Author: Shalem John

Mansour Khajehpour and his wife, Nahid Sepehri, understand what is at stake in the ongoing Iranian protests. They remember the 12 days they spent in a Tehran prison for their faith two decades ago.  In the ’90s, the Islamic regime launched a wave of intense persecution directed primarily against Christians involved in evangelism and church ministries. One of Khajehpour and Sepehri’s Iranian Christian friends received death threats before he was found dead. Authorities arrested the couple, leaders at a Presbyterian church in Tehran, in 1996. After the courts released them on bail, Khajehpour fled the country. His wife and young…

Three years ago in a Hong Kong courtroom, 90-year-old cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun leaned heavily on his cane. Wearing his black clerical robe and white collar, the white-haired bishop emeritus faced charges of failing to register a legal support fund to help arrested activists during the 2019 pro-democracy protest movement. Despite his advanced age, Zen shows no sign of slowing down. Last June in a Hong Kong parish he leaned heavily on a different kind of cane—a golden ecclesial monstrance bearing the Eucharist inside. He had just finished celebrating the controversial Latin Mass, reinforcing his position on the conservative wing…

Watch, Tatch, for the day of the Lord is coming soon! On that day the Lord will gather together the nations to fight Jerusalem; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, the loot divided, the women raped; half the population will be taken away as slaves, and half will be left in what remains of the city. 3 Then the Lord will go out fully armed for war, to fight against those nations. 4 That day His feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives, to the east of Jerusalem; and the Mount of Olives will split apart,…