One Christian Killed Every Hour for Faith by Veronica Neffinger

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Christian persecution is widespread and, according to the magazine Crux, is only increasing in many places.

 

Get Religion reports that Crux magazine, which is the Sunday religion magazine published by the Boston Globe, has been covering Christian persecution around the world in a way that few secular magazines are doing.

 

Crux has been publishing articles that detail brutal Christian persecution in not only the Middle East, but Latin America and Africa as well.

 

For example, one story of persecution takes place in El Salvador and Bogota, Columbia. Two women, a mother and grandmother, were shot to death within a month of each other, one by a member of a right-wing paramilitary group, and the other by a member of a left-wing guerrilla group. 

 

Both groups target Christians.

 

The Crux article says that the two women are part of “one of the most widespread human rights scourges of the early 21st century,” and yet their deaths went largely unnoticed.

 

In an astonishing report, the article states, “Though estimates vary widely, even low-end counts suggest that one Christian is killed for motives related to the faith somewhere in the world every hour of every day.”

 

World Watch Monitor recently released a list of the top countries in which Christians face the most persecution. North Korea again topped the list, but second was Somalia.

 

Crux includes an article of a nun and her Muslim driver who were gunned down by Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia.

 

Crux articles go on to tell the often untold stories of other Christian martyrs. 

 

But why, Get Religion asks, are Christians so often the targets of this violence?

 

“Because,” they answer their own question, “in strife-torn areas where other institutions have long since pulled out their personnel, the churches have hung on, believing they are the last vestige of help and hope for the people trapped there. And from Syria to the northern Nigerian city of Sokoto, they’re paying the price."

 

Let us unite in praying for these Christians around the world. 

 

 

Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons