Why Christian Persecution Keeps Rising

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Christianity Today

Religion, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.3 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2017

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

This week, Christian persecution advocacy group Open Doors announced its annual list of 50 countries where it’s hardest to be a Christian. At the top: North Korea, a country that has held the dubious distinction for 14 years. The majority of the countries are in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Here’s the full list. The list scores each country in terms in five quality-of-life areas and also looks at religiously motivated violence. For the third year in a row, the scores have gone up, suggesting that persecution against Christians has increased worldwide. American Christians could do so much more to help their vulnerable siblings in the faith, said David Curry, who serves as Open Doors USA’s president and CEO. “If I had the feeling that the American church, in all of my travels, was praying—at least, praying for the persecuted believers—I would feel much better than I do,” said Curry. “I just don’t think that happens on a wide scale.” Curry joined assistant editor Morgan Lee and editor-in-chief Mark Galli to discuss drug cartel persecution in Mexico, what keeps North Korea on the top of the list, and American Christian apathy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you in part by The Apologetics Guy Show, the podcast that helps you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity.
0:11.0	Learn to explain your faith with courage and compassion.
0:14.5	Join Moody Bible Institute professor Dr. Mikhail del Rosario at apologeticsky.com.
0:29.6	Music Michael Del Rosario at Apologeticsguy.com. Hey, this is Morgan Lee.
0:31.0	I'm an assistant editor for Christianity today, and you're listening to Quick to Listen.
0:35.1	Each week we go beyond hashtags and hot takes and set aside time to explore the reality behind a major cultural event.
0:41.9	Today, we will be talking about how the Christian persecution advocacy group Open Doors
0:47.4	has now released its annual list of 15 countries that calculate and determine where it's hardest to be a Christian for this given year.
0:57.0	Hey, Mark, do you want to tell us a little bit about who our guest is? Our guest is David Curry. He's the president of Open Doors USA and the CEO.
1:02.0	Open Doors, if you aren't familiar with it, it has been around for some 60 years,
1:06.0	working in the world's most oppressive countries, empowering and equipping persecuted Christians, actually in more than 60 countries, 60 countries now. So it's one of the most impressive
1:15.4	organizations on the planet, so I'm really happy that we were able to get David to come. Welcome,
1:20.0	David. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. It's a great honor. David, are you calling us from
1:23.7	the USA? I am calling you from the USA. I occasionally do bounce around to other places,
1:29.1	but today I'm in the nation's capital where we have met with folks from the Trump transition
1:34.5	team yesterday. And then, of course, we released our World Watch List today and had some folks
1:40.2	from the State Department and Congress there as well. And, of course, we really want to get
1:46.7	in touch with our nation's policymakers, help them to be aware of what's going on around the world,
1:51.7	and to connect with the human side of this world, watchless, the effect it's having, not just on
1:57.3	policy, on terrorism and so forth, but on real lives around the world. So, you know,
2:03.2	you guys put together this really, really ambitious list and some of the questions that we'll
2:06.5	be asking you are going to kind of help our listeners better understand the list, the methodology
	...

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