God at Work: Persecution in Iran...but Church Continues to Grow
by Allie Martin
January 17, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An American evangelist says Iran's hard-line government is cracking down on Christian activity in the country. Iran's new president has made headlines for his recent anti-Semitic remarks. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been quoted as saying the nation of Israel "must be wiped off the map." And of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad said Jews have "created a myth ... that they call the massacre of Jews." He has also referred to Israel as a "usurper ... regime in the occupied Palestine."
But according to evangelist Sammy Tippit, the new Iranian president is also leading a crackdown on Christianity. Speaking on Mission Network News, Tippit said some Christians have been arrested in the predominantly Muslim country.
"Fortunately there's been no one put in prison at this point," Tippit says, "but there have been people arrested from just having been meeting together with other Christians in their homes." But the evangelist, whose Christian television program is aired in Iran via satellite, says the Church in Iran is growing as persecution increases.
"One of the things that has happened is that when threats [start] to come against Christians, those who are in leadership are pressed into a corner where they have to raise up other leaders because they know that they could be taken away at any moment," Tippet explains. "God just has a way of turning those type things into something good for His glory."
Recently a Turk in Iran was martyred for sharing his Christian faith. According to a report from Voice of the Martyrs, house-church pastor Ghorbandordi Tourani was falsely lured away from his home one week after sharing his faith with Turkmen religious leaders. As he returned home, witnesses say he was murdered by three knife-wielding men.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
