Source: The Christian Post, August 2, 2021
A small Christian church in southeastern Bangladesh was attacked and destroyed twice amid weeks of threats from radical Buddhists against Christians who refused to re-convert to Buddhism. Many believers in the community are reportedly displaced from their homes.
“The radicals told us to destroy the church, but we will not,” Tubel Chakma Poran Adetion, the church’s assistant pastor, told Asia News. “If we have to sacrifice our lives, we will. They threatened us to return to our old religion, but we will not return. Jesus Christ is our savior. We will die for him.”
The pastor told the news outlet that believers at the church were previously Buddhists who “met Jesus Christ” in 2005. The Christian residents of Suandrapara built the small brick-and-tin church in January through funding provided by the Bangladesh Bawm Tribal Baptist Church.
The pastor said they gathered and prayed daily despite threats and opposition from the Buddhist majority. The Christians were given a seven-day deadline to stop all church activities and re-convert to Buddhism.
The believers refused to comply.
Read the full story or a similar article from International Christian Concern. But both draw on the same article from Asia News, which reports that the church in question has about 50 members. Christians represent only 0.4 percent of Bangladesh’s 166 million people, most of whom are Muslim.