JALISCO STATE, MEXICO: Baptist Families Expelled

for Refusing to Recant their Faith T

en Huichol Baptist families in the western state of Jalisco, in Mexico, were expelled in January from their homes for refusing to convert from their Baptist faith. The Huichol are an indigenous people in the Sierra Madre

Occidental range in the Mexican states of Nayarit, Zacatecas, Durango and Jalisco, a number of whom have converted to Christianity.

International Christian Concern (ICC), which covers news

on global Christian persecution, reported that on January 26, “at 3 p.m., a town assembly agreement to evict these families from the community was executed by local citizens who gathered the Baptist believers into a pickup truck and abandoned them in the nearby mountains.” Aaron Ramirez Sabag, general secretary of the National Baptist Convention of Mexico, confirmed the news to the Baptist World

Above: Members of 10 Huichol Baptist families who were expelled from their homes in Jalisco state, Mexico

Baptists in Mexico extended help to the families by providing accommodation and other assistance. “The regional president of the Baptist community, Omar Rodriguez, has made arrangements with the city government of Guadalajara to house the expelled

Local citizens gathered the Baptist believers into a pickup truck and abandoned them in the nearby mountains.

Alliance. “Our Huichol brothers in the area of Tuxpan de Bolaños have been dispossessed and driven from their community because they are Christians,” he quoted from information he received from the regional Emmanuel Baptist Convention in Jalisco State. “We have been seeking the intervention of the authorities on this issue.”

families, while the city has also been asked to dispatch police patrols to transport them to safety,” ICC reported. Nathaniel Lawrence of ICC told the BWA that the 10 families

“were displaced for refusing to convert to the majority religion of that area, a syncretistic indigenous belief. With the information I have on this case, it was religiously motivated.”

BOOK NOTES

Fausto Vasconcelos & Eron Henry (eds.), Baptist Faith & Witness, Book 5: Papers of the Commission on Mission, Evangelism and Theological Reflection of the Baptist World Alliance, Baptist World Alliance 2016

Eron Henry, (ed.), Jesus Christ, the Door: The Official Report of the Twenty- first Baptist World Congress, Baptist World Alliance, 2016

Includes detailed program and proceedings of the 21st

Baptist World

Congress held July 22-26 in Durban, South Africa, text of six sermons delivered during worship at the event, an overview of the work of the BWA from 2010-2015, plus other important information and resources.

Graham Hill, Global Church: Reshaping our Conversations, Renewing our Mission, Revitalizing our Churches, IVP Academic, 2016

Hill peruses theological writings

emerging in the Majority World to discern what may be gleaned for the benefit of the church in the Global North and beyond. He wants the church in the Global North to listen to, and learn from, the insights emerging in the “Majority World Church.”

He calls on Christians in the North, whom he accuses of having ignored the voices from the South, to participate in fresh conversations that will evince a new global missional narrative. These conversations, he says, “must be multivocal, multicultural, multipeopled, missional and glocal (global and local).”

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