By Allie Martin and Jim Brown
June 5, 2001

(AgapePress) - Local authorities in three small towns in different Mexican states are telling evangelical Christians to change their religion to traditional Catholicism or suffer severe consequences.

Evangelical Christians who do not renounce their faith are being threatened with jail time, expulsion, the removal of public services such as water and drainage, and even death.

In one case, two recent converts were jailed for 36 hours and asked to deny their new evangelical Christian faith.

Terry Madison is president of Open Doors, a ministry which tracks the persecution of Christians. He says this is not a new problem.

“This has been an ongoing challenge in Chiapas, where when people accept the Lord they choose not to participate in some of the local Catholic celebrations, many of which involve ‘posh,’ which is a locally fermented drink,” Madison says. “They choose not to participate, which means they’re not buying the candles and the costumes and the fireworks, and some of the other products that some of the local authorities profit by, so there’s an economic loss.”

Madison says things are particularly bad for evangelical Christians in the state of Chiapas. “A particular community had 230 evangelicals. We’re talking about a large body of Christ,“ he says. “Another had forty Christian church members who were challenged to renounce their evangelical faith and return to Catholicism or they would face having their homes burned and their animals destroyed.”

In another example of intolerance, The Alabama Baptist newspaper reports Catholic leaders in San Nicolas, Mexico, a town of some 4,000 people, are telling 36 evangelical families they must leave town within 90 days "or be kicked out." The paper says the families’ water and sewer services have been cut off.

A San Nicolas spokesperson is quoted as saying, "What the town wants is for the evangelicals to stop spreading their religion to more people and to stop having their meeting."

Patrick Scully, a spokesman for the Catholic League, said he couldn’t comment on the story because he was not aware of the details and also since the persecution is taking place outside the United States.

© 2001 AgapePress all rights reserved.

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