Christianity growing despite world’s worst persecutions, new report says
A new report from a Christian advocacy group says that Christianity continues to thrive and grow despite brutal repression and attempts by governments, groups, and individuals across the world to quash the faith.
The 2023 “Persecutors of the Year” report was released this month by the advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC).
ICC’s report sheds light on the suffering of hundreds of millions of Christians in 10 of the most heavily persecuted countries in the world. Despite these persecutions, the report said that the faith is growing in some of the world’s most persecutory countries such as Iran, China, and Nigeria.
Iran
According to the report, the Islamic Republic of Iran has “one of the fastest-growing churches in the world.”
Christians currently make up only a small minority in Iran, numbering somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000, according to ICC’s report. Though the government, ruled by Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, enforces strict adherence to Sharia law, ICC’s report said that hundreds of thousands of Iranians “from all different kinds of walks of life” have converted to Christianity.
Christian religious expression in the country is heavily restricted and converts to Christianity from Islam face arrest, torture, and execution.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is at the vanguard of the government’s attempt to extinguish the light of the faith in Iran, “is merciless in its efforts to stamp out Christianity,” according to the report.
Additionally, ICC said that a “skewed” justice system targets Christians for practicing their faith and keeps them in “exceptionally harsh conditions,” including “extreme torture.”
Joseph Daniel, ICC’s Middle East regional manager, said in the report that “for more than 40 years the Iranian regime has persecuted Iranian Christians through banning Farsi-language Bibles, imprisoning church leaders, and falsely accusing converts to Christianity as national security threats.”
“But through it all,” Daniel continued, “God is working a miracle, and the underground Iranian church continues to grow rapidly.”
