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By Holly Meyer and David Crary |
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By Holly Meyer and David Crary |
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Hello, World of Faith readers. This week, AP brings you the story of what’s really happening with religious persecution in Nigeria. We also have a look at how women in male-led faiths are using their voices on social and political issues, and we go deep on the Nicene Creed and why it still matters 1,700 years after it was written. |
The Rev. Micah Bulus, right, standing, a pastor who was kidnapped along with others from a November 2024 church service, speaks with church members in Kaduna, Nigeria. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) |
Trump says Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria. The reality is more complicated |
Much of northern Nigeria has been battered by conflict in a longstanding security crisis, and U.S. President Donald Trump has chided the country for what he calls “the killing of Christians” by “radical Islamists.” But many Nigerians insist the reality isn’t as simple as Trump’s narrative. Experts and residents say some attacks do target Christians, but most emphasize that in the West African nation's widespread violence, everyone is a potential victim, regardless of background or belief. Read more.
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Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost evenly between Christians, who live predominantly in the south, and Muslims, mostly in the north — where attacks have long been concentrated and illiteracy, poverty and hunger are widespread. Nationwide, Muslims constitute a slight majority.
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Data from nonpartisan sources show Christians are often targets in a small percentage of overall attacks that appear to be motivated by religion in some northern states. But the numbers also indicate that across the north, most victims of overall violence are Muslims.
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Analysts and residents blame the killings on rampant corruption that limits weapons supplies to security forces, the failure to prosecute attackers, and porous borders that ensure steady weapons supplies to gangs.
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As US debates gender roles, some women in male-led faiths dig in on social and political issues |
The U.S. feminist movement’s perpetual quest for gender equality has suffered notable setbacks during President Donald Trump’s second term. Yet strikingly, outspoken women from the Catholic Church and the ranks of conservative evangelicals are engaging with gusto in ongoing political and social debates even as their faiths maintain longstanding rules against women serving as priests or senior pastors. Read more.
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One example of this phenomenon: More than 6,500 conservative Christian women recently attended a high-energy conference near Dallas organized by commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. “Welcome to the fight,” was her greeting.
Among Catholic women, there is a different kind of passion exhibited by sisters from religious orders who advocate for social justice. One striking example: Leaders of the Sisters of Charity criticized Cardinal Timothy Dolan for praising assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk without also mentioning his “racist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-immigrant rhetoric.”
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Another religious sister, Norma Pimentel of the Missionaries of Jesus, is a leading migrant-rights activist along the U.S.-Mexico border. She runs Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, including a respite center for beleaguered migrants in McAllen, Texas.
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1,700 years ago, bishops and an emperor wrote a creed. Millions still recite it in church |
Centuries of church schisms prove that if there’s doctrine to be fought over, there’s a good chance Christians will fight about it. That repeated splintering is what makes an event that happened 1,700 years ago so significant today. The event was the Council of Nicaea in 325, when the Emperor Constantine summoned bishops from around the Roman Empire. Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew — today’s Catholic and Eastern Orthodox leaders — will meet in Turkey soon to commemorate the event. Read more.
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Catholic, Orthodox and most historic Protestant groups accept the Nicene Creed. Despite later schisms over doctrine and other factors, Nicaea remains a point of agreement — the most widely accepted creed in Christendom.
Protestant churches later split over other issues, though most held to the creed, including Lutherans, Anglicans and Presbyterians. Many modern evangelical churches have statements of faith that largely agree with it. A few notable exceptions, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, don’t accept the Nicene formula.
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Various events have been commemorating the council, from the global to the local. The World Council of Churches, which includes Orthodox and Protestant groups, marked the anniversary in Egypt in October. At a Pittsburgh-area ecumenical celebration in November, the tongue-in-cheek catchphrase was, “Party like it’s 325.”
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