A 14-year-old Christian girl is recovering after being abducted and raped in Pakistan’s Punjab province, according to family members and police.

The murder of a Pakistani pastor has taken a dramatic turn, with police saying his wife and her alleged lover were the “masterminds” behind the killing, which investigators say was carried out by hired assassins.

Christians in Indonesia’s West Java province were weighing their options Sunday after Muslims reportedly formed a human wall to block members of a Protestant church from reaching their Christmas worship service, in an incident that has underscored concerns about Islamic extremism in the Asian country.

Nigeria says it has provided intelligence support to the United States ahead of Christmas Day airstrikes targeting militants linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) group in the country’s northwest, where Christians had been among those suffering from Islamic extremism.

A Christian father of three was murdered in Pakistan’s Punjab province by Muslims over the Christmas holiday because of his faith in Christ, confirmed sources told Worthy News on Friday.

Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, marked its first Christmas celebrations since a ceasefire was announced between Israel and Hamas, though concern lingered among Christians following an arson attack near a church elsewhere in the West Bank.

U.S. evangelist Ross Johnston said Wednesday that he has been sued for roughly $720,000 by a woman who claims she suffered injuries during one of his Christian outreach rallies in Los Angeles.

Minority Christians in Palestinian territories faced a tense Christmas after church officials confirmed that “an arson attack” damaged a Christmas tree and a Nativity grotto at the Holy Redeemer Church in Jenin.

Millions of Christians around the world are marking Christmas in secret amid persecution, violence, and discrimination, according to investigators.

The remaining 130 schoolchildren and staff abducted by gunmen from a Catholic school in Nigeria last month — one of the largest mass kidnappings in the country’s history — have been freed, officials confirmed.

With Christmas approaching, a Christian worker and his family have fled a brick kiln in Pakistan where they were effectively held in modern-day slavery by their Muslim employer, amid continuing concerns over the safety of Christian girls in the mainly Islamic nation, investigators told Worthy News.

Five Iranian Christians have been sentenced to a combined 55 years in prison amid a broader crackdown on devout Christian believers in Iran, a strict Islamic nation, sources told Worthy News Thursday.

Egyptian Christians facing religious-based violence and discrimination are increasingly relying on underground safe houses as authorities continue to fall short on protecting minority rights, Christian advocates say.

Nicaraguan authorities have begun barring tourists from bringing Bibles into the country, a move that signals an intensifying crackdown on religious freedom and independent expression.

With Christmas approaching, thousands of Christians, many of them from Indigenous communities, marched near Mexico’s southern border “to thank God” for decades of relative peace in the Mexican state of Chiapas, despite reported acts of violence in recent years.

Despite Christmas approaching, many Christians in Syria aren’t in a celebratory mood one year after the toppling of longtime autocratic President Bashar al-Assad, investigations reveal.

Some 100 students have been rescued, and about 50 others escaped following Nigeria’s largest Christian school kidnappings in recent years, several sources confirmed Wednesday.

Pakistani police have released security camera footage allegedly showing the main suspect in Friday’s assassination of Pastor Kamran Salamat, also known as Kamran Naaz, whose death at age 45 has shocked Pakistan’s embattled Christian community.

A Catholic priest remained missing in northern Nigeria Thursday after being abducted from his residence in Kaduna State, Worthy News learned.

A funeral was underway in Pakistan on Saturday for a prominent Gospel preacher who was shot and killed in a Friday attack, less than three months after he survived another assassination attempt by suspected Islamic extremists, friends told Worthy News.