To follow up on my last-but-one post, consider this.
- 1: Our ruling ideology is more opposed tho the Christian worldview than any in history, denying even the truths of Creation.
- 2: Yet our churches rejoice that (so far) there is no true persecution in Britain.
But that in itself is surprising, for one would expect persecution to be rife in an increasingly authoritarian State with an anti-christian agenda. What is the explanation? The most obvious answer is that the churches are considered by the State to be little actual threat to the progressive agenda.
Or at least, that is so for the public face of the churches. There are certainly martyrs in our land, in the biblical sense. Remember that the Book of Revelation makes martyrdom (suffering witness) a major theme, and yet only one saint who has paid for his faith with his life is mentioned, the faithful servant Antipas. Indeed, the whole New Testament, if I remember rightly, records the deaths only of Stephen and the Apostle James, whilst early traditions including Josephus mention James the brother of the Lord. Likewise Rodney Stark estimates that the number of Christian executions in the early centuries was quite small, mostly being leaders martyred to deter their flock.
Persecution, instead, mainly involved private ostracism, loss of livelihood, loss of reputation and, sometimes, imprisonment. All of these are happening today with increasing frequency, and sometimes the victims are indeed Christians who have dared to stand against official lies. There are teachers and doctors who have been sacked, or even prosecuted, for refusing to acquiesce to gender lies. There have been street preachers arrested and harassed for preaching, and believers wrongly punished (until Labour changes the law!) for silent prayer outside abortion clinics. More churches are condemning the working class’s “bigotry” than fighting for their welfare. There are a few Christians overtly campaigning for the freedom of speech which, alone, is all that will leave churches free to teach and proclaim the unadulterated word of God.
But such Christians are few and far between, and few churches even say much about even the organisations that support them, like Christian Concern, let alone protesting about their individual cases. No denominational leadership, that I am aware of, is fighting for Christian truth – most are following the State’s narratives in condemning imaginary Far Right terrorists, back-tracking on Christian sexuality doctrine, and so on. This applies even to strong and biblical individual churches, which for the most part seem suddenly to have decided that private pietism is the way to go, rather than the public calling out of unrighteousness that got the early martyrs, from John the Baptist onward, beheaded.
In effect, what Christians have done is to outsource persecution to Cultural Christians, those brave people who have not, yet, embraced Christ, but whose origins in the British Christian traditions of truth and liberty constrain them to cry out. Consider the much maligned Tommy Robinson (if you are still shocked at my mentioning him in this way, then seek out Jordan Peterson’s interview with him as an antidote to the institutional hatchet job on him). His recent statements that, though he knows only too well what prison entails, including the real threat to his life from Muslim extremists, he no longer has anything to lose by speaking the truth, are reminiscent of the martyrs of the Reformation. He is just one example of those who consider the public good more important than their own reputation, livelihood, freedom, or even life.
Some of these people have shown less than perfect Christian attitudes to their opposition – but what do you expect, since they are not Christians? As Dwight L. Moody said to critics of his evangelistic programme, “I prefer the way I do it to the way you don’t.” My message today is simple – it is time for the Church of Christ, having in Jesus the only thoroughgoing answer to the despotic lies that now rule us, to lead the way in speaking truth to power.
If we do that, I am quite sure that we will find persecution for righteousness’ sake to be alive and well in our green and pleasant land. Just as Jesus promised us.
