Hallow could now not be allowed in Europe, Alex Jones, CEO and co-founder of the Christian prayer app, introduced on X, because of an “over-regulation” focusing on all non secular apps.
“China shut us down by outright eradicating us from the App Retailer. The EU is shutting us down by over-regulation, apparently focusing on any non secular app, making it successfully unattainable for us to function within the EU,” he wrote.
“Truthfully fairly heartbreaking — was simply speaking with the crew about constructing out our Polish / French / Italian / German content material and groups, but when that is proper will probably be primarily unattainable.”
Get Our Newest Information for FREE
Subscribe to get each day/weekly e mail with the highest tales (plus particular gives!) from The Christian Submit. Be the primary to know.
Whereas particulars surrounding the EU’s resolution stay unclear, some speculate that the area’s strict information privateness legal guidelines might be an element.
In 2022, the EU enacted the Digital Providers Act, which went into impact in February 2023. The laws mandates that each one platforms working inside the EU disclose their person numbers publicly twice a yr. Moreover, it restricts platforms from dealing with delicate information — reminiscent of info indicating a person’s non secular or philosophical beliefs — with out acquiring specific consent.
Amid the uncertainty, some organizations have stepped ahead to assist the app. ADF Worldwide, a authorized group targeted on free speech and spiritual liberty, responded to Jones on X, encouraging him to “DM them with extra particulars,” including that they “would possibly be capable to assist.”
Since its launch in December 2018, Hallow has been downloaded greater than 22 million occasions throughout 150 international locations, based on the app’s web site. Hallow gives guided prayers, meditations and Bible readings and has partnered with celebrities, together with Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Roumie and Gwen Stefani to additional its message.
Roumie beforehand shared with The Christian Submit how his involvement with the app helped his prayer life develop in frequency, depth and intention.
“It is concerning the purity of intention behind the prayers. If you earnestly search God, He meets you the place you’re,” he stated.
“Ask God, ‘How ought to I pray?’ Ask the questions, and He’ll, inevitably, in case your coronary heart is basically related to Him, and also you earnestly want to deepen your prayer life, He’ll reply you. And He’ll reply you in probably the most profound methods, in probably the most sudden methods.”
“God just isn’t attempting to cover how one can attain Him,” he stated. “There are a myriad of avenues to attach [with] Him. Music is part of that. Music is a big inroad to folks’s prayer life and religious life. […] Everybody’s acquired a technique that speaks to them greater than one other route. And I feel it is only a matter of attempting to determine what that’s and beginning with the query.”
Wahlberg additionally opened up about his involvement with the app, telling CP: “[Prayer] has been a giant a part of the best way I begin my day for many years now. […] It helps me get via every part, particularly to remind me of what I am attempting to do every day. I am away from dwelling, I miss my household, so it is acquired to start out with gratitude. After which additionally, the steerage and the reminder to proceed to do the issues that He desires me to do and the trail that He desires me to take, as a result of I will all the time have a plan, and He modifies that very often.”
The information of Hallow’s potential banning comes as Europe continues to expertise a decline in non secular affiliation and an uptick in persecution.
In accordance with information launched by the U.Okay.’s Workplace for Nationwide Statistics that yr, lower than half of the inhabitants identifies as Christian for the primary time for the reason that nation’s first census in 1801.
The information confirmed that solely 46.2% — or 27.5 million of the U.Okay.’s greater than 67 million folks — say they’re Christian. Within the 2011 census, 59.3% of the inhabitants — or 33.3 million folks — described themselves as Christian.
Moreover, a 2024 research discovered that greater than half of Christians within the U.Okay. declare to have skilled hostility and mock for his or her religion.
The research, compiled by the nonprofit Voice for Justice UK (VfJUK), claimed the nation has exhibited “a few of the highest ranges of intolerance and discrimination in opposition to Christians in Europe,” which researchers attributed to hate speech legal guidelines which have led to a prevalence of “harassment, self-censorship, direct and oblique discrimination.”
Anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe additionally reached a complete of two,444 incidents in 2023, based on a report that compiled information from police and civil society sources throughout 35 European international locations. The statistics embody 232 private assaults on Christians, starting from harassment and threats to bodily violence.
At the very least 1,230 anti-Christian hate crimes had been allegedly dedicated by 10 of the European governments in 2023, a rise from 1,029 in 2022.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Submit. She might be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
