While Christians in the western world peacefully celebrate Christmas, most of them have absolutely no idea what is happening to their brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe. As I detailed a couple of months ago, most of the population of the world lives in a country where Christians are being violently persecuted. Believers are being rounded up for de-programming in China, churches are being burned to the ground by Hindu extremists in India, Christians are literally being cut into pieces by Islamic radicals in some parts of Africa, practicing your faith can be a death sentence in certain areas of the Middle East, and North Korean concentration camps are teeming with people that are suspected of worshipping Christ. Perhaps if we were facing similar levels of persecution, believers in the western world would start becoming a lot more serious about their faith.
More than a billion people live in China, and the persecution of Christians in that nation has gone to an entirely different level in 2025.
Earlier this month, over a thousand law enforcement personnel were involved in a massive operation that ultimately resulted in the arrest of hundreds of Christians…
Starting on Dec. 13, the Chinese Communist Party mobilized “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in the Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of Christians, ChinaAid reported Friday.
“Belongings of relevant individuals were illegally confiscated, roads leading to the church were completely blocked by police, and Christians in Yayang Town were unable to enter the Yayang church. The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued by officials,” the outlet noted. “Within just the first two days, several hundreds of people were taken away for questioning. On December 16 and 17, at least four more individuals were detained.”
Restrictions on the Christian faith in China just keep getting tighter and tighter.
Nobody under the age of 18 is permitted to go to church.
Those that are adults are only allowed to go to churches that are officially registered with the government.
Anyone that attempts to defy these rules is at risk of being rounded up and forcibly “de-programmed”…
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and other religious liberty watchdogs have repeatedly warned that China’s totalitarian regime is enacting human rights abuses against religious groups within the nation’s border. A USCIRF report late last year detailed mass arrests and the destruction or removal of church property, part of CCP President Xi Jinping’s “sinicization of religion” policy. Religious groups and leaders who do not register with the official government-approved religious organizations are often arrested, imprisoned, and forced into “anti-cult” programs to “de-program” Christians.
In India, it is Hindu extremists that are doing the persecuting.
They have literally burned down hundreds of churches in recent years.
In other instances, mobs of Hindu extremists storm churches and start attacking those that are worshipping.
Earlier this year, I wrote about a mob of 200 extremists that stormed a church and beat the believers they found with iron rods.
More recently, an extremist mob in northern India viciously assaulted a small group of believers and forced them to burn a large pile of Bibles and Christian literature…
The Hindu extremists, whose number had then reached 80, searched their car, pulled out all Bibles and tracts and cast them onto the ground into a heap. They shot videos that showed the two couples, disoriented and in shock, forced to repeat that they intended “conversion” in the village and that they would never return.
The mob kicked the Bibles and spoke disrespectfully about Christ, Masih said.
Pastor Das was forced to write a letter of apology that the video shows in his hand. A member of the mob then took a bottle of flammable liquid from the hands of a boy standing with the mob and forced three of the Christians to sprinkle it on the Bibles and literature. After forcing Pastor Das to set the Bibles on fire, the mob then shouted praises to the Hindu god Rama.
In Nigeria, thousands upon thousands of Christians have been slaughtered this year alone.
President Trump had warned that he would do something about the Islamic terrorists that are doing the slaughtering, and on Christmas Day he took action…
President Trump said Thursday that the U.S. launched “powerful and deadly” strikes against Islamic State forces in Nigeria, after spending weeks accusing the West African country’s government of failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.
“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was.”
Hopefully this will do something to reduce the violence.
So far in 2025, Islamic terrorists in Nigeria have killed over 12,000 people…
The violence in the northwest region, where the strikes occurred, is driven in large part by armed bandits and gangs kidnapping for ransom. The insurgency is concentrated in the northeast, where jihadist groups like the notorious Boko Haram and its now more powerful splinter, the Islamic State West Africa Province, an affiliate of the Islamic State group, have killed tens of thousands of civilians over the past decade.
Nigeria is not officially at war, but more people are killed there than in most war-torn countries. More than 12,000 people were killed by various violent groups this year alone, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a conflict monitoring group.
Collectively, more than three billion people live in the three nations that I have already mentioned in this article.
But the persecution that is going on in smaller countries such as North Korea and Eritrea is even worse…
Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors U.K. and Ireland, previously told Newsweek: “The persecution of Christians around the world is one of the great untold scandals of the 21st Century… It can take many forms: in North Korea, it may be a summary public execution without trial, merely for owning a Bible. In Eritrea, it can be 10 years spent in a blazing hot prison cell made from a metal shipping container, merely for belonging to an unregistered house church.”
According to Open Doors, North Korea is the number one global offender when it comes to Christian persecution, and Eritrea is number four…
- North Korea
- Somalia
- Libya
- Eritrea
- Yemen
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Sudan
- Iran
- Afghanistan
- Central African Republic
- Mauritania
- Myanmar
- Mali
- Syria
- Saudi Arabia
- Maldives
- China
- Algeria
- Tunisia
- Morocco
- Burkina Faso
- Turkey
- Cuba
- Niger
- Ethiopia
- Laos
- Tajikistan
- Qatar
- Egypt
- Brunei
- Jordan
- Oman
- United Arab Emirates
- Colombia
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Mozambique
- Bangladesh
- Vietnam
- Bhutan
- Kazakhstan
- Kuwait
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
- Kyrgyzstan
- Russia
- Sri Lanka
- Western Sahara
- Kosovo
- Bahrain
I was amazed to see that there are 17 nations that rank ahead of China, because China has become a Big Brother police state on steroids.
Perhaps China ranks lower than some of the others because instead of just killing them, the Chinese round Christians up and simply make them “disappear”.
The good news is that persecution often makes the Christian faith grow rapidly, and we are seeing this happen in many areas of the globe.
In fact, it appears that we could actually use some serious persecution here in the United States, because what we are experiencing at this moment is being described as “the great unchurching”…
The U.S. is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide.
Why it matters: The great unchurching of America comes as identity and reality are increasingly shaped by non-institutional spiritual sources — YouTube mystics, TikTok tarot, digital skeptics, folk saints and AI-generated prayer bots.
When you are facing the fire of persecution, what you do or don’t believe suddenly becomes very clear.
Throughout human history, tyrants have tried and failed to stamp out the Christian faith.
The same thing is true in our time.
Countless believers are choosing imprisonment or death rather than choosing to deny Christ.
If you were faced with the same choice, what would you choose?
You might want to think about that, because the global persecution of Christians is only going to intensify during the very challenging years that are ahead of us.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.