Arabia. He did however say that caution is necessary pointing out that several home churches have been raided by the police, BosNewsLife said.

Smith said, “It’s not easy…We have to be careful. I find myself continually pleading with God for guidance in our efforts, and for protection for Bible translators, trainers, their families, and their support teams,” BosNewsLife reported.

Smith estimated that it will take more than 10 years for either project to be completed, because work must be done in secret, making it harder to edit, much less distribute texts, BosNewsLife said.

By Smith’s estimate, “It may take up to 15 years before the Bible becomes available in the native language,” according to  BosNewsLife.

The environment is also fraught with danger, Smith said, noting that recently a Wycliffe staff member died in a bombing attack, while another missionary from The Seed Company disappeared, BosNewsLife said.

Bible translators often go to hard-to-reach areas that are remote and unstable, because these are places where there is no availability of a bible in their language, BosNewsLife said.

Translation kits

A positive development is the provision of Translation Acceleration Kits which will make things safer for Wycliffe workers and volunteers. The kit includes a portable netbook computer, solar panel, battery, power supply and satellite communication terminal, according to the Wycliffe website.

Smith said the technology will be particularly helpful in dangerous regions. “I believe this new technology is a must—especially in places where terrain, violence, or civil unrest hinders translation efforts,” he said on the website.

With these kits, Wycliffe Associates has targeted 300 locations in the world that can make use of the kits, and relieve national translators of the need to travel to dangerous places or rough, uncharted terrain, the website said.

The kits will have a strong impact on the safety of many workers, particularly in Nigeria, where 24 national translation teams were given kits in remote areas to serve some 4.3 million people, the website said.

Smith told BosNewsLife, “The satellite modems that we’re using in many of these locations connect to a satellite constellation that those governments don’t control. Those satellites are up there all day, every day, and if you have an antenna that can transmit to and from those satellites, there’s really no way for the government to stop that from happening.”

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Some 47 Christians from one of China’s biggest and most prestigious home churches were arrested last Sunday for holding service in a public square in Beijing, in a standoff that has gained global attention.

This is the second wave of arrests by the government against upscale Shouwang Church, with some 1,000 well-heeled members. One week before on Apr.10, Chinese officials picked up 160 of its members.

The arrests have placed the public eye on China’s ongoing crackdown on Christians, which had long managed to fall below the radar. The government also pressured employers of members of Shouwang Church to fire them from their jobs, the Baptist Press said.

Shouwang started with just 10 members in 1993, meeting in the apartment of Rev. Jin Tianming. By 2009 when government strictures eased, they rented a building for services. However, the government pressured the landlord to evict them, The New York Times said.

Last year the church raised $4 million to buy its own property. However, it was again evicted from the place that it had purchased. Rather than go back to being an underground church, Shouwang announced that it would worship in an open space, The New York Times
said.

On April 10, as members of media watched, some 1,000 policemen swept down on the church members and arrested 160 worshippers, including Tianming and other church leaders, the Baptist Press said.

Tianming was released on the morning of Apr. 17. In a letter he had sent out earlier in the week he told churchgoers to “step out, whatever the cost This really and truly is a spiritual battle. The devil Satan has taken advantage of the authority God has granted to the national government to destroy God’s church,” the Baptist Press said.

Many house churches in China choose not to register with the government approved Three-Self Patriotic Movement church, which imposes restrictions on teachings and growth, the Baptist Press said.

It is believed that two-thirds of some 60 million Protestants in China attend house churches. The New York Times noted that most converted Christians in China are young and educated, the demographic that is normally at the head of instituting political change in this country.

Many are drawn to the spirituality, the idea of redemption and sense of community in house churches. They also compare favorably with overcrowded, propaganda-ridden government registered churches, The New York times said.

China has responded to church growth with a huge wave of arrests ranging from high-profile personalities to rights lawyers, democracy advocates and bloggers. Untold numbers have mysteriously disappeared, The New York Times said.

The clampdown has been particularly strong in the past two months in response to a series of revolts that have spread in the Arab Middle East region. The Communist Party has been in power for six decades, The New York Times said.

In the past weeks the heads of two large home churches in Guangzhou were arrested and church members were evicted from their homes. In Shanxi, a house church member was struck by the police with electric batons. There have been reports of harassment of Christians in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. Last year there were 3,343 reported instances of arrests and harassment of Christians, a 15 percent increase from the previous year, The New York Times said.

Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid (a body that observes religious freedom in China) told the Baptist Press, “We urge the Chinese government to exercise restraint and refrain from using violence that would further escalate the conflict with peaceful Shouwang worshippers who ask for nothing more than simply to exercise their right to religious freedom.”

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With the recent reelection of Nursultan Nazarbayev to the presidency in Kazakhstan, Christians in the nation are expecting continued harassment and persecution.

There has been a crackdown on home churches that worship or meet without state permission and pastors are fined huge penalties that they could not hope to pay in their lifetime.

Baptist pastor Andrei Panafidin of Taraz in southern Kazakhstan, for example, has been imposed a fine equivalent to 100 times one month’s minimum wage–for the seventh time, BosNewsLife reported.

A number of evangelical Christians refuse to register on principle. But even when a church attempts to seek government permission to gather together for prayer, they encounter great difficulty, BosNewsLife said.

What is more, being registered is no guarantee that a church will be free to hold services.

A house church in Shymkent city that is registered was still banned from holding worship service, according to BosNewsLife.

Renting space in a commercial center (as opposed to a house church) is also filled with obstacles.

The Almaty university, situated in the country’s commercial center, was pressured by the country’s Interior Ministry and its notorious KNB secret police to disallow rental of facilities to Christians and other religious minorities, BosNewsLife reported.

Absolute authority

Nazarbayev exerts full authority in a nation with no free and independent media, judiciary, or government opposition, Al Jazeera said. Furthermore, systemic corruption has rendered the nation with large gaps between the rich and the poor.

Nazarbayev denies that he runs an autocratic government. He stresses, “[The] Kazakh people approve of the work I have been doing these 20 years.”

After the recent elections he claims to have won 95.5 percent of the votes, BosNewsLife said.

Vladimir Kozlov, head of the unregistered political party Alga! (Forward!) told Al Jazeera, “The regime uses many ways to limit us. They start criminal cases…or they can just shoot people.”  Of the elections he said, “We think it’s an insult. We didn’t think it gave us enough time to participate.”

The election was called with just two months’ notice, The Economist said. Kozlov expected Nazarbayev to get 96 percent of the votes but he also told Al Jazeera, “it will be 96 percent of the 15 percent who partake in these elections.”

General opinion is that Nazarbayev still enjoys immense popularity despite his heavy hand.

The opposition is viewed as poorly organized, with no clear ideology and no financial support, according to Al Jazeera.

Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan since the time of the Soviet Union. Upon his reelection he claimed that it “proved that unity ruled among ethnic groups and religions, and all was bliss,” according to The Economist

Tabulation not transparent

Not everyone agrees. Some 300 election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said there was not enough transparency in the counting and tabulation of votes, The Economist said.

The OSCE also mentioned “serious irregularities,” such as stuffing ballot boxes and voters lists with identical signatures.

They also said people were pressured to vote, especially government employees from hospitals, schools and the armed forces, The Economist reported.

It is not unusual for election dates to be set at the whim of authorities in this oil-rich country. Nazarbayev’s term was expected to be over near the end of 2012. Then, a nationwide move was initiated to collect signatures to approve of a referendum on whether to extend his term to 2020—a move that the West strongly opposed, The Economist said.

In its stead Nazarbayev called for early elections which was agreeable to the West, The Economist reported. Nonetheless, international observers have never considered any election in the country to be fair and free, BosNewsLife said.

No middle class

Nazarbayev is given credit for guiding the country out of near economic devastation in the 1990s, Al Jazzera said. Under him, market reforms were initiated and oil and gas reserves gave an added boost. The GDP rose from $700 to $8,000, The Economist reported.

However, there is a wide gap between the wealthy and the poor. The rich are linked to oil production and oftentimes they are also the political elite. There is no middle class, Al Jazeera reported.

The Economist said that Nazarbayev would have likely won the elections anyway, even if he did not resort to rigging. Still, his record where religious freedom is concerned remains wanting.

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Despite the fact that some 230 delegates from home churches in China were blocked from leaving their country to attend the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in South Africa, Christians in China remain upbeat.

Tom Henry of WorldServe Ministries said that incidents like this seem to occur whenever China opens up to the bible. (See http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/10/beijing-stops-chinese-christians-from-attending-lausanne-conference-14047).

However, Chinese Christians have taken on an attitude of optimism. Henry told Mission News Network, “The one thing I have learned about the Chinese is that they totally embrace and follow a God that’s all powerful, that’s sovereign, that’s loving, and they yield these [situations] into His hands so that they have really learned, as Paul said, contentment in all things.”

Henry noted that the church often gets harassed in China for spreading the gospel, so the incident regarding Lausanne was no surprise. Nonetheless, delegates were disappointed as they had hoped to network at the Conference, Mission News Network said.

Henry told Mission News Network, “Because of the nature in the church in China, there’s not as much networking as there [is] in other countries where there’s more of an open environment.”

Henry said the church in China is hoping God will open even bigger doors despite the current setback. He told Mission News Network, “They really have seen God take things like this that are humanly disappointing and use them to really expand the church in China.”

Even as WorldServe continues with its usual work in the People’s Republic of China, Henry said they also work with Chinese believers who are training North Korean believers and sending them back to their country, Mission News Network said.

Chinese government threatened

Another Christian leader in China, Bob Fu, said the Chinese government felt Lausanne was a threat to national security. Fu, who founded ChinaAid, told OneNewsNow that he did not believe delegates were forbidden to go to Lausanne because the official Chinese church had not been invited.

According to Fu, the Chinese Christians had already been facing opposition from the government for many months. He said Christians who went to the airport to go to Lausanne were “harassed and threatened, and… when they were blocked from going out, they were told it’s a threat to national security and the Lausanne World Evangelization Conference is [an] anti-China conference,” OneNewsNow reported.

According to Fu, despite the persecution Christians get from the Beijing government, the underground house churches remain strong in China with a population of 100 million that continues to grow daily, OneNewsNow said.

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Recent studies reveal that house or organic churches are gaining popularity in the U.S.

A Barna Group study suggests some six million to 12 million Americans now go to house churches. Barna is a firm that specializes in collecting data about religion and society.

The findings parallel that of a Pew Forum survey last year which showed that nine percent of U.S. Protestants go to home churches, the AP said.

A house church usually consists of 12 to 15 people who meet every week to share what is happening in their lives, and who refer to the bible for guidance. Gatherings are conducted in a largely spontaneous way with reliance on the Holy Spirit for guidance, the AP said.

Some house churches access websites for teaching materials such as House2House which caters to organic churches and supplies articles, downloads, locations of house churches, blogs, discussion boards, books, DVDs and social networking among others, according to their website.

House2House says that buildings and a professional clergy with set programs are not the fundamentals of a church. Rather, they say the divine truth of loving Jesus, nurturing relationships among members, and an apostolic mission is more important, their website says.

They compare house churches to churches in the New Testament which revolved around the needs of the members and a desire to spread God’s word more than on constructing a church building and following a church structure, their website says.

Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research of the Southern Baptist Convention says, “I think part of the appeal for some in the house church movement is the desire to return to a simpler expression of church. For many, church has become too much (like a) business while they just want to live like the Bible,” the AP says.

In a house church there is no formal religious leadership. Each member plays a part in teaching, praying or singing. There is more opportunity for closeness and fellowship than what one could expect from a large church, the AP says.

House churches have normally been linked to countries where Christianity is a minority religion. In the U.S., however, they are beginning to become an option of choice. House churches evolve their own individualistic character and each one is different, the AP said.

There may be praise and worship singing, a time for the Eucharist and a potluck meal. There could be a spiritual lesson. There may be a regular offering, or maybe not. One house church for example only has a collection when a church member may be in financial need, the AP said.

House churches are usually found either by the internet or by word of mouth. Sometimes the members take turns hosting the service in their homes. When they are too large, they may separate into two smaller groups until membership builds up in each group again. On some occasions a house church may diminish and die out, the AP said.

Many who embrace house churches have gone through a period of feeling disillusioned with traditional churches and take to the passion and intimacy of house churches. Others like the closeness and camaraderie, the AP said.

House2House sees this development as a movement of the Holy Spirit for today’s generation. They take God’s guidance seriously, and annually hold a National House Church Conference to ascertain what house churches are doing, dwell upon God’s agenda, and to discern how they can cooperate with God’s plan, their website says.

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