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| Troubled by Growth of Christianity, Iranian Regime Destroys Bibles Again |
| 2011-08-28 |
| (CNSNews.com) -- A Shi'ite cleric affiliated with the Iranian regime has warned about the "danger"Â of Christianity spreading in the Islamic republic. This come amid reports of an anti-Christianity propaganda campaign and the seizure of thousands of Bibles. According to Mohabat News, an independent Iranian Christian news agency, Ayatollah Hadi Jahangosha expressed concern about "the spread of Christianity among our youth," citing the availability of Christian satellite television programs, books and objects. Last week, Mohabat reported that authorities had seized 6,500 pocket-sized Bibles in northwestern Iran. It quoted a parliamentary advisor, Majid Abhari, as telling the Mehr news agency that Christian missionaries were out to deceive Iranians, particularly the youth. "They have begun a huge campaign by spending huge sums and false propaganda for deviating the public," Abhari said. "The important point in this issue that should be considered by intelligence, judicial and religious agencies is that all religions are strengthening their power to confront Islam, otherwise what does this huge number of Bibles mean?" Mohabat recalled previous incidents of Bibles being seized, including one last February, when Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and security officials in a routine inspection of a bus near the Iran-Turkey border found 600 New Testaments, which they destroyed along with confiscated alcohol in a public burning. A similar incident in the same area last October also saw officials seize and burn Bibles, it said. In a third incident, in June 2010, Bibles were found in a town near the border with Iraq. Mohabat said the official IRGC Web site at the time accused the U.S. in neighboring Iraq of conspiring to smuggle Bibles into Iran. The Barnabas Fund, an organization working with Christian minorities in Islamic societies, reports that Iranian authorities have been waging an anti-Christian propaganda campaign through state media in recent weeks. Despite government claims of religious tolerance, however, reports of religious persecution persist, including most recently the case of a pastor who has been sentenced to death for apostasy. The Iranian Bible Society's offices have been shut for decades, and authorities do not allow publishing or reprinting of Bibles in Iran. Because of this, according to Mohabat, the only solution for Christians needing Farsi-language Bibles is to have them smuggled across the borders from neighboring countries. One organization that provides Bibles for Iranians is Elam Ministries, which says it printed and distributed 100,000 Bibles and 100,000 New Testaments in 2010. "Despite the limited support, well over a million New Testaments have been made available in recent years, and up to half a million whole Bibles," the organization says on its Web site. Elam was founded in 1988 by senior Iranian church leaders in Britain "with the vision of reaching Iran and the Persian speaking world for Christ." It says that at the time of the Islamic revolution in 1979, there were fewer than 500 known Iranian Christians from a Muslim background. "Today the most conservative estimate is that there are at least 100,000 believers in the nation." |
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