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The World's Top Church-Destroying Countries
A few countries give China, where a campaign to de-Christianize city skylines continues, some competition.
By Kate Tracy
http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2014/august/
August 8, 2014
Inside the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to rebuild two monasteries and a church torn down by Stalin about 85 years ago. But as Russia rebuilds churches with one hand, with the other it's been knocking them down.
While a campaign in China to de-Christianize city skylines has drawn the most international attention this summer, Pew Research Center recently calculated the world's 34 countries with the most government destruction of religious property (as of 2012). Three countries topped the list, with 100 or more incidents: China, Russia, and Tajikistan.
Overall, government damage to religious property occurs most often in the Middle East and North Africa, while in the Asia-Pacific region, 16 of 60 countries had government infringement on their property, according to Pew.
Some countries are systematic, others sporadic. Tajikistan, for example, topped the 2012 list because its government shut down more than 100 mosques due to improper documentation.
World Watch Monitor (WWM) has also calculated the destruction of Christian property in light of religious violence around the world. Between the months of November 2012 and March 2014, the persecution watchdog found that 3,641 churches and Christian properties were destroyed.
The four hardest-hit countries: Nigeria (with 1,539 cases, Egypt (with 829 cases), Pakistan (with 217 cases), and Syria (with 207 cases). Syria and Egypt lined up in Pew's second-tier ranking of countries with 10 to 99 cases of religious property damage, while Nigeria and Egypt were in Pew's third-tier ranking, with one to nine cases reported.
Conversely, Tajikistan ranks No. 45 among the 50 countries where it's hardest to be a Christian, while China ranks No. 37 and Russia does not rank.
Open Doors's tally includes houses and Christians' personal property, as small factions often create chaos by targeting Christian property. One unexpected discovery of the group's survey of religious violence was that South American countries such as Colombia and Mexico—countries that don't even rank among the top 50 worst places of persecution—have high rates of church property damage. Colombia had 177 cases and Mexico had 36 during the latest reporting period.
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