by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - The US-based International Christian Concern persecution watchdog group has published a new report highlighting the ongoing persecution of Evangelical church leaders, and Protestant Christians generally, in predominantly Catholic Mexico.
In a new in depth article, ICC fellow Linda Burkle, Ph.D discusses conversations she had with local pastors during an evangelical conference in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca in November, during which church leaders recounted the types of persecution they are facing. “Persecution has a variety of sources and forms,” Burke writes. “Drug cartels may target Christians because they do not approve of drug use nor participate in illegal activities and are averse to bribes,” Burke said.
Noting that Christians in the mountainous regions of the southern states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Yucatan are the most affected by persecution, Burke notes that indigenous people who populate these rural areas “practice a syncretic religion that mixes Catholicism with pre-Hispanic Mayan beliefs.” Burke reports that Christians are negatively impacted by hostile majority populations using Mexico’s “Law of Uses and Customs” to force Evangelicals to comply with local customs and ceremonies against their will.
“Pastor A.P.S has been going to unreached communities in remote mountainous regions where 60% practice witchcraft,” Burke writes. “He shared that there is strong opposition to the gospel, pastors have been shot, and local religious leaders have discouraged community members from accepting the Gospel. Evangelists have been detained and questioned by local authorities.”
Mexico ranks 38th on the US Open Doors World Watch List of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted. “Church leaders are most at risk of violence from organized crime and gangs, while certain indigenous communities persecute and exclude new believers,” the Open Doors international Christian advocacy group reports in a website statement.