National rallies July 10 on behalf of persecuted Christians

A dozen religious freedom rallies are being organized nationwide Wednesday, July 10, to bring awareness to the suffering of persecuted Christians worldwide. The effort is being spearheaded by Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC) and partner organizations.

While they rarely make it into mainstream media, millions of people around the world are being persecuted for their faith. They are being tortured, enslaved, raped, crucified, driven from their homes and murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable. The majority of the persecuted are children, with girls and women being among those most violated.

These atrocities drive the mission of Save the Persecuted Christians (STPC), which advocates for hundreds of millions of persecuted Christians worldwide. With their partners they work with organizations who also work tirelessly so believers can pray, worship and witness freely and without fear.

STPC and Nations in Action have organized more than a dozen Religious Freedom Rallies across the United States to bring attention to the plight of Christians and to send a message to the media that it can no longer be ignored.

“This crisis, which is nearing genocidal proportions, is being widely ignored and has been allowed to continue unchecked,” said Dede Laugesen, executive director of Save the Persecuted Christians. “We say NO MORE! It’s time to call out the persecutors—and their enablers—hold them accountable and secure significant penalties on state and non-state offenders as well as those who enable them. We pray thousands of Americans will join us on July 10 at the nationwide Religious Freedom Rally and stand for religious freedom.”

Rallies are planned for Atlanta, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tampa, Tysons (Va.), Washington, D.C., and West Palm Beach (Fla.)

Participants may rally in two ways on July 10:

1. Rally In-Person. Attend the rally in-person in one of the 15 cities, bring a sign, and take a stand to end worldwide religious persecution while hearing from experts and leaders. RSVP by city here.
2. Rally Online. For those not in or near a rally city, readers can create awareness on social media by sharing and re-tweeting posts using the hashtag #Free2Pray, as well as call into local talk radio shows and write letters to the editor to highlight global Christian persecution. Sign up online here.

Learn more about the rallies and nationwide events at ReligiousFreedomRally.org, where Christian persecution photos and news as well as downloadable resources for the rallies are available, or visit twitter.com/freedom_rally or facebook.com/religiousfreedomrally.

Save the Persecuted Christians seeks to bring awareness about targeted Christians through the “The People of the Cross” exhibit, a series of vertical traveling banners that details Christian persecution in various countries around the world. Materials can be obtained by emailing the organization.

The exhibit’s banners feature images, facts and quotes from recent news stories about the persecution of Christians in multiple countries, such as China, where Communists are increasingly hostile to people of faith and churches are demolished; North Korea, where Christians are tortured or worse; Syria, where Christian girls and women have been sold into sex slavery; and Nigeria and East Africa, where terrorists are exterminating Christians with genocidal intent. A majority of the countries highlighted in the banners are high on Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List.

“The People of the Cross” exhibit is available for churches, public venues and special events. To learn more about hosting “The People of the Cross,” contact Save the Persecuted Christians or visit the website, where panels are available to view online.

The mission of the organization is to save lives and save souls by holding the persecutors accountable and creating costs for their crimes against humanity. To that end, it will disseminate actionable information about the magnitude of such crimes and bring to bear a movement of concerned Americans determined to hold persecutors accountable for such crimes and create real costs for perpetrating them against those who follow Jesus.

According to Aid to the Church in Need, which released its biannual report on Religious Freedom in the World in November, over 300 million Christians experience persecution. According to Open Doors USA World Watch List, 245 million Christians are victims of high to extreme levels of persecution (i.e., torture, rape, sex-slavery, expulsion, murder and genocide), an increase of 14 percent over 2018. Open Doors also estimates 1 in 9 of the world’s Christians experience persecution and that every month: 345 Christians are killed, often in public and without regard to gender or age; 219 Christians are abducted and imprisoned indefinitely without trial; and 106 churches are demolished.

To help promote the rallies, just share this article to Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.

–By Dwight Widaman

<form action=”https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr” method=”post” target=”_top”><img src=”https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif” alt=”” width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ />

</form>