
Arson suspected in church fire in Pakistan
Christians suspect a Muslim who vowed to keep them from celebrating Easter was behind a fire set to their church building on Saturday (March 30) in Rawalpindi District, Pakistan.
Christians suspect a Muslim who vowed to keep them from celebrating Easter was behind a fire set to their church building on Saturday (March 30) in Rawalpindi District, Pakistan.
The situation for Iranian people is more dangerous now than before the recent war with Israel and the United States of America. Even more so for Christians who represent a growing minority religion in the staunchly Shia theocracy. Under threat, the ruling regime has increased its morality terror with brutal force.
In a perfect world, where legal systems hold political power to account and protect minorities against human rights abuses we might expect an end to persecution. But we do not live in a perfect world. People with power continue to act with impunity against those who think and live differently to them. Christians have a way to cope with this reality and a real and living hope for a future free of persecution.
New political winds are blowing with increasing force as the push-back against globalization grows with increasing nationalisms. The demand to pledge allegiance to something other than God in Christ will put renewed pressure on the Church and we need to be prepared to hold true to our faith. Here is a stern warning that Christians must take to heart.
Peace studies students witness locals spitting on a Christian holy site in Jerusalem prompting this response from a respected Christian leader whose family has lived in the city for millennia.
Rukhsana Asif, a Christian mother of two children in Faisalabad, Pakistan, was devastated when she learned that her husband and his cousin had died from poisonous gas while cleaning a clogged sewer manhole.
In a significant move, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has directed the country’s top Islamic body to advise on whether content that has left a Catholic on death row for 22 years was in fact blasphemous, sources said.
Authorities in Belarus this month sentenced a pastor to 15 days in jail for calling for prayer to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine after arresting him on Feb. 22, sources said.
Muslim extremists on March 8 ambushed and killed an evangelist from Kenya and severely injured three others from Uganda near a town on Kenya’s border with Uganda, sources said.
Nicaragua has banned the Catholic Church’s public Holy Week celebrations for a second straight year amid other repressive measures that have included Protestant organizations.
An artist in the U.K. has taken legal action against a local council for banning her art exhibit and reporting a “hate crime” to police after she said in a private conversation that sex transition harms children.