Stephen Rasche, an international expert on persecuted Christians, will speak at Franciscan University of Steubenville on the ongoing persecution of Nigerian Christians by Boko Haram and other Muslim ethnic groups.

Rasche’s talk, “Nigeria on the Brink: The Current Crisis of Anti-Christian Violence in Nigeria and the International Response,” will be moderated by Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review and will be given on Friday, January 28, at 3:00 p.m., in the J. C. Williams Center’s Tony and Nina Gentile Gallery. His talk is free and open to the public and can be viewed via livestream and following his presentation on demand at https://bit.ly/3FhPBao.

At least 60,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed in the past two decades. In 2021, Nigeria was taken off a U.S. State Department persecution watchlist, despite an estimated 3,462 Christians killed there in the first eight months of 2021.

“This is a critical time for the universal Church to help our brothers and sisters in Nigeria,” said Franciscan University theology professor Dr. Stephen Hildebrand. “Many people don’t know of the dire plight of Nigerian Christians, especially those in Northern Nigeria. Prayer is essential, and it will open our hearts should the Lord call us to help in other ways.”

An American attorney, Rasche quit his law practice in 2014 to work full-time in Iraq with Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda, CSsR, the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, to help Christian refugees fleeing ISIS. He details his experiences and humanitarian aid efforts in his book “The Disappearing People: The Tragic Fate of Christians in the Middle East. Rasche is currently the vice chancellor of Catholic University of Erbil, Iraq.

His talk is sponsored by the Franciscan University of Steubenville School of Theology and Philosophy as part of the Friday Academic Lecture Series.