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Every dispatch, brief and reflection, newest first. The Watchman, The Advocate and The Discerner in one place.

Engraving of a lone man walking away along an empty road beside a long blank wall topped with wire, a strip of crimson cloth on the bundle under his arm

Pastor Lian Xuliang Walked Out of a Xi'an Detention Center on September 5, Four Years After the Police Took Him. Nobody Has Said Why. Nobody Has Said Whether His Father Is Still Inside.

The police came for the Church of Abundance on August 17, 2022. They took the founding pastor, Lian Changnian. They took his son Lian Xuliang, ordained the autumn before. They took a preacher named Fu Juan. Two days later the city's civil affairs bureau declared a congregation that

Everyone Will Call This the Day Washington Agreed to Pay for Worship. Read the Opinion. It Is Nearly Forty Pages About Whether a Federal Clerk May Decide What Counts as Worship.

Everyone Will Call This the Day Washington Agreed to Pay for Worship. Read the Opinion. It Is Nearly Forty Pages About Whether a Federal Clerk May Decide What Counts as Worship.

The Justice Department told HHS the old bar on spending grant money for sectarian worship, instruction or proselytization violates the Free Exercise Clause. What the opinion holds, what it concedes, and why a memo is not a ruling.

Prosecutors in Xi'an Named 235 Victims. That Accounts for 2.3 Million Yuan. The Indictment Charges Pastor Gao Quanfu With 25.5 Million and Asks for Twelve Years.

Prosecutors in Xi'an Named 235 Victims. That Accounts for 2.3 Million Yuan. The Indictment Charges Pastor Gao Quanfu With 25.5 Million and Asks for Twelve Years.

The indictment ties 2.3 million yuan to 235 named victims and names nobody for the other 23.2 million. Prosecutors want twelve years for a pastor of 69. His wife is still in detention.

I Filed Pakistan's Courts Under Lost After the Maria Shahbaz Ruling. Then a Muslim Father in Kasur Went Back to the Same Courts for His Own Daughter, and the Judgment He Won May Be the One That Protects Ours.

I Filed Pakistan's Courts Under Lost After the Maria Shahbaz Ruling. Then a Muslim Father in Kasur Went Back to the Same Courts for His Own Daughter, and the Judgment He Won May Be the One That Protects Ours.

A Muslim father in Kasur refused a clerk's empty ledger and won eleven pages from the Lahore High Court. Maria Shahbaz's lawyer says the ruling against her is no longer valid.

More Than Two Hundred Men Came for Ayilamo at Dusk. Four Policemen Died Holding Them Off, Seven Villagers Died Anyway, and the Village Says the Army Post Up the Road Never Picked Up.

More than two hundred armed men came into a Benue village on Thursday. The police met them; four died. The village says the army post nearby never answered.

Engraving: empty benches in rows before a burned, roofless church under an overcast sky, a cross on a pole, motorcycle tracks in the dust, one red scarf on the nearest bench.

Boko Haram Reached Nzangula on Sunday Night and Left at Dawn. The Church of the Brethren Is Burned, Twelve Are Buried, and the Police Spokesman Is Not Answering His Phone.

A seven hour raid on a Church of the Brethren village in Gombi, Adamawa. Twelve buried on Monday, a woman taken, the church burned, and no word from the police.

He Shot Her in the Forehead in Her Mother's House. Then He Took Her Brother, Sixteen, and Kept Him Twenty One Hours Until the Family Agreed Not to Call the Police.

He Shot Her in the Forehead in Her Mother's House. Then He Took Her Brother, Sixteen, and Kept Him Twenty One Hours Until the Family Agreed Not to Call the Police.

Saba Mehboob, 21, was shot in her mother's house in Rawalpindi on September 3. Her killer then took her sixteen year old brother for 21 hours. He is out on bail. The boy is in a police station.