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September 11, 2011 |
| Persecution | ||
Persecution – the subjecting of a race or group of people to cruel or unfair treatment
Christians in America live a sheltered life. The worst we can expect of persecution is a smirk, a sneer, or a nasty remark. We don’t realize that real persecution of Christians is a part of life in many other countries.
But surprisingly persecution has a side benefit. While tough times for everyone drive many people to the church, it only makes for a church that is fat and lazy. Many of the people the church has gained are only there for the benefits, not the work. When the good times return most of these people will leave.
Persecution directed against the church, however, makes for a lean strong church. All the fat is burned away; what remains are the people with faith and the desire to work.
In this lesson we will learn about who is persecuting Christians, what kinds of persecution have occurred, and how to prepare for and deal with persecution.
Very little of this kind of persecution occurs today, but there were times when it did and was very violent. The cause has always been the same, a belief that a particular church is the one true church and all others are false churches. The one true church will have some source that it uses to support its claim. The enabling factor has always been authority to persecute. Whenever the combination of a one true church comes together with the authority punish, history shows that it isn’t long before Christian on Christian persecution begins.
A large part of this Christian on Christian persecution has involved the Roman Catholic Church which holds a view that it is the one true church because it was started by the Apostle Peter. For a very long time it held legal authority and persecuted, tortured, and killed other Christians.
As it lost its power protestant churches arose. Some of them gained legal authority usually in exchange for supporting a king. They began to persecute those who didn’t agree with their teachings. For example The Church of England made life so hard for one particular group that they escaped across the Atlantic to help found a new country, the United States of America.
In Israel Jews are not happy to have Christians proselytizing there. Many of the Jews do what they can to make life hard for Christians. These efforts are non-violent and include actions such as public ridicule, and loss of employment.
While we love them and help them and recognize their role as God’s people, many of them do not recognize us. In the first century they killed Christians and today some of them are very offended by things that Christians say about Jews. For example as the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3 when speaking of the Jews, "14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."
There are places in Bible prophecy that can be interpreted to say that some Jews will persecute Christians right up to the end.
From its inception, the Communist / Marxist philosophy saw all religion as a weakness that needed to be removed from mankind. "Convinced atheists were considered to be more virtuous individuals than those of religious belief."1 The Soviet Union took this philosophy to heart and made the best effort at religious persecution since Hitler.
"The holding of a religion was never officially outlawed and the Soviet Constitutions always guaranteed the right to believe"2, therefore charges against Christians were always for ill defined crimes against the state.
"The tactics varied over the years and became more moderate or more harsh at different times."3 The government continually pushed the teaching of Atheism in the schools. And proactive activities such as ridiculing religion, and harassing believers were common. The state was also not above confiscating church property for state purposes when it served the state’s interest.
But those were the least of the persecutions. "Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture, being sent to prison camps, labor camps, or mental hospitals. […] During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled."
The communists came into power in Russia in late 1917. "Lenin's decree on the separation of church and state in early 1918 deprived the formerly official church of its status of legal person, the right to own property, or to teach religion in both state and private schools or to any group of minors. The decree abolished the privileges of the church and thus ended the alliance between church and state. The clergy openly attacked the decree. The leadership of the Church issued a special appeal to believers to obstruct the enforcement of the decree.
"Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow excommunicated the Soviet leadership on January 19, 1918 for conducting this campaign. In retaliation the regime arrested and killed dozens of bishops, thousands of the lower clergy and monastics, and multitudes of laity. The seizing of church property over the next few years would be marked by a brutal campaign of violent terror."4
Later in the 1920’s "When church leaders demanded freedom of religion under the constitution, the Communists responded with terror. They murdered the metropolitan of Kiev and executed twenty-eight bishops and 6,775 priests. Despite mass demonstrations in support of the church, repression cowed most ecclesiastical leaders into submission."
During World War II Stalin revived the church to use it as a tool to intensify patriotic support. This led to a period where persecution was mostly replaced by suspicion. But by 1958 the Soviets had returned to their old ways.
Beginning in 1964, "after Khrushchev's fall, Soviet writers began to cautiously question the effectiveness of his anti-religious campaign. They came to a general conclusion that it had failed in spreading atheism, and that it had only antagonized believers as well as pushed them underground, where they were more dangerous to the state. It had also drawn the sympathies of many unbelievers and indifferent people."5
This only resulted in a change in the tone and severity of the persecution. The goals of the state to spread Atheism and eliminate religion remained. But the focus changed as the state made every attempt to depict religion as undergoing a process of fading away.
In the 1970s the persecutions began again as the state tried to get the churches back in line. But the severity never matched what it once had been. Much of it was and is a propaganda battle for hearts and minds.
Currently most of the persecution comes from former soviet states that are predominately Muslim.
6ASTANA, KAZAKSTAN (Worthy News)-- Pastor Yerzhan Ushanov of New Life Protestant Church in Taraz is looking at two years' imprisonment if criminal
charges for injuring an individual's health ever come to court, Christian
rights investigators said.
Ushanov is facing prosecution under Criminal Code
Article 111 -- "causing severe damage to health due to negligence" --
for allegedly hurting the health of Aleksandr Kereyev
by praying for him, New Life members told Forum 18. Article 111 carries a very
large fine, or community service of up to 200 hours, or up to two years'
imprisonment.
The article goes on to say that the pastor has been charged with this before and won in court. These charges are intended to be a burden that will slow him down and drive him out.
7TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN (
Worthy
News)-- Police in Uzbekistan jailed
ten Baptists for three to five days, and fining them 80 times the monthly
minimum wage, according to a religious rights group, Worthy News learned on
Monday, August 9.
Forum 18 said that Uzbekistan continues short-term jailing of prisoners of
conscience and large fines against Christians meeting together. Twenty-three
people, including small children were detained, after Uzbekistan police raided
a house church last week.
The Baptists from an unregistered church had gathered at the home of Yuriy Garmashev, in Tashkents Mirzo-Ulugbek District
on July 28, to celebrate the spiritual birthday of a church member, according
to the Forum 18 report. They were involved in nothing illegal,
but having tea and spiritual songs.
"Conversion by the sword" is a phrase that means a person can be threatened with a choice of death or converting and if he chooses conversion, then his life is sparred. While the Koran teaches against conversion by the sword, the Hadiths that are part of Islam instruct the believers to do so.8 Therefore Islam sees the spread of Islam more as a fight in the physical realm than a spiritual battle, as Christians see it. The two verses below from the Koran show this.
"And fight them until there is no more disbelief in Islam and the religion will all be for Allâh Alone..."
"Fight against those who believe not in Allâh, […] until they pay the Jizyah [religious tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
The goal of physically conquering other religions results in a doctrine where "the crux of the doctrine is the existence of one single Islamic state, ruling the entire umma [Muslim community]"9. So with this doctrine, tolerance for other religions is not possible and persecution is a natural expression.
Preparing
Standing up
Hunkering down
What should be the Christian attitude toward persecutors?
What are the possible mistreatments we could receive as part of severe persecution?
It isn’t hard to find web sites that focus on world-wide persecution of Christians. A search using the words Christian and Persecution will find many. The sites quoted in this lesson are good.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union quoting Froese, Paul. "'I am an atheist and a Muslim': Islam, communism, and ideological competition." Journal of Church and State
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
6 http://www.christianpersecution.info/index.php?view=10552
7 http://www.christianpersecution.info/index.php?view=8657