• 'Return to the dark ages' for Church in Myanmar. Following the military coup in Myanmar, in which leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government were ‘detained’, former generals and military party members have been installed into key government positions including religion. This is of grave concern to the country’s 4.4 million Christians, whose experience of life under military control is one of severe persecution. While persecution of Rohingya Muslims has been highlighted by western media; decades-long persecution of Christian groups, notably the Karens and Chins, is rarely reported. “This could be a return to the dark ages for the church in Myanmar,” said an Open Doors partner in Myanmar. A blanket Facebook ban will also have a huge impact on churches reliant on the platform to stream services.

Church News

• A fifth of C of E worshippers may not return when pandemic ends. A leaked report, sent to 42 diocesan secretaries this month, expresses concerns that even once churches open fully again, many former worshippers may never return to the pews. The report, entitled ‘Money, People and Buildings’, warns clergy to prepare for "radical" changes and cuts as officials prepare to overhaul the system to remain financially viable. Clergy had previously warned that churches were in danger of "collapse" in rural communities due to growing debt and inability to pay vicars. See also this article.
• Rise in pastors with ‘poor or very poor’ mental health. A further report, taking in over 200 Anglican, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Congregational and other churches (though not necessarily in equal proportion), shows a number of church leaders reporting a dip in their mental health since lockdown measures were introduced. Prior to the Covid pandemic, 7% of church leaders questioned said their mental health was poor or very poor. But when asked about the period since March 2020, this figure doubled to 15%.
  
  

Society and Politics

• Twitter suspends US Christian magazine over transgender tweet. Twitter has suspended The Daily Citizen, a publication of Focus on the Family, for tweeting that Joe Biden's nominee for assistant secretary of health, Rachel Levine, "is a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman”. The magazine appealed but was informed that its account will remain locked until the tweet is deleted. This despite numerous media outlets having reported that Levine was born male and remains a man who believes he is female. (Levine has undergone elective cosmetic surgery and taken cross-sex hormones in an attempt to look more like a woman physically). Read more here.

World news

• Nigeria the deadliest place to live as a Christian. Over the space of one year, around 3,600 Christians were murdered because of their faith in Northern Nigeria. That number has almost trebled from the previous year. The violence comes predominantly from Islamist extremists such as Boko Haram and Fulani tribesmen. Nigeria has entered the top ten of Open Doors' list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian for the first time since 2015. But if violence were the only criterion used in the research, Nigeria would be number one. Read more here.
• Nigeria’s military executes six Christian soldiers. Meantime, the slaughter of Nigerian Christians continues unabated, with an average of ten Christians being killed in that country every day. One of the latest episodes was at the hands of Nigeria’s own government, which executed six Christian soldiers in Abuja on false charges, according to a lawyer in that city. A Muslim colonel stole weapons from an armoury, but six Christian soldiers on duty got blamed for the theft, the lawyer claimed. They died on Jan 25, purely "because they were Igbo and Christian. The government of today detests Christianity and detests the Igbo tribe.”
• Centuries of Christian heritage in Turkey are "under threat". This is the claim made by Armenian and Christian groups as a result of new import restrictions between the US and Turkey. They condemn as “reckless” and “a travesty” the bilateral Memorandum signed by the Trump administration in its final hours whereby the US has agreed to place import restrictions on heritage objects from Turkey and to repatriate “trafficked” cultural property. This, in effect, places the care and control of the vast heritage of all cultural, religious and ethnic groups in the hands of the Turkish government, which has a long track record of “destroying minorities” and their holy sites. Read more here.

Israel

• Israel and Kosovo establish diplomatic relations in virtual ceremony. Israel and Kosovo established diplomatic relations this week, under a US-brokered deal that includes a pledge by the Muslim-majority country to open an embassy in Jerusalem. Israel sees its new ties with the tiny Balkan country as part of its broader normalisation with Arab and Muslim countries under agreements sponsored by former US President Donald Trump. Only two countries – the United States and Guatemala – currently have embassies in Jerusalem. Serbia, which does not recognise Kosovo as a separate state, has expressed deep concerns about the deal, warning that the agreement could hurt future ties with Israel. Palestinian group Hamas is also said to be outraged at the deal, bringing as it does seven predominantly Muslim countries in the region into formal ties with their enemy. 
• Israeli archaeologists find Biblical royal purple dye “more precious than gold”. Purple-dyed fabric dating back to the biblical reigns of David and Solomon has been discovered in Israel for the first time, according to archaeologists. Radiocarbon dating confirmed the samples date from approximately 1000 BC, corresponding to the monarchies of David and Solomon in Jerusalem. Archaeologists claim it is "a very exciting and important discovery.” The fragment was unearthed during excavations at a site in Timna, about 220km (137 miles) south of Jerusalem.