The Global Persecution of Christians

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Oh no, I don't believe for a minute that Christians in this country - or anywhere in the west - are being persecuted. It's in the third world, and the developing world, that Christian minorities are being s**t on without respite. But the notion of that happening here? That's just pure demagoguery on the part of the religious right using the cross for the sake of political advantage.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Um...how is it interesting exactly? "still Jews" as opposed to, what, exactly?

@pandabear: I didn't say it fueled the Christian movement. I said it might have appeared to. I get the impression from reading Acts that their perception was that killing Stephen inspired other Christians to follow Stephen's example. If you go back just before Stephen's appearance in the book of Acts, you find Gamaliel warning the Sanhedrin to consider carefully how they proceeded with Peter and the apostles. Apparently "messiahs" had appeared either about the time of Jesus or before, and after they were punished or put to death, their disciples abandoned their cause. After Jesus' death, His teachings just kept spreading, and the apostles seemed to have actually been encouraged by taking the punishment they were given. So they had a period of unrestricted teaching until the persecution that took Stephen's life.

Even after Stephen's death, though church leaders spread out and grew followings elsewhere. It might appear that the more they were persecuted, the stronger the movement became.

Which is where I draw my hypothesis that the church is stronger when it stands up under persecution. You find out who the true believers really are.

The thing is that committed, practicing Christians are already a massively powerful group in the United States, but most of them are blissfully unaware of it. The delusions of persecution are especially offensive to those of us who aren't Christians, because it demonstrates how little the Christians do to truly deserve the massive amount of power that they possess.

They only exist to be manipulated by others.

In all fairness, that hardly describes all Christians. Those of us who belong to mainline denominations are not in anyway into the manipulation and power politics of the religious right.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Oh, I wasn't saying that all of you are the ones *doing* the manipulating. Just that most of you are on the receiving end of it.

And so are the rest of us, by extension.

I can agree with that, 100%. There are conservatives in WP who ask why I'm so critical of evangelicals. Well, I've had to watch my own Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod become inundated by that happy clappy religion, as well as fundamentalism - neither of which are part of Lutheran tradition. And a lot of good people in my denomination over the years have been drawn to this newer, uglier theology by influences from the religious right on the outside. Call me paranoid, but I have to wonder if this isn't intentional, and not just happenstance.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

When was the last time Jews persecuted Christians? Two thousand years ago?

At the time of Stephen and Jesus, 90% of the Jews in the world were in Persia (the Diaspara) not in Palestine. They never even heard of Jesus and Stephen.

ruveyn

I don't think I phrased my post correctly. I'll clarify.

I don't understand how someone can spend time on this PPR thread recently saying how any "Christian" related to persecution is not really Christian, then turn around and say Jews that persecute Christians would still be Jewish.

According to the argument posed, then technically no Christian has ever persecuted a Jew based on that definition of what a Christian is. I fail to see the logic in the post I responded to.

No real Scotsman fallacy, correct?

No true Scotsman, yes.

For more clarity, the paragraph you quoted wasn't directed towards what ruveyn said..

Ah... I misunderstood.

"No true Scotsman" has to do with someone being proven wrong and adjusting or redefining their position to coincide with their worldview or whatever happens to be relevant. I've never said "no true Christian would ever..." I simply question a person's claim to Christ based on their actions. If you can clearly define and identify who/what a true believer IS, and I think that you can, then you can call into question whether the person claiming to be a Christian really is. It's entirely possible for a true-believing Christian to do something horrible. What a true Christian would NOT do is persist in evil behavior knowing that the behavior is wrong. Many Christians do bad things not understanding their actions and just simply need to grow up.

I find certain actions of RCC autorities historically to be highly suspect and find cause to question whether those people even were followers of Christ at all in any way besides name. I find WBC behavior highly questionable because of their heavy cherry-picking approach and strange fascination with intentional hatred. WBC folks might honestly be Christian, but I think because of the way they behave it's difficult to distinguish them as actual followers of Christ IF they even follow Christ at all.

What makes a Jew a Jew is part ethnicity and part theology. The first Christians were part of a distinctive Jewish movement begun by Jesus (a Jew) and His followers (also Jews). Jewish laws demanded retribution against their own who were guilty of blasphemy. If the Sanhedrin (Jewish) believed Jewish Christian leaders were guilty of blasphemy, it shouldn't come as a surprise what their subsequent actions would be,

It's also important to note that Stephen was put to death by an angry mob. Unlike the apostles who preceded him, he was never given a hearing before the Sanhedrin.