US midterms: Faith plays central role in Republican efforts to win Latino votes
ALEJANDRA MOLINA, of Religion News Service, reports that Pew Research Center data looking at the 2022 midterm election preferences of Latinos shows that some of the sharpest differences in candidate choice are by religion…
US evangelicals: Bishop Robert Stearns wants to reinvent evangelicalism without leaving it behind
BENJAMIN SPRATT and JOSHUA STANTON, of Religion News Service, report that the pastor from western New York is one of a rising cohort of evangelical leaders who are looking beyond partisan politics and messaging based on fear…
Lifestory: George O Wood, dead at 80, remembered as “door-opener” in leadership of Assemblies of God
ERICA RAMIREZ, in an article published on Religion News Service, looks at the life of longtime US Assemblies of God leader George O Wood, who died earlier this month at the age of 80…
Essay: A call to encourage the church in Cuba
As another church is demolished in Cuba, ELLIS HEASLEY, of UK-based religious freedom advocacy CSW, says each of us has a part to play in addressing ongoing violations of religious freedom in the Caribbean nation…
Sowing division, Islamists target Christians in Burkina Faso
RNS A rash of attacks on churches in Burkina Faso is exposing the growing challenge of containing Islamist violence across Africa’s Sahel region. On Sunday, militants attacked a Roman Catholic Church service in Dablo, a town about 200 kilometres north of Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, killing a 34-year-old Catholic priest and at least five worshippers. […]
Three churches closed in Indonesia in permits dispute
World Watch Monitor Three churches were closed in an Indonesian village last week amidst rumours Muslims were planning to protest against the churches’ presence because they did not have the required permits. But a pastor from one of the affected churches in West Kenali village, Alam Barajo district, in Sumatra’s central Jambi province, told World […]
Protestant churches in Cuba push for freedom of religion to be guaranteed under country’s updated constitution
A cross-denominational group of Protestant Christian leaders in Cuba have launched a campaign pushing for provisions guaranteeing freedom of religion to be included in the country’s updated constitution, according to religious freedom advocacy CSW. The UK-based organisation said in a statement that the group, which is being led by representatives of the Methodist and Assemblies […]
Burkina Faso pastor and his family released after four days
World Watch Monitor A Christian pastor who was abducted on Sunday with his family in Burkina Faso’s north-eastern province of Soum has been released. Local sources told national broadcaster Omega Radio that Pastor Pierre Boena, his son David and his daughter-in-law, Ami Sawadogo were released on 7th June. A church in Burkina Faso in 2009. The recent […]
Second Christian leader in two weeks kidnapped in Burkina Faso
World Watch Monitor A Christian pastor and three members of his family have been kidnapped in Burkina Faso’s north-eastern province of Soum, two weeks after the kidnapping of another Christian leader and his wife. Pierre Boena, a pastor with an Assembly of God church, was kidnapped during the evening of Sunday, 3rd June. in his […]
US Assemblies of God elects first woman executive in more than a century
RNS The top US board of the Assemblies of God has unanimously elected its first woman general secretary in the Pentecostal denomination’s more than 100 year history. Rev Donna L Barrett, the lead pastor of an Independence, Ohio, church, will fill the unexpired term of James T Bradford, the denomination announced Monday. Bradford resigned earlier […]