From the Congo

Report of the ACC-MD Congo to the Provincial Synod 2013

The ACC- Missionary Diocese of Congo is pleased to thank all who have contributed for its development by granting projects and prayers through the Missionary Society of Saint Paul, Anglican Aid Abroad, the ACC-Traditional Anglican Church of Canada, and the Diocese of the South. Thanks for their assistances.

I thank those who have assisted me during my ordination and consecration as the first Bishop Ordinary of the Missionary Diocese of Congo: Archbishop Mark Haverland, Bishop Damien Mead, Bishop Alan Kenyon-Hore, Father David Marriott, Father Robert Mansfield’s Parish, Holy Guardian Angel Parish- Lantana, Father Lock and his Parish Good Shepherd -Palm Bay, and Father Gregory Wassen. God bless all.

The year 2012 in the Anglican Catholic Church- Missionary Diocese of Congo was characterized by three great events: the consecration of the first Bishop Ordinary of the diocese; the sad event of the lose of some congregations situated in dangerous areas of the Province where the militias and rebels are making the law specially the mountain of Mitumba and Equatorial forest. The diocese has lost 22 churches from four parishes situated in dangerous zone or areas (Equatorial forest) which had 1,287 Christians (adults and many children) who have fled their villages to look for a safe place in other territories of the Province; 2 Missions of 92 faithful in the towns of Kinshasa and Goma lack a deacon or priest to conduct church services. As you know our work is mainly centred in the villages and townships, which have high unemployment, poverty and many social problems created by the long war which has disturbed the population who have lost family members, their jobs and properties. Apart from poverty, which is the common situation of the Church in the poor countries, the Missionary Diocese of Congo has a particular [difficulty] which is the war. With war nothing can be done because people throw off balance and live with despair. This requires the diocese to have many possibilities for trying to lift the development’s level.

A new rebellion against the Congolese government was launched in April 2012 in eastern DRC. The insurgent group is known as the M23 and is thought to comprise around 600 fighters, the core of whom formerly belonged to Tutsi rebel group called the National Congress for the Defense of People (CNDP). According to a recent United Nations report, the M23 has received significant military, financial and political support from senior members of the Rwandan and Ugandan’s governments, including the country’s Minister of Defense and Chief of Defense staff. Rwandan and Ugandan support has included provision of weapons, ammunition and soldiers to the rebellion.

The FARDC focus on the rebellion has created a security vacuum elsewhere. In certain parts of North and South Kivu this has allowed other armed groups, such as the Democratic Forces for Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels and the local militia groups, to regain territory and in some cases attack new areas. Many persons outside DR-Congo think that the war of Congo is tribal war but it is not that. The common thread of the violence is the presence of mineral wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially in North and South- Kivu provinces where the ACC (Anglican Catholic Church) work is based. The wars officially ended in 2003, but today more than 3 million persons live as refugees in their own country. Armed groups continue to spread terror as they fight for control of and access to mineral resources.  Women and girls even children are raped every day; militias use rape as a new weapon of war, destroying communities and targeting women, the backbone of Congolese society. Tens thousands of women and girls have been victims of sexual violence in the DR-Congo. Attacks are common, and access to medical and psychological support is very limited. In this issue the Missionary Diocese of Congo thanks the Diocese of South in the USA through Berry’s family who has been able to fund the opening of Clinic in the village of Mosho, also the ACC- District “Traditional Anglican Church of Canada” has founded two raped girls with sewing machines to offer new hope.

To be priest or Bishop in the most dangerous place in the world; it is to put your life in danger; Because since 1996, more than 6 million persons have died from war-related causes as government and rebel militias have fought to control the mineral-rich region’s mines. Countless women have been raped. Local communities have been terrorized and sometimes razed. As ministers of God, we are obliged to save the souls of many people because there are numerous religious groups that are continually stealing people away from Christian faith and church tradition. Once a person is captured by any such cult, it is very difficult to reach him or her with the gospel, yet we must reach them because Christ died for them too. Time after time it is either a young or a new believer who is deceived by false cults. Once such people enter the cult, they are blinded so much by the cult's seductive arguments and materials that they become almost insulated from the Gospel message. Praying on the immature, the young, and the uninformed is a very common trick, and this is why Paul exhorted his listeners to grow as soon as possible to a sufficient level of spiritual maturity. He says, “That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive (Ephesians 4:14).”

Most active members of false cults have a very dedicated religious life, and they are very serious about their spiritual duties. This is another reason why we should definitely be concerned about the salvation of people who belong to different false cults; most of them are sincere, but are in the trap of a lie. The lie of the group that salvation is fully secure for them keeps them away from the gospel even though they are sincere. However, introducing the gospel to people ensnared by the cults is not an easy task. Anyone who is interested in reaching them with the gospel should be willing to invest a good amount of time and energy at the preparatory stage itself, and much more after that.

There are a difference between the Evangelization in most African Countries and Western countries:

-          Like DR- Congo, Cameroun, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and Soudan most of our churches are going to be evangelized and established by us leaders, that means we start for nothing to get the possibility to open a church in the village, township or town. This is contrary for the Western countries where many churches join the ACC with some means necessary to be called a church.

-          The majorities of our members are from false cults and poverty areas which need more teachings and seminars to remove the false teachings they had from their previous churches.

-          The poverty is a common issue for the churches situated in poor countries, but in DR-Congo add the fighting in some areas of our country to make break of work in certain areas. We could concentrate our efforts on the town and townships where seem to be safe but we don’t have income to get plots of land or rent houses.

-          In the poor countries we observe the massive participation of local people in their desire to hear the Word of the Lord is one encouraging point, because this is the very mission of the church as we read in Matthew 28:19-20. What is needed is an investment in the poor countries where the ACC is already an established means to provide them with the necessary means for the development of the church in all aspects (economic, social and infrastructure).

-           The work of evangelization we are doing cannot be achieved without your participation and assistance, especially as this time our countries are split by the poverty and wars. One dollar you give is a big contribution for our work in Africa.

The step of after the Ordination and Consecration of the first Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church, Missionary Diocese of Congo has made the church to start the period of maturation because Bishop, Priests, deacons and laymen, each where he works, he is obliged to take over the church’s activities. The Missionary Diocese of Congo is the very heart which beats at the centre of Africa: the strategic launch pad for the growth and development of the ACC in the black world, and in particular the French speaking countries, when we take account of the human and economic potential which is here. The massive participation of local people in their desire to hear the Word of the Lord and to join the ACC is one encouraging point, because this is the very mission of the church as we read in Matthew 28:19-20. Even if Your Grace Archbishop Haverland has called the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo the most dangerous place in the world, the Church is growing; the diocese is well established in the Province of South Kivu where the size is four times the size of Republics of Rwanda and Burundi combined. The Church is going to be established in other provinces of the country Kasai Oriental with 5 parishes, Katanga one parish and Maniema one parish. We have 4 Archdeaconries divided into 6 deaneries, 22 parishes and 33 congregations, with a total of 1,657 faithful (adults and children).

We need your prayer that God sends peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighbour countries. We beseech our partners of the ACC-OP dioceses, parishes, individual, Anglican Aid Abroad and Missionary Society of Saint Paul to hold hands with us.

Thanks God bless all

For the ACC- Missionary Diocese of Congo

+The Right Reverend Steven AYULE-MILENGE

Bishop Ordinary

(Editor's note: Financial contributions can be sent through the Mission Fund of the Diocese of the South, ACC-OP.)

Fr Wells' Bulletin Inserts

ST SIMON AND ST JUDE, APOSTLES

The Epistle and Gospel readings appointed for this feast say nothing directly about the two apostles whom we are celebrating, but speak only in a general way of what it means to be an Apostle and by implication, what it means to be an apostolic church. But these selections are remarkable for the degree of contrast between them.

The Gospel reading from John 15 (words uttered in the upper room the night before our Lord’s arrest and crucifixion at a time when Simon and Jude were present), strikes a solemn note and hardly sounds like good news at all. Jesus tells us that His followers are in for a hard time. “If the world hate you … If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  Christians have no right to expect to be popular.  Persecution is our normal state.  “The tyrant’s brandished steel, the  lion’s gory mane” did not come to a halt when the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian.

We all should be aware of the cruel persecutions which Christians today suffer in Islamic countries. In one principal ally of the Unites States. Christian worship is prohibited and it is illegal even to own a Bible.  The sufferings of the Christian communities in Egypt, Iran and Iraq are well documented, even if barely known among Christians here.  But such persecution of Christians is far from unknown in our own country.

The reading from the Epistle to the Ephesians, however, tells the rest of the story. To be a Christian is a great privilege, even in a non-Christian world, even in a secular society, where our Lord is still held up to ridicule, and where the Gospel is the faith, it seems, of a shrinking minority.

Paul was speaking of us when he wrote “no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens of the saints, members of the household of God.”  In this great text,  Paul reminds us that we are no longer what we used to be, strangers and foreigners to the kingdom of God.  Our faith, our new birth, our incorporation into Christ make us true members of His body,

Has given us a special status which separates us from the sinful world in which we yet live. In this kingdom of God we are fellow-citizens with Abraham, Moses, David, Simon and Jude, Peter and Paul, with the blessed Mother, and all the rest. Paul and his first readers knew the value of citizenship. We are citizens of a kingdom greater than Rome or the USA, or any earthly kingdom.  But better than this, we have been adopted even into the royal family, the household of God Himself.    LKW

Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity

Click the link for a sermon here.

Sermon

This weekend my family has traveled to Maryland where it was time to hold the Memorial Service and bury my father. I offer a link to a previous sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity.

Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 5:15-21  *  Matthew 22:1-14

The reaction to the king's kind invitation, bidding people to attend the wedding of his son, reminds me of the fifth seal in the Book of Revelation:

”And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled (Rev. 6:9-11).”

When the guests who were invited snub him, and refuse his invitation, and then persecute the messengers of his gracious invitation to the death, the king becomes "wroth." His judgment falls on those murderers, and he sends his army to slay them. The word "wroth" is, of course, a form of the word "wrath." In many passages of scripture we read about the wrath of God. What is the wrath of God?

To answer that, we look at the image of God in this parable. The king represents God, and the invitation represents the proclamation of his mercy offered in the Gospel. The invitation is to attend "the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev.19:9), the marriage feast of the King's Son. The image in the parable includes the obvious implications of forgiveness of sin (purchased by that Son on the sacrificial altar of the cross, and his resurrection that destroys death), showing that the heart of the king is generous, benevolent and gracious. "God is good."

When the invited people refuse this kindness, and persecute his messengers, they incur his wrath. The king has not changed, the people have. His principles are solid and unmoving. His wrath comes from the same heart as his generosity. Of course, the wrath of God is not exactly like the wrath of this king, for the king is a man who changes due to emotion. This brings up a very ancient doctrine of the Church, and the term for that doctrine is Divine Impassibility: It means that God does not change. In fact, as our own Anglican Article I teaches, he is "without passions." Some modern theologians object to this, and insist that the scriptures present to us an emotional God who makes up his mind by reacting to events. They see metaphorical language as literal, forgetting that God has revealed his word to our minds by use of our own language. Emotion includes motion, that is movement and change. But, God does not change. The king in today's Gospel appears to be moved, sometimes by anger and sometimes by his own generosity. Unlike God, this king can be surprised, because he does not know all things before they happen. But, he is in the story only to represent God as an imperfect human illustration, a character who is metaphorical in nature. God's wrath is itself a metaphor. What it means is that you stand on one side of the line or the other, either accepting his kind and gracious offer in the Gospel of his Son, or you refuse that offer and side with the world, the flesh and the Devil. Because God never changes, you stand either on the side of  wrath or on the side of mercy.

Look at the word that the king uses when he must have his bouncers kick out an impolite guest: "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" This word, "friend", seems rather odd. In fact, it means that this impolite guest, the one who refused the wedding garment (that is, refused the vestment handed out by the king's servants at the door) in a gesture of disrespect, was in some way beloved of the king. That is what it means that he was called "friend" (ἑταῖρος, hetairos). The same word is used later in this same Gospel (Matthew) when Jesus addresses the traitor Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art thou come? Then came they, and laid hands on Jesus, and took him (Matt. 26:50).”

What could better demonstrate that the Impassibility of God is consistent with the fact that God is love? (I John 4:8, 16) He does not change. Jesus loved Judas, even knowing that the man was a devil, the traitor, for whom it would have been good had he never been born. Jesus was not changed toward Judas, though Judas had renounced him, had abandoned his apostolic office to betray him to the death. "Friend, wherefore art thou come?"

The king casts the impolite and contemptuous guest out of his palace because that man had placed himself beyond the reach of the king's generous and gracious nature. The man did not need to buy some expensive garment, because it was the host of such a feast who provided these garments, outer garments or vestments, at the door. And, in polite society it was expected that a guest would put the garment on over his own clothes.

”The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof (Rom. 13:12-14) .”

We are told to "put on Christ." But, first we are instructed to cast off the works of the flesh. Everything is provided for us. We put on Christ by hearing the word of God, remembering that in Hebrew the word for "hear" is the same word as "obey." We put on Christ by staying within his Church. We put on Christ by hearty repentance and true faith. We put on Christ by the sacraments that are generally necessary to salvation. We put on Christ by cooperating with the Holy Spirit who forms within us the virtues, above all charity. This is the life of faith, belief in what God has revealed as true.

All the parts of the life of faith are gifts of God, provided like the wedding garment given to each guest. We are invited and granted mercy and grace, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, to be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. We are given everything we need so that we become behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. As you are called in Christ, to become saints in Christ, so live in Christ, having been baptized into his death unto sin, and in whom you live unto righteousness.

If you refuse the invitation, or if you come to the feast but refuse the gracious provision of the king, it is your choice, never understanding the heart of one who calls you "friend." Above all, from the cross he has called you "friend." Do not turn from his love. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 4:17-32 * Matthew 9:1-8

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.

It may appear strange that Jesus addressed the need of a sick man, in fact a completely paralyzed man, by speaking an ever so bold absolution: “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” The Pharisees thought he was blaspheming, because their religious system allowed no man to speak so boldly. They figured that we may hope for forgiveness of sins, but they were offended by the bold declaration that any particular individual’s sins actually have been forgiven. That much faith was more than they could swallow. Today people may find the words of Jesus to be an affront to their sensitivities, wondering how He could address a suffering person about sin. They might assume it is fine to feel empathy, to address the obvious visible needs of a man paralyzed.  

But, Jesus addressed the man’s spiritual and moral need first and foremost, because that is most important. The highest priority of all is to have a fully restored and meaningful communion with God, to be reconciled to God and to be free from any hindrance in that fellowship that is the highest priority, that knowledge of God before which even the fear of death yields and retreats. Compared to that greatest need of all, mere paralysis is trivial. So is blindness, deafness, and even premature death, all of them among the many conditions that Jesus healed as “with power” He “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38).”

Right now, just like the offended Pharisees, many people would like very much to have a religion in which the subject of forgiveness never comes up, because the seriousness of sin is treated as either non-existent, or as trivial. They want a more “spiritual” religion, and they even use the word “spiritual” or “spirituality” because it is non-threatening. It has, in modern times, no moral significance whatsoever.

If that is the kind of religion you want, the kind that allows you to flatter yourself and convince yourself that you are righteous, wise and “spiritual” - whatever you imagine that the word is supposed to mean- then you are in the wrong church. The Book of Common Prayer has a General Confession of Sin in every major service, followed by Absolution that a priest declares (if one is present), and that is because we must approach God based on the truth, not based on our own feeling or our self-appraisal. Furthermore, if you want a religion that flatters you and makes you feel affirmed and tells you how wonderful you are, you should avoid the Book of Common Prayer, yes, but even more so never, ever, under any circumstances, read your Bible.

The wisdom of the Book of Common Prayer, all of which comes from the Bible (as anyone can see, anyone who actually knows the Bible), is that it approaches God always based on His revelation of himself, and of His Gospel, that He has given for all people for all times. If you must ask the origin of any portion of the Book of Common Prayer, or wonder where it came from, then you should “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the Bible more often and more thoroughly. Otherwise, you would see the words in the Prayer Book, and know where they came from; they have all come right out of the Bible, ultimately, as the actual source (and that includes the content of the Creeds). And, among them you would recall the words of Jesus, quoted in Morning Prayer as we begin:

“The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him (St. John iv. 23).”

You cannot worship God in spirit by flattering yourself that you are “spiritual,” because the spirit that pleases God is one of humility. And, you cannot worship God in truth without acknowledging the truth He has revealed as He has revealed it. Once upon a time I was concerned about the spiritual malady called “self-righteousness” as merely a problem of hypocrisy. I have become aware of a deeper kind of self-righteousness, and that is the kind that is delusional. Some individuals, despite the clear words of Scripture in which God speaks to us even now, really believe in their own righteousness. That delusion is a sickness worse than paralysis, and one that will create a wall of division separating a person from communion with God, and from communion or fellowship within His Church among His people.

We see this delusion expressed as a doctrine among some Fundamentalists who openly say. “I was a sinner, but now I am a saint.” But, Saint Paul said, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief (I Tim. 1:15).” He was a saint, but he did not say, “Of whom I was chief,” past tense: He said, “Of whom I am chief,” Present tense. The Doctrinal formula for this is Simul Iustus Et Peccator. That is, "simultaneously just (righteous) and a sinner." At best, that is the condition we are in as we walk through this life.

Taking St. Paul’s words from I Corinthians 15:20-22, we see this in terms of our ultimate hope, the sure and certain hope of the resurrection on the Last Day:

“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Ultimately, if we are in Christ and live in Him, we will live by Him, drawing our whole life from His immortal resurrected life, risen from the dead, and glorified with Him as “partakers of the Divine nature (II Peter 1:4).” But, we are not there yet. Right now we are in two fathers. In Adam we die, and in Christ we live. That is, we live in the reality of Simul Iustus Et Peccator. There is, in this life in this world, no escaping the mortal condition we have in Adam, nor is there any escaping the need to pray as our Prayer Book guides us, confessing our sins as we approach the Holy God on His throne. But, because the other fact is also completely true for all who believe, we really do approach His throne with boldness because we are “in Christ.”

“Now where remission of [sins] is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful that promised (Heb. 10:18-22).”

This is what Martin Luther meant when he said to sin boldly. He did not mean to be bold in how you sin, nor did he mean that you should presume to live in willful unrepentant sin (for, that is the way to death); rather he meant that you should be bold about entering God’s presence with faith, because in Christ you are truly justified. You may enter just as the writer to the Hebrews says, with boldness, and that is not boldness for just any old reason. You do not enter with boldness into God’s presence because you see yourself as righteous, wise and spiritual. You enter in “with full assurance of faith,” only because you have been granted entrance into the most Holy Place before the throne of God “by the blood of Jesus.” That alone is how you have been granted entrance, and that alone is why you are accepted – in Him.

Our Confession of Sin is not morbid. It is not gloomy. It is not the Confession of people living in terror of the grave, unsure if they have enough merits for eternal life (which, you may be sure, no one has; not even the people with word “Saint” placed before their names). Our Confession of sin is based on our certain faith in God’s love and forgiveness, not because we feel that he is forgiving, but because, in fact, Jesus Christ died for our sins and reconciled us to the Father. And, in fact, He rose from the dead so that we may live in Him, now and forever, eventually, on that glorious Day, shedding what it means to be “in Adam” and taking on only what it means to be “in Christ.”

We worship God in spirit and in truth, if we grasp the meaning of today’s Collect:

O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

That comes directly from the words of Jesus:

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing (John 15:5).”

So, just as Jesus began by speaking words of Absolution, and healing the soul of the paralyzed man before meeting his physical need, I will continue to address, in my preaching, the true diagnosis of what ails us all. Along with that, I will continue to proclaim God’s revealed prognosis for everyone who takes the medicine He prescribes: “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Fr. Wells' Bulletin Inserts

TRINITY XIX

Late in Trinity Season the Prayer Book gives us a series of six Sundays with readings from Paul’s great Epistle "to the Ephesians."  We spend as much time with this Epistle as the entire season of Lent. We place quotation marks around the words “to the Ephesians” because the manuscripts leave the address blank and our best guess is that Paul wrote this letter to the Christian community at Ephesus as a circular letter to all the churches of the region.

Today’s selection is full of practical wisdom, including the beloved memory verse, “be ye kind one to another.”  But practical wisdom is frequently expressed in mysterious language, “that ye put off the old man,’ and “put on the new man.”  These explicit directions have challenged the translators to come up with words which make more sense.  Here are a few attempts: “Put off your old nature ,... put on the new nature.” (RSV) “Put off the old self, put on the new self.” (ESV), or “leaving your former way of life, you must be made new in mind and spirit” (NEB).

What Paul was getting at in this contrast of old and new, was the familiar contrast of Adam and Christ, “As in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive.” Adam, “the old man” is the fallen sinful human race,” but Christ, the virgin-born “new man,” inaugurated a new humanity.  These respectively stand for the old and new creations.

But more practically speaking, the old Man and new Man refer to each of us, both before and after we become one with Christ through faith in Him. Paul speaks quite graphically, of stripping off and putting on, as we strip off soiled clothing and put on new garments. He frequently speaks of “putting on” Christ as our clothing.  The baptismal liturgy of the ancient Church carried this out ceremonially by giving the newly baptized a special white garment. There was a charming trace of this in the white baptismal dresses which used to be used at christenings.

Paul never suggests that this transformation from old to new man, from Adam to Christ, is an instantaneous event or (much less) the result of some program of moral self-improvement. Bluntly, we are told here to “become what you are.”  You are already new men and women in Christ: now it is for us to become Christ-like.  People have a way of becoming like the clothes they wear. Our behavior and our life-style are shaped by the way we treat our bodies or clothe ourselves.

In the world of the Bible, a person could be identified by his garb. It is still the case that a Christian can be identified by his Christ-likeness.  If we wear Christ as a garment, the world will see Him in us and us in Him.  LKW

Why the silence?

"According to a 2011 Pew Forum study, Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world with followers of the faith being actively harassed in 130 countries." - See more at this link.