For security reasons and out of respect for our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, we do not use names of specific people on this website when speaking of the persecuted church. Consider, however, persecution of Christians and the state of the Church as it exists in the world today:

• In parts of Central Asia where the state religion is mandated, Christians are considered traitors to their country and their families. Family members are beaten, and then thrown out of their house and onto the streets.
  
  
• In the Middle East and parts of Western Asia and Africa, laws prohibit Christians from evangelizing, and forbid citizens from choosing Christianity over the religion into which they were born. Christians caught sharing God's Word are chased out of town, beaten, or worse.
  
  
• Whilst modern Western society is built on the foundations of Christendom, the non-Western world is predominantly Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Animist, Spiritist and Atheist/Communist.
  
  
• In 1960, more than 70 percent of the Church worldwide was still Western (white and middle-class). But indigenous mission movements were beginning to emerge out of indigenous churches. Since the 1980s the non-Western Church has grown at such a rate that the Church worldwide is now more than 70 percent non-Western.

Persecuted Church Resources
There are many resources online where you can learn more about the plight of persecuted Christians around the world, and become involved in prayer and support of the cause of Christ in these nations:

> Christian Freedom International

> Voice of the Martyrs

> International Christian Concern

> Persecution Blog

> Stand Today

> Open Doors

> Christians of Iraq

> Friends of the Martyred Church

> Release International