Toward the end of President Trump’s first term in office, his administration designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC). The label is given to nations that “engaged in severe violations of religious freedom” as understood under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. While the label was removed the following year by President Biden’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, Trump reinstated it this past weekend in response to increased scrutiny of the government’s failure to protect the Christians within its borders.

Designating a country as a CPC doesn’t lead to immediate sanctions or require the administration to follow through on Trump’s threats of military action and withheld aid. However, it does necessitate that Congress look into the matter, and representatives from the House Appropriations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are preparing to do just that.

But while President Trump is the most powerful voice to raise concerns over the treatment of Christians in Nigeria, he’s far from the first. Senator Ted Cruz introduced legislation in August proposing sanctions against the country for violations of religious freedom. And the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has advocated for intervention for years.

The Commission’s report from August of last year describes in detail the myriad ways in which Christians have suffered at the hands of terrorist organizations and bandits, as well as at the hands of the government at the state and local levels. Despite the country’s constitution officially prohibiting the adoption of an official religion, it does permit the use of Sharia and blasphemy laws. Citizens are not supposed to be compelled to abide by them, but that hasn’t stopped local and state governments from using them to imprison, beat, and even stone those who fail to abide by their codes of conduct.

However, Nigeria’s Christians are not the only ones to suffer such treatment, and the reality of the situation is more complex than the headlines make it seem.

Boko Haram and violence in the North

As Conner Jones described on this week’s episode of Culture Brief, part of what makes the situation in Nigeria so complicated is that the nation has a population of nearly 240 million people, and it’s split relatively evenly between Christians and Muslims. Most of the country’s Christian population resides in the southern half, while the northern half is predominantly Muslim.

The vast majority of the violence is located in the northern and central parts of the country. In major southern metropolitan areas, like Lagos, Christian persecution is relatively low. In the north, however, militant groups like Boko Haram target both Christians and Muslims who will not go along with their brand of radicalized Islam. While followers of Jesus are 6.5 times more likely to be killed than Muslims, these terrorist armies have killed tens of thousands of their fellow Muslims as well.

To their credit, the government has tried to intervene at times, only to find that its forces are often outmatched. Just last month, Boko Haram overran a military barracks along Nigeria’s northern border and forced the soldiers to flee, leaving behind their weapons.

Yet, as bad as the violence is in the north, central Nigeria is even worse.

Fulani Herdsmen and a more complicated conflict

Isa Sanusi, the executive director of Nigeria’s branch of Amnesty International, said in May that 93 percent of the roughly ten thousand people killed by bandits in the last two years came from two states in the central part of the nation. But while there is undoubtedly a religious component to the violence in this region, economics play an important role as well.

The primary perpetrators of the attacks in central Nigeria are the Fulani Herdsmen. For generations, they raised their cattle and other livestock in a nomadic way of life. However, as the country’s population increased, more and more of that land was converted to farms, most of which are owned and operated by Christians.

That said, what started as a land dispute has since morphed into something else.

These radicalized groups have learned that it is often far easier to find support for their cause when they can claim it is motivated by religion. Moreover, at least in central Nigeria, they receive less pushback by targeting Christians than they would by attacking those who share their spiritual perspectives.

And while government officials claim that “both sides have been perpetrators and victims,” Zayiri Yusuf—a Nigerian political analyst—notes that “I am yet to find any Muslim community where people have been sacked and others came in to occupy those places.”

At the end of the day, even if the violence is motivated by more than religion, religion is still at the heart of the death and destruction that has turned Nigeria into “The deadliest country for Christians.”

So, what can we do about it?

How to pray for the persecuted

When faced with the reality of persecution to the extent seen in Nigeria, we have to start with prayer. However, we can intercede for our brothers and sisters in Christ more effectively when we know enough about them to better empathize with what they’re going through. That means reading beyond the headlines and talking points to truly learn about their situation and the dangers they face.

So, while we pray for those who go to bed each night unsure of whether they’ll see the morning, we must also pray for those in the government who are genuinely trying to help but lack either the strength or resources to make a significant difference. And we need to pray that God would protect the Muslims who are being persecuted as well, understanding that those who perpetrate this violence do not represent the entire religion.

Taking the time to research the events and people for whom we pray will add depth to our intercession and help them remain on our hearts and minds far longer than if we simply offer a short prayer before moving on with our day.

Then, once you’ve prayed for those facing the threat of persecution, take some time to ask the Lord if he would ask anything else of you as well.

Wissam al-Saliby, the President of 21 Wilberforce, joined Dr. Mark Turman on this week’s Faith and Clarity podcast to discuss the persecution in Nigeria and around the world, as well as some of the more tangible ways that people can help. Organizations such as Open Doors, The Voice of the Martyrs, and others are also worth exploring.

We are all called to help

God is not going to ask most of us to share the gospel in areas where we might lose our lives for doing so. That may be his will for some, but even if it’s not your calling to go, we are all called to help.

So, before you close this article or pause this podcast, take some time to ask the Lord where he wants you to help. It could be as simple as setting reminders in your phone or on notes around your bedroom to help you remember to pray more frequently for those facing persecution. Perhaps he would have you donate your time or resources to one of the organizations trying to help those same people. Or maybe his calling for your life is to take the step of becoming more directly involved in taking the gospel to some of the world’s darkest places.

Whatever the case may be, know that he has a role for you to play in helping the lost come to know Jesus and in supporting your fellow believers as they attempt to do the same.

What is your role today?

Quote of the day:

“Every Christian a missionary; every non-Christian a mission-field.” —Winkie Pratney

Our latest website resources:

• Nigeria is becoming a “mass grave” for Christians
• Tariffs on trial, Nigerian Christian persecution, Dick Cheney, Mamdani and Dems win big & NFL trades |CB Ep. 44
• How can Christians respond to persecution and defend religious freedom?
• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ’67’
• Washington walks back attempts to single out Catholic clergy

Denison Forum

This week’s elections have been framed by many, especially those critical of President Trump, as a negative referendum on his second term. Some are even predicting that the Democrats’ victories portend a “blue wave” in next year’s midterms. By contrast, others suggest that Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race is a political “gift” for Mr. Trump, so long as he understands voters’ frustrations that led to Mr. Mamdani’s ascension.

While I would not offer partisan advice to Mr. Trump as he responds to these partisan views, I have been reflecting on his approach to a far more significant election in his future.

The president dialed into Fox & Friends a few weeks ago to discuss the war in Ukraine. During the conversation, he explained his motivation for trying to broker an end to the conflict: “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” he said. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

Prodded recently by a reporter to elaborate, he said, “I’m being a little cute. I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into heaven. I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound.” He added, “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make heaven, but I’ve made life a lot better for a lot of people.”

Saved by grace but living by works

Mr. Trump’s soteriology (doctrine of salvation) needs a significant biblical corrective. We are saved by grace and not works, by what Jesus has done rather than by anything we can do (Ephesians 2:8–9; Romans 11:6). If Donald Trump has trusted in Christ as his Savior, he is a child of God and has eternal life now (John 1:12; 3:16). If he has not, he urgently needs to make this commitment (2 Corinthians 6:2).

But I am focusing today less on the president’s soul and more on yours and mine.

My assumption is that you have already trusted in Jesus as your Savior and Lord. (If you have not, I encourage you to read my article, “Why Jesus?”, make the commitment I explain at its end, then reach out to a Christian friend who can help you grow in your new faith.)

My point is this: We know we are saved by grace, but many of us live by works.

We agree with St. Augustine that God loves each of us as if there were only one of us. We’ve heard pastors assure us that Jesus would die on the cross all over again just for us. But in every other dimension of our lives, we are what we do. Imagine appealing to grace when you undertake your next assignment at work, take your next test at school, or owe your next mortgage payment to the bank. Even marriage and family have performance-based conditional limits relative to adultery and abuse.

The same is true in a sense with our souls. As we have been discussing this week, we are commanded to love our Lord and our neighbor holistically and unconditionally (Matthew 22:37–39). This takes discipline and devotion: we go to church on Sunday, pray and read the Bible during the week, devote significant time and resources to Christian causes, and even read (and write) articles like this one.

But it’s not enough.

If you’re like me, you live with the knowledge that you don’t always love God holistically or your neighbor unconditionally. In fact, we fall short on both counts—sometimes far short—every day. And working harder to do better seems to be a path not to progress and holiness but to discouragement and burnout.

The supermoon and our sanctification

Last night we saw the brightest supermoon we will see this year. If we didn’t know better, we would think that this was because the moon itself became larger and more luminous.

However, astronomers inform us that the moon’s “light” is a reflection of the light of the sun and that the moon was closer to our planet and thus appeared to be larger and more luminous. I would not know any of this to be true if someone who knows more than me had not told me. My part is to trust their scientific expertise rather than my flawed observation.

So it is with our souls. Trying harder to be more godly doesn’t make us more godly, at least not in the long run. We need a source of light and wisdom beyond ourselves. And we need to trust that source even—and especially—when it contradicts our self-reliant culture.

What does God’s word tell us about spiritual progress?

• When facing temptation: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
• When facing decisions: “Trust in the Lᴏʀᴅ with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
• When facing difficult circumstances: “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9).
• When facing death: “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).

In short, God alone is “able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

As with astronomical wisdom, our role is to believe that this is so. As with the moon and the sun, we are to receive what our Source offers by grace and then to reflect that grace to a graceless world.

This means that we read Scripture, pray, worship, and serve, not so God will love us but because he already does. We practice spiritual disciplines not to grow spiritually but to position ourselves to experience the sanctification only the Spirit can effect in our lives.

“The best thing we will ever know”

First15, our ministry’s devotional resource, noted recently:

Of all the wonders our Creator provides us, boundless and unadulterated relationship with Jesus vastly exceeds them all. Jesus is the best thing we will ever know. His love restores, satisfies, transforms, and heals. His grace empowers and brings transcendent peace. His nearness resolves the great fears of our hearts. And his Kingship calls us to a right relationship of living for heaven rather than a pursuit of that which is worldly and fleeting.

Tim Keller was right:

“To be loved but not known is superficial. To be known and not loved is our nightmare. Only Jesus knows us to the bottom and loves us to the sky.”

When last did his love change your life?

Why not today?

Quote for the day:

“For breadth the love of Jesus is immensity, for length it is eternity, for depth it is immeasurability, and for height it is infinity.” —Charles Spurgeon

Our latest website resources:

• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’
• How can Christians respond to persecution and defend religious freedom?
• Washington walks back attempts to single out Catholic clergy
• Trade deals, East Wing destroyed, NBA gambling scandal, election day preview & scented stamps
• What does the Bible say about transhumanism?

Denison Forum

As expected, Democrats Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia won their state’s gubernatorial races last night, while California voters approved a plan to redraw their state’s congressional map in Democrats’ favor.

However, the headline news is that Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City. Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, and he is the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century. On his campaign website, he advocates for freezing rent, fare-free buses, no-cost childcare, city-owned grocery stores, and tripling the City’s production of housing. He says he will pay for all of this by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers.

According to the Times of Israel, he has also refused to support Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, and vowed to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York City (where the United Nations is headquartered). In a 2023 video, he said, “When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF” (Israel Defense Forces).

However, Mr. Mamdani has vowed to fight antisemitism as mayor, and left-wing Jewish groups in the city supported him, though other Jewish voters fear that he “poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community.”

So, what kind of mayor has America’s largest city elected? Is he a radical socialist or a pragmatic reformer? A dangerous antisemite or an inclusive antiracist?

We will have to see what Mayor Mamdani does to determine who he actually is.

Why “the world is not enough”

In the 1976 movie Network, the character Arthur Jensen asserts:

There are no nations. There are no peoples. . . . There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast . . . interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. . . .

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the national order of things today. . . . We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

You can make a biblical argument for his argument:

• Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because it was “good for food” and a “delight to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6).
• Cain murdered Abel after God blessed Abel’s offering over Cain’s (Genesis 4:1–8).
• The Jews worshiped Canaanite gods who were purported to control the weather and thus the economy.
• When Jesus warned, “You cannot serve God and money,” the Pharisees, “who were lovers of money,” heard his words and “ridiculed him” (Luke 16:13–14).
• Among the wicked in Revelation are those who worshiped “idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood” (Revelation 9:20).

In a world of materialism, success is measured by material means. We are what we have, what we do, and what others think of what we have and do. But we can always have and do more and impress more people with what we have and do. We are never done.

As the fictional spy James Bond’s family motto proclaimed, “The world is not enough.”

This changes everything

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

According to economist Adam Smith, whose 1776 book The Wealth of Nations was extremely influential for colonial America, the “invisible hand of the market” guides society through self-interested choices to greater societal outcomes. As consumers want what we want, the free market produces goods and services that benefit not only us but everyone else. The astounding technological and material advances produced by capitalism over the centuries illustrate his thesis.

However, the “pursuit of happiness” our nation was created to secure, unalloyed by unconditional love for ourselves and others, can lead only to a zero-sum competition for materialistic success. And such success cannot meet the deepest hunger of the human heart.

This is why the third part of the Great Commandments we’re discussing this week is so important. As we have noted, Jesus famously taught us to love our Lord and to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39a). Many people overlook the rest of the second command, however: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 39b, my emphasis). The phrase could be translated, “Love your neighbor in the same way and to the same degree as yourself.”

So, we might ask: How do we love ourselves?

If we love ourselves as transactionally and materialistically as the world loves us, we will similarly love our neighbor for what they do and have that is selfishly relevant to us. But if we love ourselves as unconditionally and passionately as God loves us, we will similarly love our neighbor as a beloved fellow child of our Father.

This changes everything.

“Reclaim your primal identity”

Philip Yancey wrote:

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: you become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

Henri Nouwen similarly urged us:

Look in the mirror each day and claim your true identity. Act ahead of your feelings and trust that one day your feelings will match your convictions. Choose now and continue to choose this incredible truth.

Then he added:

“As a spiritual practice, claim and reclaim your primal identity as a beloved daughter or son of a personal Creator.”

What is your “primal identity” today?

Quote for the day:

“Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.” —Henri Nouwen

Our latest website resources:

• If spreading the gospel was as easy as ‘67’
• How can Christians respond to persecution and defend religious freedom?
• Washington walks back attempts to single out Catholic clergy
• Trade deals, East Wing destroyed, NBA gambling scandal, election day preview & scented stamps
• What does the Bible say about transhumanism?

Denison Forum