Essay: Churches aren’t helping asylum seekers “game” the immigration system
In an article first published on The Conversation, LENA ROSE, a researcher at the University of Oxford, says UK churches have a “very limited role” in the asylum process…
ESSAY: KANYE, FLAME, AND AUGUSTINE – HIP-HOP AND THE CONVERSION NARRATIVE
In an article first published in ‘Sightings’, a publication of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School, A TREVOR SUTTON looks at how hip-hop is reaching new generations with conversion narratives…
Christian family takes refuge in mountains after expulsion from their home in Mexico
Miami, USMorning Star News Miguel Pérez Díaz, his eight children and 87-year-old father have been living in a mountainside shack since May, when local officials expelled them from their village in Chiapas state, Mexico. Relatives, friends and neighbours in Tajlovijho, a village in the municipality of San Andrés Larráinzar in southern Mexico, had been harassing […]
Four Christians, including US woman, arrested in Nepal hotel over claims of conversion
Police in Nepal arrested four Christians, including a woman from the US, at a hotel early Tuesday morning on charges of “conversion by allurement”, Morning Star News reports. The US-based news organisation, which covers the persecuted church, reports that police detained the four at their hotel in Ghorahi, about 420 kilometres west of the capital Kathmandu, at […]
Christian converts to Islam are recruitment targets by extremist groups in East Africa – study
RNS Christians who convert to Islam in East African countries often become targets for recruitment by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Shabaab, the al-Qaida affiliate in East Africa. Such is one finding in a June report from PeaceTech Lab, a Washington, DC, nonprofit that works to reduce violent conflict using technology. The report comes at […]
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION: ACADEMIC DISMISSES ASSESSMENT OF RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS AS GENUINE OR ASYLUM-MOTIVATED AS “NAÏVE”
World Watch Monitor speaks with academic Sara Afshari about cases in which asylum seekers claim conversion to Christianity as a way to stay in the West…
Bahraini king positions as promoter of interfaith tolerance
World Watch Monitor Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa (left) and Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre with interfaith leaders during the signing of the declaration The King of Bahrain has sought to promote his country as a global champion of religious tolerance with a declaration that advocates freedom of religion for all […]
LIFESTORY: AN IRANIAN MUSLIM TELLS HOW HE CAME TO FIND CHRIST
In Iran, converting from Islam to Christianity can land you in prison or even get you killed. However, many Iranians – considered “Muslims” regardless of personal beliefs – still “convert”. World Watch Monitor spoke to one such “convert”, a 27-year-old now living in Europe, about the challenges he faced along the way, and why he left […]