{"id":4826,"date":"2014-07-16T19:35:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T02:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=4826"},"modified":"2014-07-16T20:25:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T03:25:24","slug":"burundi-lawmakers-pass-bill-to-curb-proliferation-of-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=4826","title":{"rendered":"BURUNDI: Lawmakers Pass Bill to Curb Proliferation of Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianpost.com\">Christian Post<\/a>, July 11, 2014<\/p>\n<p>Citing a survey last year which found that there were some 557 practicing Christian denominations in the small Central African nation, Burundi&#8217;s lower house of parliament has passed a bill requiring churches to have at least 500 members and a building to stanch the &#8220;proliferation of churches&#8221; in that country.<\/p>\n<p>Under the proposed law, foreign churches will need at least 1,000 followers before they can register as a legitimate church,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-africa-28245419\">according to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Evangelical churches have been cropping up at a rapid pace in the predominantly Christian nation of nearly 9 million people since the end of a long, ethnic-based civil war in 2005 in which an estimated 300,000 people were killed.<\/p>\n<p>The government, led by born-again Christian President Pierre Nkurunziza, believes that the church community is currently too haphazard, with just about anyone being able to start a church, and it has also been plagued by scandals as well. One recent scandal involved a pastor imploring barren women who wanted to conceive to sleep with him.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC said the bill got unanimous support from the MPs in Burundi&#8217;s National Assembly and is likely to get the same reception in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bb <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/burundi-wants-churches-to-have-at-least-500-members-and-a-building-before-they-can-register-foreign-churches-need-1000-123167\/\">Full story<\/a> also reports some of the Christian push back against this legislation. See also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-africa-28245419\">Burundi Law to Limit Church Members<\/a> (BBC).<\/p>\n<p>\u00bb From another part of the world, readers might be interested in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commissionstories.com\/asia\/stories\/view\/chinas-registered-church-how-to-get-familiar-with-one\">the registered Chinese church&#8217;s views of Christianity<\/a> (IMB Asia Stories).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Christian Post, July 11, 2014 Citing a survey last year which found that there were some 557 practicing Christian denominations in the small Central African nation, Burundi&#8217;s lower house of parliament has passed a bill requiring churches to have at least 500 members and a building to stanch the &#8220;proliferation of churches&#8221; in that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/?p=4826\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">BURUNDI: Lawmakers Pass Bill to Curb Proliferation of Churches<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4832,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4826\/revisions\/4832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}