On Sunday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that President Bashar al-Assad had resigned and left Syria, marking a shocking downfall for the longtime ruler who had relied on support from Moscow and Tehran to resist rebel forces for years, according to reporting by the New York Times and other media.
Religious freedom and human rights have not improved “in hardly any region of the world” in the past decade, with numbers of persecuted Christians steadily increasing, former World Evangelical Alliance Sec. Gen. Thomas Schirrmacher said on Thursday (Dec. 5).
Evangelist Nick Vujicic is raising the alarm about the state of the Western Church — something he laments has become "more like a country club and a social gathering" than the Body of Christ — and its critical role in shaping the next generation amid a rise in addiction and suicide ideation.
Muslims in a village in Indonesia stopped a church choir from rehearsing on Sunday evening (Dec. 1) for a Christmas service on the false premise that the Christians needed permission from community leaders, sources said.
The Communion of Churches in Korea (CCIK) has joined a growing chorus of voices among Korean churches calling for the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) to halt plans to hold its next General Assembly (GA) in Seoul. In a statement published on Monday (Dec. 2), CCIK – WEA’s national member body in Korea – issued a statement criticizing WEA’s behind-the-scenes negotiations with churches that do not belong to the global body, warning it could lead to “division and conflict”.
In recent days, the Mexican Ministry of the Interior (Segob) held a working meeting with 16 denominational leaders from the Evangelical Fellowship of Mexico (Conemex) to discuss key issues related to the current needs of religious associations in the country. According to Conemex, the dialogue focused on simplifying bureaucratic procedures and addressing the social challenges faced by congregations in various regions of Mexico.
Christmas is the season… to be doing something else rather than attend church for nearly half of Americans, according to a Lifeway Research study. Released statistics show that 47 percent usually attend church during the Christmas celebrations but 48 percent do not, with five percent unsure.
Fulani herdsmen attacked villages in central Nigeria on Sunday (Dec. 1) and the days prior, killing two Christians, wounding another and kidnapping a pastor among others, sources said.
Humanitarian projects by Jamaican churches could benefit from international funding after the inauguration of the Caribbean Council for Ethical and Financial Accountability (CCEFA) yesterday, Dec. 4. Global Trust Partners (GTP) based in the U.S., working with the Jamaica Evangelical Alliance and the Caribbean Evangelical Alliance are jointly launching the initiative at The University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica.
The National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) has urged Kenyans to exercise their democratic right to recall underperforming Members of Parliament, expose and reject corrupt leaders and demand for people-focused reforms.
At the initiative of the Chilean ministry “Evangelio Creativo” (Creative Gospel), a group of children and pre-teens participated in a simulation of their first missionary trip in the city of Concepción, Chile. The activity included a time of preparation, a simulated arrival in a foreign country with passport and immigration checks, and training for outreach.
Members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan severely wounded a Catholic bishop over the weekend (Nov. 30-Dec. 1), shortly after soldiers from the rival Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) had harassed and robbed him, sources said.
