Where it's dangerous to believe

In the symbolic heart of a liberal democracy, a list is revealed of where it is dangerous to believe. Belle Tindall reports on the annual World Watch List.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A huge communist monument consists of a red flag wall rising from left to right over a column of statues.

Mansu Hill Grand Monument in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Just as they do at the beginning of each new year, this January saw the charity Open Doors descend upon the House of Commons to officially launch its World Watch List for 2023. That is, the list of the fifty most dangerous countries to be a Christian in the world this year.

As well as producing this list, the advocacy group also revealed a number: 360 million.

That’s the number of Christians who are living under extreme pressure and persecution because of their religious identity. That’s 1 in every 7 of the 2.4 billion Christians in the world right now. For statistical context, that 360 million is larger than the current population of the USA. The enormity of such numbers can be a challenge to digest, so perhaps it would be more effective to summarise the research this way - 2023 the most dangerous year to be a Christian on record.

Only a quarter of the story

It’s a powerful image: there, in the grand epicentre of British government, where a verse from the Bible is literally carved into the floor of the main entrance way, was an evening dedicated to the 360 million people for whom a spiritual alignment to that very same verse exposes them to danger and discrimination.

When we think of religious groups that are facing daily persecution, it’s likely that Christian communities aren’t at the top of our list of assumptions. And that’s relatively understandable when we’re viewing Christianity through the lens of our own Western contexts. In May, the UK is going to come to a communal standstill as we witness the Archbishop of Canterbury, the figurehead of the Church of England, place a crown on the head of our new King, thus ushering in a new phase of history. It can seem as though, as a society, the scent of Christianity is in the very air we breathe. Many of our most cherished landmarks are sites of religious significance, it’s not unusual for our local schools and hospitals to be named after Christian Saints, while our public calendars are shaped by Christian celebrations.

And yet – 360 million people.

While Christianity has a (rather recent) reputation for being a Euro-centric religion, European Christians are actually the minority, making up only one quarter of the global Christian population. We are inclined, because of our own experience of Christianity as enjoying a prominent role in public life, of having a rather narrow understanding of the global Christian reality.

A more global perspective

Christians are by no means the only faith group to face the danger of religious persecution, but year after year, they are continuing to face it on the largest scale.

The World Watch List shows that the global reality for Christians is anything but static. In 2022, Afghanistan was considered the most dangerous country to live as a Christian. However, largely due to the Taliban’s attention being lured away from its Christian population, Afghanistan has dropped to ninth place. North Korea, which is home to approximately 400,000 Christians, has thus regained its position as the most ‘brutally hostile place’ to be.

Following North Korea, the other top nine countries in the list are: Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan Iran, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Not only has this persecution seen a numerical increase, but also a significant increase in the extremity of the danger posed. Violence, imprisonment, and even death, are very real possibilities for Christians living in these countries. However, religious persecution also includes more subtle social segregation, economic discrimination and national isolation. These 360 million people are being exposed to a spectrum of pressures to denounce their Christian identity and cease living out their Christian faith.

A paradox

And yet, one of the most staggering findings that Open Doors continue to present, is that it is in these places that the Christian church is experiencing its most rapid growth. According to their extensive research, the rising danger surrounding the Christian faith doesn’t seem to be having the desired effect; stories of persistence, faith and courage are unceasing.

This pattern is not anomalous, As Brother Andrew, the founder of Open Doors, once famously reminded the world, ‘persecution is an enemy the Church has met and mastered many times. Indifference could prove to be a far more dangerous foe’.

A dangerous faith does not equate to a disappearing faith.

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Comment

Economics

Football

Redemption

30 July 2025

3 min read

From transferring footballers to AI talent, we over-value each other

Building our value on cashflow crumbles our self-esteem

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Three Manchester United footballers with their arms around each others backs.

Mert0804, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Premier League footballers not only have millions of pounds, but millions of accountants. Yes, that's right: I've had my morning coffee and the editor didn't miss that sentence. There are millions of armchair accountants. You know, the bean counters many of us effortlessly transform into when it's transfer season.

Pick your channel - everyone seems to be asking 'is Rasmus Højlund really worth that much?' Your heart mightn't bleed for him - as he is handsomely compensated - but at least spare a thought for him and the crushing weight of critics and their expectations of his performance.

Footballers aren't alone. Whether it's bankers' bonuses, the excesses of the offers to top AI engineers… OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims that Meta have offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them. Other recent valuations of companies have raised $1 and $2 billion. The Economist says that AI valuations are 'verging on the unhinged’.

Armchair accountants actually look a lot like jurors. But who are we to judge? The figures might seem silly money, but the stakes are higher than fantasy football or Monopoly. In Build the Life You Want, Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey call out the way we objectify people at work over performance or pay:

'It’s pretty easy to see why we shouldn’t objectify others. Less obvious but equally troubling is when the objectifier and the person being objectified are one and the same—when you objectify yourself.'

Building our value on cashflow, Instagram likes and the like crumbles our self-esteem and all the health and social issues that come with that. In the arena of our own workplace, they write that self-objectification 'is a tyranny. We become a terrible boss to ourselves, with little mercy or love.’

You only have to peer into the comments section any any online article (not just sport) to see how callous and unforgiving apparently polite, middle-class society has become. It's hard not to have the sneaking suspicion that our devaluing of others thinly veils the way we've devalued ourselves.

The way out of this is to detach our value from our pay and work. So, take Rasmus Højlund, transferred to Manchester United in 2023 for £64million. I would argue his worth is a lot more than £64 million. But that is because his performance, for this exercise, is irrelevant. This is not a new notion. For millennia, the Christian notion of grace is not only the entry-point of faith, but the operating system, with perfect performance already having been achieved by a saviour. The 'ultimate price', paid by God, is of such immeasurable worth and value that Rasmus, or any of us, are worth significantly more than £64million.

But then the problem arises that Christians can still struggle with feeling like an expensive disappointment, unable to live up to the spiritual 'transfer fee'. Is it really worth me accepting the biblical claims of the price paid by Jesus on the cross if I just pile on guilt? Well, if you feel like a star signing, you've probably missed the point. But equally, if you feel like a flop, there's the need to recognise that value and worth was never rooted in your performance in the first place. There's a very different set of rules. It's not a zero-sum game of competition where players and managers are ruthlessly eliminated. The Bible paints the picture of a God not so much ruthless as he is reckless.

When Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son, squandering his father's wealth, only to be welcomed, restored and celebrated with open arms, the word 'prodigal' that's been attached to this parable even more appropriately describes the father: 'recklessly extravagant' and 'having spent everything'. Whatever our own estimations – or those of others – actually don't matter. £64million might feel like an absurd and unreal amount of money – but it isn't Monopoly money. Those figures have actually been transferred. And just because we can't see or feel the price that has been paid, doesn't make it any less real or consequential. Not only is your guilt traded away from you, but your rights to self-judge.

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