Indonesia has appointed an evangelical Christian as its new national police chief, thwarting opposition from Islamic groups in the predominantly Muslim country, the Christian Post reports. Commissioner General Listyo Sigit Prabowo was sworn in on January 27. and is the first Christian to hold this post in 50 years.
The Oklahoma House of Representatives has passed a bill that would block state and local government officials from forcing houses of worship to close, even under circumstances like a pandemic, the Christian Post reports. House Bill 2648, the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act, passed by 80-18 votes in the House and now goes to the state Senate for consideration.
Pope Francis has addressed an interfaith gathering of Iraq’s religious and ethnic groups in Ur, said to be the birthplace of Abraham, the common patriarch for Jews, Christians and Muslims. He drove home the need for respect and unity, and he used the opportunity to condemn violent religious extremism.
Pope Francis was in northern Iraq Sunday where he prayed in the ruins of churches destroyed by the Islamic state and celebrated an open-air Mass.
Algerian Christians have urged prayers for a pastor and his assistant who were jailed and fined for evangelizing in Algeria, an Islamic nation, Worthy News learned.
Islamic militants have released a Nigerian pastor who they threatened to kill unless their demands were met, security sources said. Bulus Yikura of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN) was held captive since December 24, 2020.
Amid rapidly intensifying persecution against Christians in China, police in Chongqing city raided the 20-year-old Living Fountain house church Sunday, confiscating computers and arresting two brothers, International Christian Concern reports.
Eritrea has released a further 21 Christian prisoners, but Eritrean forces are accused of attacking churches in neighboring Ethiopia, Christian Today reported Tuesday. Despite these accusations, rights advocates believe the Eritrean release of Christian prisoners may constitute an effort to seek favor with Ethiopia’s Protestant prime minister: Eritrea has freed a total of 171 Christian prisoners since August last year.
Pope Francis’ perilous pilgrimage to Iraq this week, due to start on Friday, may cast light on the painful plight of Christians in their ancestral homeland, yet the most significant threat facing the community is neither Sunni terrorists nor corrupt government persecutors, but the heavy hand of neighboring Iran and the proxy militias it funds and arms.
A kidnapped pastor in Nigeria faced imminent death Wednesday amid fears that authorities had ignored an ultimatum by Islamist militants to save his life.
Christian leaders in India’s Uttar Pradesh state have publicly criticized a new bill that oppressively restricts and regulates conversion from one faith to another, International Christian Concern reports. Passed on February 24 by the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly, the new bill violates Article 25 of India’s constitution, which provides that citizens have the right to profess, practice, and propagate the religion of their choice.
As legal and cultural fighting continues over religious convictions and LGBTQ rights, America’s largest Christian adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services, has decided to change a longstanding policy and begin placing children with LGBT parents for foster care and adoption through all its offices in 32 states. Christianity Today reported Monday.
Pleading for his life, a pastor abducted by Islamic terrorists in northeastern Nigeria on December 24 last year has said on video that his captors will execute him on Wednesday, March 3 if their ransom demands are not met, Morning Star News reports. Pastor Bulus Yikura of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria was (EYN) was abducted during an attack by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) on Pemi village in Borno state; 11 other people were slaughtered during that attack.
The governor of Nigeria’s Zamfara state says 279 girls taken from a school are “now safe,” but concerns remain about 38 others.
Armed terrorists abducted 317 girls from a boarding school in Nigeria’s Kagara state Friday, the Christian Post reports. The mass kidnapping was the second such attack in the state in two weeks, and the latest case in a wave of Nigerian terrorist kidnappings for ransom.
More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have reportedly died in Qatar since it won the right to host soccer’s 2022 World Cup, fueling calls to boycott the event.
Armenia’s political tensions escalated Monday, with protestors storming a government building in Yerevan, the capital, and opponents demonstrated nearby.
Hundreds of Pakistani Christian widows and their children rely on monthly food parcels in impoverished Pakistan amid Christian persecution and an ongoing coronavirus pandemic, aid workers told Worthy News Sunday.
Security forced fired on anti-coup demonstrators in Myanmar, killing at least 18 people, the United Nations and other observers said Sunday.
“The end seems near” for international evangelist Luis Palau after a decision to stop all treatment for his incurable lung cancer and start hospice care, his family said Friday.