A religious rights group in Spain is calling on the president of the European Commission to create a Special Coordinator to combat hate crimes against Christians.
India’s famed Emperor Ashoka was an ancient convert from Hinduism to Buddhism. He demonstrated that a person is NOT forced by others to convert from one religion to another. Today, “religious conversions are forced,” is the flawed premise of all anti-conversion laws of India. Who could have forced mighty Emperor Ashoka to change his religion? The Emperor’s famous religious conversion was his choice.
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.
Hindu extremists in central India on June 8 ransacked a church’s worship building, burned Bibles and assaulted every member, causing one to lose consciousness, sources said.
Authorities in Colombia on Tuesday (July 1) discovered a mass grave containing the bodies of eight Christian leaders in Calamar, Guaviare Department, according to the attorney general’s office.
Christian groups on Monday (June 30) called on Italy to broaden religious freedoms to protect a wider range of church denominations at the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC).
Relatives of ethnic Rohingya Christian refugees cast into the sea by India’s navy have yet to hear from them nearly two months after the cast-offs swam ashore to their native Myanmar (Burma).
The Spanish Evangelical Alliance (Alianza Evangélica Española/AEE) has publicly denounced a bill that would imprison pastors and others helping those wishing to leave a practicing homosexual lifestyle or reconcile their gender identity with their gender.
As police and soldiers looked on, about 200 Muslims on Friday (June 27) stormed a Christian youth retreat at a home in Indonesia, driving out participants and damaging property, sources said.
The continent of Africa looks different depending on which calculations you choose to make a three dimensional reality into a two dimensional representation, and the choice is largely determined by who is in charge and what narrative they wish to portray. The African Union has decided it is time to take charge and give the world a better perception of the African continent. Jim Olang hopes this will help lift African confidence in the wider world.
