"Christians 'by far the most persecuted' religious group"

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Persecution of Christians is modern-day 'genocide' says report as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt blames failure to confront the oppression of world's most targeted faith group on 'political correctness'

--'Political correctness' to blame for failure to confront oppression of Christians
--Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that Christians were sometimes neglected
--New report reveals Christians are enduring genocide in some parts of the world

Christians are 'by far the most persecuted' religious group and are enduring what amounts to genocide in some parts of the world, a report concluded.

They are being driven out of the Middle East in a modern-day exodus that means the religion could be wiped out in parts 'where its roots go back furthest', the study commissioned by the Foreign Office found.

And the report by the Bishop of Truro, the Right Rev Philip Mounstephen, found 'shocking' evidence that the persecution is worse today than ever.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt last night blamed 'political correctness' for a failure to confront the oppression of Christians, which he called the 'forgotten persecution'.

Mr Hunt said he would use Britain's diplomatic influence to defend Christians where they were under attack for their faith, and admitted the problem was sometimes neglected due to 'misplaced worry' that confronting it would be interpreted as 'colonialist'.

The bishop said the study found Christians are 'harassed' in more countries than any other religious group, and especially in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa. His report found 245million Christians now suffer 'high levels of persecution' in 50 countries, a rise of 30million year on year.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... eport.html

Maybe in the Middle East, but here Christians don't really face any real persecution. Muslims do however, and so do Jews as well.

The Russian Republic gets hit by more meteors than does any other country. Does so for the simple reason that its a bigger target to hit than any other country- its the world's biggest country in land area. So its not surprising that it gets hit by more cosmic shrapnel than other countries.

Christianity is the largest and most wide spread religion in the world, so one would expect it to be the biggest on both sides of the balance sheet: biggest victim, and biggest perpetrator, of religious persecution.

Historically it HAS been by far the biggest perp of persecution. Though recently its being eclipsed by the second biggest religion: Islam as a persecutor of other religions.

I agree with both of the above posters. Evangelicals whine about being "persecuted" in Canada, and in the US, but that's nonsense. But Christianity is indeed being persecuted in the third world. And especially in the Middle East.

And that is an injustice. And its probably true that the international community is inhibited about speaking out against the persecution of Christians in the middle east because it would look bad: westerners speaking up for Christians in the third world would look like promoting European colonialism. The irony is that the sects of Christianity being victimized are usually not even sects introduced by Western missionaries in the recent days of European imperialism, but are usually ancient indigenous Christian sects that predated both European colonialism, and even predated Islam.

Egypt was part of Victoria's British Empire. But its generally not Egyptian members of the Church of England that face persecution in Egypt, but members of the Coptic church. The Coptic Christians are remnants of the original wave of Christianity of Roman times. They were already there in when the Seventh Century Arab invasion swept across North Africa and brought Islam. Coptics were worshipping Christ in Egypt when the British themselves were all still Pagans.

In modern times Copts have always been somewhat second class citizens in Egypt, but did not face aggressive persecution. But that could change if Islamist groups get more influence in Egypt.

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. - John 15:19

Perhaps the lower rate of persecution in Western Civilization was because it was necessary for Christians to be deceived into working to accomplish diabolical plans. Now that the work is almost finished, there is no need to protect Christians from the treatment they receive in the rest of the world. In fact importing those that hate them can accelerate this transition. Consider;

http://christianpioneer.com/videos/eboo ... rld_v1.pdf

Here, at least in America, Christians themselves have no qualms persecuting those who aren't Christians. I mean, not ALL Christians are like that, but still...

People tend to believe they're living in a plain dog-eat-dog world.

“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” 2 Timothy 3:12 (NIV)

Those in some strict Christian religions and cults (like the one I was in) want to be persecuted in some way because they take it as a sign that they’re doing something right. They also take various scenarios in everyday life as persecution when there isn’t any.

The only form of bigotry that's socially acceptable today that I can think of is bigotry against Christians. It's true. I never thought I'd see it, but it seems bigotry against Jewish people is starting to be bubble up as well.

Collecting coptic Christians and American Wasps under the umbrella term 'Christian' is factually correct, but neglects centuries of warfare within christianity.
It's like assuming the shiite running the Iranian restaurant down the street is basically the same as a Sunni-wahabbi (I'm sure I misspelled that).

Also: I'm bigotted against all religions, except maybe Jainism. Not that I don't think it's ridiculous, but I have a certain respect for gymnosophists.

The Copts were persecuted by the Byzantine empire before Islam due to their Monophysitist beliefs, the Copts were considered heretics by the European churches (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and most Protestants).

Cyril of Alexandria was also a total jerk to the Jews of Egypt.

Interesting.

I didnt know much about Coptic theology, and kind of assumed that it was something akin to Greek/Russian/Armenian Orthodoxy. Part of the Eastern Rite family of churches. But apparently they are quite distinct, even from Eastern Orthodoxy. Apparently distinct enough for them not to get along very well the Eastern Orthodox.

They've bypassed Yezidi? Something tells me not, even in Egypt or Iran.

All non Muslim groups are getting pressured in the middle east today as never before in recent history (Christians, Jews, Druze, Bahai, Zoroastrians, and Yezidis).

Yezidis are a small population group confined mostly to their homeland - an enclave in northern Iraq. Christians (like Jews) are scattered all over the Arab world.I get the impression that Yezidis don't get much persecution in places like Iran and Egypt for the simple reason that virtually no Yezidis live in those countries. But Christians do live in Iran and Egypt, and do get persecuted in those countries.

But only a couple of years ago the Yezidi homeland was targeted for genocide by ISIS, and was decimated. Like the Jews were in the Holocaust. So relative to their smaller size the Yezidis are probably worse off than middle eastern Christians as a group are at the moment. But Christians are a more widespread group in the Middle East, and persecution of them is also more widespread. So comparing the two (in that way) is like peaches to pears. But I suppose that someone might argue that the less intense persecution of the more widely persecuted group adds up to "more persecution".

If I am not mistaken, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and Ethipoan churches are non-Chalcedonian, there are called Oriental Orthodoxy.

Not to be confused with the European Orthodoxy.

Growing up in the Bible Belt I’ve never seen a Christian persecuted.They did plenty of it to others.
I was told by several of them that I was going to burn in Hell since I wasn’t immersed when baptized,I was sprinkled.That I was evil because of a Led Zeppelin concert t-shirt ,and that the devil had gotten in me since I decided to sleep in instead of going to church with a friend.Her mom thought I was pure demon spawn.
I’m sure they catch hell in other places but not around here.

I always thought it was Jewish people who were the most persecuted.

Quite a lot of twaddle there.

The Russia/meteorite (not 'meteor') analogy is off-target because space weather is something extraneous to all nations alike, while the question of inter-religious persecution has no counterpart to this. It would be better to ask whether Russia being the largest nation by area suffers the world's highest level of intrusions into its territory/waters/airspace by foreign military forces, and of course it doesn't because it's a formidable military power and few neighbours (or more distant nations) would be so careless as to poke the bear.

So in the case of the worldwide Christian church, one would think that if anything (other factors being equal), its size in numbers should actually prove a deterrent to aggression against it anywhere. It would be far more plausible if a much smaller body (Jews and Yazidis have been mentioned in this thread) were to suffer persecution since they're notionally less able to defend themselves.

In fact, the Foreign Office report referred to in the OP finds that 80% of all persecuted religious believers are Christians, which is certainly way higher than their proportion of the total.

You're definitely going to have to attempt to document the claim that Christianity carried out much more persecution over history (presumably per capita per year) than other religions. It certainly didn't during its first three centuries while it was getting established in the Roman Empire, cf. the first 150 years of Islam which involved a long string of military conquests and, yes, a lot of conversion at the point of a sword. In fact, without that crucial opening stage, would non-historical specialists have even heard of the religion today?

As for what's happening in the West nowadays, losing your job or incurring a big fine for stating your support for natural marriage, natural parenthood or natural gender identity may not be on the same level of persecution as being turned out of your home at gunpoint, but it's still 100% unacceptable.