• Narendra Modi increased its parliamentary majority in the May election and his new citizenship law has sparked protests across India.

• The law grants persecuted people of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi religions eligibility for citizenship — while omitting Muslims.  

New Delhi, Jan.2.– The omens for an electoral victory were unfavourable, given Narendra Modi’s openly discriminatory policies against Muslim and Christian minorities and his dire social and economic record.

Yet India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister was returned with an increased majority in May. In the parliamentary election, in which 900 million people (around a tenth of the global population) could vote, Modi and the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) won 303 of the 543 seats, meaning his government has no need of the other parties in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition (see India’s election results).

• Increasing levels of Christian persecution during 2019.

• Baylor Professor Paul Marshall comments on ‘secularization theory,’ ignorance among diplomats and journalists and the culture wars.

 Budapest, Dec.30.– Despite being the most persecuted religious minority in the world, Christians suffering persecution are often overlooked in the media and hardly given priority or special attention in government policy. This is particularly the case in Western countries whose foundations are, ironically, by and large Christian.

So why is there this dearth of coverage? In this interview in Budapest with the National Catholic Register at a conference on persecuted Christians, professor Paul Marshall, explains that various factors are in play.

Prof. Marshall holds the Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at Baylor University. The main factors in Christian persecution, he says, include “secularization theory,” which implies religion is “going to disappear,” ignorance among diplomats and journalists, and the culture wars, which have been projected onto non-Western persecuted Christians.