RELIGION HEADLINES
Written by on January 3, 2025
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(SRN NEWS) – Anti-Semitism surged in the U.S. last year and 2025 is not getting off to a good start. A large crowd of Palestinian protesters rallied in New York City on New Year’s Day, calling for violent attacks on Israel. Online video shows some of the protesters shouting anti-Semitic slurs, along with vows to drive all Jews out of the Holy Land. The flags of both Hamas and Hezbollah were on display as well. The attacks by Hamas on Israel in October of 2023 served to spark a global surge in anti-Semitism and the U.S. has not been immune. Protests by Palestinians and their sympathizers have become commonplace in New York.
President Trump is warning Hamas to release its Israeli hostages. Mr. Trump says the terrorist group had better set free the people it seized during its 2023 raid on Israel by the time his is sworn in to office January 20th — or else. At least 250 Israelis were taken hostage by Hamas during the attack and roughly 100 are apparently still being held in Gaza or elsewhere. President Trump has vowed to try and bring the war between Israel and Hamas to an end shortly after he takes the oath of office. He provided strong support for Israel during his first term, and it is expected that relations between the two countries will remain warm during his second.
President Trump wants the U.S. to be energy independent and that goal could impact the persecution of Christians abroad. A new report from International Christian Concern points out that eight of the 12 members of OPEC — the consortium of oil producing nations that the U.S. buys from — regularly persecute believers. ICC says, “Ongoing trade and the failure of the U.S. government to assign genuine consequences to nations fraught with religious freedom abuses stagnates the progression of human rights at best and encourages religious oppression at worst.” OPEC’s chief persecutors include Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Two Vietnamese pastors have been shot by unidentified assailants. International Christian Concern reports that both men survived the attacks last month but one of them has been left unable to walk. The two clergymen led house churches that operate without a government permit. The ICC report says, “Leaders and members of unregistered house groups are often harassed and oppressed because they are not part of the government-sanctioned Evangelical Church of Vietnam.” Christians make up a very small percentage of the population in Vietnam and are subject to hostility from the mostly irreligious majority.
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