Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!AUVM!JIM From: JIM@AUVM (Jim McIntosh) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia Subject: Re: Fire! Message-ID: <90011.125847JIM@AUVM.BITNET> Date: 11 Jan 90 17:58:47 GMT References: Sender: Practical Christian Life Reply-To: Practical Christian Life Organization: The American University - University Computing Center Lines: 69 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM Gateway In article , EWS2304@TAMVENUS says: >I have been reading some of the prophecies in Charisma magazine for the >1990's. This will be a time when the church will be restored! We will >receive more persecution. I feel that is what we need. It is the Baptism >with fire that will purify us. ...(some deleted)... > ... The church today is weak but the baptism with fire >will come and we will be purified. I want persecution to come. Even to >the point of death. I feel so ashamed that we have it so good. >...(rest deleted)... >Eric. Sadly, I have to agree. The events of this fall in El Salvador this fall brought it home to me. The killing of the Jesuit priests and the Salvadoran women, the persecution of the church workers and bishops, and the lack of strong protest made it clear that these will not be good days for the church. A good friend of mine lived for some time in El Salvador. I lived with her for almost a year, and know her to be a good Christian -- a very faith-filled woman. She lived with the people in Salvador in an attempt to share their suffering. The work she did was to give tours to Americans, helping them discover the reality of El Salvador. Possibly because of her connection with a number of church groups (to trash as many of them as possible in one action) and to divert attention from the killing of the Jesuits, she was arrested by the Salvadoran authories and accused of burying weapons in her backyard. She was held for a number of days by the National Police. The first part of that time she was held in the interrogation cells at the National Police headquarters, and the rest of the time she was held at the Woman's Prison in San Salvador. She has since been released, deported and returned to the US. She stopped by the other day to talk about her experience. The most frightening part to me was the time she was held in the interrogation cell. The floor and walls of the cell were covered with carpeting. Although she was never mistreated herself, she saw lines of people with hoods over their heads waiting for their interrogations, she heard their screams from neighboring cells, and heard their bodies hitting the walls and furniture. She said she had always wondered why someone would (or how they could) become a torturer. She found out why the men in the National Police in El Salvador do, and the reason both saddened and frightened me. She said they are fundamentalist Christians, with a very simple theology. In their minds the people they are interrogating are "Communists" considered under the control of Satan. The word "repent" is frequently used during interrogations. The interrogator attempts to get the person to "confess." When they are not attempting to get prisoners to "repent" they are very nice to them. She said they would bring her little cakes and sweets. At first she thought it was just because she was a "gringa", but later found they did it for all the prisoners. At one point during her third interrogation, the screams and thumps from the next cell got too loud for her interrogators to continue. While lieutenant sent one of his men to the next cell to tell them to be quieter, my friend said she began to cry. "What's the matter? Crying for your terrorist friend?" they began to taunt her. She said she looked up at each of them in turn and said "Yes, just as I would for you... or you... or you." I wanted to share a part of her story to show that in some ways Eric is right... the time of suffering for the church is increasing. This decade will see much suffering, I think, as the Cold War drags to a halt, and the cries of the poor of much of the world rise to be deafening. ------- Jim McIntosh (JIM@AUVM) The American University Washington DC 20016 USA