Shi Enhao, a leader in China’s growing underground church movement, disappeared last month — and it turns out he’s been in police custody, held on “suspicion of using superstition to undermine national law enforcement.” Shi is one of as many as 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to join the Communist Party’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement…

“As many American Christians are aware,” writes former Time magazine Asia correspondent David Aikman, “China’s Christian house churches, those Christian communities who don’t want to be controlled by the Communist Party, have been under their savage repression in years from the authorities.  The most serious persecution has targeted the Shouwang church, the largest in Beijing.” The 1,000-member church…

Iran’s secretive supreme court has reportedly overturned a death sentence handed down to an evangelical pastor for leaving Islam, surprising trial observers who were earlier informed about an execution ruling. However concerns remained Monday, July 4, about the future of 33-year-old Yousef Nadarkhani, as he remained under pressure to recant his faith in Christ, his lawyer and Christians…

Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence of a Christian pastor for leaving Islam. He was reported to have been given a choice on Saturday, July 2, to repudiate his faith in Christ or be executed. Yousef Nadarkhani, 33, had appealed to the Supreme Court after he was sentenced to death in 2010  on charges of “apostasy”, or…

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