Sixty-one of the world’s 196 nations actively persecute Christians who, ostracized, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, raped and murdered, stay just as determined to hold onto to their faith as the earliest martyrs.
Pastor Nicolas Carraway and Bishop Michael Sis say the worst offenders are China, Nigeria, North Korea, Nicaragua, India, Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
“There once was a time in American culture only a few decades ago when communism was seen by most people as an evil force with global ambitions,” said Carraway, pastor of Belmont Baptist Church. “Part of what made communism so uniquely alarming was that in addition to their militaristic and expansionist goals communist nations were openly atheistic.
“The godless reputation of communist states was not a result of paranoid conservative propaganda, but it was a reputation earned through the oppression and massacre of millions of Christians within their borders.”
Carraway, a former missionary in Eastern Europe, said it should come as no surprise that communist governments are still leaders in the persecution of the global church.
“China, as the world’s largest and wealthiest Communist state, employs a formidable network of police and intelligence agencies to control the spread of Christianity within its borders,” he said. “Chinese intelligence services regularly tap the phones of Christian pastors, listening to phone calls and reading the text messages of the congregants.
“Church meetings are often harassed or violently broken up by police raids.”
Carraway said the Chinese Communist government leverages its considerable bureaucratic power to tie up churches in defending themselves against false claims of fraud or of being linked to western governments.
“Chinese pastors are frequently imprisoned in intolerable conditions for years,” he said. “The suffering and courageous perseverance in faith of Pastors John Cao and Wang Yi are well-documented examples of the lengths to which the Chinese Communist Party will go in its efforts to slow the spread of the Gospel.
“Another communist state which savagely persecutes Christians is North Korea. According to the U.S. government between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians are currently held in North Korean labor camps. Christians in these camps who are not executed outright face brutal conditions where they are starved, over-worked and subjected to torture and sexual violence.”
Carraway said a unique feature of North Korean persecution is that the entire family network including grandparents and very young children is arrested if just one family member is found to be a Christian.
“With all of this taken into account it is no wonder that in 2023 the persecution ministry Open Doors USA judged North Korea to be the hardest place on earth to be a Christian,” he said. “If the above examples sound like remote problems far from the Permian Basin, it is worth noting that the communist persecution of Christians is alive and well in our hemisphere, too.
“Cuba continues to arrest pastors and use spies to infiltrate church congregations. Though recently made legal in Cuba, Bibles are still extremely scarce after more than 50 years of being prohibited and they are often hand-copied and shared among entire families.”
In Colombia, Carraway said, communist guerrilla fighters routinely kidnap and murder pastors who are brave enough to minister in regions under communist control.
“Though Communism’s resistance to the Good News of Jesus Christ is a formidable obstacle, it is worth noting that the Gospel continues to spread in every communist country on earth,” he said. “In China despite the best efforts of the government to limit them, there are now at least 70 million Christians with some estimates putting their total number at well over 100 million!
“Even in North Korea Bibles floated across the border on balloons continue to be found by recipients willing to risk torment and death in order to receive the Bread of Life.”
Citing First John 4:4, Carraway said, “The onward expansion of the Church in the face of vicious persecution by communists globally proves the words of the Apostle John that greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world.”
The Most Rev. Sis, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo, said Americans are blessed to live in a country where there is freedom of religion and that freedom should never be taken for granted.
“Every year about 5,000 Christians are killed globally,” Sis said. “More than 365 million Christians in the world, that is one in seven, face high levels of persecution for their faith today.
“According to Open Doors, globally there were 13 Christians killed each day for their faith in 2023.”
The bishop said attacks on Christian properties grew last year with a seven-fold increase in the numbers of attacks on churches and Christian-run schools, hospitals and cemeteries.
“The increase was driven mostly by mob violence in India, church closures in China and attacks in Nigeria, Nicaragua and Ethiopia,” he said. “The hostile actions against Christians included killings, assaults, torture, kidnapping, discrimination in the workplace and prevention of access to places of worship.
“In Asia rampant persecution of Christians takes place in India, China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.”
Sis said the Middle East countries with the most persecution against Christians are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran.
“In Latin America the four countries that have the highest rates of persecution are Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico,” he said. “It is yet to be seen what effect the new president of Mexico might have on the situation in that country.
“The atheistic and communist government of Cuba has been persecuting Christians and other believers since the early 1960s.”
Sis said North Korean Christians who are discovered practicing their faith can be placed in labor camps or killed.
“South Korea, on the other hand, has freedom of religion and Christianity has been growing there for many years,” he said. “In Africa the nations with the most persecution of Christians are Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Nigeria.
“Nigeria is the deadliest place for Christians in the whole world. The Boko Haram Islamic extremist group and militant Fulani Muslims work together to attack Christians throughout northern Nigeria.”
Sis said nearly all Christians in northeastern Nigeria have lost family members or friends in attacks by Boko Haram or Fulani tribesmen.
“Entire congregations have been displaced and many clergy have been forced to leave the region,” he said. “According to Open Doors more people are killed for their faith each year in Nigeria than everywhere else in the world combined.
In India, he said, rule by the governing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has seen increased hostility toward Christians and other non-Hindus.
“According to the international charity Aid to the Church in Need, religious freedom violations take place in one out of every three countries,” Sis said. “Around the world there has been an increase of terrorist attacks and anti-conversion laws. The Aid to the Church in Need’s biannual report last month named 61 out of 196 nations where citizens are affected by a crackdown on their faith.
“In some countries of anti-Christian persecution such as Nigeria and Nicaragua, there is a rising culture of impunity where more and more violations are not investigated by civil authorities.”
The bishop said that anyone who is familiar with the Scriptures or Christian history should not be surprised.
“In Matthew 16:24-25 Jesus says, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me,’” he said. “‘For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’”
Quoting Christian author Tertullian (180-240), Sis said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
“St. Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch in 107 AD,” he said. “He was arrested for being a leader in the Church at a time when Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire.
“They sent him to Rome to be thrown to the lions in the Coliseum. The Christians in Rome wanted to try to take steps to get him released, but he begged them not to interfere.
“He wrote to them, ‘I am dying willingly for God’s sake if only you do not prevent it. Permit me to imitate my suffering God. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness.
“’Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God’s wheat and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.’”
