Christian Persecution Skyrocketed in 2023 as Nearly 5,000 Were Killed for Their Faith Worldwide
A new report from a Christian watchdog group has revealed a disturbing trend in global Christian persecution.
More than 365 million Christians around the world — roughly 1 in 7 — are experiencing “high levels of persecution,” and violent attacks have “skyrocketed,” according to a summary of Open Doors’ World Watch List.
A total of 4,998 Christians were killed for their faith worldwide last year. That’s an average of 13 Christians killed a day.
Christian Persecution on the Rise
The full report outlined the most dangerous places to be a Christian today, identifying North Korea, China and multiple countries in Africa as some of the worst.
Nigeria was the deadliest country for Christians in 2023. Of the nearly 5,000 killings of Christians around the world last year, 82 percent occurred in Nigeria.
Despite the high Christian death toll in Nigeria, Open Doors called North Korea “the most dangerous place in the world for Christians.”
“Being discovered to be a Christian in North Korea is effectively a death sentence,” its report on the country said. “Either believers will be deported to labor camps as political criminals, where they face a life of hard labor which few survive, or they are killed on the spot.
“The same fate awaits family members. There are believed to be tens of thousands of Christians held in labor camps across the country.”
Making things worse, North Korea has also strengthened its border, making ministry from the outside, or escape, even more difficult.
In China, at least 10,000 churches — most of them house churches — were closed in 2023.
Under new regulations, churches in China must display signs reading, “Love the Communist Party, love the country, love the religion,” and Christians in one province are required to register with the state, Open Doors said.
Meanwhile, attacks on churches and Christian-run organizations, such as schools, hospitals and cemeteries, spiked in 2023.
More than 14,700 churches and Christian properties were attacked worldwide, seven times more than the year before, according to the report. The number of Christians displaced from their homes also doubled to 295,120.
Todd Nettleton, host of The Voice of the Martyrs Radio, has been working with The Voice of The Martyrs for over 25 years. VOM is an international nonprofit that serves Christians in heavily persecuted areas while telling their stories to believers around the world.
Nettleton confirmed in a phone interview with The Western Journal that Christian persecution is on the rise.
“Unquestionably there is more persecution today than there was 25 years ago,” Nettleton said.
One reason for the increased persecution is bittersweet.
“Some of that is because of the persecutors, and some of that is because the church has continued to grow in hostile and restricted nations. And so there are more Christians in those places to potentially face persecution,” Nettleton explained.
What Christians Can Do to Help
There are simple yet meaningful ways to help persecuted Christians around the world. At least one of them doesn’t cost anything and can probably be done right now.
“The first thing that persecuted Christians would ask us to do is to pray for them,” Nettleton said.
“Every Christian can do that. It doesn’t cost anything other than our time, other than our attention. And so I would encourage people to start out by praying. Voice of the Martyrs has a lot of resources to help you do that.”
People can help in physical ways by sending Bibles and writing letters to imprisoned Christians, Nettleton said.
American Christians may not face persecution as Christians in other nations do, but that doesn’t relieve them of their scriptural obligation to help their fellow believers.
“None of us had control over where we were born,” Nettleton said. “I don’t think it’s realistic or healthy to feel guilty because, ‘Hey, I’m an American Christian instead of a Nigerian Christian or an Iranian Christian.’
“But I think we can enter into fellowship with those brothers and sisters. We can know their names, we can know what they’re going through, we can pray for them. And that’s really the call of the Scripture.”
Nettleton said VOM was founded on Hebrews 13:3: “Remember those in prison as if you were in prison with them.”
“We’re not in prison, but we can remember those who are, and we can choose to fellowship with them and encourage them and even in some ways enter into their suffering,” he said. “And that’s a choice that we can make regardless of where we were born.”
Other groups are also working to spread awareness of the increase in Christian persecution.
Global Christian Relief, a watchdog organization, recently created an international database that tracks incidents of religious violence, such as killings, arrests, abductions, forced marriages and other acts.
It currently lists nearly 5,000 violent incidents targeting Christians dating back to 2022.
The State of Christianity in America
By the grace of God, the U.S. has been blessed with religious freedom for more than two centuries. American Christians have never been forced to work in labor camps or watch their family members be executed simply because they believed in Jesus Christ.
But as it stands, the country is on its way down a slippery slope.
“It’s not comparable to what’s happening in China or North Korea or Iran or northern Nigeria, and so when I hear those comparisons my teeth sort of grind. … That being said, the cultural winds are certainly turning against biblical truth,” Nettleton said.
“It is becoming a little more challenging to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We shouldn’t let that be a shock to us as Christians because that’s exactly what Jesus predicted. Jesus said, ‘The world hates me, and if you follow me the world will hate you, too.'”
Some of the challenges American Christians face today come from their own government.
In February 2023, a leaked memo revealed the FBI was suspicious of “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” and was even seeking to place agents in Roman Catholic parishes.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee in July that such efforts were limited to only one FBI office, but it was later discovered that at least two other branches were involved.
This month, a House subcommittee revealed that the FBI had told financial institutions to flag transactions that indicated “extremism,” including purchases of “religious texts.”
But government and cultural forces antagonistic to Christianity are only one part of the problem. American Christians neglecting their responsibilities share some of the blame.
“I think that we have a discipleship problem in the church in America,” Nettleton said.
“How many Christians actually read the Bible? There’s a significant number of Christians who don’t attend a church. They’re not involved with other Christians. They see it as a very solitary thing.”
“Individual Christians are not being discipled, they’re not pursuing discipleship, and that filters down into the church as a whole.”
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