BOLDENOW AND DEKKER FORCED TO LEAVE GUATEMALA 1

Two Christian Reformed missionaries had to leave Guatemala last month to protect their lives. CRWRC's Central America Director Jim Boldenow and World Mission's Jim Dekker are no longer safe in that Central American country.

The American embassy instructed Boldenow and Dekker to leave after Boldenow was kidnaped by men whom he described as "professionally trained hit-men." His captors apparently mistook Boldenow for Dekker because he was driving Dekker's car. Boldenow insisted that he was not Dekker. A gun was held to his head.

Forced from the car, Boldenow was eventually driven to a field outside the city where his captors divided his money and took his watch and other valuables. He was then taken to a room where he was shown clubs tipped with lead and a rack on which_victims are "stretched" if they don't comply with their abductors' instructions. He was blindfolded and questioned.

While Boldenow was undergoing his ordeal, a witness to the kidnaping had notified Dekker who immediately went to the US embassy to describe what had happened. The embassy questioned both Dekker and the eyewitness in detail; embassy personnel acted immediately to ensure Boldenow's safety. Intense pressure on the Guatemalan government by the US embassy and the State Department in Washington, D.C., resulted in Boldenow's release some six to eight hours after his abduction. Embassy personnel took Dekker, his wife, Rose, and their children to a friend's house to spend the night, strongly advised them to leave the country, and escorted them to the airport the following morning for a flight to Costa Rica.

Boldenow, under embassy protection after his release, also flew to Costa Rica the morning after the incident. Aside from a chipped tooth and a thumb numbed by bailing wire that had bound his wrists, Boldenow was unharmed. Neither Boldenow nor Dekker believes he can safely return to Guatemala. Church activity or action on behalf of the poor in that country is often considered reason for suspicion.

Boldenow, who is responsible for CRWRC activity throughout Central America, lives in Costa Rica. He was in Guatemala only for a brief visit. Dekker had been teaching church history and Old Testament at the Mariano Galvez University in Guatemala City.

The Dekkers' plans for the future are still uncertain, though they will continue with World Missions. The Boldenows will remain in Costa Rica to carry on their work there.

Reformed Bible College faculty and students are giving money for local poverty and hunger programs through Coit Community Outreach.

Trinity Christian College, which has its own Bread for the World chapter, regularly urges the US Congress not to forget the needy and hungry in its lawmaking. Christian Schools International has also published a study unit on world hunger for grades 4-6.

The denomination's World Hunger Sunday in November provides a focus for much of this activity.

EDITORIAL 2

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.-On September 9 CRWRC's Central American director was abducted in Guatemala (News & Features, 10/25/82). Although he was released eight hours later, Banner editor Andrew Kuyvenhoven, who had been watching events unfold in Guatemala for several years, decided that the Banner could no longer be silent. He drafted an open letter to Guatemala's president, General Efrain Ríos Montt.

Those intimately connected with CRC efforts in Guatemala received Kuyvenhoven's draft and praised its call for justice. But several people made an urgent plea that names be removed, identifiable sources of facts be hidden, and incidents not previously reported be deleted. In a round of hurried and sometimes tense meetings the question became, Which will cost more lives: continued silence or a prophetic word? Grisly accounts of torture and massacre are routine in Guatemala. Though North American CRC workers are out of Guatemala, no one wants to further jeopardize their associates still working in that nation. Therefore, respecting such fears of retaliation, certain names and accounts have been removed from the following "open letter."

1 Copyright 1982, Board of Publications Christian Reformed Church in North America. Reprinted from the Banner, (Oct. 25, 1982) with permission.

2 Copyright 1982, Board of Publications, Christian Reformed Church in North America. Reprinted from the Banner (Nov. 15, 1982) with permission.

May God protect his saints-A. James Heynen, executive director, Board of Publications Christian Reformed Church in North America.

OPEN LETTER To Gen. Efrain Ríos MONTT, PResident of the MILITARY JUNTA, GUATEMALA

North American members of the Christian Reformed Church are sad and indignant when they think of Guatemala. We intended to do a good work for your people in the name of Jesus. We prayed God's blessing upon you and sent to your country both material aid and competent teachers. They were in no sense socialist or leftwing and came at the invitation of conservative and Bible-believing churches. Today our efforts have been frustrated. And all the North American helpers we sent to Guatemala have now fled for their lives.

Early in 1981 two Christian Reformed workers and their families had to be recalled. First one worker and then the other received death threats. This happened during the presidency of Lucas García. Both our missionaries loved the Guatemalan people. One through this teaching, and the other, by organizing social and material relief, were doing their duty in showing the Lord Jesus Christ. They were also kind to the poor and the dispossessed. These actions aroused a groundless suspicion that they were aiding the enemies of the government. For this reason unnamed groups, which can exist only because they are encouraged or tolerated by the military government, threatened to take the lives of those who had shown mercy.

Very recently, in September, James Dekker and James Boldenow had to flee from your country. We believe you know the names of Boldenow and Dekker. They were certainly brought to your government's attention. Boldenow was abducted by a squard of men serving the interests of the military. He was harassed, bound, shown tools of torture, hit in the face, but he was released. His abductors thought that he was Rev. Dekker because he was driving Dekker's car. We now understand that James Dekker was accused of assisting an individual your government labels "subversive." This individual happened to be a Christian pastor, beaten by your government's soldiers. If he had been a guerrilla or man of violence, the elders of his congregation would not have taken their pastor to a local authority to whom they said: "Look what the soldiers have done to our brother." But the official said he could not guarantee the protection of a man beaten by the army. Therefore this pastor had to run and hide. It was not a sin on Rev. Dekker's part; it was his duty as a follower of Jesus to help this pastor. It seems, however, that today, in your country, anyone who protects those who are poor and persecuted is labeled a "subversive." If the thugs who arrested Boldenow, thinking he was Dekker, would have been able to lay hands on Dekker, we fear they would have killed him.

YOU KNOW HIS NAME

It would normally be futile for an editor of a church paper to write a letter of complaint to the president of a military junta that rules a country by martial law. But you claim to know Jesus Christ. Every Sunday evening you testify on national television that Jesus is your Lord and Savior

When you emerged as one of the three junta rulers after the coup of March 23, 1982, there was great rejoicing in many sectors of American evangelical Christianity. And when, after another shuffle on June 9, you became the only one evidently holding the reins of power, some people from California wrote to us that the Lord was doing a great work in Guatemala. By now they must be deeply disappointed. Your government declared the month of June a period of amnesty. You promised to curb the wildness of your security forces. But the case of Dr. Juan J. Hurtado, that prominent and compassionate pediatrician, showed that even during this period you did not keep your word. Hurtado disappeared on June 24, and witnesses reported how on July 4 you told the country on television that he was your prisoner. Because of the name of Christ and our common association with Him, we would like, at least, to give you the benefit of the doubt. But the evidence is overwhelming that, ever since July, you have been conducting a ruthless "counter-offensive against insurgency" and that you are allowing army groups to massacre whole Indian villages. Your government's effort to blame all violence on the guerrillas won't work when murderers come in army vehicles and shoot from government helicopters.

Hundreds of innocent people have been murdered during your presidency. Your mountains are dripping with blood.

THE HONOR OF HIS NAME

We, the North American Christian Reformed people, are thankful to God that those we sent into your country lost no more than the stuff some thugs stole. But our hearts bleed for the poor people in your country for whom there is no help or justice. Many of these are Christians-Roman Catholic and Protestant. And many are pleading on the promise in the book of Exodus that God will deliver his people. Meanwhile you appear on TV. You speak about Jesus, whom you claim as your Lord; the Americans, whom you claim as your friends; and the "subversives" and the "communists," whom you declare to be enemies of God and yourself.

A modern branch of Christianity has taught many church members once again an ancient Jewish custom, namely, to lift our hands when we come to God in prayer. But you and I know that God's threat to the Jews also holds for evangelical Christians:

"When you spread forth your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen; your hands are full of blood."

We cringe when we think of the dishonor that is heaped on the name of the Christ by whom we are saved. We beg you not merely to listen to us but to obey the Word of God: "Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isa. 1:15, 17).

And if you do not wish to listen to this word, please do not mention the name of Jesus anymore.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH T. ELDRIDGE, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON OFFICE ON LATIN AMERICA, ACCOMPANIED BY JO MARIE GRIESGRABER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Mr. ELDRIDGE. My name is Joe Eldridge. Since 1974 I have been the director of the Washington Office on Latin America, which is the human rights organization sponsored by about 40 different religious organizations, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, which seeks to encourage U.S. policies which promote human rights and foster democratic government in Latin America.

To establish my own credentials I should say that prior to coming to this office I was a United Methodist missionary in Chile and worked in a parish setting, and I am still associated with the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist church.

I want to say over the years in my association with this office I have been privileged to meet dozens, I would probably say hundreds of representatives from religious organizations in Latin America, nuns, priests, Protestant ministers, who have come to our offices recognizing that decisions that are taken in the White House, certainly in the State Department and in the Congress, have a profound impact on their own ability to conduct their own mission, however broadly or narrowly that mission is defined.

Many of those persons have also had an opportunity to express themselves before this committee and other committees in the House and in the Senate, and I think it is important to point out that the record of human rights violations in Latin America portrayed by these representatives from religious organizations was very instructive to the Congress in providing a data base, if you will, about what is going on down there, enabling the Congress finally to pass a variety of laws-a kind of corpus of human rights legislation, which continues to exist and which link the expenditure of U.S. dollars, military and economic aid, to some sort of concern for human rights performance around the world. This clearly should be applauded.

I think also it is important to point out that from these people who are almost universally engaged in ministries at the local level, we are permitted to have another view of Latin America, a view from underneath, which, by expanding our perception hopefully enables us to come to more intelligent and informed decisions about policy matters.

I want to congratulate Chairman Bonker and this subcommittee for undertaking this examination of religious persecution, and I echo Father Hehir's ringing endorsement of the work of this subcommittee, which I think has been so important over the years.

I was asked to talk about South America. I think it is interesting that on the topic of religious persecution in Latin America we have two Protestants on this panel, but with Father Hehir the Catholics are certainly well represented.

Most of the population of South America still lives under the shadow of de facto military government. In most of the countries the military have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to institutionalize their permanent participation in government. The relative power and coherence of these military governments varies from country to country.

Paraguay has the unfortunate distinction of hosting the continent's longest running dictatorship. Since 1954, General Alfredo Stroessner has ruled with an iron hand. Adjacent to Paraguay is Bolivia, whose generals were so corrupt and repressive, and where popular contempt for the military was so strong that 1 month ago the military reluctantly handed the government over to the civilians. Brazil has just completed its most extensive elections since the military assumed control in 1964.

Last Sunday, just a few days ago, the Uruguayan people seized an opportunity by turning the military government's own internal elections into a referendum on continued rule by the military. Argentina's military, weakened by popular demands for an accounting of the disappeared and the humiliating defeat in the Falklands/Malvinas, have promised to restore civilian government by the end of next year. Only Chile's Pinochet has not loosened his grip, although the current economic catastrophe may prove so intractable that some modifications will be necessary.

I think it is important to point out that military governments in Latin America are particularly inhospitable toward those working with religious organizations in churches and whose application of the gospel, if you will, includes a social dimension. Father Hehir mentioned that tomorrow we will be celebrating the second anniversary of the death of four religious missionaries in El Salvador. Tomorrow, also, the trial in Brazil of two French priests who have been given long prison sentences by a military court for their alleged participation in an ambush is being appealed, and we are hoping that the verdict will alleviate them of their stiff prison sentences.

In the testimony I have prepared an inventory of the countries and tried to highlight some of the concerns we have in each of these countries which I am not going to indulge in right now, except to point out a few of the more blatant examples of persecution. In Argentina in 1978 the_Argentine military government signed a decree requiring all non-Roman Catholic religions to regis

ter within 90 days. Although the Government claimed that it was purely for statistical or juridical purposes, it has occasionally been used to curb the activity of certain religious groups.

In Uruguay-we have in the audience a missionary who has just returned from Uruguay-indicated that the Methodists routinely had to make available to the Uruguayan Government their list of candidates for church office and just as routinely the Government had rejected their candidates. The Government feels they are unfit to hold office within the church. And a number of persons receive regular visits from the Office of Religious Affairs of the Intelligence Division of that country. These persons are interrogated by Government officials and asked about what the church is doing, programs, and so forth. This kind of harassment goes on constantly.

Jim Dekker was talking a bit about the Protestant church. The Protestant church or the evangelical church is growing. While it represents still only a fraction of the total population, it is estimated today that there are approximately 20 million members representing about 7 or 8 percent of the total population in Latin America, and this phenomenal growth has intrigued many people, including sociologists, church executives, theologians. Some people point to the operation of the Holy Spirit. Others point toward more scientific or sociological reasons: The search for refuge, security, authority, and identity by those abandoning the structure of village life for the anonymity of the vast urban centers. Notwithstanding the abundant problems which involve autocratic leadership, sectarianism, and division, Pentecostalism will exercise a significant influence on both Christianity in Latin America and the future of Latin American Protestantism.

The prevailing theology of most Pentecostal churches emphasizes a personalistic, privatistic theology, where an individual's salvation is the goal to be achieved. The promise of a better life in the hereafter encourages stoic acceptance of the status quo. Great stress is placed on obedience to authority, both temporal and spiritual. The faithful are exhorted to adhere to a rigid personal ethic, examining their inner lives and not the concrete world they inhabit.

Needless to say, military governments are not displeased by the Pentecostal phenomenon. After all, they are quiescent and cooperative. In fact, in some countries these conservative Pentecostal sects are assiduously cultivated by the military. Having long considered themselves in an interior social status, the Pentecostal sects often quickly succumb to the flattery.

Another important sector of the Evangelical church, however, has moved beyond a narrow understanding of the demands of faith. The terrible reality of suffering and poverty has moved the Evangelical church away from its long held version that changing peoples' hearts will eventually change the world. An emphasis on personal sin and salvation is increasingly being placed against a backdrop of social sin and salvation.

This new theology is centered on the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. Christ's ministry was an incarnational presence of God in the midst of humankind. The church, as the body of Christ, is called to be faithful by also becoming an incarnational witness in the midst of a hostile environment. The individual's and the