Police and government officials last week raided a homeschool house run by the highly persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, China, the Christian Post (CP) reports. Following the raid on January 14, members of the 5,000-strong ERCC congregation took to social media imploring Christians around the world to pray for them.
The Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) has reported that, even in the midst of coronavirus lockdowns affecting the whole country for months, there were over 300 incidents of religious persecution against Christians in India last year, International Christian Concern said. In its report, EFI noted that Christian persecution has more than doubled since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and his right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.
A Hindu nationalist leader in India’s Madhya Pradesh state has demanded that local authorities shut down all churches in the state’s tribal areas, falsely claiming that Christians are carrying out mass conversions on “gullible indigenous peoples,” International Christian Concern reports. Head of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Azad Prem Singh threatened violent action if his January 11 demand is not met within 30 days.
Incited by local mosque leaders, a gang of Muslims in eastern Uganda beat up a pastor and his wife because they offered help to an Imam who recently came to faith in Christ, Morning Start News reports.
A Christian lay leader in Pakistan was taken into police custody last month as hundreds of Muslims descended on his Lahore neighborhood threatening to kill him for sharing a post against Islam on his Facebook page, Morning Star News reports. The outraged mob also threatened to burn down homes in Raja Warris’ neighborhood in the Charar area of Lahore, causing Pakistani Christians in the community to flee for their lives.
The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has charged and jailed its first Christians under a new anti-conversion law, International Christian Concern reports. A Korean Christian and three Indian nationals in the Gautam Buddh Nagar District of Uttar Pradesh were arrested under the new Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance on December 19, 2020.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump condemned reports that the Vice President would confirm his declared defeat in the recent presidential election.
A Ninth Circuit judge Monday expressed concern that California’s effort to curb Covid-19 transmission by banning all indoor religious gatherings could extend into the summer months or beyond if the pandemic worsens, further restricting people’s constitutional right to practice their religion.
A house church in China’s Taiyuan city was raided by forty government officials who arrested the pastor and five female members of the congregation at the same time, Christian Headlines reported Monday. While the five women were released some hours after the raid, Pastor An Yankui, whose home the church meets in, was detained for 15 days.
In regions where Christians risk intense persecution and even death because of their faith, Wycliffe Associates is helping believers translate the Bible for their language communities through its Tablets for National Translators initiative.
German police stormed a church service as pressure mounts on Europe’s devoted Christians to stop gathering or accept government rules amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A devoted Christian community in the U.S. state of Texas was left grieving after their pastor was killed and two others injured Sunday.
A prominent Catholic bishop in Nigeria, kidnapped on December 27, has been released unharmed in an “answer to prayers,” his church said Saturday.
Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists recently unearthed an ancient Jewish mikveh (ritual bath) near the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Christian Headlines reports.
Islamic extremists in Uganda raped a female church pastor last month, claiming they were “teaching her a lesson” for converting Muslims to Christianity, Morning Star News reports. The Pastor, who was not named for her protection, was attacked in Kapyani in the Kibuku District of eastern Uganda on December 21. Although Ugandan law allows freedom of religion, and Muslims are a small minority in the country, radical Islamic persecution of Christians is ongoing.
A 16th-century church bell will be returned to a Catholic church in southern Poland some 77 years after the German Nazis plundered it in World War Two.
Muslim Fulani militants are continuing to murder Christians in Nigeria, and at least 18 people from Christian communities in Kaduna state were slaughtered in the week leading up to Christmas, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Christians in a movement of former Muslims and other believers welcomed a decision by Indonesia’s government to ban an Islamist group that attacked churches and other targets.
Powerful aftershocks added to the misery in central Croatia on Wednesday, a day after the nation’s strongest earthquake on record killed seven people and injured dozens.
Chinese government authorities increased their persecution of Christians this Christmas season by banning numerous worship services and carol events, the Christian Post reports.