South Africa

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments has threatened to arrest church leaders if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide their names and contact information, Christian sources said.

The warning in a Jan. 3 letter to church leaders of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) arrived a few days after Sudan President Omar al-Bashir told cheering crowds on Jan. 3 that, following the secession of largely non-Islamic south Sudan last July, the country’s constitution will be more deeply entrenched in sharia (Islamic law).

“We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities,” Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, wrote to the church leaders. “We have all legal rights to take them to court.” more >>

The South Africa Council of Churches (SACC) expressed its shock Wednesday after President Jacob Zuma, an ordained priest, reportedly claimed Christianity was to blame for issues facing the nation's orphans and elderly.

“As Africans, long before the arrival of religion and gospel, we had our own ways of doing things,” Zuma was quoted by the Times LIVE website as saying. The South African president made the statement Tuesday at the launch of a road safety and crime awareness campaign at KwaMaphumulo, in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Those were times that the religious people refer to as dark days but we know that, during those times, there were no orphans or old-age homes. Christianity has brought along these things,” he continued. more >>

The Global Climate Summit, which is now over in Durban, South Africa, allowed countries the opportunity to strive for a better, healthier world. But some feel the matter is tied to faith in God and one another, not in science.

The 194 countries that attended the Global Climate Summit in Durban agreed on a new process that could result in legally binding measures to control global warming. The agreement, which came almost a day and a half after the conference was scheduled to end, culminated a conference otherwise plagued by the absence of a clear direction moving forward.

Countries at the conference were able to agree to a second five year commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol; and a non-binding agreement to reach an agreement by 2015 that will bring all countries under the same legal reach by 2020. more >>

A pastor from Cape Town who created a controversy with his “Jesus was HIV-positive” sermon last year is now on a month-long fast against poverty, crime, corruption and “racism.”

After using various controversial methods to draw people’s attention to social issues in the past, the Rev. Xola Skosana from the charismatic Way of Life Church in Khayelitsha Township is fasting for 30 days to highlight more concerns.

“I’m on a 30 day hunger strike because…,” the pastor says in a press statement listing various issues, including acquittal of a man accused of rape; South African rugby team having all white players; lack of political will to tackle the “Apartheid;” lack of employment for 3 million youth; “extreme levels of corruption;” privatization of water, electricity and education; and eviction of farm workers from their land for development. more >>

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – A gentle and calm spirit descended on the closing ceremony of The Third Lausanne Congress Sunday night as the 4,000 attendees soaked in the majestic music of the grand orchestra and choir and prepared their hearts to return to the mission field.

Lindsay Brown, the international director of The Lausanne Movement, gave the closing address in which he stated that the Lausanne leaders’ vision for the conference was to bear witness to Jesus Christ to this generation in every area of the world geographically and in every sphere of society. He noted that it was too early to determine what legacy the conference would have.

“We must recommit ourselves therefore to the lordship of Christ in every area of human activity,” said Brown. “One of our hopes, therefore, is that we would leave here equally committed to passionately communicate the Gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth and also to demonstrate the eternal truth of scripture has application to the whole of life for Christ is the Lord of the whole of creation.” more >>

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – Women are powerful partners in the mission field and have proven to be effective church planters, according to a couple whose ministry has equipped hundreds of female Christian leaders.

Leslie and Chad Neal Segraves, co-founder of 10/40 Connections, shared on Sunday with thousands of mission-minded Christian leaders how their mission organization has equipped over 1,200 Indian women over a four-year period. These women have gone on to plant over 41,000 churches – each with a minimum of 10 baptized adult believers – from 40 different unreached people groups.

Equipping these Indian women began when an Indian couple asked the Segraves in 2001 to train 100 Indian pastors about the relationship between male and female in the Church from a strong biblical basis. After the training seminar, the Segraves later received an email from a participant who wrote, “Praise the Lord! I went out to preach and 35 people received Christ in an unreached village. Praise the Lord! My wife went out and preached an unreached village and 315 people responded to Christ.” more >>