Hannah Felsbourg
18 December 2025
A Nigerian Anglican bishop’s greatest prayer as armed groups kill thousands is that more people would come to know Jesus, including the attackers.
The country ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List, with the organisation documenting 3100 Christians killed between October 2023 and September 2024.
Amnesty International documented at least 10,217 people killed by armed groups in seven northern states between May 2023 and May 2025, with hundreds of thousands displaced.
Zonkwa Bishop Jacob Kwashi in Kaduna State said he wanted the persecution and killing of Christians to win more souls for Jesus.
“Let the gospel, the fire of the gospel burn. Let the flame be so wild that more souls, more people will come to know Jesus,” he said.
“Pray for the terrorists too that they will come to know Jesus.”
Bishop Kwashi asked Australian Anglicans to pray that Nigerian Christians would hold fast to Jesus whether they lived or died.
“Whether they kill me today, I will go home,” he said.
Bishop Kwashi said he had conducted three mass burials since 2020, including one in April 2023 for 33 people killed in Zangon Kataf.
He said attackers came at night when people were asleep, killing them and burning their homes.
Amnesty International said Boko Haram and other armed groups were carrying out escalating attacks across northern Nigeria.
Read more: Massacre shows risks of Christian faith in Nigeria: Open Doors
Bishop Kwashi said Islamic extremist groups including Boko Haram were responsible for attacks in Kaduna State.
The violence has drawn international attention, with the United States designating Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern on 31 October 2025.
According to the US National Counterterrorism Center, Boko Haram targets Christians, security forces and Muslims it perceives as collaborators.
The Nigerian government disputes that violence specifically targets Christians, saying criminal gangs attack all religious groups.
Berwick Anglican Church parishioner Nathan Habila lived in Nigeria until migrating to Australia in 2013.
He said he first witnessed violence against Christians in 1987 as a secondary school student, when churches across Zaria were burned and pastors were killed.
Dr Habila said the violence continued and escalated over decades. In the early 2010s, Boko Haram bombed his next-door neighbour Sylvester’s Catholic church.
He said Sylvester stayed to help injured people, then came home traumatised. By the next morning, Sylvester was dead.
Dr Habila said seeing what happened to his neighbour convinced him to leave Nigeria.
Bishop Kwashi said congregations gathered in burned churches the Sunday after attacks, refusing to let violence stop them meeting.
Even where pastors were killed, members returned the following week to worship God. He said more people attended after attacks than before.
“Nothing, not even bullets, not Boko Haram, nor any terrorist group can stop the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said.
“The more they burn down churches, the more the churches keep multiplying.”
Operation World said church growth in Nigeria has been massive and continues despite hundreds of churches being destroyed.
Nigeria is home to several of the world’s largest church auditoriums, including Dunamis in Abuja which seats up to 100,000.
Bishop Kwashi said hundreds of Muslims were converting to Christianity despite facing death threats from their communities.
He said they had encountered Jesus and come to believe that only through him did they have certainty of eternal life.
Bishop Kwashi said Nigerian Christians held to the apostle Paul’s words: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
Dr Habila said the resilience of Nigerian Christians could not be explained.
“You can’t kill the Holy Spirit,” he said.
“They can kill anything they want to kill, they can slaughter, but they can’t kill Jesus again. Nobody can kill the gospel.”
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