Are Christians the most persecuted faith on earth?

Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Why do we need such a day?Sunday is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Why do we need such a day?

In The Global War on Christians, John Allen calls the worldwide persecution of Christians “the most dramatic religion story of the early twenty-first century, yet one that most people in the West have little idea is even happening.” The respected journalist describes this persecution as “the most compelling Christian narrative of the early twenty-first century.” According to him, “Christians today indisputably are the most persecuted religious body on the planet.”

What evidence does Allen offer for his claim?

The scope of persecution

According to the evangelical group Open Doors, one hundred million Christians face interrogation, arrest, torture, and/or death because of their religious convictions. Todd Johnson of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary documents that one hundred thousand Christians, eleven per hour, have been killed on average every year of the past decade. The Catholic humanitarian group Aid to the Church in Need describes this global assault on believers as “a human rights disaster of epic proportions.”

While 30 percent of the world’s population identifies as Christian, 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination around the world are directed at Christians. One scholar estimates that 90 percent of all people killed on the basis of their religious beliefs are Christians.

Terrorist attacks against Christians escalated 309 percent between 2003 and 2010. There have been seventy million martyrs since the time of Christ, forty-five million of them in the twentieth century. In other words, more Christians died for their faith in the last century than in the previous nineteen centuries combined.

Persecution and Islam

Persecution against Christians is especially prevalent in the Muslim world. According to Newsweek, “In recent…