The World Council of Churches (WCC) has declared its support for the Palestinian campaign against Israeli control of Jerusalem’s holy sites, describing new Israeli security measures at the Temple Mount as a “corrosive act in the midst of an already-fragile peace.”
As the world focusses on potential military advances against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, it risks overlooking another vast region where militant Islam is a growing threat to the Church – in the continent where the Church is growing fastest: Africa.
The world is facing another global conflict and a fast response is needed to deal with the threat, Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Tuesday.
Eritrean Christians are being forced to choose between living under a dictatorship that imprisons believers for their faith, or risking their lives by escaping Eritrea by way of Sudan.
As photos of heavily armed police officers in full combat gear squared off against protesters in the small suburban town of Ferguson, Missouri, America got a sobering wake up call of the militarization of its local police forces. Since 2006, U.S. police departments have acquired 93,763 machine guns, 432 mine-resistant trucks, over 500 aircraft and hundreds of thousands of ammunition magazines, all provided by the U.S. military with the help of Congress.
As the conflict in Gaza entered its third week, pro-and-anti Israel rallies took place throughout the world. Since the beginning of the war, a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes has taken place especially in Europe, leading to fears among Jewish communities that Europe is no longer a safe haven for its population.
The Moravian Church’s Northern Province approved a proposal Sunday to allow gays and lesbians to be ordained, to create a religious ceremony for same-sex couples and to revise the Northern Province’s Book of Order to reflect all these changes, according to Charisma News.
Under a blazing sun, Vice President Joe Biden challenged graduating Air Force Academy cadets on Wednesday to help create a “new world order for the 21st century.”
Muslim rebels stormed a Catholic church compound in the capital of Central African Republic on Wednesday, killing as many as 30 people in a hail of gunfire and grenades, witnesses said.
Legislation to help protect persecuted religious minorities in the Middle East has been stalled in the Senate, according to International Christian Concern.
Eritrean security forces recently raided yet another prayer meeting, arresting about 150 Christians in a suburb of Asmara, the African nation’s capital, according to Religion Today.
More than four months after Islamic rebels seized control of the Christian-majority Central African Republic (CAR), many non-Muslims are now faced with the prospect of being forced to live under Islamic law, according to Morning Star News.
Human Rights Watch described it as “a giant prison” and Reporters without Borders called it “the most repressive nation on earth”.
Religious persecution in Eritrea is at its highest ever and getting even worse, according to World Watch Monitor, the news outlet of Open Doors, a Christian charity that ranked Eritrea 10th on its World Watch List.
There was uncertainty Tuesday, March 5, about the situation of 125 Eritrean Christians who were “beaten and detained” in western Eritrea as part of a new government campaign against Christians worshiping outside the state-backed churches, rights investigators said.
An Algerian Christian was heavily fine by an appellate court in Tindouf Wednesday for proselytizing.
Eight of the top 10 persecutors of Christians worldwide are Islamic states, according to the Open Doors’ 2013 World Watch List.
Up to 13 people were crushed to death and some 120 injured as they tried to enter an overcrowded stadium for an evangelism gathering of a Pentecostal church in Angola’s capital Luanda, officials confirmed late Tuesday, January 1.
Because of its repressive policies, Eritrea has been dubbed the “North Korea of Africa”: currently more than 2,000 Christians are believed to be imprisoned there for their faith.
The militant Islamist group al Shabaab is targeting converts from Christianity to Islam to wage jihad in Kenya.