Recruiting and training "holy war" volunteers continues in Djakarta and throughout the Indonesian Islands as steady persecution of Christians grows. The militant "volunteers" take blood oaths to die in the "holy struggle" to spread Islam.
The object of this holy war is the destruction of Christian churches and homes on the Malukun islands of Buru, Galela, Morotai, and Tobelo where a campaign of ethnic cleansing continues. Hundreds of Christians have been drowned, burned to death, and shot since January. The persecution has driven at least 25,000 Christians into the jungles to hide in fear for their lives.
According to one U.S. professor, some 800,000 children are prostitutes in Thailand--including 200,000 below age twelve. About 90 percent of kids who quit school end up in the sex trade.
At least twenty-three Christian converts have been executed by firing squad in North Korea since October. One missionary states, "All of those killed are new converts. Most of them fled to China where they became Christians and then returned to North Korea eager to share the Gospel with their own people who have been so starved for the message of Christ." It is estimated that hundreds of North Koreans have been martyred for their faith since 1995.
In the state of Kaduna last February, radical Muslim youths took 300 Christian protesters captive and gave them a simple choice--either renounce their faith or die. Those who would not deny Christ were killed on the spot.
In the violence that followed, 123 churches were burned in the city of Kaduna alone. When the fighting stopped, 1,000 bodies lay in the street. Christian survivors reported that the young Islamic militants were organized from outside and bused into Kaduna to terrorize and enforce Islamic law on the Christians.
Sub-Saharian Africa faces the worst AIDS plague on the planet. South Africa is one of the worst hit countries. Some 4.2 million South Africans are living with AIDS, and overall HIV-infection rate has jumped to nearly 20 percent, from 13 percent in 1998. Recent studies on the spread of HIV among young people show that infection rates are far higher among teenage girls than among boys, in part because of physiology and also because the girls often have sex with older men. About half of all 15-year-olds in the worst hit countries will die of the disease. AIDS already has left over 12 million orphans. In Luanshya, Zambia, a missionary recently had 200 teenage girls tested for HIV. All but four were HIV-positive. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX(Newsweek, July 17, 2000)
With the easy access to the Internet today, almost every family in America is becoming vulnerable to pornography. The Nua Internet survey reports that more than half of all the activity on the web right now involves pornography. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX(AFA Journal, June 2000)
Several new polls demonstrate that American attitudes about homosexuality have changed significantly.
According to a Newsweek poll, the vast majority of respondents (83%) said homosexuals deserve protection against discrimination at work. (In 1977 the figure was 56%.) The number of people who said that homosexuality was a sin decreased from 54% in 1998 to 46% this year. In a nationwide Harris poll, a majority (58%) viewed it as a learned behavior, down from 65% in 1995.
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Widespread surveys indicate sex is rarely put off until marriage. In an April 1992 survey conducted by Glamour magazine, 75 percent of women polled said they had sex before they were 19, and only 20 percent remained chaste throughout their 20's. Research conducted by the University of Wisconsin has found that 430,000 people lived together during the 1960's. That number has increased 10 times to 4.26 million people cohabiting today, according to the Census Bureau. Between 1960 and 1990, there was a 41 percent decline in marriage. Several surveys, including one done by the University of Wisconsin, have shown that people who cohabit before marriage divorce at twice the rate of those who do not cohabit. Forty percent of those cohabiting break up before marriage. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX(The Washington Times, June 19-25, 2000)