Welcome to a breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of

unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. October 27th is International

Religious Freedom Day. It's a date with a long-chequered history. President Bill Clinton signed

the International Religious Freedom Act and law. Also on this day, in AD312, Constantine

the Great had his vision of the cross. That led to his conversion to Christianity and eventually

to the edict of Milan, which legalized Christianity in the empire. On this day in 1553,

Michael Servetus was burned at the stake outside of Geneva for heresy, and on October 27th in 2018, a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 and injuring 6.

Religious freedom is affirmed in many international documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on

Civil and Political Rights. It's a freedom that's recognized in various degrees by nations

around the world. However, religious freedom is in a precarious place worldwide. It's under

constant threat. The shocking rise of anti-Semitism around the world is an obvious example,

but there are others.

In 2014, ISIS committed unspeakable crimes against the Yazidis and actions that meet the formal criteria for being labeled genocide. In 2017, Rohingya Muslims also faced genocide that led many

of them to flee to Bangladesh. More recently, Muslims in Bangladesh terrorized the Hindu community there.

And in China, Uyghur Muslims and practitioners of Fulang Gong continue to face severe persecution.

This list, tragically, could go on and on.

Especially if we included the most widely persecuted religion around the world,

Christianity, according to Open Doors USA, over 380 million Christians, about one in seven

globally, face high levels of persecution, including one in five Christians in Africa and two

and five in Asia. So far this year, in just the first 220 days of

2025, over 7,000 Nigerian Christians have been brutally killed, and what international observers

and advocacy groups are calling a Christian genocide. On June 13th, 200 Christians were killed in a

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