World Scene: July 16, 1990

ROMANIA

First Open-Air Crusade

Evangelist Luis Palau’s nine-day campaign in Romania—the first such mission held in the country since World War II—attracted more than 215,000 people. An estimated 46,100 people responded to the evangelist’s invitations to commit their lives to Christ, according to the Palau organization. National television also aired a show on the campaign.

Romanian evangelicals said the media attention helped them gain credibility. The Evangelical Alliance of Romania, formed shortly after the December 1989 revolution that toppled dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, had invited Palau to speak, but the interim government had denied and then reinstated permission.

Palau’s campaign began May 22, just two days after the country’s first free vote in 53 years. Results of the elections, which retained the ruling National Salvation Front of interim president Ion Iliescu, disappointed evangelicals. The National Peasants’ (formerly Christian Democratic) party, which many Protestant and Catholic church leaders had supported, received only about 2.5 percent of the vote, entitling it to only a few seats in the new parliament.

GREAT BRITAIN

Broadcast Rules Relaxed

Evangelical leaders in Great Britain welcomed changes in government broadcasting legislation that they said would have banned church ownership of radio and television stations. The bill opens new broadcast outlets to private ownership, but clauses in the law ban “undue prominence” and “editorialising” on religious matters by station owners. Supporters pointed to the need for balanced and impartial broadcasting.

Opposition to the bill was led by a coalition of church groups under the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, which organized a deluge of letters to members of Parliament. David Mellor, home office minister, announced in the House of Commons that restrictions that might prevent church ownership would be dropped. Mellor said that a new Independent Television Commission would apply guidelines to prevent “abuses of the air waves by extreme religious groups.… Legitimate Christian broadcasters would have nothing to fear,” he said.

LIBERIA

Missionaries Evacuate

Escalating battles between government and rebel forces have forced most foreign missionaries to flee the western African nation of Liberia. Earlier this year, independent missionaries Tom and June Jackson were killed when they apparently were caught in crossfire between the factions.

Though the U.S. State Department advised Americans to leave the country in April, only a few of the estimated 300 missionaries in the country left at that time. But as rebel forces advanced on the capital city of Monrovia, most relocated to neighboring countries to watch and wait.

The departure of 13 United Methodist missionaries and other volunteers forced the closure in Liberia of a hospital, vocational school, and seminary. Later reports indicated the hospital and a leprosy rehabilitation center were virtually destroyed and patients were killed in the fighting. Officials feared the school was also destroyed.

A representative of the Southern Baptists’ Foreign Mission Board said all but 6 of the church’s 53 missionaries had left the country by June 10. SIM International reported that about 40 of its workers remained in the country to care for refugees and operate radio ELWA.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Rejected: By the Venezuelan Supreme Court, a bid by an indigenous Baptist denomination to conduct evangelistic activities. The court ruled that the Roman Catholic Church is the only “recognized organism” entitled to carry out religious activities in that country.

Resigned: Cirilo Rigos, as general secretary of the United Bible Societies (UBS). Recent restructuring of UBS includes changes in the general secretary’s responsibilities. Rigos said he supported the changes but did not want to be considered a candidate for the newly defined post.

Formed: Christian Broadcasters International, announced last May at the European Religious Broadcasters convention in London by a steering committee made up of broadcasters from ten countries. Former National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) president Ben Armstrong was appointed head of the new organization; Muazzam Gil, an Irvine, California-based media consultant, was named executive director.

Projected: If the world were a town of 1,000 people, it would include; 564 Asians, 210 Europeans, 86 Africans, 80 South Americans, and 60 North Americans. Its religions: 300 Christians, 175 Muslims, 128 Hindus, 55 Buddhists, and 47 animists, according to Development Innovations and Networks, as reported in Pulse.

Elected: Metropolitan Aleksi of Leningrad and Novgorod, as new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. His was the first multi-candidate election of a patriarch in the history of the Soviet Union, and the Estonian is the first non-Russian to hold the post. Observers note both Aleksi’s support of Gorbachev’s reform policies and his compliance with previous state policies.

Demoted: Bishop K. H. Ting, from his post as leader of China’s official church, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, reportedly for his support of last year’s prodemocracy movement. He remains a member of the National People’s Congress and other influential committees.

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