As Nigeria celebrated its 65th Independence anniversary, one of the country’s foremost evangelical leaders called for a “time of sober reflection,” urging church leaders to see their spiritual calling as inseparable from the destiny of the nation and to speak prophetically to its moral and social crises.
As the shock-wave from the shut down of most US Aid initiatives continues to impact real lives, the global Church has been given an opportunity to reinvent approaches to well-being that don't replicate bloated bureauracies or irresponsible charity. True justice must begin with lament and proceed with mutuality. Here's how we can move forward in a post-aid era.
As the ceasefire and exchange of people signals relief in Gaza and Israel, those who live and serve in the Holy Land know how fragile this peace can be and how difficult it will be to rebuild livelihoods. Hope of lasting peace will only be found when all people living in the land are able to live freely and are treated with dignity. In the meantime, followers of Jesus in the land remain faithful, trusting not in geopolitics but in the Prince of Peace.
The rise of politicians from America to Russia claiming to champion Christian values and peace yet preaching hatred and division is polarizing families, churches, and communities even far beyond their own countries. Something like this has happened before. Will we Christians learn from recent European history and seek first Christ's kingdom or continue to ride the slippery slope to human totalitarianism in our contexts?
As new Christians (especially if you're non-Western) we are too often taught that our ethnic identity should be ignored or even suppressed in favor of a spiritual identity. Our teachers ignore the fact that Evangelical Christianity is heavily interpreted through a Western lens. Non-Westerners will flourish in Christ if they are encouraged to embrace the redeemed benefits of their unique ethnicity, because that is part of them being a gift from God as a blessing to the Church and the world.
Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, a long-awaited breakthrough that U.S. President Donald Trump said could mark the first step toward ending the two-year war in Gaza.
Leaders of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) met Monday (Oct. 6) with His Eminence Ignatius Aphrem II, Syriac-Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, in Damascus to discuss the challenges facing Syria’s Christian communities following the country’s first parliamentary elections since the fall of the Assad regime.
Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE has apologized for a program that described the growth of evangelical churches as “worrying” and portrayed them as “dangerous,” promising to handle religious issues with “the utmost care” following a wave of complaints from evangelical organizations and viewers.
Nigeria’s security agents on Saturday prevented the president of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) from entering the sanctuary during a funeral service at the church’s headquarters in Jos, Plateau State, and arrested two Christian female journalists who were covering the altercation at the event.
A Mexican lawmaker from the ruling party said that organized crime, not elected officials, controls much of the country, warning that Mexico is “far from being a holy nation.” Speaking at a Christian conference on the topic of “Kings and Priests, or Kings or Priests, or Neither Kings nor Priests,” Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes — an evangelical politician and deputy with the ruling MORENA party — told a large audience that “70% of Mexico is governed by drug cartels.”
In a heartfelt and moving post on LinkedIn, Shawn Thornton, president of the disability ministry Joni and Friends, recently shared his experience of becoming “buddies” with a young man with Down syndrome named Paul.
Women and girls are easy targets for religious persecution, and their plight is often compounded when shunned by their own church communities after escaping their captors, say experts on gender-based persecution.
