Last year alone, more than 380 million Christians suffered high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. Open Doors, a Christian watchdog group, has been keeping track of violence against the Christian community worldwide for many years. According to their 2025 World Watch List, persecution of the faithful significantly increased in the past year.
In 2024 alone, 4,476 Christians were murdered, 7,679 churches and Christian properties were attacked, and 4,744 Christians were imprisoned.
Believers in some parts of Asia faced the most severe and deadly forms of persecution; the Middle East and northern Africa ran a close second for jailing and killing Christians.
Open Doors notes that 2022 was the worst year for Christians worldwide, due to intensifying level of violence, discrimination, and exclusion. Without doubt, between 2020 and 2022, the COVID debacle and vaccine mandates added to the worrying trend of high-level Christian persecution.
In some countries, Christians have no freedom of worship, and if discovered practising their faith, they face labour camps, if not death. Even owning a Bible is a serious crime in some places and with lifelong consequences in some nations.
Centuries ago, Christ established his Church and the gates of hell will never be able to prevail against her. Since a servant is not greater than his master, if He, being God, was persecuted, His Church and His servants will also be persecuted, regardless of modern manoeuvres.
Sustained attacks and deadly persecution against the church started from the get-go, when congregations emerged as dominant spiritual forces in the Roman Empire. Attempts to crush gatherings only intensified as the movement spread across the regions.
Christians came into ideological conflict with imperial cults as they rejected and resisted pagan practices, such as making sacrifices to deified emperors and other gods. They were accused of and punished for treason, concocted crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing what was described as an alien cult to the people.
The disciples suffered beheadings, stonings, and other forms of brutality. Despite this often gruesome reality, they were faithful to the mission of preaching the Gospel and establishing fellowships.
Today, too many who are in the church try their best to dodge persecution by secretly surrendering to and partnering with the unrighteous. They choose to be friends of the world, overtly exuding a form of godliness but covertly denying and dismissing the sacred things of God, even His very Word.
When elements of the church blend in with the world, they look like it and aspire after its ideals. These elements bow to other gods and ideologies that are unrighteous and anti Christ. They hug up the concept of interfaith worship, embrace the occult and secret societies, while continuing to declare faithfulness to the Sovereign God.
Many, who have been blessed with world-coveted positions and tokens of prosperity, comfortably walk hand in hand in the counsel of the ungodly, proudly share platforms with sinners, and sit in the high seats of the scornful.
Having met the world standard of success, they refuse to acknowledge the Sovereign Lord. Instead, they give glory and honour to their links, their abilities, and their wicked, deceptive and corrupt schemes for their blessings and achievements.
From pretty painted pulpits, compromised preachers pontify about the freedoms in Christ, but not the discipline, divine order, the power, or presence and leading of the Holy Spirit. They reject the notion that God has ultimate control over the heavens and the earth. They ignore the authority that has been given to the church to take territory with the expressed mission to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.
Emissaries of Satan continue to cripple efforts to spread the Gospel, even to people in the pews. They use denominational doctrines to cog the wheel of evangelism and outreach. Apostate churches hold fast to established programmes, specifically designed to keep, entertain, and appease congregations, and take precedence over any move by the Holy Spirit.
The church cannot support and facilitate unrighteous schemes and activities and remain the church. It cannot side with Satan and remain the bride of Christ. When any bride begins to court the affection of other men, entertaining their advances, and even laying herself careless before them, she is committing adultery and has defiled her marriage. Such is the level of idolatry and adultery of the modern church. God is jealous and the church must repent. Divine restoration is not only possible, it is required.
Despite the idolatry, adultery, and persistent persecution, True-Believers remain uncompromised and are fervently breaking free from the four walls in order to spread the Gospel worldwide. Persecution cannot daunt the remnant people who know their God, are strong, are doing exploits, and continue to win souls.
According to Global Christian Relief, a website that measures church growth worldwide, Christianity is notably strong in countries with higher population growth rates and in regions where the faith is newer and often embraced by the youth. In regions like Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where persecution is rife, church growth is phenomenal.
When all is said and done, neither persecution, tribulation, nor apostasy can stop the true Church of the Almighty God from its mission to take the good news of the Gospel to the far reaches of the globe.
The Church will take the Gospel to every nation, as divinely assigned, and then Christ will return. His Church will be ready and waiting – righteous, resilient, without spot, wrinkle, or blemish of any kind. The Church may suffer harsh persecution, but ultimately it will be eternally glorified.