A Few Thoughts About “Christian Persecution”

Recently, I received the following email about Christian persecution from an Evangelical reader:

I have an important question that cannot be ignored…because it is going on today. Christians are being savagely persecuted, limbs being cut off, being beheaded, all across Nigeria and other African nations. There have been more Christian martyrs in this last 30 years alone, all across the Middle East, the Far East and especially in Africa. In the 1990s, under Idi Amin in Uganda, mothers were getting their breasts chopped off so that they could not feed their babies. Babies were being thrown into the air in order to have them fall on a sword and be split in two. Unspeakable violence against innocent people. Christians being told to renounce their faith, or face persecution, torture and death. Why, if there were no transformative, undergirding power in Christ, would people choose torture and death and not recant? Where does such courage come from? If they aren’t getting comfort and fortitude from a greater power within them? These are important questions, and should not be ignored in an honest, unbiased search for truth. If people are truly seeking for truth, and trying to help and support one another on the journey, such questions need to be asked.

Evangelicals believe that, historically, Christians have been persecuted for their faith; that persecution is common experience, a sign of truth faith. This thinking is so deeply embedded in Evangelical thinking, that to suggest that Christian persecution is largely a myth is met with outrage and accusations of minimizing oppression believers have faced over the past two thousand years.

Let me be clear, Christians have, on occasion, suffered persecution for their faith. This can be said of Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, pagans, and atheists too. When people have beliefs outside of cultural norms, they can face opposition and persecution from people who will not or cannot understand or accept beliefs different from their own. That said, MOST claims of Christian persecution lack evidentiary warrant or are lies. Have you ever had an Evangelical confidently claim that all twelve apostles were martyred for their faith? Sure you have, and this lie has become so fixed in Evangelical thinking that no one bothers to ask whether it is true. It’s not. At best, we have some evidence that suggests two or three of apostles might have been executed, but there is no evidence outside of church tradition for the martyrdoms of all of the apostles.

Few Evangelicals bother to ask WHY these alleged martyrs were killed. Were they really executed because of their faith? No. Much of the persecution believers faced was due to breaking the law, and not because of personal belief. When Christians refused to obey the law, they forced government powers to act; to punish, and if necessary, execute them for disobedience. Ask yourself, why was Jesus executed? Was it because he was a Jew rabbi? Was it because he preached morality and virtue? Or did the Roman government kill Jesus because he was a lawbreaker; a threat to Roman society?

In 2013, Dr. Candida Moss, then a professor at Notre Dame, wrote a book titled “The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom.”

Moss wrote:

The Sunday school narrative of a church of martyrs, of Christians huddled in catacombs out of fear, meeting in secret to avoid arrest, and mercilessly thrown to lions for their religious beliefs is a macabre fairy tale. When Christians appeared in Roman courtrooms, they were not tried as heretics, blasphemers, or even fools. Christians had a reputation for being socially reclusive, refusing to join the military, and refusing to swear oaths. Once in the courtroom Christians said things that sounded like sedition. They were rude, subversive, and disrespectful. Most important, they were threatening. Even if the actions of the Romans still seem unjust, we must admit that they had reasons for treating Christians the way they did. The fact that religion and politics were so intimately blended with one another means that it is difficult to parse the motivations of Roman administrators as either religious or political. But from a Roman perspective and from the perspective of members of most ancient religious groups and political organizations, the Romans had the moral high ground. They were protecting the Empire from the wrath of the gods and its effects. That Christians were executed should not surprise us, this is a world in which people paid the “ultimate price” for seemingly small offenses.

As we have seen in the past two chapters, a close look at the evidence shows that Christians were never the victims of sustained, targeted persecution. Even the so-called great persecutions under emperors Decius and Diocletian have been vastly exaggerated in our Christian sources. In general, when Christians were executed, it was for activities that were authentically politically and socially subversive. In the case of the emperor Decius , it seems that the so-called persecution of Christians wasn’t aimed at Christians of all. It was a way of bringing about social and political unity in the Empire, something more like a pledge of allegiance then religious persecution.

In the chapter titled Borrowing of Jewish and Pagan Traditions, Moss wrote:

Even a brief study of early Christian martyrdom literature reveals that Christians were influenced by ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish traditions about death. The heroes of the classical world were reshaped into soldiers for Christ. When people admit that Christians were heirs to this legacy, they do so selectively. Many acknowledge the Christian martyrs inherit or at least claim to inherit the mantle of martyrdom from ancient Judaism. The references to and comparisons with the Maccabees provide incontrovertible evidence that Christians saw their martyrs as part of this tradition. This much is acknowledged or at least implicitly acknowledged in most scholarly and religious treatments of the subject.

When it comes to the Greek and Roman influences, however, things are very different. We would be hard-pressed to find any modern denomination of Christianity that admits Greek and Roman heroes and heroines in their canon of martyrs, even if Christians like Justin Martyr were willing to revere Socrates as a Christian before Christ. Why the difference? The distinction is not based on the evidence, but on the way that people think about the relationship between Christians and Jews. For Christians, the Old Testament is believed to contain a series of prophecies about Jesus and the church. If Christian martyrs seem to be like figures from the old and new Testaments, it is because their deaths are fulfillments of prophecies. They are seen as being part of a single unbroken tradition, a single witness to truth.

In the case of Greek and Roman examples, the connection between Christian and pagan martyrs is more problematic. There is no prophetic or divine time between Christianity and Greek and Roman religion and philosophy. On the contrary, the adaptation of paganism and Christianity threatens the idea that Christianity alone has the truth. Those who reject the classical tradition for religious reasons and hold Christian martyrs in high esteem tend to ignore Greek and Roman antecedents to martyrdom.

This is a game of cultural favorites. There’s a theological explanation for the fact the Christian martyrdom stories are similar to biblical narratives of persecution, but there is no such explanation for the similarities with pagan traditions. That Christianity might have borrowed from pluralistic, polytheistic religious traditions is difficult for those who conceive of themselves as part of an unbroken singular tradition. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Greek and Roman religious practices no longer exist. The idea that Christianity borrowed from or was dependent upon morally questionable failed religions ruffles feathers and prayer books.

The truth of the matter is that as we have seen, Christians adapted their ideas about martyrdom and sometimes even the stories about the martyrs themselves from both ancient Jewish and pagan writers. We cannot help but note the irony here. Christians are thought to be unique because they die for Christ, but the stories by which they communicate their uniqueness are borrowed from other cultures. Clearly Christian martyrdom is one of a number of ancient varieties of martyrdom. Even though early Christians adapted, augmented, and otherwise contorted ancient models in their own stories, they were nonetheless dependent upon earlier literature. To be sure, Christian martyrdom stories depart from classical examples of noble deaths, but toying with, trumping, reversing, and usurping are not the same as inventing. Early Christians consciously and deliberately harnessed the cultural power of Greek, Roman, and Jewish heroes for their own ends.

The letter writer goes on to ask a rhetorical question (in her mind, anyway) that Evangelicals commonly ask me: Would Christians be martyred for lie? The short answer is yes! People are willing to be martyred for all sorts of reasons, including those that have no foundation in truth. Why, then, are some Christians willing to have their heads lopped off for Jesus?

Evangelicals are taught that this present life is transitory; that this life is preparation for the afterlife; that this life is nothing compared to what awaits them in Heaven after they die. Thus, it is not surprising that some Christians are willing to stand for Jesus, even if it means losing their lives. Sure, they will be dead, but they will awake in Heaven, free from the evils of this world. Sadly, those who are martyred will receive praise and honor among their fellow Christians, even though there is no evidence for the existence of the resurrected Jesus. Evangelicals think a dead man is coming to save them. He’s not, and unfortunately, they will never know that. Christians die no differently than atheists. Last breath, lights out, that’s all folks! (Picture the end of Loony Tunes cartoons back in the day.)

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Romans 13 commands Christians to obey the laws of the land. If the government prosecutes churches and believers for breaking the law, is it persecution? No. Persecution is when people are punished by the government for their religious beliefs and practices; not when believers refuse to follow the laws the rest of us do and suffer the consequences. If a missionary smuggles Bibles into North Korea and he is arrested and incarcerated for doing so, is he being persecuted? No, he broke the law. The same goes for smuggling Bibles into countries that ban Bible distribution or evangelizing people in countries where proselytization is a crime. By all means do what “God” has laid upon your heart, but don’t scream “persecution” when you are punished for your crimes. Instead, endure your “persecution” as a faithful servant of God, awaiting the day when prayers are answered and your prison door is miraculously unlocked, setting you free. Or you and your Christian supporters can plead with the State Department, your elected representatives, and even the President of the United States to get you out of the slammer. Make sure they emphasize that you are a poor, humble servant of Christ who is being persecuted for your faith. Not a pigheaded lawbreaker; but a meek, mild liar for Jesus.

Religious persecution is real, but it is nowhere near as widespread as Evangelicals suggest. Many Evangelicals have read John Foxe’s classic sixteenth century book, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. They wrongly conclude that the stories in the book are true, and that persecution is a normal part of Christian existence. The book is, in fact, an admixture of facts and errors, as modern historians will attest. Only Evangelicals treat the book as an infallible account of Christian persecution. In the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement I grew up up in, Foxe’s book was considered essential reading, right next to the King James Bible, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, and the 1828 edition of Webster’s Dictionary.

Bruce, is there anything you are will to die for? Sure, I am willing to protect my partner, children, and grandchildren from harm, even if it causes my death. I am willing to defend my home if the Huns are at the gate or Herr Trump’s Gestapo is trying to round us up for trip to extermination camps. If I saw someone trying to harm or kill someone else, I would try to intervene. That said, would I die for atheism? Hell, no. If a gun was put to my head and I was given a choice between death and converting to Christianity, I would convert immediately. I wouldn’t “really” get saved, but being a Christian is easy to fake. My partner, Polly, and I have not been to a church service in seventeen years — outside of funerals and weddings. That said, I have no doubt that we could fake being Christians, so much so that we could easily fool preachers. In fact, I am confident that I can still deliver a rousing sermon, give an altar call, and lead people to Christ — all without a “greater power within.”

Were you raised in Evangelical churches? What were you taught about Christian martyrdom? Did your pastors encourage you to read the cult classic, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs? Did you fear that you might be martyred someday? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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