The Burmese military allowed its jets to open fire on four Christian villages in the predominantly Buddhist country in March, killing 21 people and forcing thousands of others to flee to a neighboring region.
Iran has released a Christian woman who was jailed after refusing to reconvert to Islam, activists confirmed to Worthy News. Rokhsareh (Mahrokh) Ghanbari, 62, is among some 85,000 prisoners freed in recent weeks amid concerns about the spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19.
Police, state governments, and radical Hindu nationalist groups are joining together against Christians in India, marshaling the accusation that Christians are forcing people to convert to faith in Jesus.
A pastor in Nepal who made sure to fastidiously follow government regulations forbidding worship services was attacked by police anyway while at home with his family, the officers taunting him and Jesus.
Christians in China have reported ongoing harassment from government authorities during the coronavirus crisis. China is ranked as one of the world’s worst countries in the persecution of Christians, according to the Open Doors USA’s World Watch List.
Wycliffe Associates, an international organization that empowers mother-tongue Bible translators and partners with local churches in the advancement of Bible translation, is using technology to protect and empower Bible translators working in regions of intense persecution for Christians.
Idaho has legislated that women’s sports are for females only and that trans-gender identifying persons may not alter the sex-marker on their birth-certificates. The first in the US to set down such measures, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” and the “Vital Statistics Act” into law on March 30.
With roughly half the world in lockdown and many politicians weak or ill, the largest Dutch daily concludes in a headline: “World searching for LEADER.” De Telegraaf (The Telegraph) also expresses that “Nobody takes the lead in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.” Its commentator, Frank van Vliet, complained: “While the world is on fire, international politicians are running in one direction to put out their fire. No leader has taken the lead, and solidarity is lacking. They did not read author Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers because “one for all and all for one” has been replaced by “own people first.”
The messianic expectations of Muslim and Jewish leaders are dovetailing, with many scholars from each camp agreeing that coronavirus is the harbinger of a divine figure who will arrive as a king in the midst of pandemics and economic crises.
A Christian watchdog group in the UK published a new report this week on the erosion of religious freedom in China under President Xi Jinping, whose ‘sinicization’ campaign has set out to absorb faith into the Chinese socialist system.
A pastor and a team of youth missionaries from his church were abused and falsely charged in India earlier this month for providing food and clothing to the poor, in another instance of police complicity with the radical Hindu nationalist agenda.
It is confirmed that four French Christian aid workers have been freed after they were kidnapped in Iraq in January. A statement from President Marcron’s office on March 27 informed that the Élysée Palace had made ‘every effort to reach this outcome.’ The statement thanked Iraqi authorities for their cooperation but gave no details or information about any conditions of the workers’ release.
The coronavirus stimulus package signed into law last week not only serves to bolster individuals, families and for-profit companies impacted by the ongoing pandemic but also offers relief to churches and ministry staff as well.
At least one person has died, and 43 people have fallen ill at an Illinois Pentecostal church, with at least 10 testing positive for coronavirus so far.
Authorities in Africa and Europe are evacuating churches and detaining pastors as governments say they prohibit worship services to halt the spread of the new coronavirus COVID 19. Video footage obtained by Worthy News showed the head pastor of the Open Arms Ministries congregation in Ghana’s city of Kumasi taken into custody during a recent worship service. The pastor, Kofi Nkrumah Sarkodie, was rushed to a police pickup truck. Several worshippers protested the move and applauded the pastor.
A New York Times op-ed published Friday is casting blame on the evangelical movement for the Wuhan coronavirus plaguing the nation.
Peter Tumbelaka wasn’t in a hurry to become the pastor of Jakarta’s largest Pentecostal churches where many Muslims convert to Christianity. “I thought I could remain an architect and an engineer. But God had different plans,” the 52-year-old preacher told BosNewsLife in Indonesia’s bustling capital.
A pastor in Nepal was thrown into prison for exercising his God-given authority over coronavirus after police disguised themselves as Christians in need of healing prayer.
A Montagnard Christian in Vietnam was released from prison in February following sixteen years of torture by the Vietnamese government for protesting its treatment of ethnic and religious minorities.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence joined over 700 pastors on a conference call Friday to pray for strength and stamina amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.