Christianity Isn't Persecuted; Freedom Is

Despite representing nearly one-third of the world’s population, and roughly two-thirds of the US population, Christians often claim to be persecuted. One could argue (and one probably would if one were a Christian) the perception of persecution has something to do with Christianity’s rapid decline in popularity, which is cited in both links above. But there’s a monumental difference between being persecuted and being slightly less overwhelmingly popular. Christianity still represents the plurality of any religion worldwide and the landslide majority in the US.

So why in the decidedly Christian world would so-called followers of Christ (the undisputed reigning cool kid alumnus of Earthling High School) feel persecuted by the marginal rest of us? Maybe the fist of Christianity is being loosened by the growing disparity among its various fingers. Maybe they are noticing the power of numbers declining and responding with appropriate panic. Or maybe they’ve been playing the persecuted card ever since the real persecution ended . . . 18 centuries ago.

I’m no church historian, or a historian of any kind for that matter. But it’s widely accepted that early Christians were persecuted in the most extreme sense of the word. I don’t need to go into detail on this, you’ve heard the rumors and seen the movies. It’s also pretty widely accepted that in the western world, a sudden and decisive shift happened in the 4th Century CE. After Constantine gave a stamp of approval to Christianity as a legitimate religion, the emperors of Europe crowned Christianity as the official religion of the state (it’s worth noting here that the founders of the United States of America would later take rather serious umbrage at such government overreach). From that point on, every faith that wasn’t Christian became the victims of persecution.

None of this is in dispute. But the continuity of persecution, no matter how the direction may have shifted, interests me greatly. It suggests to me that something other than faith or religion gives rise to the human propensity for persecution. What does? Fear, insecurity, and paranoia perhaps.

But what causes those fears? We know that change of any kind can put us on edge, but I wonder if there are some changes in particular that could be causing great groundswells of fear throughout this country and around the world.

I’m going to explore these questions in more rabbit-hole detail tomorrow, but I want to close the loop on today’s specific question: Why do Christians still claim to be persecuted? I believe it’s because it’s part of their original brand and written into their holy text. Paul discusses the persecution they faced and encouraged his audience to take joy and even pride in the difficulties they faced because of their allegiance to Jesus.

If persecution of the church isn’t happening, it makes the Bible and its claims look kinda irrelevant. And for the Christian, that’s one of the scariest things of all.

But it doesn’t need to be. Many, many Christians, in fact, would deny that real Christianity is popular at all. They would distinguish between Christianity as a cultural trend or a nominative religion and truly life-transforming faith in Jesus Christ. Lots of kids who aren’t skaters wear Vans or Airwalks. Lots of fair-weather Cubs fans wear Cubs gear all the time. Everybody celebrates Christmas, but that doesn’t mean anyone really knows what it means—that’s the vibe. And these Christians may think they’re considered religious extremists and therefore experience persecution.

I believe with my whole self these people are conflating persecution and society at large finding them weird. That’s not persecution; that’s just not fitting in.

And here we have the real crux of what causes persecution: when not fitting in goes from raised eyebrows to raised fists, from derogatory labels to slurs, from exclusion to legislation. There’s a great line in Hoosiers, even though it’s delivered by a big jerk:

This really boils down the difference between people thinking you’re weird and people thinking you’re a threat. When a misfit dresses in a peculiar style, our tiny little baby fear might laugh. When the peculiar style appears to threaten the prevailing social order, when it undermines the cultural norms of the church or political or financial power or casts light on truth and issues most powerful people would like to keep in the dark, well, now it’s taking place in their living room.

There was a time when being a Christian meant being a misfit. A threatening one. But if the year on your calendar has four digits in it, it’s not now. Christians are far, far more likely to be proponents of persecution of the people they find threatening than to be victims of even the slightest real persecution.

The problem (or the truly wonderful reality, depending on your “worldview”) is that the decidedly non-Christlike tradition of persecuting people based on things like gender conformity and sexuality and racial stereotypes no longer fits in with popular society (just as it doesn’t fit with the spirit or the letter of their own sacred manuscripts). Meanwhile, many of the core tenets of Christianity have become truly popular, prevailing wisdom on a secular level, which make many practicing Christians appear to be misfits even through the lens of their own teaching.

Being a good, kind, compassionate, others-focused, peace-loving, wealth-averse person now threatens the moral standing of the most fervent believers. They will not be made to look or to feel anything less than superior.

The core doctrine of Christianity hasn’t evolved into a mere prosperity gospel; it’s become a superiority gospel as well. When that gets threatened by the people they’ve deemed misfits? Oh, it’s on like Donkey Kong.