Kyrgyzstan (MNN) — Another government in a predominately Muslim nation has fallen. This time it's a former Russian Republic — the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. This is a nation that has increasingly become antagonistic to evangelical Christians and has taken steps to curb religious freedom.
Slavic Gospel Association has limited work in the country for this very region. SGA's Joel Griffith says this isn't the first issue in Kyrgyzstan, but he describes what happened. "The most recent flare-up is this collapse of the coalition government. The two parties apparently withdrew in protest, and Reuters says basically their objections were a bad economy alleged corruption."
The two parties claim Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov has yet to enact a single reform and is accusing him of using "shadowy" organizations to handle money. It unclear what will happen next as there is no clear majority coalition in the five party system.
Griffith says the evangelical church has been under fire the last few years. "With an unstable situation, depending on who actually comes to power both in the parliament and in the presidency later, it could have a significant impact on evangelical churches in their freedom to either worship or proclaim the Gospel. So it's something that needs to be watched."
While persecution isn't new, Griffith says, "No matter what happens, churches are going to continue to proclaim the Gospel no matter what. But it certainly does stand the pressure is more than likely, the knot will tighten up in the days ahead."
According to Griffith, prayer is essential. "We really need to intercede for the churches there that the Lord would use this situation to somehow open the door for the churches to be able to freely worship and also to proclaim the Gospel. That certainly doesn't go with the trend, but the Lord can do anything, and that has to be our prayer."
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