'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.

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