{"id":35545,"date":"2023-08-25T10:40:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T10:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/increase-in-nations-with-religious-harassment\/"},"modified":"2023-08-25T10:40:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T10:40:00","slug":"increase-in-nations-with-religious-harassment","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/increase-in-nations-with-religious-harassment\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase in Nations with Religious Harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Religious minorities, including Pentecostals, Anabaptists, and Armenian Orthodox Christians, were accused of spreading COVID-19 or secretly profiting from lockdowns in at least 45 countries in 2020.<\/p>\n\n<p>Pew Research Center found that the accusations, often made with little or no evidence, led to physical violence on every continent except Antarctica. The most significant increase in harassment was against Jews, who faced intimidation and threats in more countries in 2020 than they had before the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n<p>Change In the Number of Nations with Religious Harassment:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>+6% Jews<\/p>\n<p>+4% Folk (Traditional religions)<\/p>\n<p>+1% Christian<\/p>\n<p>-1% Muslims<\/p>\n<p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[410],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[433],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3389,3395,3603,3934,4148,4152,4568,4628,4629,4660,5064,5103,5140,5191,5300],"tax_ctp_topics":[388,395],"class_list":["post-35545","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-adversity","tax_ctp_tags-affliction","tax_ctp_tags-church-state","tax_ctp_tags-faith-circumstances","tax_ctp_tags-hindrances","tax_ctp_tags-holding-on","tax_ctp_tags-opposition","tax_ctp_tags-persecution","tax_ctp_tags-perseverance","tax_ctp_tags-politics","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-warfare","tax_ctp_tags-suffering","tax_ctp_tags-testing","tax_ctp_tags-trial","tax_ctp_tags-world"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Increase in Nations with Religious Harassment - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/increase-in-nations-with-religious-harassment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Increase in Nations with Religious Harassment - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Religious minorities, including Pentecostals, Anabaptists, and Armenian Orthodox Christians, were accused of spreading COVID-19 or secretly profiting from lockdowns in at least 45 countries in 2020. Pew Research Center found that the accusations, often made with little or no evidence, led to physical violence on every continent except Antarctica. 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