'God Will Not Hear You': Death Threat to a Colombian Pastor

"God will not hear you," the death threat read, "because evangelicals don't matter." It goes on to threaten rape, burning people alive, extortion, and a general dusk-to-dawn reign of terror. It was hand-delivered to a pastor in a small community in northwest Colombia. My friend Janna, who was in my Bible study before she moved down South, sent me a copy.

Related Reading

• From the Archives: The Unprotected God
  by Dorothee Soelle
• New and Noteworthy
  by Julie Polter
• Slaves in Our Family
  by Rose Marie Berger
• The Bible Unbound
  by Tim Kumfer
• Standing Up to Death Squads
  by Elizabeth Palmberg

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In our April issue, Janna wrote a commentary about the deadly resurgence of paramilitaries, which are threatening churches and working-class communities that happen to live and work on land that paramilitaries - and/or big businessmen hiding behind them - want cleared for drug trafficking, large-scale monocropping, or mining. I edited her commentary, so I knew the general outlines of the problem.

But looking at the death threat