In Depth:  Iain Taylor

Iain Taylor

China has subjected hundreds of North Koreans to atrocities in the last year by forcibly returning them home. The North Korean government believes that religion, especially Christianity, is the greatest threat to its power, experts said at a recent US hearing.

Christian Daily International reports that torture, sexual violence, enslavement and murder await those repatriated from China to detention centres in North Korea.

Iain Taylor

Although many US evangelicals are backing Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has supporters among them too.

‘Evangelicals for Biden’ has rebranded as ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ in an effort to mobilise Christian voters for her campaign. The group argues that her faith ‘shines through in her clear Christian values displayed in her unwavering support for American families.’

Iain Taylor

‘We are sleep deprived and anxious,’ evangelicals at the centre of the Middle East conflict have told en, ‘but we keep faith in God.’

As the conflict involving Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran reached ever-higher temperatures, staff at Christian TV station SAT-7 reported how they are caught right in the heart of the terrifying situation.

Iain Taylor

More than 5,200 delegates from 202 countries shared bread and wine in a powerful display of evangelical unity at the end of the 2024 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation held in South Korea.

The informal Lord’s Supper was led by Korean and Japanese individuals as an example of how reconciliation in Christ brings different individuals and nations together.

Iain Taylor

A transgender woman (a biological male who identifies as female) from Australia has won a discrimination case against a women-only social media app, after she was denied access for being male.

The Federal Court found that although Roxanne Tickle had not been directly discriminated against, she was a victim of indirect discrimination, when a decision disadvantages a person with a particular attribute. It ordered the app to pay her the equivalent of £5,100 plus costs. The case is both a landmark ruling about gender identity and addresses the increasingly contentious question: what is a woman?

Iain Taylor

Conflicts of religious intolerance are escalating in Oaxaca, Mexico, with severe consequences for the local evangelical Christian community.

The crisis, particularly intense in Cerro Cajón, San Juan Lalana, involves forced displacements, human-rights violations, and violence. Recently, the situation worsened when traditionalist Roman Catholics intensified their attacks against evangelicals.

Iain Taylor

A new report by US thinktank the Pew Research Centre says 47% of the estimated 280 million migrants around the world are Christians, while 29% are Muslim and 13% do not identify with a specific religion. That total has grown by 83% in the last 30 years.

Christians comprise about 30% of the global population but represent almost half of the migrants in the world. Other faith groups such as Muslims and Jews are also highly represented among the migrant communities.

Iain Taylor

Middle East Christians are expressing a mix of fear, confidence in the gospel and calls for prayer as the region approaches the anniversary of Hamas’ deadly terrorist attacks on Israel – and reels from events in Lebanon.

At Christian TV station SAT-7, audience relations manager Marianne Awaraji said: ‘Perhaps God has placed all of us at SAT-7 for such a time as this, to be a voice for those who cannot speak, to bring the hope of Christ to a region that has lost hope for a better future.’

Iain Taylor

Many believe that November’s US Presidential election is a two-horse race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. That is not the case; smaller parties and candidates can and do take part, although their chances of winning the Presidency are zero.

One party on November’s ballot is the American Solidarity Party (ASP), a Christian Democratic organisation that was founded in 2011 and has numerous active state and local chapters. Peter Sonski is the party’s nominee in 2024. The ASP is socially conservative and believes that all people are created with an equal and inviolable dignity before God.

Iain Taylor

Evangelicals and other Christians are expressing strong support for Paraguay’s first national sex education curriculum, to be rolled out in 2025.

The initiative is a response to the crisis by which the country has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America, surpassed only by Venezuela. Paraguayan government figures show that, in 2023, 10,697 adolescents aged 15–19, and 405 girls aged 10–14 gave birth in the country, which has a population of under 7 million.

Iain Taylor

Nine Louisiana families are suing the state of Louisiana over a new law that orders every public-school classroom to display a poster of the Ten Commandments.

And in a further sign of growing clashes between Christian and secular worldviews, Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered schools there to begin incorporating the Bible into lessons. The BBC reports there has been significant push back to these measures.

Iain Taylor

A number of children are among the 218 Christians arrested by the Eritrean Government in the last year as it steps up its campaign against Christianity across the country. This latest crackdown means that around 400 Christians are currently imprisoned – indefinitely, without trial or charge – because of their faith.

UK-based Release International (RI) partner Dr Berhane Asmelash, a former prisoner of faith, says: ‘Most were taken from their houses, some at 3am. In the last round of arrests not only have children been arrested with their parents, but in some cases entire families are now in prison.

Iain Taylor

A leading Christian human-rights organisation working in south east Asia is demanding action by Sir Keir Starmer following the brutal murder of a Christian woman by her own Hindu relatives.

Bindu Sodhi, 46, from the village of Toylanka in Chhattisgarh, was assaulted with arrows and axes by fanatical Hindu relatives who opposed her conversion to Christianity four years ago.

Iain Taylor

One of Rome’s leading Protestant churches, the Breccia di Roma, is set to take the Italian tax authorities to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) following an unexpected defeat in the Italian Supreme Court.

After Breccia di Roma bought its building in the heart of the capital city it applied to be classed a religious building, which would have exempted it from taxation. But the Tax Agency challenged that ruling, on the grounds that the building lacked the ‘intrinsic features’ of religious buildings, such as altars, images, and statues – clearly based on Roman Catholic conceptions of religious space. The church’s explanation that, as Protestants, the buildings contain no altars because it worships God in spirit and truth, fell on deaf ears. Although two lower courts found in the church’s favour, as they recognised the right of faith communities to design their own spaces according to their own principles, the Supreme Court disagreed.

Iain Taylor

American Christians are praying for the release of an aid worker incarcerated in a tiny basement cell in Afghanistan for the last two years.

Ryan Corbett, a humanitarian aid worker from a Baptist family in New York state, has been imprisoned in Kabul by the Taliban since August 2022.

Iain Taylor

On a warm afternoon, the ululation, drumming and singing of a choir of two-dozen women can be heard across Gan Gora, a tiny village in Nigeria. ‘We are happy you arrived safely,’ they sing in Hausa, welcoming visitors to the community branch of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Zangon Kataf, Kaduna. One song is from the book of Habakkuk: ‘Oh Lord, how long must I call for help, but you do not listen?’

The Guardian has reported how about 100 women dance regularly, including Rifkatu Dauda Kigbu, 53, hobbling on a fractured knee. This is a weekly meeting of zumunta mata, a fellowship of married women. Their visitors are zumunta mata members from an ECWA in Gonin Gora, a Kaduna suburb.

Iain Taylor

Christian author and broadcaster Krish Kandiah is condemning those US Christian leaders who have compared Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate with Donald Trump’s recent criminal convictions.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Kandiah said: ‘To compare Trump to Jesus is a disgrace,’ and: ‘To make any kind of justification for Trump’s actions by comparing him to Jesus is a serious, indeed a blasphemous, suggestion’.

Iain Taylor

Police have raided four worship services at three local Protestant churches in the Shu district of southern Kazakhstan.

The local Baptist Council of Churches says: ‘What happened in Shu has aroused serious concern among evangelical communities, which have experienced persecution for their religious activity.’

Iain Taylor

For 150 years a beach in New Jersey, owned by Christian group Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, was closed on summer Sunday mornings.

But last year the state refused to recognise its right to close the beach then, saying it would be fined up to $25,000 a day if it did not keep it open all week long, according to a report in The Times.

Iain Taylor

Nazir Masih, a 76-year-old Christian living in Sargodha, Pakistan has died following a brutal attack by a mob following accusations of blasphemy. Local property agent Muhammad Jahangir alleged that he had burned the Koran.

The attack began as a mob gathered around Masih’s home, demanding his execution. Despite the rapid arrival of the police and the Sargodha Peace Committee, the situation quickly spiralled out of control. The mob looted and set fire to Masih’s small shoe factory and attempted to burn down his home – with his family still inside. Only the intervention of the police, who had to use gas shells, quelled the disturbance.

Iain Taylor

The inconclusive result of the recent South African election is a great opportunity for the gospel, an evangelical leader says.

The vote means that the African National Congress (ANC) will invite other political parties to form a government of national unity. The ANC, whose leader is President Cyril Ramaphosa, has been in power since the end of apartheid in 1994. But Siegfried Ngubane, Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH SA) is optimistic when it comes to evangelism.

Iain Taylor

Over 3,000 people have heard the gospel in Tirana, Albania, at a major event organised by evangelicals in the country.

Before the mission, about 800 evangelicals met to focus on the church’s evangelistic imperative and to remember that ‘Jesus teaches us that we as a church should be lifted as a city up on the mountain top,’ Evangelical Focus reported.

Iain Taylor

‘Enough is enough,’ says Christian relief agency TearFund about Gaza: ‘We call for an immediate ceasefire.’

In a post on social media website X (formerly Twitter), the organisation says: ‘The crisis in Gaza has brought immense suffering over the past seven months, with thousands of people killed, injured, and forced to flee their homes.’

Iain Taylor

Christian students in the US are responding in diverse ways to the ongoing campus protests about Gaza and Israel.

Peter Dray, Director of Creative Evangelism at UCCF in the UK, said a friend in the States told him: ‘Some are joining in. The protests resonate with their Scripture-informed identification with their Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters, as well as their humanitarian concerns for the massive loss of life among civilians.’

Iain Taylor

Christians working in Eastern Europe have reacted with shock and horror to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill’s recent Easter sermon.

The Institute for War (ISW), a not-for-profit thinktank, has highlighted how he used it to support Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Iain Taylor

Christian agencies working in Pakistan are welcoming a draft Bill now before the Parliament in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province. The Punjab Child Marriage Restraint Act is designed to prevent child marriages by raising the legal age for marriage for both boys and girls to 18 years.

Previously the age for girls was just six-teen. Its broader significance, if enacted, is that it should make it harder for Muslims to abduct and forcibly marry Christian girls, before then converting them to Islam.

Iain Taylor

Christian organisations working in the Middle East are praising God that church bells are again ringing in Raqqa, the sixth largest city in Syria. Three church buildings in what was the capital of the Caliphate of so-called Islamic State from 2014 -17 were handed back to the Christian community recently. They had been taken care of by other organisations since Raqqa was liberated

George Makeen is Ministry Content Advisor of SAT-7 Arabic, part of the SAT-7 Christian TV network broadcasting across North Africa and the Middle East. He said: ‘The fact that people can now rebuild their churches and ring their bells is a sign of hope in a place that suffered much. SAT-7 is aware of the good work churches are doing in Syria; the ecumenical spirit is growing, and different denominations are working together to support Christian families. Churches are providing education, giving hope to young people.

Iain Taylor

Iranian evangelists have recently given away 22,000 New Testaments – and are praying that each one will prompt someone to discover Jesus.

Elam Ministries, which works to strengthen and expand the church in the Iran region and beyond, has sent en this story which begins with a New Testament in Persian. Fifteen years ago a woman called Zahra found the small red book in a private home in Iran where she worked as a cleaner. Intrigued by the notorious text, she quietly slipped it into her bag. Later, as she read her stolen Scriptures, her heart warmed toward Jesus. But she knew no Christians and over time her interest faded. Life became stressful so she started using drugs and was an addict for many years.

Iain Taylor

In a bizarre twist to the ongoing gender debate, a museum in Australia is fighting to keep its latest exhibition as women only – by becoming a ‘church’.

This is after a court ordered that men should be allowed entry under anti-discrimination laws. Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has appealed the ruling.

Iain Taylor

More than 150 churches have been damaged or destroyed in Sudan since the war began last April, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Website Evangelical Focus reports that the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has already claimed over 13,000 lives and devastated religious communities.

Iain Taylor

Early June sees the result of the Indian general election, with Christian groups and governmental organisations expressing concerns about the impact the expected re-election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi might have on religious freedom.

Almost a billion voters are taking part. Release International, which supports persecuted Christian worldwide, has drawn attention to keynote new statistics which detail a dramatic increase in acts of violence against Christians in India. The Evangelical Fellowship of India has uncovered a record 601 cases of persecution against Christians in 2023 – a rise of 45% on the previous year. And the United Christian Forum says the violence has continued into 2024. Their latest report lists more than 160 attacks in the first quarter of this year alone.

Iain Taylor

Kaliningrad is an historical and geographical anomaly. A city and larger land area sharing the same name, it is located between Poland and Lithuania on the southern Baltic coast. It formed part of East Prussia before becoming subsumed into Bismarck’s unified Germany in 1871.

After World War II the German population headed west and the territory was settled by people from across the Soviet Union. When the communist state collapsed in 1991 and many former Soviet republics gained their independence, Kaliningrad remained within the Russian Federation. It now has a total population of about 1.2 million people and a land area of slightly under 6,000 square miles. Its strategic significance is amplified by it being the only ice-free Russian port on the Baltic Sea.

Iain Taylor

Spiritual battles continue day and night across the globe, including in the heart of the remote rainforest. The following example was featured in The Washington Post recently.

Rupert Shelley, Director of Mission Partnerships at international mission agency Crosslinks, says it reminds us how ‘the gospel is indeed growing and bearing fruit in extraordinary ways across many parts of South America’.

Iain Taylor

Christians working in Mozambique are becoming increasingly concerned about the human cost of the wave of violence now sweeping south across the country.

The persecuted-church agency Open Doors reports that over 70,000 people, mostly women and children, have been displaced from their homes in northern Mozambique following a sharp rise in attacks by Islamist militants.

Iain Taylor

Christians and churches across vast tracts of southern Africa are bracing themselves for famine following a crippling drought. Across the region farmers suffered the driest February in decades. It has wiped out crops, led to power shortages, and now threatens to send already expensive food prices surging even higher.

In February, many parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had the lowest recorded rainfall since 1981. The dry spell, blamed on the El Niño weather system, is but the latest indicator of how severely Africa is being impacted by extreme weather events, which many scientists say are becoming increasingly frequent and severe due to man-made climate change.

Iain Taylor

On 14 April 2014, 276 mainly Christian girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants from Chibok Girls State Secondary school, in northeastern Nigeria. Although some escaped and more have been rescued, 91 remain missing ten years later.

Persecuted church agency Open Doors’ supporters have been praying for the safe return of those girls for many years. Evangelicals Now asked a spokesperson for the organisation for an update on this appalling situation.

Iain Taylor

More than 2,000 evangelical women from across the globe gathered in Cordoba, in southern Spain, for the 2024 ‘Aglow Spain’ conference. One delegate told Evangelicals Now that both she and the friends she brought along were ‘touched from the message of the Word of God.’

Aglow is an international organization of women and men in more than 170 nations of the world, ‘presenting Biblical principles as solutions to the challenging issues of our time’.

Iain Taylor

Thirty out of the estimated 1,000 Christians still left in Gaza have been killed, according to local church sources.

And as Gaza’s Christian population continues to shrink, down from about 3,500 before the war began, commentators fear that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world may be literally dying out.

Iain Taylor

Nicaraguan-born Bianca Jagger, former wife of Rolling Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger, has warned that the country’s last ray of hope is the church (including evangelicals) – and that it has become the target of the country’s totalitarian government.

She also claimed that Nicaragua’s independent media and educational institutions are being trampled by President Daniel Ortega in order to dismantle the country’s democratic society.

Iain Taylor

A Ukrainian evangelical has spoken of the ‘awful tragedy’ in which a pastor’s daughter was killed in a Russian drone strike.

The attack in March killed 12 people in an apartment block in Odesa on the Black Sea coast. They included a young mother called Anna, and her small baby. Anna was the daughter of Pastor Nikolai, a respected Baptist minister in the city.

Iain Taylor

Can you imagine waiting 24 years for the chance to be baptised?

That was exactly what happened to Maral*, one of 34 Iranian Christian women who attended Elam Ministries women’s conference recently in a country close to Iran. Elam’s purpose is to strengthen and expand the church of Christ in and beyond Iran. The women’s conferences have been going for over 15 years for Persian-speaking (Iranian and Afghan) women. The multi-day residential conferences enable women to enjoy Bible teaching, worship, fellowship, and prayer ministry.

Iain Taylor

The bodies of a church pastor and his wife from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been found, by two children, three weeks after they were abducted by Islamist militants.

The pastor, of the Eglise Message du Temps church in Bayeti, was snatched with his wife and a number of other Christians from the church during a service. Five church members were killed during the initial raid, including the pastor’s two children. The attack was by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist extremist rebel group who, using guns and machetes, had killed at least 12 local Christians while they were working on their farms.

Iain Taylor

A remarkable initiative whereby Arab Christians extend the hand of friendship to their Jewish neighbours is unfolding in Nazareth.

In a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, Israeli social-media influencer Hananya Naftali highlights the work of Pastor Salim, an Arab who grew up hating Israel before he converted to Christianity. During lockdown his church delivered food parcels to needy families and he surprised the Jewish mayor of Nazareth by ensuring they also had crates of matzot (unleavened bread) so they could properly celebrate Passover.

Iain Taylor

European Missionary Fellowship has appointed its first missionaries in Finland, Eelis and Manna Halmemies. Eelis is the pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church in Jyväskylä (about 170 miles north of Helsinki); he and his wife Manna have four children, with a fifth on the way.

Eelis was raised in a loving, conservative Pentecostal family in Finland. He encountered the gospel in his youth, but only came to a personal conviction of sin and understood the significance of the cross of Christ in High School, through studying the Living Waters material. He was then baptised and joined the local Pentecostal church aged 18.

Iain Taylor

Persecuted church agency Open Doors is calling upon the Nigerian President urgently to liberate the 500 or so mostly women and schoolchildren abducted by Islamist terrorists in the past few weeks.

In Gamboru Ngala, a market town in Borno State, 200 people were kidnapped when they were going to collect firewood. The other abduction, from Kaduna State in northern Nigeria, saw 280 students, some as young as eight years old, taken by gunmen on motorcycles.

Iain Taylor

UK groups supporting Christians in Pakistan have welcomed the election of Anthony Naveed as the first Christian Deputy Speaker of the Sindh Provincial Assembly, in the south of Pakistan. Naveed is the only Christian selected for a reserved seat for minorities in the Assembly by the progressive Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) following the recent general election.

Juliet Chaudhury of the British Asian Christian Association said: ‘Naveed’s election, representing Sind’s Christian minority of approximately 400,000 people, is a significant achievement amidst stiff competition from the influential Hindu minority. It positions him as the third most powerful decision-maker in the province.

Iain Taylor

Yemen is one of the hardest places in the world to follow Jesus. This story, which comes from persecuted church agency Open Doors, is about Saleh*, a faithful believer who spreads the gospel despite extreme opposition.

Once Saleh decided to become a Christian, and although evangelising is very dangerous in Yemen, he would tell people about Jesus outside his local mosque. But persecution for that kind of boldness is inevitable. He was interrogated and accused of apostasy (converting from Islam), which can lead to execution. Thankfully, Saleh’s tribe stood with him, which is very important in Yemeni culture.

Iain Taylor

In what has been described as an exciting and unprecedented move, the Pakistan Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFE&PT) has approved a new Religious Education Curriculum 2023 for grades 1–12. The decision, which abolishes the necessity for Christians and other minorities to study Islam, heralds a major shift in national educational policy.

The new curriculum for non-Muslim students includes comprehensive teachings from seven religions: Bahai, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Kalasha, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. It acknowledges and celebrates Pakistan’s religious diversity and seeks to foster a broader understanding and respect for various religious beliefs.

Iain Taylor

Finnish Christian Democratic MP Dr Päivi Räsänen has declared she is ‘ready to defend free speech and freedom of religion’.

Her statement comes as the Prosecutor General for Finland announced that  she would – for the second time - appeal against Mrs Räsänen’s prior acquittals, and take the case before Finland’s Supreme Court. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeal had, in a series of court battles stretching back almost two years, earlier rejected all charges against her and Lutheran bishop Juhana Pohjola.

Iain Taylor

A brainwave that occurred to 65-year-old former Harrier pilot Andy Dakin while out walking his dog has led to almost 10,000 Bibles being given to Ukrainian military being trained in the UK.

Gulf War veteran Dakin is the Executive Director of the Naval & Military Bible Society (NMBS), which has been providing Bibles to the British armed forces since 1779. When it became apparent that the Ukraine conflict would not end as quickly as some initially predicted, the NMBS decided to offer spiritual support to Ukraine’s frontline combatants in the form of Bibles in their own language.

Iain Taylor

Where on earth would you find a Christian community making a living out of collecting smelly old rubbish – and one which has built a 20,000-seat church for itself out of almost solid rock?

The answer is Cairo, Egypt, and these real life Wombles are the Zabbaleen, or ‘garbage collectors’ in Arabic. They collect about 3,000 tonnes a day of the city’s waste and recycle about 80% of it – a dramatic improvement on most western cities, which barely reach 25%.

Iain Taylor

The first publication by Christianity Explored (CE)  came out in 2001 and the first training visit to the US was a few years later.  Today, CE materials are used in 60 languages and in over 140 countries, and up to 500,000 people a year complete a course – a total of about 5 million over the last 20 years or so. Other courses are Discipleship Explored and Life Explored; there are also versions for teens and children.

Matt Brubaker has just been appointed CE’s new CEO for North America. He has given Evangelicals Now an exclusive interview about his hopes for CE’s future there.

Iain Taylor

The construction of India’s largest Hindu temple, up to 160 feet tall, is a major cause for concern among those working for religious liberty in the world’s most populous nation.

The temple, Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, is currently only half built, but it was inaugurated recently by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the right-wing nationalist BJP party.

Iain Taylor

Queen Margrethe of Denmark astonished the world when she abdicated after almost 52 years on the throne.

Margrethe attends church services regularly, but the Christian faith only began to have meaning for her when she became Queen. ‘I felt very, very strongly that I was not alone, and then it grew,’ she has said.

Iain Taylor

An Orthodox Jewish writer Jonathan Feldstein is currently ‘praying for Gazans to get a little Jesus in 2024’.

Feldstein is president of the Genesis 123 Foundation, whose declared mission is to ‘build bridges between Jews and Christians with Israel in ways that are new, unique, and meaningful’. He made the call as he believes ‘the best and safest way to change the situation and bring peace [in Gaza] is for the masses of Gazans, and Palestinian Arabs in general, to convert to Christianity’.

Iain Taylor

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports that authorities in Chengdu, in China’s Sichuan Province, have employed a series of ‘unlawful expedients’ to prevent Christians taking part in an online prayer meeting.

The prayers were held to mark the fifth anniversary of a government campaign against the Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC), when over 100 members were arrested.

Iain Taylor

There were 5,000 Christian martyrs in 2023, a new report reveals.

The persecuted church agency Open Doors has published its annual World Watch List (WWL). This ranks the 50 countries where it is most difficult to profess and practice the Christian faith. Evangelicals Now was given an advance copy of WWL 2024, together with an exclusive interview with Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK & Ireland.

Iain Taylor

‘Jesus is in the rubble’ according to a Middle Eastern pastor, as Gaza continues to face intense Israeli military action and fears of war spreading accelerate.

Rhiannon de Laune (see photo), from Christian charity Embrace the Middle East, was quoting a Bethlehem pastor, Munther Isaac.

Iain Taylor

A car bumper sticker can change your life. Ask Matt Viljoen. Born in South Africa where he trained as a vet, Matt moved to Broadstairs in Kent with his wife and two young children in 1999. But on his way to work one morning, he saw a bumper sticker with the name and frequency of Christian radio station TWR.

Matt was intrigued. Having grown up regularly attending church, he and his wife had already committed themselves to that way of life, as ‘cultural Christians’. But shortly after they arrived in the UK, the Viljoens met another South African couple, one also a vet, who had come to faith in Christ. Their new friends led them to Christ.

Iain Taylor

The Church Mission Society (CMS), which absorbed the South American Mission Society (SAMS) in 2009, has responded to the election of far-right populist outsider Javier Milei as the new President of Argentina.

Speaking exclusively to Evangelicals Now, CMS spokesperson Naomi Steinberg commented: ‘From a mission point of view, we can see that the political, economic and environmental situation in Argentina is precarious and needs much prayer. Our people in mission in the region are praying that the new President will be surrounded by a leadership team that is wise, compassionate and full of integrity’.

Iain Taylor

The appalling death and destruction inflicted by both sides during the current Israel/Hamas conflict in the Middle East has horrified the world. But even amidst the carnage and destruction so visible on our TV screens day after day, churches and Christian organisations are bringing help and hope to the region, even though they too have also become intended or accidental targets of the violence.

Christian TV station SAT-7, which broadcasts across the Middle East, reports that shelling caused severe damage to a new cancer ward at the Anglican Church-funded Al Ahli hospital in Gaza. An explosion in its courtyard, thought to have been caused by a misfired Gazan missile, killed almost 500 people sheltering there. The hospital continues to operate as best it can, however, and has been accepting patients from other besieged hospitals that have had to stop working.

Iain Taylor

A Nigerian schoolboy who was abducted by gunmen, believed to be radicalised Fulani herders, has escaped after more than two years of captivity.

Treasure Ayuba, aged 14 (see photo), is the last of over 100 students to find freedom after they were kidnapped from their dormitory at Bethel Baptist High School in Damishi, Kaduna State in 2021. Their fate mirrors that of the 276 now-famous Chibok girls, who were abducted in Nigeria in 2014, but over 100 of them remain missing. Kidnappings for ransom are now endemic across northern Nigeria.

Iain Taylor

Even as it opened, the UN Climate Change Conference COP 28 was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The BBC revealed claims that hosts, the United Arab Emirates, were planning to make oil and gas deals with 15 other countries at the event. Despite that, many Christian groups were represented there, some as part of the Christian Climate Observers Program, a non-denominational Christian presence advocating for God’s creation. All are, perhaps, encouraged by the fact that COP28 for the first time featured a ‘faith pavilion’. Evangelicals Now spoke to four leading Christian environmental organisations about their hopes and fears for the conference.

Iain Taylor

Finnish MP Paivi Rasanen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola have been acquitted by the Finland Court of Appeal. They were accused of ‘hate speech’ and violating the nation’s statute against ‘War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity’ by sharing Bible verses and traditional Christian teaching about sexuality. Had they been found guilty they could have been sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Outside the Court Paivi said ‘I am relieved, happy and grateful to God and to all those who have supported me through this stage of my life. The decision was in line with my expectations – I never doubted for a moment that I committed any offence in my writings and statements.

Iain Taylor

Persecuted church agency Release International has welcomed a somewhat unusual event hosted by the European Parliament in Brussels – an exhibition about persecuted Christians worldwide.

The organiser was Dutch Christian MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen, together with Open Doors and SDOK (Foundation of the Underground Church). He said at the opening, which was attended by more than 100 people: ‘The EU has a moral duty to credibly protect freedom of religion. The EU claims to be a community of values but is now too often silent on serious violations. The thousands of victims and families must be able to rely on EU action. As an economic power bloc, we must hold all countries accountable, such that all believers are free to practice their religion.’

Iain Taylor

Christian TV network SAT-7, which broadcasts across the Middle East and North Africa, is calling for prayers from Christians worldwide in the aftermath of the earthquake in Morocco. The call comes as many evangelical organisations step up their relief efforts.

After a week of clearing rubble and beginning to process the mourning for the dead, there is much to be done to help those who have lost their homes or livelihoods. Around 3,000 people have been confirmed dead, and over 5,600 have been injured.

Iain Taylor

South Sudanese Christians caught up in the ongoing civil war have been sharing their few possessions with others – and seeing people give glory to God.

Tut Kony, director of a South Sudan-based umbrella mission organisation says:’ Our organisation is partnering [Bible translators] unfoldingWord [sic] in translating the Bible into Sudan’s unreached-people group languages. It also runs a school for believers from a Muslim background who are leading house church networks. Since the start of the war, we have also provided 562 families with food, and basic medical supplies.

Iain Taylor

An Islamic teacher who has come to faith in Christ is now selling pineapples – and telling customers: ‘Jesus is as sweet as a pineapple.’

‘Abdu’, who grew up wanting to be an Islamic scholar in Ethiopia, attended Qu’ranic schools and after 15 years became an Islamic teacher. But last year he met an old friend who had become a Christian. The friend frequently shared the gospel with Abdu, to the extent that Abdu started to rethink his beliefs.

Iain Taylor

The world looked on helplessly a few weeks ago as about 120,000 people fled the Nagorno-Karabakh region after it was seized by neighbouring Azerbaijan in a lightning-fast military campaign.

The region is situated between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, just north of Iran. This means that almost the entire population of the ethnic Armenian enclave has now left, to try to rebuild their lives in Armenia.

Iain Taylor

Arab World Ministries, based in Loughborough, said: ‘Let us pray for a lasting peace to this ongoing conflict. May the God of justice and peace protect the vulnerable, oppose those who seek to do evil, and bring righteousness. May all involved follow in the ways of the Prince of Peace.’

Christian TV station SAT-7 CEO Ri-ta El-Mounayer commented: ‘We are deeply shocked and grieved by the events we are witnessing in the Holy Land. We can barely comprehend the pain, horror, and loss that young and old alike are suffering. Our hearts go out to all those caught up in the fighting, especially to those whose lives have already been changed forever, by the loss of loved ones, or by injury and trauma.

Iain Taylor

Following weeks of attacks on Christians and churches in Jaranwala, Punjab, comes the latest outrage: a pastor shot by militants after removing Islamic slogans daubed across his church.

The attackers ordered Pastor Eleazar Sidhu to say aloud the Islamic creed. When he recited the Apostles’ Creed instead, they shot and wounded him.

Iain Taylor

A dramatic first-hand account of a fire which destroyed a chapel in Hawaii has been given by its pastor as the recovery effort gets underway.

On Maui, the deadliest fire in Hawaii’s history claimed the lives of well over 100 people. Pastor Kawi Keahi, who lost his home and the King’s Chapel in Lahaina, said: ‘The traffic was congested. Everyone was trying to leave.’ As they did so, the sky behind them turned ‘dark black, like everything was just going up in flames. While the people should have evacuated, they were walking around.’

Iain Taylor

The dramatic flight of Yuri Sipko to escape arrest for criticising Russia’s war on Ukraine was prompted ‘by his Biblical convictions that caused him to speak out’.

That is the verdict of Mark Foster of the Slavic Gospel Association, as Sipko, the former President of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RUECB) between 2002 and 2010, sought refuge in Germany.

Iain Taylor

(cid:31)e ‘not guilty’ verdict handed down to Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston – accused of concealing the crimes of his abuser father – brings mandatory reporting ‘into sharp focus,’ says a leading UK safeguarding expert.

Speaking exclusively to Evangelicals Now, Simon Bass of Church Safeguarding Consultancy said: ‘Many will have been shocked that Houston was acquitted, given how critical the Australian Royal Commission report back in 2014 was. The UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has called for the failure to report abuse to become a criminal offence. Such a law would undoubtedly encompass church leaders’.

Iain Taylor

Evangelical group Torrents de Vie has attracted the hostility of the media and the government in France after a journalist covertly recorded images and conversations at one of the organisation’s summer camps.

Torrents de Vie means ‘Streams Of Life’. Part of a larger international inter-denominational Christian ministry, it is active in ten French cities offering seminars, pastoral counselling and conferences. Its website says it ‘offers spiritual support, combining teaching, listening and prayer, to Christians of all denominations seeking help for their personal difficulties. Our values are based on Biblical love and grace’.

Iain Taylor

A Christian nurse who was kidnapped in Haiti has been released, saying she ‘holds no grudges’ against her abductors and forgives them.

She added: ‘My clinic doors are always open to you or anyone in need when you’re sick or wounded, without any problem.’

Iain Taylor

A Christian man and woman from central China are on the run after their church was raided and they were given a fine, persecuted church agency Open Doors has revealed.

Qiang (not his real name) and his wife had been discipling believers from the Han Chinese ethnic majority group before it was raided earlier this year. House churches are illegal in China, where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-approved, heavily monitored Three Self Patriotic Church is the only one permitted. Several leaders, including the couple and the church’s main leader, were arrested. Most were detained for five days and fined the equivalent of £2,100, but the leader will be held indefinitely as he is unable to pay his fine of £32,200.

Iain Taylor

Christians from around the world are on the ground bringing urgent relief in Morocco, following the huge earthquake there. The epicentre of the quake was in the Atlas Mountains, about 40 miles southwest of the busy tourist city of Marrakech. Thousands are dead and injured.

A representative of the Bible Society in Morocco said: ‘Your prayers and concern mean a lot to us here in Morocco … I am in the affected area, working alongside teams from different churches. We are delivering food supplies to believers and their families, and we are also assessing the needs for the near future.’

Iain Taylor

A Christian community in Sindh province, Pakistan is reeling from the devastating impact of recent flash flooding. The prolonged rains throughout the country have already claimed 159 lives, including many children. They have also caused significant damage, leaving families starving and homeless.

In Sindh the floods washed away the mud houses occupied by Christians at Khawaja Goth, a community that had previously survived the record-breaking floods of 2022. Despite its vulnerability, this community received no assistance from aid agencies or the Pakistani government.

Iain Taylor

An evangelical Methodist pastor in Los Angeles has spelled out the profound difficulties conservative congregations now face as they seek to quit the United Methodist Church (UMC) over its inclusion of LGBT leaders.

The Fount Church in Orange County and 21 other churches within the UMC’s California-Pacific Conference say they are being met with unfair departure terms, having been told they must pay half the value of the church’s property to leave the denomination – or risk having their land seized. Members of the Fount Church voted unanimously to disaffiliate from the denomination shortly after the UMC, which was founded in 1964, declared the region a ‘safe harbour’ for LGBTQ+ clergy.

Iain Taylor

UK mission agencies Crosslinks and European Mission Fellowship are hailing the astonishing growth of evangelical churches across Portugal over the last few years, driven mainly by highly intentional church planting.

Data recently published by the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance shows a remarkable increase in church plants by evangelical churches. Fully 44% of the evangelical churches in the country were started after 2001 and over 60% have ‘defined plans and locations to plant new churches in the next five years’. A large majority say their church is growing. These churches range in size from less than ten members to congregations of over 300.

Iain Taylor

The summer heatwave across the northern hemisphere has seen almost uncontrollable forest fires break out from Canada to China, Algeria to Greece, as soaring, record temperatures hit the high-40°sC.

But as soon as the flames were doused, the question on many people’s minds was – to what extent are these record thermometer levels the result of human-made climate change?

Iain Taylor

Popular Christian TV series The Chosen has shared a video on Instagram of 3,000 orphans in Madagascar watching the show in their own language. 

The airing took place at the direct request of the President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina.

Iain Taylor

Molly Worthen is a highly regarded historian and journalist who researches North American religious and intellectual history.

She is perhaps best known for her book Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism, which examines American evangelical intellectual life since 1945. She also writes regularly about religion, politics and higher education for the New York Times.

Iain Taylor

The first fish are ready for market from an innovative programme based on the idea of training pastors to work the land and support their ministry by selling produce.

The charity Equipping Pastors Worldwide (EPW) – born from the recent merger of the Pastor Training International and Christian Books Worldwide charities – supports majority world pastors who long to be faithful in serving Christ, but who lack the training and resources to do so.

Iain Taylor

Al-Qaeda has returned to Afghanistan and is re-establishing suicide bomber training camps which could prove a threat to Christians in Pakistan.

A new report for the UN Security Council also reveals that the Afghan Taliban is now paying monthly allowances to al-Qaeda fighters.

Iain Taylor

A massive iron gate slides open. Beyond it, rows of grimy, barred windows tower above a grey courtyard. Old blankets drape as sunshields over some, drying clothes hang from others, and a lone hand waves from a grilled window.

This is Roumieh prison, Lebanon’s largest men’s jail. It is a decaying, forbidding place that sometimes holds three times its intended capacity of 1,050 inmates. Since Lebanon’s economic collapse it has been starved of needed funding.

Iain Taylor

The mass slaughter of Christians across parts of Nigeria, violence which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over two million people, is almost entirely fuelled by Islamist extremism.

This is the stark keynote conclusion of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB)’s new report Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide? Three Years On, which has just been launched in parliament. It features contributions from a range of 47 Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), think tanks, journalists, academics and charities.

Iain Taylor

Two persecuted church agencies – Release International and Article 18 – have hailed the news that there are now well over a million practicing Christian believers in Iran. Almost all are converts from Islam.

Daniel Pipes, a Jewish researcher and author, was one of the first to notice the trend. In Newsweek he wrote ‘Something religiously astonishing is taking place in Iran, where an Islamist government has ruled since 1979: Christianity is flourishing. The implications are potentially profound.

Iain Taylor

Around 6,500 teenagers and young people from churches across France gathered in Zénith d’Auvergne at a large triennial congress – Echo 2023 – that seeks to encourage young members of evangelical churches to discover God’s calling. The theme of Echo 2023 was ‘See, I Am Doing Something New’ (Isa. 43:9).

The programme was based on three areas: ‘Me and God; Us and God; You and Me’. It included preaching, worship, workshops, concerts and special programmes for Ados (12–17 years old) and Jeunes (18 and over). Christian youth workers also offered training and connections. Seminars addressed issues such as Bible reading, Christian ethics, science and faith, and sexuality.

Iain Taylor

In times of secularisation and confusion, the church needs to recover its integrity and a desire to proclaim the gospel boldly. These were the main messages heard at the 2023 European Leadership Forum (ELF) conference, in Wisla, Poland, recently.

‘Gospel integrity is a major need for the church now’, theologian Michael Reeves (England) told the 750 participants on the first evening. ‘The moral deficiencies and spiritual dryness that Christians bemoan, have roots’, he said. ‘We are astonished when evangelical leaders fail’, but this only shows that often evangelical leaders ‘minimise sin and offer shallow repentance’.

Iain Taylor

German autobahns are now offering spiritual recharging, as well as fuel and food, at more than 44 service stations on the nation’s motorway network, it is reported.

Among the better known ‘motorway churches’ is the futuristic Autobhankirche Siegerland, on the A45 motorway between Dortmund and Frankfurt. Built as a worship place in 2013, it recently celebrated its first decade in operation with a special event.

Iain Taylor

Fifty Christian families have returned to Mosul in northern Iraq as efforts continue to rebuild one church almost totally destroyed under ISIS rule.

When its fanatical warriors arrived in 2014, they first stole the bells, a gift from the French government in the 19th century, and sold them to be melted down.

Iain Taylor

With the eyes of the world now fixed firmly on the new military offensive by Ukraine and the aftermath of the Kakhovka dam breach, Russia’s ongoing campaign to persecute and shut down non-Orthodox churches in the occupied regions shows no sign of stopping.

Respected US think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, has announced the following recent events: ‘Russian forces have shut down another Ukrainian evangelical Christian church in Mariupol, probably as part of a wider systematic religious persecution campaign in occupied Ukraine. Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor, Petro Andryushchenko, reported that Russian forces seized the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in Mariupol and are using it to house 10 to 30 Russian servicemen.

Iain Taylor

An innovative gospel outreach in Jerusalem has sparked great interest among hundreds of Jewish people wanting to know more about the claims of Jesus.

The brainchild of the International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP), the five-day initiative was specifically designed for those who had lived through the Holocaust. It comprised four tours of Biblical sites in Galilee, ending with a concert featuring performances by local musicians (all Jewish believers in Jesus), and a gospel presentation by IMJP missionary, Aviel Sela. It formed part of a strategic plan, developed over a number of years, to reach Jewish people with the good news about Jesus. More than 200 people joined the site tours, to places such as the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, and 185 Jewish people attended the concert, 156 of whom gave their contact details and took away Christian literature.

Iain Taylor

An Iranian secret agent who was gathering undercover intelligence to ensnare Christians has found himself unexpectedly coming to faith.

Now ‘Arvin’ has started a new fellowship group which includes two relatives – former regime hardliners – who have also come to faith through his witness. The story came to en via Elam Ministries, an organisation founded in 1990 with a vision to reach the Persian-speaking world for Christ. Its executive director David Yeghnazar spoke of the extraordinary story of this dramatic conversion that took place in Iran recently:

Iain Taylor

Joe Bell, Presiding Bishop of South Africa for more than a decade, has died aged 85.

He was born in Cape Town and was a keen athlete and rugby player at school before injury ended his rugby-playing days. He studied at the Bible Institute of South Africa. After graduating, he and wife Christine served at Christ Church, Sybrand Park, Cape Town and St Mark’s Church, Plumstead, in South East London, where he was first curate and then rector between 1966 and 1972.

Iain Taylor

A major new report highlights what it describes as worsening religious freedom around the world. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)’s 2023 Annual Report urges that Nigeria and India should now be designated countries of particular concern.

It ‘sounds the alarm regarding the deterioration of religious freedom conditions in a range of countries’ and adds five countries to its list of the world’s worst offenders. They are Nigeria, India, Afghanistan, Syria, and Vietnam.

Iain Taylor

Romnal Colas was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Before starting his new role as Tearfund’s Country Director for Haiti in January 2023, Romnal worked as a Church and Community Transformation advisor in Latin America and the Caribbean region.

He has 18 years of experience working with the church at a local level. en spoke to him about the situation there.

Iain Taylor

Christian medics and dentists are playing a crucial role in the Ukraine conflict – despite the constant threat of missile attacks.

The International Christian Medical and Dental Association (ICMDA) links around 60,000 Christian doctors and dentists in over 100 countries worldwide.

Iain Taylor

An evangelical church in Sudan has been set on fire by Islamists and others are being attacked as violence continues to grip the country.

The Sudanese Army and paramilitary group the Rapid Support Force (RSF) are fighting for control on the streets of capital Khartoum. Hundreds have been killed and thousands wounded. And Sudanese Christians are finding themselves caught up in the conflict. Among others, worshippers at the Blessed Church in Omdurman who were shot at recently. Both sides blamed each other for the attack.

Iain Taylor

Two leading Christian organisations – the Christian Medical Fellowship and the Christian Institute – have sounded the alarm over a chilling new Japanese film about voluntary euthanasia.

Plan 75 is directed by Chie Hayakawa. The fictional film addresses issues surrounding Japan’s rapidly-ageing population and portrays a future society in which anyone aged 75 can simply place themselves in the calm, efficient hands of the state and be euthanised. Those with money and family can do so at the end of a two-day premium package, after spa treatments and special meals. Those without are given enough cash to pay for basic funeral costs before lying down on a camp bed in a dark, silent room divided by curtains where they quietly acquiesce to being gassed to death.

Iain Taylor

Leading think-tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says Russia is ‘committing gross violations of religious freedom’.

The ISW produces a daily online briefing, with maps, of the up-to-date military situation in Ukraine.

Iain Taylor

The book of Daniel is the inspiration behind international Spanish songwriter and church pastor Marcos Vidal’s new song, which is entitled Nosotros no (We are not).

The subject, Christians standing firm against accusations of hate speech, is highly relevant, he says. ‘We are going to be accused of hate speech and that is where a Christian really has to decide whether he or she wants to pay that price or not’, he says.

Iain Taylor

Christians are speaking about the aftermath of the earthquakes that struck southern Turkey and northwestern Syria a few weeks ago leaving at least 44,000 people dead.

Abdallah is pastor of the Alliance Church in Aleppo, one of the few regions still controlled by opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He said that, even before the earthquake, people were living in economic crisis, unable to afford their basic needs due to inflation and constantly rising prices. Afterwards, with many buildings destroyed, forcing people to live in the streets in freezing weather, it became much worse.

Iain Taylor

Dabrina Bet-Tamraz, a Christian Iranian- Assyrian rights activist, was born in Iran in 1985. In this interview with en’s Iain Taylor she reflects on recent events there and tells her story. She is no longer in Iran.

en: Can you describe your experiences with the Iranian Morality Police?

Iain Taylor

An evangelical missionary in Mozambique says storms and rain were ‘incessant’ and poorly-constructed houses around her were ‘flooding and collapsing’ as a tropical storm battered the country.

Cyclone Freddy, the longest-ever recorded tropical cyclone, which has returned several times, ripped through the country and neighbouring Malawi with over 600 dead and countless people missing, injured or made homeless.

Iain Taylor

The nonstop, two-week prayer session at Asbury University that brought tens of thousands of people from across the USA to the Christian campus in Kentucky has finally ended. But speculation is continuing about why and how the event, now known as the ‘Asbury revival’ or ‘outpouring,’ occurred – and what it means.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is in no doubt. Speaking exclusively to Evangelicals Now, Senior Advisor Tom Phillips said ‘This is more than just a spark. It’s becoming a flame, and young people are leading the way.’

Iain Taylor

The new Miss Germany, Kira Geiss, is a committed Christian. She has won a title that, according to the organisers, is no longer about beauty alone, but also about social engagement and the ability to empower other people.

‘I think it is time to not only take care of the healthy maintenance of our planet, but also to actively engage in allowing people to heal and grow internally’, she says on the Miss Germany website, where she is described as a ‘theology student, aspiring religious and community educator, and visual merchandiser’.

Iain Taylor

The body of former Ghana and Newcastle football player Christian Atsu, an evangelical believer, has been found under the rubble left by the recent earthquakes in Turkey.

He died, aged just 31, when he was playing for local club Hatayspor. His extensive charity work touched countless lives, transforming many for the better from West Africa to Western Europe and the Middle East.

Iain Taylor

A 14-year-old boy who lay under the rubble of an earthquake is one of many who have been helped by a global Christian charity.

Many readers of Evangelicals Now will know of Samaritans Purse through its annual Operation Christmas Child shoebox appeal, which has delivered boxes to more than 208m children in over 160 countries since 1993. But Samaritans Purse has also responded to more than 100 disasters around the world since 2009. Working through local churches and ministry partners the international charity, which has Franklin Graham as its President, is highly experienced in humanitarian recovery work, including food distribution, water, sanitation and hygiene, shelter and medical services. 

Iain Taylor

A Maltese man has appeared in court for his alleged promotion of conversion therapy. This case may set a key precedent, as several European countries – including the UK - have banned or are proposing to ban conversion therapy.

Matthew Grech is a member of the River of Love Pentecostal church. The 33-year-old is a former homosexual, converted to Christianity, who has now renounced his sexual orientation. He is charged with breaching the ban on the advertisement of gay conversion therapies, a law introduced in 2016, following an interview he gave to local media outlet PMnews (Public Media News), Malta. If found guilty he could receive a €5,000 fine or be sentenced to five months in prison.

Iain Taylor

A tiny historic Presbyterian church in Spain, which began whilst Fascist dictator General Francisco Franco ruled the country, is at last bearing much fruit for the gospel and is rapidly increasing in numbers.

The church, Iglesia Cristiana Reformada (Christian Reformed Church) de Madrid, which is part of the Egglesia Reformada group and a member of the European Missionary Fellowship, was founded by Jose de Segovia in the early 1970s.

Iain Taylor

Igal Vender was born in Ukraine but emigrated to Israel with his family in 1988. He began using drugs as a child and later switched to heroin and cocaine.

Igal writes: ‘I was an addict and in and out of prison, but empty inside. I came to faith after meeting an old friend who had become a Christian. Now I am a missionary with IMJP (the International Mission to Jewish People) telling Jewish people about Jesus.’ Igal Vender tells his story to Iain Taylor for en.

Iain Taylor

A 37-year-old father of four has been murdered after taking part in a Christian-Muslim debate in eastern Uganda – an event at which 13 Muslims put their faith in Christ.

Ahamada Mafabi was returning from the debate in Nakaloke, Mbale when men on motorcycles shouting the jihadist slogan Allah Akbar (God is great), knocked him to the ground and cut his neck with a long Somali knife. He is survived by his wife and four children, aged three to 14, all of whom have been relocated for their own safety.

Iain Taylor

Persecution scores have almost doubled over the last 30 years, the latest 'World Watch List' from Open Doors reveals.

2023 marks the 30th year that the gruesome chart has been compiled. To mark the occasion, Evangelicals Now obtained exclusive interviews with Jim Shannon MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB), and Timothy Cho, Open Doors UK spokesperson for North Korea.

Iain Taylor

Matt Chandler has returned to the pulpit of The Village Church, Flower Mound, Texas.

He was suspended in August 2022 after exchanging a series of Instagram messages with a woman who was not his wife. The Southern Baptist Convention church hired law firm Castaneda and Heidelman to conduct an investigation but declined to publish its report, wanting ‘to honour the request of the woman Matt was messaging with not to be in the spotlight’. Chandler called the exchanges ‘unguarded and unwise’, although the church stressed that they ‘were not sexual or romantic’.

Iain Taylor

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a controversial new package of counter-terrorism measures, including tougher sentences for extremism and heightened electronic surveillance of Russian citizens.

The law also bans evangelism outside church buildings, and anyone involved in a religious event must secure a government permit through a registered religious organisation. The restrictions even apply to activity in private residences and online. Foreign visitors who break this law will face deportation.

Iain Taylor

At the second Revive Europe conference at Karlsruhe, Germany at the start of 2023, 2,300 students from 86 nations (mainly European) gathered in their desire to see revival in their generation across the continent.

It focused on repentance, forgiveness and awakening as delegates were equipped to be strong witnesses of Jesus in their universities and beyond.

Iain Taylor

Evangelicals have came together for a major global consultation on how to improve collaboration in theological education.

More than 500 people from 80 countries took part in the ‘C-22’ consultation at Izmir, Turkey, hosted by the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE). The aim was to strengthen collaboration across all forms of theological education worldwide.

Iain Taylor

The Anglican Church and the UK government have expressed ‘dismay’ at an attack on an historic Christian cemetery close to Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

More than 30 graves at the Protestant Cemetery on Mount Zion were desecrated. Crosses were broken and headstones toppled and smashed. Jewish extremists have been blamed for the vandalism.

Iain Taylor

Authorities in Islamabad, Pakistan have bulldozed 115 houses of Christian slum dwellers – whilst leaving the homes of nearby Muslim residents untouched. The victims are mainly deprived sewage, drainage and domestic cleaning workers.

Without warning the Christians, who had been preparing to go to work, were faced with teams of men with pickaxes, mallets and a steady stream of bulldozers and cranes, intent on destroying the homes that had been built by their occupants with cement and breeze-blocks. The families are now forced to live in tents, and other makeshift structures, with minimal insulation, through the bitterly cold Islamabad winter.

Iain Taylor

Widely-circulated figures which appeared to show a significant decline in church attendance for a major Australian evangelical group are now known to be an example of internet ‘fake news’.

A table of attendance figures now circulating on the web claims to show that Anglican churches in Sydney lost 10,000 regular attenders in the year the Sydney Anglican diocese gave money to the ‘No’ side in a national same-sex marriage postal vote.

Iain Taylor

Archaeological and other activity at three key Biblical sites looks set to shed new light on some important passages of Scripture.

The Pool at Siloam, where Jesus healed the blind man (John 9:1–11), has long been considered a sacred Christian site, but its exact location remained a mystery until 2004. Then, as a large water pipe south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount was repaired, two ancient stone steps were identified. Further excavation revealed that they were part of a monumental pool from the time of Jesus.

Iain Taylor

A key pact made at the COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt doesn’t have enough money behind it to make it work, according to an evangelical climate expert.

Andy Atkins, chief executive of green Christian organisation A Rocha, said of the ‘Loss and Damage Agreement’ – designed to compensate poorer countries suffering from climate change:

Iain Taylor

Persecuted church agency Release International has announced that the bodies of Ukrainian Evangelical church leader Anatoliy Prokopchuk (52) and his 19-year-old son Oleksandr have been discovered in a forest.

They had been tortured and killed, four days after being abducted by Russian soldiers. According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group and the Global Investigative Journalism Network, father and son were taken whilst they were working in their garage, close to Kherson. The reasons for their abduction are not known.

Iain Taylor

Church leaders must speak out more against violence towards women, an evangelical leader says.

Christian relief agency Tearfund’s Gender and Protection Unit Lead, Sabine Nkusi, says faith leaders around the world must play their part in ending violence against women.

Iain Taylor

A school run by Germany-based Christian aid organisation Shelter Now has reopened in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Now called the Helping Hands Educational Centre, it was closed after the Taliban took power in summer 2021 but the militant Islamic group has now given permission for lessons to begin again.

Iain Taylor

Jihadists and nationalists are driving increased persecution of Christians around the world, according to a new report.

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)’s Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020-22 found that in 75% of the 24 countries surveyed, oppression or persecution of Christians has increased.

Iain Taylor

The return of Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party, who has just swept back to power in Israel with the aid of new far-right allies, is causing concern amongst mission agencies working with Jewish people.

Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, having been in office for a total of 15 years, from 1996-99 and 2009-21. He has been a controversial figure for many years, not least for facing charges of bribery and fraud whilst previously in office. His main new coalition partner, the Religious Zionists, is led by the right-wing extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who celebrated their electoral success at an all-male campaign gathering overnight in Jerusalem, where supporters waved Israeli flags and chanted ‘death to terrorists’.

Iain Taylor

Hundreds of Christians, Hindus and Muslims are being given health care at a Christian post-flood medical camp in Pakistan.

The extreme 2022 monsoon flooding may be over, certainly in terms of secular media attention. But great pools of stagnant water still remain in three Christian villages -Poppat Colony, Ibrahim Khan Mari and Raja Khan Mari – where mosquitos have infected people with malaria and other water-related illnesses. Cases of other water-borne diseases, such as cholera, typhoid and dengue fever, are also prevalent, as is dysentery.

Iain Taylor

Following the latest military coup in Burkina Faso, the West’s politicians are apparently now worried that Russian mercenaries may be invited in to quell the jihadist uprising there.

Meanwhile, Western Christians are being asked to pray for their brothers and sisters in the unstable and poverty-stricken West African nation, that they may have the courage to keep preaching the gospel.

Iain Taylor

Two major recent conferences in western Europe have sought to encourage evan-gelicals to preach the word of God and to live out their faith.

The first national ‘Taller de Predicación’ (Preaching Workshop) conference took place at El Escorial, Madrid. Over 140 preachers from many different Spanish evangelical denominations challenged each other to preach from the word of God to a sceptical culture. This is one of the key goals of the evangelical movement that has flourished across many Spanish regions during the last decade.

Iain Taylor

The Myanmar army (Tatmadaw) military has launched two unprovoked attacks, using sophisticated military hardware, against its own citizens in majority Christian states.

The first assault, by three fighter jets on a music festival in Kachin state, killed over 80 people and injured 200. The concert was held by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), a prominent ethnic resistance group. Among those killed were popular musicians, artists, and church elders. The Kachin Baptist Convention said that many of the victims were Christians.

Iain Taylor

Despite extensive searches and enquiries by Baptist churches, there is no news whatsoever of missing pastor Leonid Ponomaryov and his wife Tatyana.

They were seized by armed, masked men wearing military uniform from their home in Russian-occupied Mariupol in September. Neighbours ‘distinctly heard groans and cries’ as the masked men took Leonid and Tatyana away ‘in an unknown direction’, local Baptists said. Indications are that they were taken after they refused to allow their church building to be used for the referendum held to rubber stamp the annexation of the eastern Ukrainian territory by Russia.

Iain Taylor

Print, broadcast and online media has been swift to publish new images of the ‘Pillars of Creation’.

These cool, dense clouds of hydrogen gas and dust in the Serpens constellation, some 6,500 light-years from Earth, are now visible in stunning scale, colour and beauty thanks to the new James Webb space observatory, which was launched in 2021.

Iain Taylor

An evangelical relief worker says there are ‘devastating’ sights in East Africa right now as 22 million people experience acute hunger.

Elizabeth Myendo, Disaster Management Lead for Tearfund in East and Southern Africa, says: ‘I have just returned from Uganda and what I saw there was devastating. We saw elderly people collapsed by the roadside, too weak from hunger to stand, or even speak. Children who are not even able to sit up. They haven’t eaten a proper meal in weeks, they are foraging for dried weeds just to survive.

Iain Taylor

What does the situation in Iran mean for the fast-growing number of Christians in the country?

Despite everything else in the news right now, many have been gripped by the mainly women-led protests taking place in Iran following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She had been detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly failing to wear the hijab properly. The Iranian security forces are cracking down hard on the demonstrations, scores of people having died as live ammunition is used against protesters hurling rocks, torching police cars and setting fire to state buildings. Some women have removed and burned their hijabs in the rallies and cut off their hair, whilst chanting ‘woman, life, freedom’.

Iain Taylor

A pacificist evangelical pastor has fled the far east of Russia after being told he would face years in jail if he refused to fight – despite what he says is ‘a constitutional right not to take up arms’.

The church minister, speaking anonymously via a well-placed source, said: ‘Mobilisation of men into the army is taking place and they are being sent to Ukraine. Previously [only] men who had served in the army before and had experience took part in combat action.

Iain Taylor

A Christian with no arms and no legs says his strength is in ‘Christ, prayer and daily Bible reading.’

Nick Vujicic is an Australian-American – born without arms or legs – who has become a world-renowned Christian speaker, New York Times best-selling author, coach and entrepreneur. ‘Dis-arming Nick’ is the phrase headlining his personal website.

Iain Taylor

Brother Andrew, the founder of Open Doors and known around the world as ‘God’s Smuggler’ (also the title of his best-selling book), has died aged 94.

Brother Andrew was born in Sint Pancras, the Netherlands. He joined the colonial army of the Dutch East Indies, and converted to Christianity during a period of convalescence, where he spent much of his time reading the Bible. In 1955 he travelled to Poland, with a suitcase full of Christian tracts, ostensibly for a Communist youth rally. There, he discovered that churches behind the Iron Curtain were isolated and in need of encouragement. He then started smuggling Bibles to them in a blue Volkswagen Beetle.

Iain Taylor

Christian converts in controversial World Cup host Qatar come under ‘extreme pressure’ say experts – and the host country also faces allegations of labour abuse, corruption and money-laundering.

The men’s international soccer tournament will kick off on Sunday 20 November in the Al Bayt Stadium, with the hosts playing Ecuador.

Iain Taylor

Feedback from viewers of two regional Christian TV stations reveals early indications that Christianity may be growing among Afghans.

The violence and despair that has followed the Taliban return are causing many young Afghans to ask searching questions about their culture and their convictions. And although many Christians fled after the takeover, some have chosen to remain so they can continue to be a Christian witness and serve their people.

Iain Taylor

Severe flooding in Pakistan has affected 33 million people and caused well over 1,000 deaths, according to the National Disaster Management Agency. More than a quarter of a million people are in shelters, one-third of the country is under water, and damaged infrastructure is hampering aid and rescue operations. Some experts say the flood water could remain for months and crops fail for up to two years.

Evangelicals Now has been granted an exclusive interview with Juliet Chowdhry of the British Asian Christian Association (BACA), an advocacy and community relations organisation now actively involved in the relief work.

Iain Taylor

David Eastwood is Field Director for OMF in Taiwan, where he has been working for 30 years, and now oversees 70 missionaries.

OMF’s focus in Taiwan is on working-class and marginalised communities, such as prostitutes, the homeless and orphans, who are often overlooked by those agencies who concentrate on reaching the middle classes. Evangelicals Now spoke to him exclusively about the current situation there.

Iain Taylor

Christianity’s future is likely to be shaped by African women, new research says – but there is a danger of false teaching being influential as well.

New research by American scholar of the history of mission, Gina Zurlo, shows that women are the majority in churches nearly everywhere in the world, and that Christianity’s future is poised to be shaped by African women in particular.

Iain Taylor

A preaching workshop being held in the Italian capital is expanding rapidly.

‘Workshop Predicazione’ looks set to double the numbers attending in 2022.

Iain Taylor

Indian church-planting missionary Elavatta Abraham has an extraordinary experience of how God has worked in his life.

He told his story exclusively to Evangelicals Now during a brief trip to the UK to attend the Cambridge Leaders Network conference.

Iain Taylor

The need for healing and hope is huge in Ukraine. So TWR Ukraine, Trans World Radio’s (TWR) local partner, has been producing new content which is not only reaching Ukrainians but also the nation’s traditional Roma, or Romany, communities.

Around 200,000 to 300,000 Roma live in Ukraine; thousands are committed Christians. Despite their challenging and often poor circumstances, many enjoy using modern technology, giving TWR Ukraine a variety of ways to reach them.

Iain Taylor

Evangelical Christianity is quietly flourishing among migrant groups in the Gulf as churches provide low-paid workers facing horrific abuse with aid in times of crisis.

About 30 million migrant workers live in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Migrants make up most of the population in some places, with up to 80% employed in construction, hospitality and domestic jobs.

Iain Taylor

Religious freedom in Hong Kong is facing dangerous threats from the Chinese Communist Party, warned the the Revd Jonathan Aitken, as Chinese President Xi Jinping marked the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain.

‘The skies are darkening for religious freedom in Hong Kong,’ said the former cabinet minister and MP, now a church minister.

Iain Taylor

A church in Ukraine has given away 10,000 gospels to its country’s troops – and has a further 40,000 to distribute.

Hope Lebedyn is a church founded by Sergey Ovcharenko which aims for community regeneration, aid provision and, most importantly, spreading the gospel. Lebedyn is about 80 miles north west of Kharkiv and close to the border with Belarus.

Iain Taylor

An international humanitarian organisation whose director was previously imprisoned in a freezing cold metal container by the Taliban has become the first Christian group permitted to return to Afghanistan.

Shelter Now International (SNI) has been invited to return by the hardline Islamic regime to help with relief efforts in the country. And it has already provided humanitarian aid in the provinces of Khost and Paktika after severe earthquakes struck there recently.

Iain Taylor

The GoodWORD Partnership, based in Minneapolis, USA, has facilitated evangelistic and training initiatives in largely Moslem parts of Guinea, West Africa, and Malawi, southern Africa.

In Guinea, where only 7% of the population is Christian, experienced church leaders from five African countries and the United States undertook three weeks of joint ministry. It included outreach to seven prisons where a total of 3,600 inmates were fed, both physically and spiritually; equipping a Christian medical clinic in a Moslem community; a three-day conference on evangelism attended by 225 church leaders and encouraging the local churches to cooperate in sharing the gospel. One evangelical denominational leader in Conakry, a city of 2 million people, said: ‘We are now ready and committed to cooperate in sharing the gospel in our city.’

Iain Taylor

Even before the invasion of Ukraine, many of the poorest nations of the world were suffering the catastrophic impact of climate change.

Earlier this year the island of Madagascar, for example, experienced its ‘worst drought’ in 40 years. UNICEF says half a million under-fives will be ‘acutely malnourished’ this year; in the south, where 80% of the people depend on agriculture to survive, the UN World Food Programme estimates that half of the population now faces hunger. The drought has decimated crops and dried up water sources, resulting in little sustenance for communities and cattle. The pandemic, deforestation and Madagascar’s cyclone season have further exacerbated their woes. According to UNWFP, this could become ‘the first famine to be caused by climate change’.

Iain Taylor

A leading evangelical lecturer and expert on the US has told Evangelicals Now that the US Supreme Court uses ‘dubious interpretations’ of the Constitution – but has nonetheless made a judgement on abortion which is ‘to be applauded’.

Former Oak Hill lecturer Professor Gerald Bray (see photo) was speaking exclusively to en in the continuing controversy following the overturning of the seminal 1973 judgement, in Roe v Wade, that pregnant women were entitled to an abortion during the first three months of their pregnancy.

Iain Taylor

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February Evangelicals Now has been inundated with stories about how UK churches and Christian groups are helping refugees and reaching out to them with the gospel. But Christians in other parts of Europe have been busy too.

Here is how Message Germany (an international hub of Manchester-based The Message Trust) has responded to the crisis.

Iain Taylor

Agencies which support persecuted Christians round the world are responding to the UK government’s recent Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) conference.

This brought together over 800 government representatives, parliamentarians, faith and civil society representatives from 100 different countries; at the conference national governments represented were invited to co-sign one or more of a set of eight written statements covering freedom of religion or belief issues.

Iain Taylor

The Vietnamese woman known as the ‘napalm girl’, who appeared in one of the most iconic war photographs of the 20th century, has finally finished treatment for her appalling skin injuries, 50 years on.

Nine-year-old Kim Phuc Phan Thi was pictured (photo centre), running and screaming in pain after being injured in a bombing by an American warplane in 1972, during the Vietnam war. Photographer Nick Ut won a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph.

Iain Taylor

Seeking to encourage and equip emerging Christian film-makers from Egypt and the Middle East – and allowing them to focus on the issues that most concern them – were the goals of the first-ever Salam (‘Peace’) Film Festival, which has taken place in Alexandria.

The brainchild of Christian TV station SAT-7 and the Evangelical Church of Egypt, the Festival comprised 26 films which were shown and competed for a series of awards.

Iain Taylor

Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church, is to step down as teaching pastor at Saddleback Church after more than four decades in the job.

He has named Andy and Stacie Wood of Echo Church in San Jose, California as his successors. Andy Wood, 40, is currently Echo’s lead pastor, while Stacie Wood is a teaching pastor. They will take on the same roles at Saddleback from this September.

Iain Taylor

The Helsinki Court of Appeals is to reopen the case against Christian MP Päivi Räsänen (see photo), just weeks after she was acquitted in the city’s District Court.

Then, the unanimous verdict of the judges was that she acted within the law in expressing her religious convictions about homosexuality. They declared she was using her freedom of expression and religion when she referred to her Biblical beliefs.

Iain Taylor

An expert on Islamist terrorism has expressed alarm after gunmen stormed a church in southwest Nigeria on Pentecost Sunday, killing as many as 50 worshippers, including women and children.

Witnesses said the gunmen detonated explosives before opening fire on the churchgoers. Officials were still calculating the final death toll days later.

Iain Taylor

Leading US theologian, ethicist, and preacher Russell D. Moore has responded to the abuse scandal that has recently rocked the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Moore resigned from his post as president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC last summer and quit the denomination completely at the same time.

His response was prompted by the findings of independent investigators Guidepost Solutions into the culture of cover-up, retaliation and stonewalling by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee over sexual abuse within the church and the mistreatment of sexual abuse survivors, and the advocates and whistleblowers who stood with them. It emerged that SBC leaders had a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, but chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits ahead of protecting those in their churches from further abuse.

Iain Taylor

International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP), has announced its most ambitious evangelistic programme yet.

Its 2022 ‘In the Cities’ mission series will visit London, Paris, Amsterdam and Budapest, before heading further afield to Pittsburgh, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Sydney, with the potential to reach over 1million Jewish people living in ten major global cities.

Iain Taylor

The world cannot adapt its way out of the climate crisis, and counting on adaptation to limit damage is no substitute for urgently cutting greenhouse gases, leading evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe (see photo) has warned.

Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy in the US, professor at Texas Tech University, and Climate Ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), said the world was heading for dangers unseen in the 10,000 years of human civilisation.

Iain Taylor

During the first 90 days of the war in Ukraine, over 6million refugees fled to other nations, A further 7million were displaced internally, making this the largest movement of people in Europe since World War II.

In response, 72 Christian leaders from 22 European countries recently gathered in Krakow, Poland, to focus on the war and refugee crisis. The five countries that have received the most refugees (Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia) admitted they are overwhelmed and can no longer handle the ongoing flow of highly-traumatised women and children.

Iain Taylor

The General Secretary of GAFCON, Archbishop Ben Kwashi, has announced that the theme of the GAFCON IV conference, which will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from 17-21 April 2023, will be ‘To Whom Shall We Go?’. The venue for the event, the Kigali Conference Centre, has a capacity of 2,600 people.

GAFCON stands for Global Anglican Future Conference, and describes itself as ‘a global family of authentic Anglicans standing together to retain and restore the Bible to the heart of the Anglican Communion’.

Iain Taylor

As the war in Ukraine grinds on, many commentators are looking for historical parallels to point towards how the conflict might end, what the impact may be on those forced to endure it and what life might be like afterwards.

The experience of Aleppo, in north west Syria, may provide a few clues. Early on in the Ukrainian conflict a BBC correspondent said that, if we were unaware of what Russian battle tactics look like, ‘then we had not been paying attention’. He drew a direct line between what Putin’s military did, first in the Chechen capital Grozny during the war of 1999–2000, which resulted in the United Nations calling it ‘the most destroyed city on earth’ by 2003, and then Syria.

Iain Taylor

According to a leaked US Supreme Court document, the Court is poised to overturn Roe v Wade – the 1973 decision that legalised abortion across the United States.

Many thousands of pro-lifers and pro-choice people have been demonstrating across the country since the leak, both sides entrenched over the issue which has polarised America for decades. But what would overturning Roe v Wade actually mean, both in the US and in this country?

Iain Taylor

Evangelical advocacy body Christian Concern (CC), and its sister organisation Christian Legal Centre, is increasingly being asked to bring its expertise in championing and campaigning for Christian values to nations outside the UK.

Demand from other countries is such that, in the last few years, CC has been invited to speak to groups involved in similar work from Italy, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Korea, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, USA, and Canada.

Iain Taylor

Christianity Explored Ministries (CEM) is now 90% international and over half a million people around the world each year attend one or more of its evangelistic courses, which have now been translated into more than 60 languages.

Those resources are now being used in over 130 countries around the world. These were some of the numbers unveiled to about 200 people at All Souls Langham Place at CEM’s annual Love Live Tell evening recently, with many more watching online.

Iain Taylor

Several dozen North Korean believers have been discovered by the authorities – and immediately executed.

They were gathered for a meeting when security guards broke in and arrested them all. More than 100 members of their families were then sent to political camps, which is a common fear tactic in North Korea, whereby the government extends punishments to the relatives of supposed culprits too. It is believed that information about the time and place of the meeting was deliberately leaked to the authorities.

Iain Taylor

Christians are becoming increasingly frustrated and impatient with the government’s ‘Homes for Ukraine’ visa scheme, the sponsorship initiative that allows people in the UK to offer Ukrainians fleeing the war a home here.

By early April, well over 30,000 applicants had not been matched with UK sponsors and only 1,200 Ukrainians had arrived here. This is in stark contrast to the position in other European countries, which have already accepted hundreds of thousands of people following the Russian invasion.

Iain Taylor

Christians in China are facing a new digital crackdown by the government, as it seeks to control every type of content that churches post on the internet.

The country’s unregistered house churches have gone online to worship, and to survive the pandemic and persecution. Now they are having even that avenue of support stripped away, according to persecuted church agency Release International. The measure will hit churches, seminaries and many other ministries.

Iain Taylor

The Christian and rugby worlds have paid tribute to Va’aiga (‘Inga the winger’) Tuigamala, who died recently aged 52.

He represented the New Zealand All Blacks in 19 Test Matches, including at the 1991 Rugby World Cup. He then switched codes to Rugby League, where he played in the great Wigan Warriors side of the mid-1990s, which beat the Brisbane Broncos in the 1994 World Club Challenge.

Iain Taylor

While the gaze of the world is focused on Ukraine and Russia, in Afghanistan the Taliban is now going ‘door-to-door’ searching for Christians, who are then murdered for their faith.

Christian barrister Paul Diamond, who has been in constant contact with Afghan Christians since the West pulled out last summer, said they are now in hiding for their lives. He is seeking an urgent meeting with the government minister responsible for the resettlement of Afghan citizens in the UK.

Iain Taylor

More than 2.5million Ukrainians have already fled their homeland, according to the United Nations, causing the greatest refugee crisis in Europe since 1945. But remarkable stories are already emerging of how people are responding to their desperate needs with kindness and generosity, with Christians often to the fore in this vital work.

Mihai Malancea is the Director of Christian University Divitia Gratia, located at Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, which borders southern Ukraine. Evangelicals Now caught up with him during his short trip to the UK to link up with the Eurasia Education Foundation and asked him what his university did, and how it was responding to the flood of Ukrainian refugees.

Iain Taylor

The Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) is a supporter of the Grace Shelter, an orphanage run by Grace Church (Baptist) in Odessa, a port on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, since 2004.

Fifty-three children, aged from about three to 18, and their ‘orphan parents’ lived there. The site also hosted a ‘transition house’, which provided a number of small apartments for young adults for a couple of years whilst learning to become independent.

Iain Taylor

Every December literally millions of people set out on pilgrimages in honour of La Virgen, Our Lady of Guadalupe. This representation of the ‘Mother of God’, made in 1531, is reproduced all over Mexico. It is amazing how one image can captivate a culture.

Their motivations are mixed: some are showing their devotion to the Virgin; some want to earn favour and outweigh sin committed; some go with gratitude for a healing they feel the Virgin gave them.

Iain Taylor

International Mission to Jewish People (IMJP) is organising evangelistic coach tours in order to reach Jewish Holocaust survivors with the gospel.

An increased openness among Jewish people to hear about Jesus as Messiah means that hundreds of Jewish people are now regularly joining IMJP’s Bible tours, where they visit sites in the Holy Land which have a particular significance in the story, life, and claims of Jesus.

Iain Taylor

As this edition of Evangelicals Now went to press, the trials of Finnish Christians Päivi Räsänen MP and Bishop Juhana Pohjola, of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, had started.

Both are accused of agitation against an ethnic group, specifically Räsänen’s ‘insulting’ of homosexuals on a radio programme and in a booklet published in 2004 by Pohjola.

Iain Taylor

Evangelicals Now is regularly privileged to come across much faithful gospel witness by often small and (humanly-speaking) under-resourced evangelical ministries in sometimes far-flung areas of the world. The GoodWORD Partnership (GWP), founded by Blair Carlson in Minneapolis in 2005, is one of those.

Blair coaches national church leaders in local evangelism, guiding them with their outreach, including preparation and follow-up within local churches. He has just returned from Russia and Poland, where GWP helped lead a major evangelism training conference, the Forum for Evangelism in Russia, which is now in its fifth year. Blair spoke to Evangelicals Now afterwards:

Iain Taylor

As Evangelicals Now went to press, political manoeuvring in Australia’s lower house has meant that the passage of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s contentious legislation to outlaw religious discrimination was looking increasingly uncertain, with elections looming this May.

Morrison’s government claims that ‘The Religious Discrimination Bill, and associated legislation, will ensure Australians are protected from discrimination on the basis of religious belief or activity – just as they are protected from discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race and disability’. Mounting opposition from some of his own Liberal MPs, and uncertainty as to whether the Labor opposition and some senior senators will back the Bill – with or without a number of amendments – have led to intense debate on the issue, both inside and outside Australia’s Parliament.

Iain Taylor

In The Gambia, a small nation in West Africa, many people are extremely poor. They need God to provide food and clothing. The women work so hard, walking with no break day after day to collect water and fuel. But they have a hunger for the gospel. Because of the Bible, people have hope.

Instead of brooding about their situation, people look forward to attending Bible literacy classes and Scripture listening groups. They come and laugh, they are happy, they forget about their pain. And they hear that God loves them.

Iain Taylor

Christians in the UK and around the world are being urged to help spread the gospel and ease the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan by adopting one of 15 major cities in the country.

The new initiative is the brainchild of Eurasia Education Foundation (EEF), which: provides theological education to nationals from persecuted countries; researches and teaches an objective approach to Islamic history; and helps protect persecuted Christians.

Iain Taylor

An international church-planting movement has stripped the son of a well-known evangelical abuser of his leadership role with them.

Following the publication of the Mullen Report, the Advance Movement has required P.J. Smyth, son of disgraced QC John Smyth, to forfeit his post within the organisation. The report, based on an investigation by author and victim’s advocate Wade Mullen, has given five key reasons for this decision.

Iain Taylor

When Kent Albright, a Baptist pastor from the United States, arrived as a missionary to Spain in 1996, he was unprepared for the insults and threats, or the fines from the police for handing out Protestant leaflets on the streets of Salamanca.

He said: ‘Social animosity was big,’ and recalled one woman who whispered: ‘Be thankful we don’t throw stones at you.’

Iain Taylor

Christianity in North Korea is growing rapidly, a Parliamentary expert who fled the brutal regime has told en in an exclusive interview.

Timothy Cho is the Inquiry Clerk to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea and an expert on the underground church there. Now 33, he escaped from North Korea aged 17.

Iain Taylor

A number of Christians are backing calls for a diplomatic boycott of the forthcoming winter Olympic Games, which are set to take place in the Chinese capital from 4–20 February. So far the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia have all announced boycotts; no UK government ministers will attend the games.

Concerns have been heightened following the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) recent refusal to meet the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region. The Coalition had for some time been pressing the IOC to confront the possibility that the Muslim Uyghur minority was being forced to manufacture official merchandise for the Olympics, and to ask what it was doing to prevent it.

Iain Taylor

Eyewitness reports from inside Afghanistan reveal the Taliban is now gearing up to search and destroy Christians and other converts from Islam wherever they may be found.

US persecuted church agency International Christian Concern reports that the Taliban government that seized power last year in the renamed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has just sent a letter to local Taliban forces throughout the country. It orders them to find and kill every convert – women and children included. The letter highlights the apostasy of more than 20 families who have turned away from Islam and says that local forces must act immediately to identify them and then to apply Sharia Law rigorously, ‘as a lesson for the infidels and their supporters’.

Iain Taylor

Festive celebrations were disrupted and statues of Jesus were smashed in a spate of attacks on India’s Christian community over Christmas. In recent years, Christians have increasingly faced harassment around Christmas – but 2021 saw a notable surge in attacks.

Amid growing intolerance and violence against India’s Christian minority, who make up about 2% of India’s population, Christmas events were targeted by Hindu right-wing groups, who alleged Christians were using the festivities to force Hindus to convert.

Iain Taylor

Every year in Italy, increasing numbers of people are choosing to go through the simple process of de-baptism, which became available 20 years ago at the behest of the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics (abbreviated in Italian as UAAR).

The Diocese of Brescia, east of Milan, said in August that 75 people had already asked to be de-baptised in 2021, as opposed to 27 in the whole of 2020. The UAAR claims that more than 100,000 people have now been de-baptised in Italy.

Iain Taylor

'Institutional racism' is real, says Tim Keller, former senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

The internationally-known pastor, writer and speaker, who was diagnosed last year with pancreatic cancer, was speaking out about the controversial racial analysis tool known as Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Iain Taylor

A 77-year-old Christian florist will pay $5,000 to end a 10-year legal battle over her refusal to provide floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding ceremony. She has also announced that she will retire so that her flower shop can be run by her employees.

Barronelle Stutzman of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, was sued by Rob Ingersoll, a man she had done business with in the past, because she refused to provide a floral arrangement for his same-sex wedding in 2013, citing her Christian beliefs as her reason.

Iain Taylor

Swami Parmatmanand, a prominent nationalist religious leader (see photo), has called for fellow Hindus to behead Christian converts from Hinduism.

Parmatmanand was speaking at a mass rally in India’s central Chhattisgarh state. The protest was organised against an alleged rise in conversions of Hindus to Christianity and his audience included senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Iain Taylor

Nearly 6,000 Romanian evangelical Christians have marched to the German embassy in London. They were protesting against the forced removal of all seven children of Petre and Camelia Furdui, of Hanover, who stand accused of ‘religious indoctrination’ by the German child protection agency, the Jugendamt.

The Furdui family, originally from Romania, has lived in Germany for nine years. The children range in age from 15 to one. Last April all seven were removed following extensive conversations between the social worker and the eldest child, who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. They discussed religious education and Mr and Mrs Furdui believe the Jugendamt deemed them be religious fanatics and incapable of educating their children in the spirit of the times. The six eldest children were then placed in a children’s home; the youngest is now with foster parents.

Iain Taylor

Christian persecuted church agencies, Release International and Open Doors, are casting serious doubts on the accuracy of the latest All Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion and Belief’s study of global restrictions on religion.

The 12th annual (2019) Pew Report maintains that, globally, social hostilities related to religion declined and the number of countries with terrorist activity related to religion also reduced for a fifth consecutive year, although government restrictions remained at the highest levels.

Iain Taylor

Christians have made their presence felt at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Many young evangelicals were among the thousands who marched through the city as part of the Fridays For Future movement, inspired by the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was at the rally. Churches were behind a special handing-in of petition signatures and paper ‘prayer boats’ to the COP presidency.

Iain Taylor

The economic and human-rights crises pervading Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power are now impacting Christians in neighbouring nations.

‘The situation in Afghanistan causes a lot of worries,’ says Bäsim, a Christian in a country affected. ‘Many are afraid, but others want radical Islam to be the ruling ideology in our country.’

Iain Taylor

Myanmar’s military has torched and occupied churches and killed and detained pastors in its latest brutal offensive in the majority-Christian Chin province on its northwest border with India. At least seven churches have been damaged or destroyed due to deliberate shelling by soldiers.

The deliberate targeting of churches and pastors comes amid a growing humanitarian disaster in the conflict-ridden country’s border regions and escalating clashes between the junta – which seized power in a February coup – and ad hoc guerrilla groups and long-standing ethnic armies.

Iain Taylor

Efforts to translate the Bible into more world languages are accelerating, despite the pandemic.

Wycliffe Bible Translators says 717 languages now have a full Bible translation – almost 10% of the number of languages spoken in the world – an increase of 13 languages on the previous year. Although one in five people are still waiting for the Bible in their own tongue, one new translation was launched every week during the pandemic.

Iain Taylor

In the lowlands of Chad, the Lord is moving among the unreached Bua people, a nomadic group that currently follows a blend of Islam and animism. Islam is the majority religion in Chad, although about 10% of the population are evangelical Christians.

A local leader named Abdu*, has been ministering to the Bua for several years and sharing the gospel with them. During that time, he has discipled new believers and planted three house churches. But a few months ago, Abdu had to flee the area because of intense persecution. He continues to share the gospel among Muslims in a neighbouring country.

Iain Taylor

Nine hours of travelling left Ali and the two translators hungry and tired, but the three men needed to stay alert as they were at great risk. They were en route to one of the most dangerous regions in South Asia, known for human trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.

But Ali’s heart burned for this region. He had prayed for two years to share the gospel and train believers in this largely Muslim area, and God had paved the way for them to go there.

Iain Taylor

Evangelicals are prominent among church leaders demanding change in the run-up to the COP26 climate change conference. This will take place in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November and will be attended by 190 world leaders.

At COP21 in Paris in 2015, for the first time, every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to, ideally, 1.5 degrees; to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to do so. Under this Paris Agreement they were mandated to present how they would achieve this at COP26.

Iain Taylor

Taliban murders of Christians in Afghanistan may spark wider violence against believers in neighbouring nations, it is feared.

The ignominious retreat from Afghanistan by the Western military powers has prompted much soul-searching among Christians across the entire region, as the Taliban now reigns supreme.

Iain Taylor

Evangelical Christians and the Vietnamese Government appear to have learnt from past mistakes – and their joint response to a recent coronavirus outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City has highlighted the benefits of prompt co-operation.

After some students at the Evangelical Church of Vietnam South’s Institute of Bible and Theology developed coughs and fevers last summer, church authorities immediately called the government health department. Tests revealed that 290 of the 306 students and staff on the campus had Covid-19. The authorities immediately quarantined the campus and sent in a medical team. Two Christian doctors and five volunteers of a Christian student fellowship also entered the campus to serve the sick. The 15 who needed hospital treatment included the Dean of Students, pastor Nguyen An Thai, and his wife.

Iain Taylor

Two new developments in the past few days appear to hasten the final demise of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).

Firstly, a number of donors in the USA have filed a complaint in a Georgia federal court, claiming that the organisation covered up its founder’s abusive conduct. They allege they were misled to believe that their donations were being used to promote ‘Christian evangelism, apologetic defence of Christianity, and humanitarian efforts.’ However, the donors claim they were misinformed as they were told there was no evidence of abuse; instead ‘Zacharias was a prolific sexual predator who used his ministry and RZIM funds to perpetrate sexual and spiritual abuse against women’.

Iain Taylor

Four years ago, the Bullock family left the familiarity and security of the UK to serve God cross-culturally in Zambia with Operation Mobilisation. Dan is Field Leader, responsible for all OM’s missionaries in Zambia, as well as its local workers. Ruth is a physiotherapist working to train people with disabilities.

Writer Ivy Chiu spoke to Dan and Ruth about why they took such a bold step.

Iain Taylor

In a small town near Madrid, Walker and Becca Welch walked around a university hoping to share the gospel with Chinese students. More than 300 Chinese exchange students are hosted each year, but Covid-19 curtailed the Welches’ opportunities to get to know them this year.

One lunchtime they noticed a small Chinese restaurant. The front sign said, ‘Momma’s Kitchen’ – a good name for a place trying to attract homesick exchange students.

Iain Taylor

Covid-19 is an opportunity for European mission agencies to reflect deeply once again on the meaning of mission in today’s world.

One of the key questions it raises is whether it has made sense to have invested so heavily in huge buildings, since social distancing restrictions have forced many churches to think about how to make small gatherings work, not just big ones.

Iain Taylor

‘I was afraid to get out and talk to people. I didn’t know where to look for help. Like many, I searched the internet, and stumbled across an advert for Szukając Boga.pl’ [Polish for ‘looking for God, searching for God’].

This is just one of the many thousands of responses to this new evangelistic course that has led to hundreds enrolling across Poland and many finding faith in Christ.

Iain Taylor

Yeonmi Park is one of the few brave people to have managed to escape the Communist concentration camp that is North Korea.

The 27-year-old told her story in the book In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, which recounted the hellish conditions most people live in. Often they have to eat grasshoppers just to survive – hunger is constant, and starvation is a way of life. There is no heating during the winter, and all the basic necessities of life that Westerners take for granted are totally absent.

Iain Taylor

The State Schools Quality Assurance Authority has ordered the closures of 13 mainly Christian schools following the abduction of staff and students from Bethel Baptist High School in the Chikun Local Government Area of southern Kaduna state, Nigeria.

In early July, suspected Fulani herdsmen kidnapped most of the nearly 180 students at gunpoint. It was merely the latest of a series of attacks on schools and colleges across Kaduna – which is now seen as an epicentre for kidnapping – that have greatly increased this year. The attack on Bethel Baptist was one of four incidents which took place within a 24-hour period.

Iain Taylor

Langham Preaching (part of the Langham Partnership) is partnering with Harare Theological College (HTC) to provide an innovative technological method of overcoming costly or non-existent internet connections in Zimbabwe.

HTC has developed what it calls the ‘chatterbox’. Essentially a mini computer the size of a cigarette packet, it incorporates a learning management system attached to a solar panel, so it is completely independent of both electricity and internet. It also generates its own intranet.

Iain Taylor

A widow and her children, who fled their home in eastern Uganda after her husband was killed in 2015, returned this year only narrowly to escape another attack that has burned down her reconstructed home.

Muslim extremists set fire to the home of Kanifa Namulondo in Kaliro District in May. She is the widow of Siriman Kintu, a convert from Islam beheaded in 2015 for his faith. Namulondo and her five children had returned to Kaliro after friends had helped reconstruct the house they left more than five years ago. The family had only moved back in April.

Iain Taylor

Over 30 years ago, political revolution in Romania revealed images of poverty, neglect and institutional abuse on a vast scale. Humanitarian aid rolled in. It still does, even in 2021.

For UK charity, Belief in Action, practical aid is an essential part of supporting Romanian Christians to serve the poor and marginalised.

Iain Taylor

The Cuban Assemblies of God (AoG) denomination has called for the return of a 27-hectare site confiscated by the government in 1963. Formerly the location of the Bible Institute of the Evangelical Pentecostal Church of Cuba (AoG), the denomination is also discussing appropriate compensation with the authorities.

The Bible Institute, established in 1939, housed hundreds of students, many of whom were training to be pastors, before they were ordered out by gun-toting soldiers in March 1963. The site included housing for students and teachers, a chapel, and agricultural land where food was grown and cows were kept for milk. Institute director Floyd Woodworth was arrested and held in solitary confinement for 20 days before being released and deported to the United States.

Iain Taylor

At a rowdy, often bad-tempered meeting in Nashville, The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has elected Alabama pastor Ed Litton as its next President.

Winning 52% of the vote in a runoff, he defeated Georgia pastor Mike Stone, who was backed by a new group called the Conservative Baptist Network. Prominent mainstream candidate Al Mohler Jr had been eliminated earlier.

Iain Taylor

22million cases. Almost 250,000 deaths. Funeral pyres burning in car parks. And, most recently, the partially-burned bodies of 40 people or more washed up on the banks of the ‘sacred’ River Ganges. These are the terrifying numbers and distressing scenes we have seen on our TV screens as the Covid disaster in India has unfolded.

But how are churches in India responding to this epic disaster? Pastor Devender Verma is senior pastor of Delhi Bible Fellowship Church and director of the School of Biblical Teaching which trains pastors all over North India, in both rural and urban areas.

Iain Taylor

Ibrahim wears deep lines on his forehead, and bears a scar across his left cheek.

At first glance, he looks tough, capable, self-assured. His hard stare seems to convey a warning. But when he smiles, his face tells a different story – one of hope, of quiet change, and new beginnings. It’s a story of spiritual transformation, which is capturing the hearts of thousands of prisoners worldwide, through Prison Fellowship International and the Christianity Explored course.

Iain Taylor

I returned in early December from a short trip to Lebanon to see how the country is coping with a million refugees and how the church is responding.

Although there are huge challenges, there are many grounds for optimism.