Christian

Sunday November 2, 2025 marks the annual Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Global violence against Christians has doubled in the last thirty years, and one in seven believers now suffers persecution. Today, “Christians constitute by far the most widely persecuted religion,” in the world.In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 16 million Christians have fled for their lives to escape violence or been forcibly displaced. Congressman Riley Moore has described Nigeria as “the deadliest place in the world to be a Christian.” So far this year in Nigeria at least 7,000 Christians have been put to death. More than 19,000 Christian churches have been burned to the ground or attacked in the last fifteen years.

In Texas, empty church classrooms might just become new schools. On September 1, the state enacted the most expansive school voucher program in America. It will allow eligible families to receive up to $10,900 annually per student to be spent on private school tuition, or up to $2,000 to be spent on homeschooling. Students with disabilities could receive up to $30,000. The number of states with school voucher schemes is unclear, but governors across the country must decide whether to join President Trump’s new federal private-school choice program - the first national scheme, approved by Congress in July. In a recent study, economists Douglas N.

Zohran Mamdani is defensive about his faith and has maintained that his culture is “not a costume.” Why then, New Yorkers might wonder, does he not extend this courtesy to others? In December, he shared an Indian dance video about Hanukkah by comedy group the Geeta Brothers who performed behind a menorah, spinning dreidels, while singing Hey Hanukkah. The Punjabi track features lyrics: tera dreidel bara ghummay (your dreidel spins a lot), taazi roti kosher howay (let’s have fresh kosher bread), with a repeated chorus of mombatiyan, which means candles. Mamdani also wished his followers a merry Christmas using a video for the Geeta Brothers’ Jingle Bells track where the group woos a woman.

When Trump announced U.S. forces had bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on June 22, he ended with an unusual presidential benediction: “I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America.” Eric Metaxas, one of Trump’s most fervent evangelical supporters, was amazed: “I could not believe what I heard... that was the most bold declaration of faith that any president has made in our history.” The statement thrilled Trump’s evangelical base, but its place in wider events mattered just as much. Pastor Greg Laurie of the Harvest Christian Fellowship called the airstrike “a foreshadowing” of a prophecy fulfilled.

At the conservative Christian schools I attended from kindergarten through the end of undergrad, I became familiar with two types of believers: the knuckle-draggers and the nuance-mongers. The knuckle-draggers didn’t swear or drink. They watched dumb faith-based movies like God’s Not Dead. Secular music was suspect. Any engagement with the products of mainstream culture was accompanied by a humorless and formulaic discussion of how said opus fit into a “Christian worldview.” And when election time rolled around, they didn’t have to think twice. Only one issue mattered. Democrats wanted to kill babies, so voting anything other than a straight GOP ticket was out of the question.