By Bob Allen
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
DELTONA, Fla. (ABP) -- Two Cuban Baptist leaders arrested Oct. 3 in the
city of Santiago de Cuba remain in jail, reportedly without formal
charge and with few details of why they are being held.
Rubén Ortiz-Columbié, coordinator for special projects of the Eastern
Cuba Baptist Convention, and Francisco "Pancho" Garcia, director of the
convention's teen department, were reportedly carrying out church work
when nabbed by authorities.
Ortiz' son, also named Ruben, is a pastor in Florida. He said the two
men were on their way to distribute money donated for Baptist work. He
said his church, Primera Iglesia Bautista in Deltona, Fla., regularly
sends funds to the convention for mission projects in Cuba.
Rubén Ortiz-Columbié is pictured here working on disaster-relief efforts
with the Eastern Baptist Convention for Hurricane Paloma last year in
Santa Cruz del Sur, Cuba.
Observers in the United States familiar with the situation said they
don't know why police targeted Ortiz and Garcia. Ortiz is a well known
Baptist leader in Cuba and worldwide. He served as executive director of
the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention until his retirement. Since then he
has continued to visit churches to determine project needs and help them
to secure necessary funds and labor to get the jobs done in a volunteer
capacity.
In 2008 the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida entered into a
partnership with the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention to support the work
of Ortiz and Garcia. As of mid-September, the Florida CBF had received
and transferred a total of $7,000 to help restore and repair structures
used for religious services, camps and education.
With 320 churches, the Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention is the largest of
four Baptist groups in Cuba. It has a long-standing fraternal
relationship with American Baptist Churches USA.
Jose Norat-Rodriguez, area director of Iberoamerica and the Caribbean
for ABCUSA International Ministries, said Ortiz and Garcia were allowed
to see their wives Oct. 9, but the women were not told why their
husbands were being detained. He compared the two Baptists to Paul and
Silas, two missionaries delivered from prison though the power of prayer
in the Book of Acts, and asked fellow Baptists to pray both for their
release and for their families.
The Spanish conquistadors brought Catholicism to Cuba, imposing their
culture and beliefs, and it was the only official religion in Cuba and
other Spanish colonies for 400 years. The first permanent Protestants in
Cuba were repatriated refugees converted to Protestant faiths during
exile in the United States.
After the Spanish-American War, however, missionaries poured into Cuba.
With so many entering at the same time, denominations sat down together
to give order to their missionary ventures. Some, like Baptists, zeroed
in on geographical areas.
In 1898 the home mission boards of the American and Southern Baptist
denominations met in Washington and agreed to divide Cuba between east
and west for the purposes of missionary work.
In addition to the smaller Western Cuba Baptist Convention, historically
tied to the Southern Baptist Convention, there is also a Free Will
Baptist convention. And the Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba,
which broke off from the western convention in 1989 over theological and
administrative differences, has a partnership with the Alliance of Baptists.
In recent years the four groups have worked more closely together than
in the past. All are members of the Baptist World Alliance, the global
umbrella group for Baptists. In 2000 the BWA General Council met in
Havana -- the first-ever international Baptist gathering held in the
communist nation. During that meeting a Baptist delegation met with
Cuban President Fidel Castro. The meeting opened doors for projects
including Bible distribution and open-air services in 1999, allowed for
the first time in four decades.
Though difficult, Baptist work in Cuba has exploded in recent years. In
2004, Denton Lotz, who has since retired as BWA general secretary,
reported that more than 2,500 house churches had been started in the
previous eight years. That more than doubled the number of churches, and
the number of worshipers had grown from 80,000 to 200,000.
The eastern convention is involved in an evangelistic push with a goal
of reaching 500,000 people by 2010. The western convention aims to plant
1,000 new house churches during the same period.
Christians in Cuba endured hardships after Castro took power in 1959,
but he relaxed restrictions in the 1990s, saying it was a mistake to
make atheism the official religion of the Cuban Revolution. In 1994 he
opened membership in the Communist Party to Christians. Pope John Paul
II visited Cuba in 1998.
Associated Baptist Press - Cuban Baptist leaders in custody; charges
unclear (13 October 2009)
http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4484&Itemid=53
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