Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label 2023

2023 World Watch List: Religious persecution spiking in Sub-Saharan Africa

 By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press: ORANGE, Calif. (BP) – Violence against Christians is spiking in Sub-Saharan Africa, driven by violence nurtured in Nigeria by Islamic and Fulani terrorists, Open Doors U.S. said Jan. 17 in its 2023 World Watch List tracking Christian persecution globally. Nearly 90 percent of the 5,621 Christians killed in the study period were in Nigeria, Open Doors U.S. said, verifying 5,014 such killings there. “Open Doors only records the events that we can verify. In reality much persecution, including killings, happen in very rural areas, or behind closed doors or in prison camps,” Lisa Pearce, Open Doors U.S. interim CEO, said in releasing the report. “So it’s likely that the recorded figures are just the tip of the iceberg.” In Nigeria, terrorists including Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, militant Fulani and others are known for raiding Christian communities, killing, maiming, raping and kidnappings its residents and demanding ex

Samuel Davies: 'A New Year's Gift!'

Posted at Grace Gems: Preached January 1, 1760  "Knowing the time—that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." Romans 13:11 TIME, like an ever-running stream, is perpetually gliding on, and hurrying each of us into the boundless ocean of eternity! We are now entering upon one of those imaginary lines of division, which men have drawn to measure out TIME for their own convenience; and, while we stand upon the threshold of a new year, it befits us to make a solemn contemplative pause; though time can make no pause—but rushes on with its usual velocity. Let us take some suitable reviews and prospects of time past and future , and indulge such reflections as our transition from year to year naturally tends to suggest. The grand and leading reflection is that in the text, with which I present you as a New-Year's Gift: "Knowing the time—that it is now high time to awake out of sleep!" The connection of our t