persecution

The U.S. affiliate of Open Doors is leaving the global network.

The body of a pastor with an officially recognized church in Laos was found last month with signs that he was tortured and killed for his faith, area sources said.

The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Alexandria has declared a priest who was stabbed to death on April 7 a martyr, while Egypt’s most influential Islamic institution condemned the attack.

According to reports, the Taliban appears to be arresting and possibly killing people in Afghanistan that they perceive as enemies.

In a recent video released Wednesday, an anonymous Afghan Christian describes the situation he and other believers are facing under Taliban rule. “We will fight harder and will continue in God’s work. If we are no longer with you, remember this word from our unbroken hearts,” he says. “But please remember us – the great difficulties we now face."

Are you paying a price to follow Jesus in our fallen world? If not, why not? We don’t need to encourage persecution, of course, but we should not be surprised when it comes. Jesus told us, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11). Notice that he said when, not if.

The Lahore High Court has released a 20-year-old Christian on bail two years after his conviction under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws for allegedly posting a sacrilegious photograph on social media.

The 2021 World Watch List revealed revealed troubling statistics for Christians facing persecution. But despite all this, David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, says the numbers show an incredible resilience among believers.

Pastor Andrew Brunson, a missionary to Turkey who was unjustly imprisoned for two years, said recently that American Christians need to be prepared for imminent persecution. Brunson said that he feels "an urgency for this country" that has been growing over the last few years.

Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang Province qualifies, in every way, as genocide. Writing in Newsweek, Israeli Human Rights Lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky didn’t hesitate to call the Communist Party’s actions “genocide,” pointing especially to the “forced sterilizations, abortions and intrusive birth prevention.” These actions alone meet the requirement for genocide and have led to “the population growth rates in the two largest Uyghur prefectures [to fall] by 84% between 2015 and 2018.”