Paul Marshall: Away in a Manger – At Christmas, we should remember Christians who are persecuted for their faith

For Christians, Christmas commemorates a time not only of joy, but also of threat. At Jesus’s birth, Herod conspired to kill him and murdered all the newborn boys in and around Bethlehem. In recounting this, Matthew’s gospel compares it with “Rachel weeping for her children” after massacres by the Assyrians. Herod has his current imitators. Read more …