The University Baptist Church in Bloomington, Indiana has ordained a transgender woman, Church Leaders reports. The ordination of Laura Bethany Buchleiter took place on May 23, a few weeks after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elected its first transgender bishop.
The leader of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, whose group killed or kidnapped thousands of Christians, has committed suicide, rival Islamist militants say.
Political tensions are rising after thousands of Hungarians marched through Budapest against government plans to build the European Union’s first Chinese university campus here.
A young pastor in northern India wants to continue preaching and starting churches after he survived an attack in which Hindu militants killed his father.
Islamic militants have created an online hit list that encourages Muslims to assassinate Christian leaders in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Worthy News established Friday.
The United States Supreme Court has rejected a request for emergency relief from two churches that are challenging Colorado’s restrictions on worship in response to COVID-19.
The Burmese army attacked two churches in one week in Kayah State, Myanmar, killing four and wounding eight refugees who were sheltering in one of the church’s buildings, International Christian Concern reports. The attacks came amid intense fighting between the military and local resistance groups in the wake of the February 1 coup.
Lubbock in Texas is officially a “sanctuary city for the unborn:” a federal judge has dismissed Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against Lubbock’s voter-approved ban on abortion, the Christian Post reports. The Planned Parenthood suit was thrown out Tuesday by Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas, on the grounds the court “lacks jurisdiction.”
A Christian husband and wife in Pakistan who faced execution for sending “blasphemous” texts were acquitted of the charges, a well-informed source tells Worthy News.
A detained Christian couple facing potential execution in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland for leaving Islam and spreading Christianity need prayers as their court hearing was postponed, supporters told Worthy News.
The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) announced on May 18 that people who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 do not have to wear a mask indoors at businesses and faith institutions, but will have to show a card certifying their vaccination status, Christian Headlines reports.
Despite a promise to authorize the church after its building was burned down, on May 27 officials in Sudan demolished a building belonging to the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) in the city of Omdurman, Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports.
A suburban Detroit school district is claiming the legal right to censor its students under the banner of “pedagogical interests” after stopping a valedictorian from giving a speech it deemed too religious.
Evangelical Christians in southwestern Nigeria are still searching for loved ones after suspected Islamic gunmen abducted eight believers, aid workers said.
Christian villagers in India’s eastern Odisha State were recovering Tuesday after some 150 Hindu extremists attacked and destroyed their church building, advocacy groups said.
China’s Communist Party police beat up a Christian pastor in Guiyang, Guizhou province on May 23, leaving him critically wounded, International Christian Concern reports. China currently ranks 17 on the US Open Doors Watch List of countries that persecute Christians.
The secretary of the Atheists in Kenya Society (AIK) has resigned his position after coming to faith in Jesus Christ, Tuko Kenya reports. Seth Mahiga had served as secretary of the society for 18 months before resigning on May 29.
Christians in Tennessee appealed for prayers after a small plane crash killed Christian “Tarzan” actor Joe Lara and his wife, Gwen Shamblin Lara, the founder of a Christian diet program, the Remnant Fellowship Church, plus five other church leaders.
A visibly emotional U.S. President Joe Biden, whose late son was an army veteran, has honored America’s many war dead at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, praising those who sacrificed their lives for the pursuit of freedom, “the soul of America.”
A Christian doctor in India’s Madhya Pradesh state has been suspended from working with COVID-19 patients, and is facing criminal charges, for offering to pray for the healing of one someone in her care, International Christian Concern reports.