Why Christians are persecuted


Today, sincere followers of Jesus Christ are under attack everywhere, not only in lands dominated by religions and governments hostile to Christianity, but increasingly in those parts of the world historically home to, and founded by, Christians.
Think of it. The most transcendent way of life a man or woman can embrace on this earth – one that commands not only that you love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, but that you “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you” – is cursed, hated and persecuted.
This persecution shows up in a broad spectrum of ways. In the United States it is, as a rule, far less overt and brutal than overseas, taking the form of censorship, demonization and criminalization – for example, the never-ending prosecutions of Christian businesses and individuals (including the jailing of a Christian county clerk) for being unwilling to actively participate in homosexual weddings. Then there are the ubiquitous assaults on Christian expression in the public square, online and within our public schools and armed forces, and the ongoing destruction of Christian memorials, crosses, nativity scenes and the like, and even the recent equating of Christianity with white supremacism and the open mockery of prayer.

Of course, in much of the rest of the world no such subtlety or restraints exist, with scores of nations persecuting, torturing, enslaving and slaughtering Christians daily.
By every measure, Christian persecution – and even more fundamentally, fear and loathing of biblical Christianity – is growing worldwide, even in the once-Christian West, including Europe, the United Kingdom and North America.
The most appalling manifestation within the U.S. has been church shooting massacres, including September 2017’s church shooting in Tennessee and the following November’s mass-murder in rural Texas when a militant atheist, calling believers “stupid,” slaughtered 26 churchgoers and injured dozens more.
Around the world, sums up Open Doors, a ministry serving the needs of the persecuted faithful, “Christians are being persecuted in more countries and in more ways than ever before.”

Why is this happening?
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. – John 3:19-20
In many parts of the globe, the reasons Christian believers are targeted are clear enough: Christians are considered “infidels” by millions of Muslims taught from birth that such are deserving of death or forced conversion to Islam, or else dhimmitude (subservient second-class status including a punitive tax). Likewise, the ruling elite in communist societies indoctrinates the population that there is no God – or, as in North Korea, that their leader is a god – rendering Christianity a serious competitor for the people’s loyalty and thus a mortal threat to communists’ limitless ambitions to power.
But even in America, Christian believers are increasingly reviled in a land historically founded as an explicitly Christian one. America’s culture today is not merely un-Christian, but anti-Christian. The news and entertainment media mock and belittle Christian beliefs as do most of the nation’s colleges and universities, while the political left increasingly equates biblical values with ignorance and bigotry at best, and at worst, with white nationalism and fascism. Unfortunately, this growing antipathy toward Christianity was turbocharged by President Obama, who for eight years openly denigrated the very faith he claims to follow. In reality, raised by a Muslim stepfather and schooled as a follower of Islam in Indonesia, Obama later embraced the atheistic religion of Marxism for decades – and he has never publicly renounced nor even criticized either one.

But let us now turn up the magnification and take a much closer look at what actually underlies today’s growing antagonism toward the followers and teachings of Christ.
Bear with me, please, because it may seem at first as though we’re not dealing directly with the subject at hand – Christian persecution – although you’ll soon see we have arrived at the very heart of the matter.
Ironically, though Islam is infinitely harsher than Christianity in its treatment of homosexuals – lashing them, throwing them off buildings, hanging, stoning, torturing or shooting them – rarely are any complaints heard from the left about Islam. Only about Christianity. Why?

Because the left’s real enemy is not Islam, it is the Judeo-Christian biblical precepts and commandments that for centuries served as Western civilization’s moral foundation. The left does not feel threatened by Islam because Islam doesn’t shine a light on the left’s sins; it just represents a different form of darkness and, therefore, causes no spiritual conflict or shame.

Moreover, for now at least, the left is strategically comfortable allying with Islam because “the enemy of your enemy is your friend,” and both Islam and the atheistic left are at war with Christianity.

What about the rest of the world? In so many nations, life is more wretched and the human spirit more stifled than we in the West can ever imagine.
And in these dark regions, where the light of Judeo-Christian civilization has never dawned, and where the marvelous freedom, security, self-worth, individual rights and resulting entrepreneurism, innovation and other blessings of liberty have never existed, the dynamics of persecution just described manifest not as mockery and lawsuits, but as brutal suppression, mayhem, madness and murder.
For those who rise to positions of power in totalitarian nations, as well as for those unfree souls forced to serve as soldier-slaves of the regime’s enforcement machinery, the mortal threat posed by the very existence of the Christian Gospel being shared in that land – because of its exceedingly powerful appeal to the hearts, minds and souls of the people – is total. It must be stamped out at all costs. The darkness not only can’t “comprehend” the light – it absolutely can’t stand it and feels compelled to put it out.
The extreme penalties simply for being a Christian in much of the Arab-Muslim world, and especially for apostasy – converting to Christianity from Islam, generally earning a death sentence – are a measure of just how truly dark the state-mandated religion can be in many parts of the world.

And yet, to the great masses of people living in totalitarian regions, hearing and receiving the Gospel message often is like being gifted with cool water in a stifling spiritual desert. This is why, despite the very high cost of discipleship, Christianity blooms readily in the most hostile places on earth. Places like Nigeria and Somalia in northern Africa, where being a Christian can easily mean having your home burned to the ground and your entire family beheaded, and North Korea, where simply being found to possess a small Bible can lead to summary execution with a high-powered rifle shot to the head. But many would much rather live with the extreme danger, yet with joy and the promise of eternal life, than continue in the living death they had before.
And then, there is Europe.
Currently in the process of being conquered by Islam, Europe has already largely been conquered by the seductive, atheistic, yet insufferably self-righteous “religion” of socialism/Marxism and the moral and spiritual emptiness it truly represents. 
Europeans rejected the stout Christian faith of their forefathers for the sake of gaining “freedom” from their prior bondage to old-fashioned morality, biblical values and the personal responsibility, self-denial and sacrifice that real liberty requires. However, that rebellion against their centuries-old Christian foundations has created a raging spiritual vacuum, which Islam has been only too happy to fill. With its rapidly expanding population – comprising both migrants and converts –Europe’s Muslims seem full of religious fervor and willingness to have lots of children unlike native Europeans, and to generate a never-ending supply of fired-up jihad warriors and wannabe martyrs eager to die while ushering in the Islamic apocalypse.
It’s been said it takes a religion to fight a religion – and Europe has none.
So where does this leave us? Our world, despite its natural beauty, wonder and awesomely dazzling complexity, is filled with the wretchedness of desperate people trying to bear up under the yoke of every form of bondage. Not just bondage to deranged leaders and enslaving philosophies, religions and governments, but bondage to drugs, alcohol, food, sex, gambling and everything in between. Human weaknesses like pride, doubt, anger, lust and greed manifest as cruelty, confusion, corruption, exploitation and criminality – and terrorism and war are never far behind. Even in the most civilized of nations like America, rage, depression, anxiety, mental illness, addiction, divorce, family breakdown, hopelessness and suicide far too often get the upper hand.

Yet, God is merciful. For into this exceedingly dark world, He sends a gift. The Creator of the entire universe, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, somehow manages to wrap His nature and goodness and grace and healing and majesty and a plan for redemption all into a tiny package – a present for mankind – and sends it to earth in the form of an infant. A wonder literally beyond our imagining, God’s Son is not only full of love and truth and innocence – basically, everything this world is not – but bears the ultimate gift of healing for mankind. The child grows up to become not only the most important person to ever live – the greatest example, greatest teacher, greatest religious leader and so on – but much more. He becomes the savior of mankind, the doorway to a new life for us, both in this world and the next.
Even so, there is a sort of divine magic afoot, for all who embrace Him and faithfully follow His path to peace and fulfillment even in the midst of suffering, joy in the face of heartache, fullness of life even when surrounded by death. The magic of God’s love for us and our redemption is a great and mysterious heavenly miracle, yet down here at “ground level” we are called to focus on forgiveness: God forgives our sins through Christ’s sacrifice for us – and we, in gratitude and obedience, forgive everyone else’s sins. Everyone. Completely and totally.

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. – Matthew 5:44-45
If you think about it, when we bless those who curse us and do good to them that hate us and pray for those who persecute us, we can’t lose. No matter what. We become bulletproof. The good is good, and the bad is good, so to speak.