{"id":13497,"date":"2025-12-23T19:49:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13497"},"modified":"2025-12-23T19:49:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T19:49:57","slug":"top-story-of-2025-persecution-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13497","title":{"rendered":"Top story of 2025: Persecution in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"


By John Stonestreet<\/span><\/span>, Op-ed contributor Sunday, December 21, 2025<\/span>Chris Hondros\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

One of\u00a0the top\u00a0Christian worldview\u00a0stories of 2025\u00a0is\u00a0the ongoing, worsening\u00a0situation for Christians in the nation of Nigeria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of October,\u00a0President Trump\u00a0designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern. He also called on members of Congress to offer recommendations\u00a0on combating the persecution. This led the State Department to put Nigeria back on a persecution watchlist. Secretary of State Marco\u00a0Rubio threatened Nigerian officials with financial penalties, visa bans, and aid cuts if steps are not taken to curb anti-Christian violence and meet U.S. counter-terrorism standards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of this, which happened at the end of the worst year on record for Christian persecution, came as an answer to prayers and action. For example, I joined 32 faith leaders earlier this year to sign a letter to the president, which called for the special designation. President Trump even threatened intervention in a\u00a0post\u00a0on social media. \u201cI am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for\u00a0possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The question is whether the Nigerian government will now take meaningful steps to rein in the radical Islamic groups responsible for the increasing violence. Since 2014, according to Open Doors USA, Nigeria has been the most dangerous nation in the world to be a Christian, and 2025 has been, by far, the worst year on record. Over 7,000 Nigerian Christians were killed in just the first seven months of 2025, a number twice that reported by\u00a0Open Doors\u00a0for 2024,\u00a0and which accounts for a staggering\u00a080% of faith-related murders<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The violence in Nigeria is driven by jihadists from radical Islamic groups Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province, and, since 2009, militant Fulani herdsmen. Christians have been explicitly targeted with violence, including beheadings and church bombings. Millions have fled sub-Saharan Africa as religious refugees. The violence has led Open Doors to warn of an impending \u201cIslamization\u201d of the nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Nigerian government has blamed the violence on land disputes between herdsmen and farmers. The Biden Administration blamed the land dispute on climate change. These ridiculous explanations ignore the common elements of the conflict, namely that the persecutors are always Muslim, and the victims are always Christian.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Western media has largely ignored one of the most significant human rights crises of our day, other voices have been loud and clear. In a speech before the UN General Assembly on September 23, President Trump said to world leaders, \u201cLet us protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet today \u2014 it\u2019s called Christianity.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dr. Anthony Bradley\u00a0asked in an X post earlier this year, \u201cWhere is the \u2018Free Nigeria Campaign\u2019 and why are the free Palestine protestors also not passionately protesting Muslims in Nigeria?\u201d Even avowed atheist and liberal\u00a0Bill Maher recently questioned the lack of global interest on his show\u00a0Real Time:\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country! [The corporate media isn\u2019t covering it] because the Jews aren\u2019t involved. That\u2019s why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fourteen years ago,\u00a0in his book\u00a0The Next Christendom<\/em>, Phillip Jenkins predicted that the center of global Christianity would move from the West to the global South, particularly Africa and Asia. He specifically identified Nigeria as a likely epicenter of the \u201cnext Christendom,\u201d due to the size of its Christian population. It is not coincidental that Nigeria is now at the epicenter of Muslim resistance and violence.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christians around the world must continue to appeal to Heaven on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria. We must pray that God would strengthen them, and that the Gospel would go forward, even impacting the hearts of those who are persecuting believers for their faith in Jesus Christ. We must also continue to ask our government leaders to increase the pressure on Nigerian government officials and demand accountability. The excuses and inaction have enabled militants to operate with impunity, and the rest of the world to ignore these atrocities for too long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Originally published at BreakPoint.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

John Stonestreet serves as president of the Colson Center, equipping Christians to live with clarity, confidence, and courage in today’s cultural moment. A sought-after speaker and author on faith, culture, theology, worldview, education, and apologetics, he has co-authored five books, including A Practical Guide to Culture, A Student\u2019s Guide to Culture, and Restoring All Things. John hosts Breakpoint, the nationally syndicated commentary founded by Chuck Colson, and The Point, a daily one-minute feature on worldview and cultural issues. Previously, he held leadership roles at Summit Ministries and taught biblical studies at Bryan College (TN). He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with his wife, Sarah, and their four children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Stonestreet, Op-ed contributor Sunday, December 21, 2025Chris Hondros\/Getty Images One of\u00a0the top\u00a0Christian worldview\u00a0stories of 2025\u00a0is\u00a0the ongoing, worsening\u00a0situation for Christians in the nation of Nigeria.\u00a0 At the end of October,\u00a0President Trump\u00a0designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern. He also called on members of Congress to offer recommendations\u00a0on combating the persecution. This led the State<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[774,98,660,315],"class_list":["post-13497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-nigeria","tag-persecution","tag-story","tag-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}