Nearly 175 worshippers were abducted on Jan. 18 from three churches in Kaduna State in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, Christian advocacy groups reported, after at least 35 were killed in separate attacks on villages in the Middle Belt and eastern Nigeria.
Read MoreViolence against Christians has reached an all-time high in 15 countries, with 388 million people facing severe persecution worldwide, Open Doors reported. Nigeria remains the deadliest nation, while Syria saw the largest single-year rise amid instability. Other dangerous parts of the world include North Korea, Somalia and Yemen.
Read MoreA Nigerian minister and humanitarian urged the U.S. government to use peaceful methods to address religious persecution during a Jan. 13 USCIRF hearing in Washington. Rebecca Dali said bombing worsened trauma for communities and encouraged intelligence-based cooperation, as witnesses testified about Christian persecution in multiple countries worldwide.
Read MoreFor four million Deaf South Africans and millions across the world, a long spiritual silence has been broken. Many in the Deaf community say they yearn to connect with God, but earlier versions of the Bible, usually available in only text or audio, are inaccessible. And they cannot depend on the verbal message from the pulpit on Sundays.
Read MoreNigeria, Rwanda, China, Mozambique and Mexico were the most dangerous countries for Christians from 2023-2025 in five distinct categories of persecution, Global Christian Relief said in its second annual Red List.
Read MoreMilitants have killed at least 58 individuals in Christian villages in northeastern and northcentral Nigeria since Christmas, and kidnapped others from a Catholic boarding school, according to numerous reports.
Read MoreFor many years, Uganda’s churches and affiliated NGOs depended heavily on international financing from the U.S., U.K. and European Union to run feeding programs, support clergy families and build schools and hospitals. Until last year, USAID was a major conduit for American support.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With 2025 now behind us, it was a year filled with significant developments in religion, faith and spirituality — and 2026 is likely to be just as eventful. Here are five key religion-related issues and trends to watch for over the next 12 months in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Read MoreThe Dec. 25 attack may have been more a shot across the bow, according to a PBS interview with J. Peter Pham, the U.S. special envoy to the Sahel region during the first Trump administration. The places hit by U.S. military, he said, were not where the genocide against Christians is taking place.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The U.S. airstrikes against ISIS militants in Nigeria on Christmas Day represents an escalation in an insurgency that their military has struggled to contain for more than a decade. The political and strategic significance is hard to miss: Washington appears willing to take a more direct role in a conflict once treated largely as a regional problem.
Read MoreNear the border with Mozambique lies Mount Darwin, a rural community 125 miles north of the capital Harare. The countryside doesn’t have much besides agriculture, but it is known as home to one of the famous hospitals in the country. Karanda Mission Hospital, operated by the Evangelical Church of Zimbabwe, has emerged as a beacon of hope.
Read MoreNigerian Christian leaders verified that Christians there are persecuted for their faith, refuting a growing international narrative that violence in the deadliest country for Christians is not religion-based.
Read MoreDespite cannabis's central role in Rastafarian worship, adherents face persistent criminalization and face a minimum 10-year prison term for simple possession. Police raids on tabernacles remain routine across Kenya, with officers confiscating plants, destroying drums and sometimes forcibly cutting dreadlocks. Now, adherents are trying to legalize it.
Read MoreEven though Emmanuel Ngona Ngotsi was appointed by Pope Francis as the bishop of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Wamba Diocese in January 2024 and consecrated eight months later by Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, he has yet to fully assume his role. Although Ngotsi is Congolese, Wamba clergy and laity still see him as an “outsider” because he is not a native of the area.
Read MoreIt was a stunning reversal of fortunes. In October, Lazarus Chakwera, Malawi’s charismatic preacher-turned-politician who once promised to “serve both God and the people,” lost his presidential re-election bid to long-time rival Peter Mutharika, who was formerly president himself from 2014 to 2020.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The 2025 Story of the Year in religion is obviously the surprise May 8 election of the first Pope from the United States, Leo XIV. The second-place story, less publicized but important, is the Oct. 16 proclamation of a planned split among the world’s 97 million Anglican Christians over their anguishing dispute on the Bible and sexual morality.
Read More“I’m based in Africa, where a lot of stories are underreported, so my articles help readers make sense of the world from an African point of view.”
Read MoreThe Rev. Emmanuel Bekomson, the parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Calabar, Nigeria, became concerned about how members of his parish with different disabilities were being engaged in church activities. He became even more unsettled and burdened when he discovered that some members did not attend Mass.
Read MoreWhen Western Christian missionaries arrived in Africa in the 19th century, they disallowed the use of native musical instruments in church, which they associated with demonic worship. But now, all these years later, the instruments are making a comeback in churches across the continent to the delight of millions.
Read More(ANALYSIS) It’s been over a decade since Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Borno, in April 2014. The abduction received international attention, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirl being shared globally, including by Michelle Obama.
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