April 20, 2005

FRANCE: CONFRONTING SPIRITUAL POWERS

France is scarred and stained by a violent, blood-soaked religious history.

In the 1550s the Protestant Reformation reached France, which historically was officially Catholic. Some 2000 Protestant churches were soon established, with as many as 400,000 adherents.

Then from 1562 to 1598, France was ravaged with the eight Catholic vs Protestant political/religious 'Wars of Religion'. Some 70,000 (French Protestant) Huguenots were massacred across the nation on Saint Bartholomew's Day, 24 August 1572, and around 200,000 Huguenots fled for their lives.

King Henry IV proclaimed the Edict of Nantes in 1598, granting the Huguenots full rights including religious freedom. However, Louis XIV, persuaded by his Roman Catholic advisers to embark on a policy of persecuting the Protestants, revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and multitudes of the Protestant remnant fled subsequent persecution.

With the French Revolution (1789) severing the Church-State bond, the revolutionaries moved to violently de-Christianise France, believing the Church was an enemy of 'liberty, equality, and fraternity'. Godless humanism reigned.

In 1801 Napoleon brokered a deal with the papacy to grant the Catholic Church favored-religion status, but in 1905 the Church and State fully separated, with State-sponsored secularism prevailing. Though priding itself today on its pluralism and tolerance, France is still deeply stained by its bloody past and treats Biblical Christianity with suspicion and hostility. However, interest in religion is steadily rising.

In March, Christianity Today magazine ran an article entitled, 'The French Reconnection', by Agnieszka Tennant. The author notes that much is made of the rise of Islam - 5 million Muslims now make up 10% of France's population - but little is said about the rise and influence of evangelical Protestantism.

Operation World states it has grown eight-fold since 1960, although numbers are still small at around 2%. According to Tennant's article, Bibles are being sold in unprecedented numbers, even in secular bookstores and supermarkets.

A new congregation is planted every eleven days, renewal is growing in mainline Catholic and Protestant churches, and every year thousands of immigrants find Christ in France through evangelical witness and ministry.

Harassment of religious minorities has escalated recently due to rising anti-Americanism, the war in Iraq, or the result of Islamic activism. (In dealing with Islamic activists, the authorities crack down in a 'politically correct' fashion on all religious minorities.)

The 'Temple of Paris' is an evangelical church on the outskirts of Paris. For over a year, local authorities have been using various administrative measures to stall granting the church a permit to hold public worship services in the building it has leased. This sort of administrative and legal harassment is common. Sometimes it is due to blatant anti-Christian hostility, or it can be because local authorities ignorantly view evangelical groups as sects.

The 'Temple of Paris' case will be in court on Friday 22 April.

Each ruling sets a precedent. French Christian lawyer, Bernard Biro, requests our prayers, our 'spiritual assistance in this confrontation of [spiritual] powers', so that Christ the Lord can be increasingly served and worshipped in France. .


PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR: