World in Brief

Eleven Christians in Shanxi have been released after facing over two weeks of imprisonment and torture. The believers were arrested during a raid on a Sunday worship service at Taiyan Xuncheng Reformed Church and forced to sit in the sleep-depriving ‘tiger chair’, causing Preacher An Yankui to describe the prison as a “spiritual testing ground”.

An Yankui told China Aid of how he was able to preach the gospel to their captors throughout the ordeal, and debate ideas of law, morality and faith. The believers were eventually released, 15 days after their arrest.

Five Christians have been killed and 44 others were injured in northern Uganda after they were attacked by Muslims over the sale of pork near a mosque. The attackers regarded the sales as offensive and are believed to have become violent after they were called by an Islamic leader to support ‘Operation Albadiri’, which acted as an ancient battle cry.

Morning Star News reports that protests over the pork sales started peacefully but became hostile, with the leader calling for no Christian businesses promoting sin to remain standing in their land.

A Christian mother to a small child in Pakistan sentenced to a year’s imprisonment on blasphemy charges has been granted bail due to insufficient evidence against her. She had been arrested in May 2024 in Kharota Syedan in the Sialkot District after an extremist religious political leader accused her of writing blasphemous material on currency notes.

Morning Star News reveals that no substantial evidence was presented in court against 29-year-old Stella Khawar, who is the mother of a five-year-old boy. Her lawyer says she was falsely accused.

The Georgian Evangelical Alliance has joined the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA) six years after its formation, becoming one of about 40 entities associated with the continental body. The EEA posted on social media, expressing that they are “thrilled” to have reached a “milestone” in the territory.

Evangelical Focus says that the Georgian alliance currently represents eight churches and church associations and aims to strengthen Christian influence in society and foster greater unity between evangelical movements in Georgia.

American rapper Nicki Minaj has become the latest public figure to call for “urgent action” to protect Christians from mass persecution in Nigeria. She told the United Nations (UN) of how “churches have been burned, families have been torn apart, simply because of how they pray.”

The music star went on to thank President Trump for raising the issue’s profile and called for delegates to “stand up in the face of injustice”, reports Premier Christian News. She also spoke of her thankfulness for freedom of religion in the US.

Twenty people have reportedly been killed in an attack on a church-run hospital in the Byambwe region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The incident took place at night and the attackers, believed to belong to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), killed people inside before setting the building on fire.

Premier Christian News reports that the attackers also destroyed more than 25 homes before leaving the scene. They are believed to have been motivated by the medical supplies in the hospital.

A Christian in Sialkot, Pakistan has been put under extreme pressure by a senior officer at work to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam. Michael Masih had been a sanitary worker but resigned from his post after months of humiliation, threats and assault, according to CLAAS-UK.

Masih had initially refused to embrace Islam when the subject was first raised in a meeting with the senior officer, but he experienced increased persecution following this and was even physically assaulted once. He now fears being falsely charged with blasphemy and for his safety more generally.

A Christian family in India have been refused permission to bury a relative in the family’s plot in his ancestral village. The man was from Chhattisgarh State and died following an illness, but locals have refused to grant permission for his burial, reports Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The family contacted the local authorities for help but the police refused to come up with a solution, simply suggesting that they bury the body somewhere else. A funeral eventually took place in a Christian ceremony in Raipur.

The French Evangelical Alliance (CNEF) hopes that a recent series of joint worship services aiming to unite evangelical churches in towns and villages will foster gospel unity and partnerships. 89 such services were held across the country, and half of which involved churches who had never been involved in such an initiative before.

Evangelical Focus report that each service was co-organised by an average of eight local churches in the same area. The initiative was regarded as a success, described as a “beautiful milestone in the unity of French evangelical Protestantism.”

Three churches in Krasnodar, Russia have been barred after they failed to officially register with the government. The nation’s churches are coming under increased pressure to register with the authorities and are at risk of being seen as disloyal to the state and potentially even as a western threat if they fail to comply.

The Russian Orthodox Church appears to be protected, but many evangelical churches are under increasing pressure to comply, according to Mission Network News (MNN). They revealed that registration involves registering a church’s location and leaves it liable to be restricted by the state.

Christians across Africa need to “bring the Bible into everyday practice,” according to a Langham graduate from Ghana. Lecturer, author and speaker Samuel Sarkodie-Addo views a lack of gospel understanding as a major reason why Biblical ideals do not influence the daily lives of believers across the continent and he wants to develop a “strong theology” amongst the continent’s Christians.

As he told the Langham Partnership, Sarkodie-Addo wants to increase the presence of gospel values in everyday African life and develop a stronger understanding of the Bible, enabling people to distinguish it from traditional African religion by challenging “wrong theology and foundation”.

Luke Randall

Religious exemptions relating to Canada’s hate speech laws could be removed as the nation’s government looks to gain political support from Bloc Québécois. “Sincerely held” beliefs expressed in good faith are currently protected under existing legislation but could now be under threat.

Premier Christian News reports that the Christian Legal Fellowship (CLF) called on the government to leave the current exemption in place as it protects the ability for divisive issues to be discussed by people with strongly differing views.

Luke Randall

Twenty-four schoolgirls in Kebbi state, northwest Nigeria have been released after they were kidnapped from the Government Girls’ Secondary School in Maga by armed men.

Separately, around 100 children who were abducted from St Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State, have been released. Up to 315 pupils and staff were reportedly taken, in what was described as “one of the worst mass kidnappings the country has ever seen.” These are just two of several large-scale kidnappings to occur recently across the nation.

Luke Randall & Lydia Houghton

Mongolia now sends out more missionaries, per Christian, than any other nation on earth, says Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) – a charity that serves persecuted believers across the world.

VOM USA described this as a “miracle.” In a video on X, the organisation shared: “This is a people who not even one of them knew who Jesus Christ was at the end of 1989.”

Lydia Houghton

The article “Please pray urgently for Japan” on page 13 of the December issue [and online here] incorrectly connected a broadly defined Japanese Government statistic (that between 2019 and 2024, the number of Christians in Japan fell by 660,000) with an estimate that there were 0.4% of the population who are true Christian believers.

The situation is more accurately estimated by the author of the article to be that the number of true Christian believers has fallen from 0.4% to 0.28% of the population in that five-year period, or from around 506,000 to 347,000.

en staff