World

As COVID-19 vaccination efforts ramps up in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and Denmark, the Baptist World Alliance on Friday called for equitable distribution of vaccines and the avoidance of “vaccine nationalism.”

Christians and Muslims in the besieged Central African Republic have taken shelter together in houses of worship in the country as renewed rebel violence forces thousands out of their homes.

Institutions around the world, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum in Poland, Yad Vashem in Israel, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. have online events planned for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged coordinated global action on Monday to build an alliance against the growth and spread of neo-Nazism and white supremacy and the resurgence of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and hate speech sparked partly by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a number of existing problems: political divides, inequities, conspiracy theories. It also has exposed religious persecution in a number of countries, according to Open Doors.

A disused, rubble-filled piece of land has caused friction between the ancient Christian community and the local Palestinian community, which is in administrative control of East Jerusalem despite Israel’s longtime military occupation and effective annexation of the area.

In March, as the coronavirus pandemic shut down countries around the world, a massive earthquake struck Croatia. Now, as this tumultuous year closes, the Balkan nation again finds itself hit by earthquakes. And Baptists there are among those hurt by the quakes and ministering to their neighbors.

A new poll of Britain’s Generation Z finds older adolescents and younger adults are more likely to believe in God than are millennials, the demographic ahead of them. No parallel trend has been identified in the United States.

Wearing hard hats and protective suits, members of the choir of Notre Dame Cathedral sang inside the medieval Paris landmark for the first time since last year’s devastating fire for a special Christmas Eve concert.

After focusing on COVID-19 for nearly a year, international aid groups are bracing for what happens as the world comes out of lockdown. With declining numbers of volunteers and donors, global faith-based aid organizations are looking beyond their traditional sources of support.