Nearly two weeks after the assassination of conservative icon and Christian evangelizer Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump frankly addressed the global intergovernmental organization that has been accused of turning a blind eye to sweeping persecution of Christians.
“Let us protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today — it’s called Christianity,” Trump said Tuesday in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. Perhaps not so coincidentally the president warned U.N. members that their “countries are going to hell.”
The numbers are horrifying.
‘Stark Realities’
Persecution tracker Open Doors reported that on average 12 followers of Jesus Christ were killed every day — one every two hours — for their faith between Oct. 1, 2023 and Sept. 30, 2024. An estimated 4,476 murders over the period, according to the nonprofit organization.
Open Doors found that more than 1,700 Christian women in sub-Saharan Africa alone were sexually assaulted over the year because of their religion. And more than 7,100 Christian-owned businesses were attacked or destroyed.
Source: Open Doors’ Word Watch List
Ryan Brown, Chief Executive Officer of Open Doors US, told The Federalist that the numbers continue to grow every year. He said it’s critical that those who live in nations where freedom of religion prevails be aware of the “stark realities faced by millions.”
“In our deeply divided nation, I’m sure that many will seek to debate which religion is most persecuted or find fault with President Trump bringing attention to the issue, but here’s what we should focus on. Millions around the globe are deprived of their basic human right of freedom of religion,” Brown said in a statement to The Federalist. “Too many U.N. members are actively engaged in persecuting Christians.”
‘A Matter of Life and Death’
Lana Silk and her family and friends have lived the lives of the persecuted under a Christian-hating regime. Silk, a native of Iran, serves as U.S. chief executive officer of Transform Iran, a nonprofit that seeks to bring “the love and power of Christ to Iran — and beyond.” That is no easy feat in an Islamic nation that at best looks suspiciously on its Christian citizens and at worst murders them for their faith.
Silk was born a decade after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. She said she lived under constant harassment and intimidation before leaving Iran for the United Kingdom and eventually the United States. In an interview Tuesday with The Federalist, Silk said one of her dear Christian friends was arrested by Iranian authorities and stabbed 17 times.
“His 16-year-old son was told to come in and identify his father’s body. They told him his father killed himself,” she said. “It is so cruel.”
Iran ranks ninth on Open Doors’ World Watch List of the top 10 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. The worst offender for 30 years running, according to organization, is North Korea, where professing one’s Christian faith is often a death warrant. The North Korean Christians who survive can expect to be sent to a labor camp and treated as a political criminal, Open Doors asserts.
So the story goes for Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan, where following Jesus can be a “matter of life and death.”
“Al-Shabab, a violent Islamist militant group, is at war with the government and controls large swathes of the country. This group enforces a strict form of Sharia (Islamic law) and is committed to eradicating Christianity from Somalia,” the report states.
Some 310 million Christians suffer high or extreme levels of persecution, according to the World Watch List of the top 50 offender countries.
The American Center for Law & Justice has for years called on the United Nations to “deal with the atrocities being carried out against Christians every day in Nigeria.” Its international affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice, has submitted reports on Mexico, Malaysia, Jordan, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Saudi Arabia, “detailing the persecution being carried out against Christians.”
“Shedding light on the atrocities being perpetrated on Christians around the world is critical – too often, the international community turns a blind eye to injustice,” Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law & Justice, wrote in a 2023 article noting his organization’s demands that the U.N. to “protect Christians facing unthinkable atrocities all around the world.”
‘A Startling Reminder’
But Christians in Christian lands as well, including the secularizing U.S., have encountered government-led persecution. The administration of President Joe Biden was particularly hostile to Americans living out their faith.
A 2023 FBI memo characterized some members of the Catholic Church as “radical-traditionalist Catholics” and “violent extremists.” The document proposed new opportunities for the agency to infiltrate Catholic churches under the guise of “threat mitigation.”
“The FBI’s Richmond memorandum is a startling reminder that Americans’ civil liberties and core Constitutional rights must be vigorously guarded against government overreach, including in this case from an overzealous law enforcement agency,” the House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Interim Staff Report states.
American Christians have been arrested for praying outside abortion clinics, and parents have had their children taken away by the state for choosing Christian doctrine over transgenderism.
In February, Trump signed an executive order on “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.” The order asserts the Biden administration engaged in “an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.”
“The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities,” the EO states. “Those convicted included a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee as a part of a politically motivated prosecution campaign by the Biden Administration.”
Trump pardoned each of the Christian demonstrators as one of his first acts as president in his second term.
But while the Trump administration has moved to protect people of faith, several states have pushed laws and policies hostile to religious freedom.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has defended Christians from all manner of injustices — in the U.S. and internationally. The Christian litigation and advocacy organization took on and defeated a Colorado government agency that ordered a cake designer to either create custom cakes celebrating same-sex weddings or give up a significant portion of his business. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission forced the businessman to choose between his religious beliefs and his livelihood, and “reeducate” his staff in the process.
After years of courtroom battles, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Faith won.
“Creative professionals who serve all people should be free to create art consistent with their convictions without the threat of government punishment,” the 7-2 opinion in favor of Masterpiece Cakeshop states.
‘The Treasure They Have Found’
The fight against religious persecution goes on.
Open Doors is urging American Christians to sign the Arise Africa petition calling for “tangible steps to provide protection, justice and restoration for persecuted Christians” in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There is light and hope in the darkness.
Silk said she has been encouraged and blessed by the confessions of faith and the turning to Jesus she has seen in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Salvation, the native Iranian said, is ultimately not in the hands of man but by the grace of God.
“I think that really is why so many Muslims are turning to Jesus, they see the difference, they see what it means to be a Christian in that environment — the joy, the hope, the peace that Christians carry. It’s like the treasure in the field,” Silk said, referring to Christ’s parable chronicled in Matthew 13:44. “They are prepared to pay the high cost of the treasure they have found: Jesus.”