A study of Protestant churches closings for 2019 found there were significantly more churches closed in 2019 than those that opened. This evangelical Lifeway Research organization studied 34 groups and denominations, representing 60% of all Protestant churches.
For 14 years in a row, statistics for Southern Baptists, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, are still declining. In 2020, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) saw crucialcomponents falling, including membership, attendance, donations, and the total number of congregations.
NBC News interviewed a handful of former students (or ex-interns) regarding a Christian leadership training program at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge, LA. These ex-interns attested that the program was abnormally brutal. They described their disturbing experiences.
On April 28th, 2020, Mubarak Bala (age 37), an Ex-Muslim atheist and President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was apprehended at his home and then taken to the northern state of Kano. There he faced blasphemy accusations from religious figures. Blasphemy is punishable by death in the region where sharia law is enforced on Muslims despite Nigeria’s own Constitution.
On April 23rd, at least 45 people were killed, and approximately 150 others were treated for injuries after a stampede crushed them at a religious festival in Israel. Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in celebration at one of the most significant events in the country.
United States Federal authorities filed charges of child exploitation and abduction against an extremist Jewish sect known as the “Lev Tahor” group. This same group has faced several such accusations over the years.
On the morning of Tuesday April 20th, the Canadian Province of Quebec announced plans to appeal a ruling which exempted minority teachers and some politicians from wearing religious attire or symbols.
The ruling, that supports much of a 2019 law, does not apply to teachers in Quebec's English-language school boards, as they hold special rights over education under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United on Sunday, April 11th, was censored over a hundred times by Iranian state-run TV broadcasting channels.
