Christian Persecution, By James Reed

The plight of Christians facing persecution today is a harrowing and deeply sympathetic story of resilience amid unimaginable suffering. Drawing from Michael Snyder's article on Substack, "They Beat Us With Iron Rods, Behead Our People And Burn Our Churches To The Ground," published on February 19, 2025, we can see a vivid picture of the anguish endured by millions of believers worldwide. Snyder's piece shines a spotlight on the raw human cost of this persecution, emphasising the physical violence, emotional torment, and societal erasure that Christians are subjected to in various regions, often with little attention from the global community.

Snyder begins with a chilling account from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where he describes an attack on February 11, 2025, in the village of Mayikengo. Here, an Islamic extremist group linked to the Islamic State, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), stormed a church during a service, slaughtering at least 70 Christians—men, women, children, and the elderly—beheading them in a brutal display of hatred. The image of families gathered in worship, only to be met with machetes and fire, evokes a profound sense of sorrow. These were not faceless statistics, but people with lives, hopes, and loved ones, now reduced to victims of a relentless campaign against their faith. The article quotes a local resident saying, "They beat us with iron rods, behead our people and burn our churches to the ground," a testament to the sheer brutality that strips survivors of both their community and their sanctuaries.

This incident is not isolated. Snyder notes that Open Doors, a human rights group tracking Christian persecution, released its 2025 World Watch List, revealing that over 380 million Christians globally—roughly one in seven—face high levels of persecution and discrimination. The numbers are staggering: in 2024 alone, more than 5,500 Christians were killed for their faith, nearly 15,000 churches or Christian buildings were attacked, and over 4,000 believers were detained without fair trials. These figures paint a grim reality where practicing faith comes at the cost of life, liberty, or safety. Imagine the constant fear of a mother in Nigeria, wondering if her child will return from a Bible study, or a pastor in North Korea, knowing his clandestine prayers could lead to decades in a labour camp. The emotional weight of such uncertainty is crushing.

The persecution spans continents and takes many forms. In Nigeria, Snyder highlights how groups like Boko Haram and Fulani militants target Christian villages, burning homes and churches, abducting girls, and leaving behind a trail of widows and orphans. In North Korea, where an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians languish in prison camps, faith is a death sentence carried out in secret, away from the world's gaze. In India, Hindu extremists have torched over 300 churches in the last two years, driven by a nationalist fervor that brands Christians as outsiders. Even in places like Pakistan, blasphemy laws hang like a sword over believers' heads, where a false accusation can ignite mob violence and destroy entire families. These stories reveal a shared thread of vulnerability—Christians often lack the power or resources to fight back, making their endurance all the more poignant.

What compounds this tragedy is the silence that surrounds it. Snyder laments that while these atrocities unfold, Western media and governments often turn a blind eye, distracted by domestic politics or unwilling to confront the complexity of religious persecution. For the affected communities, this indifference feels like abandonment. Picture a Congolese villager, sifting through the ashes of their church, wondering why their cries go unheard, or a Syrian Christian, displaced by war, feeling forgotten as the world debates other crises. The lack of global outcry deepens their isolation, leaving them to bear their cross alone.

Yet amid this darkness, there's a flicker of defiant hope that stirs sympathy and admiration. Snyder quotes Revelation 2:10, "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life," reflecting the spiritual strength that sustains many persecuted Christians. They cling to their faith not out of naivety but as an act of resistance, a refusal to let their identity be erased. In the DRC, survivors of the Mayikengo massacre are likely already rebuilding, singing hymns over the ruins, as countless others have done before them. This courage—forged in the furnace of suffering—speaks to a profound human spirit that refuses to be broken, even when the world seems to have turned its back. The plight of these Christians is a call to empathy. They are not merely headlines or data points, but brothers, sisters, and children enduring a nightmare most of us can scarcely imagine. Their homes are torched, their loved ones slaughtered, their voices stifled—yet they persist. To sympathise is to acknowledge their pain, to feel the weight of their loss, and to honour their quiet, steadfast faith in the face of such cruelty. Their story is one of tragedy, yes, but also of an unbreakable will to survive, a testament to the human soul's capacity to endure even the darkest of nights.

https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/they-beat-us-with-iron-rods-behead