The recent elections brought bad news for Christians, and you probably heard about that. But there’s some wonderful news for the Christians of India as well. Prepare to be encouraged.

First, however, let’s look at the bad news.

The BJP, the current ruling party in India, led by Prime Minister Modi, won the national elections handily. This is bad news for millions of Christians in India.

The BJP is not just a Hindu party. It is a militantly Hindu party. It wants India to be a Hindu nation, meaning, exclusively Hindu. Prime Minister Modi has even spoken of his desire to see Christianity eradicated from India within the next few years.

These are frightening, sobering sentiments. We cannot take them lightly.

The Reelection of Narendra Modi

And, while the BJP may not be physically persecuting Christians, militant Hindus throughout the nation have been given a free hand. This has resulted in many Christians being beaten and others being killed. (I know this firsthand through my direct contact with Christian leaders in India.)

As pointed out by Rob Schwarzwalder,

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been reelected. By a huge margin. That’s “an absolute tragedy.” That’s what Dean Curry, head of the anti-persecution ministry Open Doors, calls it. Modi is a Hindu nationalist deeply hostile to Christianity and to Christians.

Since he came to power in 2014, India has become the tenth worst country in the world for following Jesus. It was 28th on Open Doors’ World Watch List back then. What countries are worse? Iran’s ninth. India’s only slightly better than the Iranian theocracy. Pakistan’s fifth. Afghanistan’s second and North Korea’s first.

Indeed, “Modi’s government so dislikes Christianity that it will hurt its own people to keep Christians away. It has been getting rid of Christian ministries that have for many years served India’s many needy people. In 2017, Compassion International was forced to close ‘589 Indian-staffed development centers caring for more than 145,000 children.’ Why? Because ‘India’s Ministry of Home Affairs put it on a list of organizations needing prior approval before transferring funds into the country’ — but wouldn’t approve the grant.”

The list of concerns goes on and on.

We need to pray for a change of heart in the Indian government, and we need to petition President Trump to speak out against Modi’s aggressive, anti-Christian actions.

My Indian friends truly believe that one strong word from the White House would put a major stop to Modi’s hostile designs.

Christianity Booming

But there is good news from India as well. Really good news.

First, the gospel continues to spread powerfully in that vast nation of more than 1.3 billion souls. As reported by Dr. Ralph Wilson, “the percentage of Christians has increased substantially from 2.5% a decade ago to about 5.8% today. That represents a huge increase in the growth rate. Something is happening!”

And in some states, the growth is much greater, with Christians representing as much as 10-15% of the total population.

This is truly unprecedented.

Read more at The Stream.