On the closing day of the second Ministerial to Advance Religious Liberty, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced plans to create a new International Religious Freedom Alliance.

Secretary Pompeo recently announced the establishment of a Commission on Unalienable Rights, to furnish advice for the promotion of individual liberty, human equality, and democracy through U.S. foreign policy. In his opening remarks, Secretary Pompeo expressed his “hope that this ministerial will inform that discussion.”

The crackdown, part of a broader effort in recent years to restrict China’s fast-growing religious groups, includes detaining over one million ethnic minority Muslims in internment camps in the far western region of Xinjiang, removing crosses from churches, conducting surveillance inside churches, closing churches and demolishing church buildings.

The Baptist World Alliance calls upon Baptists to “Repent from the teachings and practices” that “have prevented women from flourishing as human beings created in the image of God and full members of the body of Christ,” and to be open to the Holy Spirit’s power to provoke transformation so that Baptists might affirm “the God-given calling of women for service in the church.”