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Source: International Christian Concern, December 20, 2023
In mid-December, more than 10,000 Christians in Sibu, Sarawak Region celebrated Christmas with a parade organized by the Association of Churches in Sarawak. This follows another significant Christmas caroling event in early December, where nearly 2,500 Kuching Christians and carolers gathered to sing songs, worship God, and celebrate the birth of Christ.
ICC welcomes these peaceful events in Malaysia, a nation where Christians and churches have, over many years, been attacked and persecuted. Christmas can often be a risky time for many Christians around the world.
Read the full story, or this one with lots of pictures: Record-Setting Turnouts in Recent Sarawak Christmas Gatherings (Christianity Malaysia).
Source: Christian Freedom International, December 26, 2023
Terrorists massacred at least 160 people in predominantly Christian areas in central Nigeria on December 24 and 25.
Many of those killed were preparing church Christmas programs. Most were elderly, women, and children who could not escape. [More than] 300 were wounded.
“These terrorists who attacked these Christian communities were in the hundreds, and they carried out the attacks as the hapless Christians were preparing for Christmas programs lined up by their pastors,” Dawzino Mallau told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Local officials in central Plateau state confirmed the massacre. In one area, 113 people were killed in coordinated attacks in at least 20 villages. Hundreds of homes were also destroyed.
Read the full story with prayer points.
See also Christmas Massacres Challenge Secular Explanations of Nigeria Conflict (Christianity Today) and a more encouraging story from West Africa: In Muslim-Dominated North Ghana, Christians See an Explosion of Baptisms (Real Clear Religion).
Source: Religion Unplugged, December 27, 2023
Soon after Aziza Saidova and her husband performed their Islamic wedding ceremony, the pair walked three rounds around a small fire that was lit outside their home before entering it.
This step is something that Zororastrians do before entering homes as a way to ward off any evil. However, Aziza and her husband, who are both Muslim, made it a point to incorporate it into their ceremony. Both from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a city with a rich history along the Silk Road, they live among generations of Muslims who incorporate Zoroastrian traditions into their daily lives.
The religion has roots in Persia, and followers are spread out in modern day Iran, India, and Central Asia. It was widely practiced in Uzbekistan for years before Arab Muslims conquered the Silk Road in the seventh and eighth centuries. Today, over 90% of the country is Muslim, however Zoroastrianism still has a large influence in the region.
The full story also explores changing attitudes towards faith and tradition.
More from Uzbekistan: Did you know the country is experiencing an energy crisis? Rising fuel prices have renewed interest in an ancient strategy for staying warm (RFE/RL video).
Looks like Prayercast has a new video from Central Asia, this one focused on Uzbekistan’s neighbor Kyrgyzstan. Watch and pray.
Source: Mission Network News, December 10, 2023
A Christian pastor in Bangladesh thought he was being arrested for a dispute with his Muslim family. But it has spiraled into worse charges than he could have imagined.
Tomal is a pastor in Bangladesh [supported by FMI]. He serves two congregations and is the only gospel worker in his area. Four weeks ago, Pastor Tomal was beaten by his father and stepbrother, who then pressed charges against him.
Police arrested Tomal, but after that, things took a turn.
FMI’s Bruce Allen says Tomal’s father and stepbrother reconciled with him, “but he was not released from jail, which was very strange. In the weeks since then, there have been two hearings to see if he’d be granted bail so that at least he could be free and just have to report back to court for a trial date or something like that. But on both those occasions, he was denied bail.”
What Tomal didn’t know is that while he was in jail, another group had filed secret charges against him.
“The council of the local mosque had wanted to put Tomal on trial. They filed some additional complaints with the police, and those were the secret charges. It’s now been disclosed that he’s being charged as a militant activist with ties to a terrorist group and as an activist of the current opposition party of the government.”
FMI says these charges are totally false as Tomal is a Christian pastor with absolutely no political affiliations. His only aim is to support the Church and preach the gospel.
Pastor Tomal is still in jail and awaits the next step in his case. He has a wife and young children who are also worried about him and what this means for their family.
Source: Pioneers-USA, December 27, 2023
The wars had been going on all his life, so Mahdi fled Sudan for Egypt. And he brought with him questions, questions about why people would kill one another in the name of God. That’s what was happening in Sudan.
Disillusioned with the faith he’d been raised with, Mahdi started looking for a new way.
In a new video, Mahdi and his wife, now living in France, tell their story in their own words. Hear how media outreach made a difference, why Mahdi decided to follow Jesus, and how that led to the launch of more than 50 house churches across Egypt.
Today, as much as 86% of the world’s population has a smartphone. This is a dramatic expansion of access to the internet globally. And 4.88 billion people—almost 61% of the world’s population—are estimated to use social media apps online. Through these means, we can transcend geographical boundaries to reach people like Madhi.
“There are places where people had never heard of Christ who can now hear because of cell phones,” says Mahdi. “And I expect that technology in the future will make it possible to spread the Word of God to everyone across the world—to all the people.”
Source: Religion News Service, December 20, 2023
The holy city of Varanasi is a place of deep devotion, where pilgrims of the ancient Hindu tradition from around the world travel to worship at the temples that fill every block of the city.
But tucked away on the historic streets is a 100-year-old temple where there are no idols, rituals, or scriptures. This temple is dedicated to the goddess of the nation: Mother India.
Conceived by anti-British freedom fighter Shiv Prasad Gupta in 1918 and built in secret, the temple was inaugurated in 1936 by Mahatma Gandhi, who bore a vision of India as a country for all faiths and races.
But the Bharat Mata Mandir, whose main attraction is a scaled topographic map of pre-partition India, is a uniquely Indian showing of religious patriotism. And its roots in India’s struggle for independence have made it a particularly apt spot for a visit from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who toured the town on Sunday (December 17).
The full story looks at various views on Prime Minister Modi and his government as well as Indian patriotism and identity.
See also another story from RNS, this one about a small Spanish city’s bid to build Europe’s biggest Buddha.
Finally, we came across an interesting story about religion and politics in East Asia. It describes Chinese efforts to influence upcoming elections in Taiwan through the 10 million devotees of the island’s most popular deity, the sea goddess Mazu (Reuters).