Author: Anugrah Kumar
Anugrah Kumar A married couple who serve as pastors at the same church, along with two close relatives, say four “LGBTQ left-wing activists” attacked their family home in Sydney, Australia, and threatened to kill them days after their address was posted online. Echo Church, the Pentecostal congregation Andrew Sedra leads with his wife, Noleen, said in a Facebook post that the men confronted the couple at their doorstep, along with their relatives Martin and Millicent Sedra and the relatives’ newborn baby. The post quoted the men shouting, “I will f—ing kill you,” “I will take you m—–f—– down,” and “I…
Anugrah Kumar. The Church of England is facing criticism after St. Paul’s Cathedral in London signed a multi-year agreement to host concerts inside the building with Fabric, a nightclub that lost its license in 2016 after two drug-related deaths. The arrangement gives Fabric sole rights to stage concerts at the cathedral through 2030, the BBC reported. The first show is scheduled for Oct. 29, though organizers haven’t named the performer. Cameron Leslie, one of Fabric’s co-founders, summed up the arrangement as “an extraordinary and unexpected coming together of two very different parts of London.” He was quoted as saying that the club…
Anugrah Kumar The Rev. William, a Baptist pastor in Myanmar’s Chin state, has been killed by the country’s military junta, along with a fellow Chin Christian, Nam Ceu, according to international advocacy groups. The pastor had led his congregation for more than 25 years. The pair had been arrested in May and held by the military since then, according to the U.S.-based International Christian Concern (ICC). The two men were accused of aiding the Hakha Chinland Defense Force, an armed group fighting the junta. Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been in conflict since a 2021 coup, when the military overturned…
Anugrah Kumar. Whitney Lynn, a Florida evangelist with a large social media following, was ordered off an Alaska Airlines flight bound for San Diego last week after she preached to passengers before the plane left Orlando International Airport. Lynn stood up during the delay and addressed the cabin for less than a minute, telling passengers that any frustration over the wait was part of God’s plan and that they might be avoiding a dangerous situation, The Washington Post reported. While she was speaking, a chime from a button used to summon the crew sounded in the background, audible in a video of…
Anugrah Kumar. Christian congregations are expanding in some of the world’s most hostile countries even as an estimated 380 million believers face persecution each year for their faith, according to a report from the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. ICC’s report, Global Persecution Index 2026, found that the Church is adding members in places where worship can bring arrest, imprisonment or death, pointing to underground and digital networks that let believers gather outside the reach of the state. “Despite mounting repression, Christianity continues to grow in unexpected places,” ICC researchers wrote. Iran is the most extreme case, according to the…
By Anugrah Kumar. More than 180 Christian families living in 32 villages in India’s Chhattisgarh state have been denied access to communal water sources, employment and forest produce for three weeks in what community leaders say is a campaign to coerce them into abandoning Christianity. The affected families live in the Antagarh region of Kanker District, a majority-tribal, or indigenous, area in central Chhattisgarh with extensive deciduous forests, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported. About 26 families have been barred from using hand pumps, taps, ponds and rivers, while nearly 41 families have been denied work under the Mahatma Gandhi…
By Anugrah Kumar. Australia has charged two women who returned from Syria this month with crimes against humanity over their alleged roles in the Islamic State’s system of sexual slavery, joining a small group of nations prosecuting citizens for enslavement offenses. Among them is Germany, where an IS member is serving 14 years after being convicted in a case involving an enslaved 5-year-old Yazidi girl chained outside in scorching heat until she died while her mother, also held as a slave, was forced to watch. Kawsar Abbas, 53, faces charges of enslavement, possessing a slave, using a slave and engaging…
By Anugrah Kumar, Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas (pictured) on Saturday said President Donald Trump has a better grasp of what the Bible teaches about government than Pope Leo XIV, specifically on the question of military action against Iran, entering a public dispute that has already seen Trump call the pontiff weak on crime and foreign policy. Jeffress, the senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, made the comments on “Fox News Live,” two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with the pope at the Vatican. While he called Leo a “good man” and said the pontiff was “sincere in his…
As Islamic extremist attacks continue in Nigeria, the Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo continues to receive death threats for speaking out against assaults terrorizing Christian communities. Pastor Dachomo, regional chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Plateau state’s Barkin Ladi County, said in a press statement on March 5 that he has received offers of assistance to relocate outside of the country due to the threats, but that he cannot seek refuge abroad to live in comfort while Islamist terrorists are killing his church members. “I’ve been offered asylum in Australia, Austria and other countries, but I said no,”…
Hindu nationalists in central India last month led a mob that assaulted Christians at worship in a house church, including women and children, and beat the pastor unconscious, sources said. Pastor Ramesh Barela, 42, went to the house of Naval Singh to lead the service in Kotwara village, Khandwa District, Madhya Pradesh state on Feb. 7. Four families comprising 16 members gathered for the worship service. After the service began at about 9 p.m., more than 100 people led by Hindu extremist groups surrounded Singh’s house, he said. “On the way to Naval’s house I crossed a village where a…
A federal court in Pakistan on Tuesday (Feb. 3) gave custody of a 13-year-old Christian girl to a Muslim who kidnapped and forcibly converted and married her, sources said. The parents of Maria Shahbaz were devastated at the ruling after the two-judge bench of the newly constituted Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) rejected her official birth record and disregarded earlier judicial findings that the marriage was illegal, said Safdar Chaudhry, chairperson of rights group Raah-e-Nijaat Ministry. Justice Karim Khan Agha and Justice Syed Hassan Azhar Rizvi accepted Maria’s statement, which her parents and their attorney say was given under coercion, that…
More than a month after three Christian converts were hacked to death in Odisha state in eastern India, police continue to attribute the triple murder to a land dispute, even as relatives and rights groups point to tensions linked to the family’s recent conversion. The victims, Jitendra Soren, his wife Malati Soren and their 15-year-old daughter, were attacked inside their home in Nialijharan village in Keonjhar district on Jan. 25, according to the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which tracks religious freedom cases globally. Giving an account of what happened, CSW said the family had attended a Pentecostal prayer…
A Brazilian student who’s facing four to 10 years in prison over social media comments about gender identity appeared before a federal court this week. The hearing addressed whether the posts constituted criminal “transphobia” under Brazilian law. Judicial questioning during the session this week focused on whether the statements were published from the defendant’s own social media account, and the judge indicated the content appeared to reflect personal opinion rather than discriminatory intent while granting the defense five days to submit written conclusions before any ruling, according to the legal advocacy group ADF International. The prosecution concerns two posts published in…